Andrew Holland · Columns, interviews & talks
Writing & Talks
Andrew Holland spent 17 years in the police, where he first met search as an intelligence tool. He is Director of SEO at JBH, a digital PR and SEO agency in Manchester, writes columns for Search Engine Land and Marketing Week, and created the Fame Engineering framework for getting brands recommended by AI. This page collects his published columns and the interviews, podcasts and webinars where he talks through the ideas.
Search Engine Land
32 articlesColumns on SEO, GEO, digital PR and the business of search.
Why Meta AI could become search's sleeping giant
Argues that Meta AI could pull search behaviour away from Google by answering questions inside Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, where users already spend their time. Advises marketers to start testing how their brands show up in Meta's AI tools now, even though optimisation methods are still unclear.
How 'it's just SEO' took over the GEO conversation
Argues that the line that GEO is just SEO caught on because it is easy to repeat and protects existing hierarchies, while hiding a real shift in how AI systems surface brands. Warns that without a named category, GEO gets absorbed into existing SEO budgets, and frames the discipline as SEO expanding into digital PR, brand and wider marketing.
Why brand authority beats topical authority in AI search
Argues that publishing large volumes of keyword-led content no longer builds real standing, especially as AI answers absorb informational clicks. Says authority comes from being recognised and mentioned by others, so brands should put visibility, original value and brand demand ahead of content volume.
The Mad Men era of SEO: Why AI is shifting search to persuasion
Argues that as AI systems recommend brands directly, SEO's job moves from getting found to earning preference through clear positioning, persuasive copy and supporting evidence across the web. Calls for a hybrid agency model that blends SEO with copywriting, PR and brand strategy, while keeping buyer-intent search.
Why share of search matters more than traffic in the AI era
Argues that with AI answers reducing clicks and splitting discovery across platforms, a brand's share of category search volume is a better signal of demand and competitive momentum than traffic. Urges SEOs to adopt the metric and take a more strategic role interpreting demand for leadership.
Why AI availability is the new battleground for brands
Proposes AI availability, meaning how likely an AI system is to recognise and recommend a brand at the point of purchase, as a third type of availability alongside mental and physical availability. Recommends building credible, distinctive information across the sources AI relies on, such as third-party mentions, directories and owned media, alongside traditional SEO.
How to know if your GEO is working
Argues that generative engine optimisation should be judged by measurable signs of brand demand rather than visible activity. Recommends tracking share of search, the share of buyer-intent traffic, visibility across prompts that customers actually trigger, and conversions from conversational queries.
Fame engineering: The key to generative engine optimization
Introduces fame engineering, the deliberate work of making a brand likely to be recognised and recommended by AI systems during purchase decisions, as the core skill of GEO. Recommends distinctive positioning, a broad digital footprint, and continuous publicity and content so AI can find and understand the brand.
The rise of 'like hat' SEO: When attention replaces outcomes
Criticises a new type of SEO practitioner who chases social engagement and self-promotion instead of verifiable client results, often to sell courses, tools or services. Predicts the trend will fade as credible experts move toward long-form formats such as newsletters that show real expertise.
Why AI will break the traditional SEO agency model
Argues that AI-powered SEO platforms are cutting costs, automating technical work and offering less biased advice, which undermines the monthly-retainer agency model. Predicts consolidation into fewer, larger, strongly branded agencies, with practitioners moving toward strategy and AI-platform roles.
How to use ChatGPT Tasks for SEO
Shows how to use ChatGPT's beta scheduled Tasks feature to automate recurring SEO work such as content drafts, page titles, social post ideas and news digests. Positions the SEO as a reviewer of AI output, with the caveat that results still need refining.
7 ways to increase SEO revenue without losing clients
Explains that clients' fear of financial loss keeps SEO prices low, so agencies need to understand how clients perceive value before raising fees. Sets out seven revenue levers, including unbundling retainers, selling strategy and analytics separately, short SEO sprints, and tiered or premium pricing.
Why SEOs are killing digital PR
Argues that judging digital PR mainly on cost per link pushes agencies toward safe, uncreative work and ignores the value of brand mentions. Recommends judging digital PR on effectiveness first, against benchmarks such as past campaigns and other link methods, with efficiency as a secondary measure.
Mastering SEO account management: The recipe for success
Offers practical advice on running SEO client accounts, including setting realistic expectations, communicating openly about progress and delays, and managing client stress. Also covers workload habits such as dedicated work blocks, fewer distractions and set times for email.
What to do if you lose your SEO job: The emergency handbook
A step-by-step plan for SEO professionals who have lost their jobs, covering whether to stay in SEO, freelancing, networking, recruiters and low-cost service offers. Frames the job losses as an industry-wide problem driven by fewer SEO vacancies and economic pressure, not a personal failing.
Information gain: Here's what this new SEO 'buzzword' really means
Explains the three meanings of information gain: a machine learning concept, a Google patent on content originality, and information foraging theory about human search behaviour. Advises making content easy for both people and machines to extract value from, with quick answers, clear data visuals and distinctive perspectives.
Link devaluation: The hidden threat of SpamBrain
Argues that buying links is increasingly risky because Google's SpamBrain is devaluing paid links, which contributed to ranking losses in the March 2024 updates. Recommends earning links through quality digital PR and editorial coverage, which Google accepts and which should gain value as links get harder to acquire.
How SEO grows brands: The science behind the service
Frames SEO as a long-term investment in brand growth rather than a short-term ROI play. Drawing on marketing science, it explains that brands grow by reaching new and light category buyers, and that organic search builds mental and physical availability across the buying journey.
The great SEO heist: The untold story
Uses the viral SEO heist, in which a competitor's sitemap was copied and thousands of pages were recreated with AI, to raise questions about who owns information in the AI era. Concludes that content alone will matter less for visibility and that brands should focus on becoming known through mentions and publicity.
Why brand mentions are the future of backlinks
Argues that brand mentions are becoming as valuable as backlinks because Google focuses on entities and LLMs learn from text that names brands. Urges SEOs to spend less effort chasing links and more on publicity, with digital PR driving both mentions and the links that follow.
Why you shouldn't measure SEO performance by ROI
Argues that ROI measures efficiency rather than effectiveness, which makes it a poor yardstick for SEO, a slow-maturing and often underfunded channel. Suggests justifying investment by the potential to reduce paid search spend and grow sales, then tracking buyer-intent rankings followed by sales and profit gains.
Share of search: The SEO metric you can't ignore
Introduces share of search, Les Binet and James Hankins' measure of a brand's search volume relative to competitors, as a way to prove SEO's value to marketers. Argues that combining digital PR for awareness and links with buyer-intent SEO can move SEO from capturing demand toward driving brand growth.
A 6-minute process to diagnose E-E-A-T issues
Treats E-E-A-T largely as a brand-building issue that reaches beyond SEO, and starts diagnosis with brand search visibility via Google Trends and branded results. Then gives a quick audit for evidence of past credentials and current authority-building, such as links, publicity and content.
Digital PR vs. manual link building: Adapting to the modern search landscape
Argues that digital PR, which earns links through data, expert commentary and stories, beats manual link building because semantic search rewards context and relationships over link volume. Accepts that manual link building still has a role for sites that cannot run digital PR.
Beyond SEO: Embracing the future of organic search optimization
Argues that AI and Google's SGE will not end SEO but will widen it into organic search optimisation across platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and news feeds. Encourages SEOs to build skills in short-form video and other channels and to pursue that growth actively.
How to build a strategic SEO process
Argues that SEO strategy should be a documented, evidence-backed plan tied to business goals, not a list of deliverables, and sets out a four-stage process of ideation, strategy, implementation and success. Includes pricing advice, including telling clients when their budget cannot realistically deliver the results they expect.
Forget link building, think link earning
Urges SEOs to drop outreach and guest-post link building and instead earn links and mentions through newsworthy stories and real expertise. Uses a discount-code client whose fast journalist pitch reportedly earned more than 50 links, and argues that nofollow mentions build the fame that later attracts followed links.
7 proven methods to explain the value of SEO
Argues that SEO reports overwhelm clients with unexplained data and overclaim revenue that several channels share. Recommends seven metrics, including competitor traffic comparison, share of search, branded search, messy-middle informational searches, rankings for PPC keywords and new visitors, presented in a one-page cover report.
17 tips to improve your AI-assisted content creation process
Gives 17 practical steps for using AI tools in content creation, covering research, briefs, drafting, editing, fact-checking and design. Stresses keeping humans involved, adding original insight and verifying facts so the output stays accurate and useful.
7 emerging skills every SEO must master in 2023
Argues that SEOs need new skills to protect their place in marketing as basic SEO becomes freely taught, including articulating value, using AI tools and building executive presence. Also covers content design and editing, marketing theory and strategy, and urges evidence-based justification of SEO work.
SEO content writing vs. content writing: The key difference
Argues that SEO content is built to rank while general content is written for people, and that neither is better on its own. Recommends combining both, with tactics such as variable-reward content, user-generated content and curation with added insight, plus nine ways to make SEO content more useful to readers.
Why good content costs serious money
Argues that high-quality content is skilled, time-consuming work whose value lies in changing how readers see a business, so companies should set a serious content budget rather than chase the lowest per-word rate. Uses behavioural science and information foraging to suggest readers judge a business by the visible effort in its content.
Marketing Week
21 articlesColumns on brand, AI search and marketing strategy.
Positioning is the key to success in the age of AI search
Argues that winning recommendations from LLMs depends on clear positioning, meaning brands must show they are the right fit for a specific customer rather than relying on category size.
Brand visibility is reinventing search – and it's a good thing
Uses Semrush's April Fools' job-title stunt to argue that search is moving from rankings to brand visibility, since AI tools recommend famous brands for broad queries and well-positioned ones for specific queries. Calls for compounding fame across channels, with one person accountable for joined-up visibility.
LinkedIn reach isn't broken, it's being replaced by real marketing
Argues that falling LinkedIn reach reflects a saturated, maturing platform, not a technical fault. Recommends investing in hard-to-copy activity such as events and research that creates off-platform buzz, then using LinkedIn to amplify it.
Why AI-powered agencies will be at the forefront of marketing's next digital revolution
Argues that the real threat to agencies is their large, siloed structure rather than AI itself. Predicts small agencies of strategic thinkers backed by AI tools will win, with distinctive, attention-grabbing ideas as their main product.
How to engineer fame in an AI era – and why you need to start now
Argues that brands should deliberately build fame, even in low-interest categories, so they are better placed as AI reshapes search.
The new marketing buzzword is GEO – but is it real?
Makes the case that generative engine optimisation is a distinct discipline from SEO, focused on getting LLMs to recommend a brand at the point of purchase. Urges brands to supply clear, context-rich information for AI and to assess how exposed they are to paid and organic search as Google shifts to AI results.
Why Google could become the next big demise story
Argues that ChatGPT and other LLMs are eroding Google's search dominance. Says Google must commit to prioritising either Search or Gemini or risk a Blockbuster-style decline.
YouTube's real threat isn't TikTok – it's an AI you've never heard of
Argues that AI video platforms could reshape content discovery and open new advertising opportunities. Suggests brands could become platforms themselves through AI-powered experiences that serve customer needs.
Forget influencers – your brand needs to be a playable character
Argues that brands should be present in virtual worlds such as Minecraft, Fortnite and GTA, where people spend a lot of time, citing examples like Mentos' playable bazooka. Expects AI-generated environments to widen the opportunity and urges responsibility towards young audiences.
AI is going to eat your search traffic – don't let it eat your brand
Warns that AI agents doing research and buying for consumers will sharply cut human traffic to websites and search results. Advises brands to prepare through sponsored AI placements, platform and search optimisation, PR, and brand awareness strong enough that people or their AI assistants ask for the brand by name.
Paid search addiction is killing your brand health
Cites rising CPC and CPL figures to argue that heavy reliance on paid search is costly and erodes brand health. Recommends investing in brand building and organic search, and using share of search to win board support for the shift.
Ecommerce didn't kill the high street – retailers did
Argues that the UK high street declined because retailers and councils drove shoppers away with high prices, poor service and needless barriers, not because of ecommerce. Says physical stores can still win by offering experiences people can't get online, which takes investment in staff and customer experience.
Are brands wasting millions on content?
Argues that search traffic is a misleading measure of content success because most keyword searches come from people who are not ready to buy. Says brands waste money on SEO content for out-of-market audiences and should use content to capture people entering the buying stage.
AI search is going to change marketing… are you prepared?
Argues that AI search tools, including OpenAI's planned search engine, could erode Google's dominance by meeting people inside social apps, TV and other platforms where the urge to search starts. Concludes that brands which build awareness and desire will benefit most as search spreads across channels.
Brand versus AI: The heavyweight battle for mental availability
Argues that as AI tools and devices mediate tasks and choices, brands must be front of mind for both people and AI systems. This makes brand marketing, advertising and publicity more important, since authoritative coverage shapes what AI models learn. Part of Marketing Week's 'AI: Beyond the Hype' series.
The AI-powered Google apocalypse is heading for your brand
Lays out scenarios for how Google's AI search experience could cut traffic to websites, from moderate to severe losses. Suggests well-known brands may benefit because AI cites trusted brands, and advises investing in brand and organic search over paid search.
'The first rule of using AI for content? Don't tell anyone you're using AI for content'
Argues that audiences care more about which brand made the content than whether AI helped, so AI can scale content output with little hit to perceived quality. Says disclosing AI use tends to undermine content's appeal.
Organic search could be the moat your brand needs
Argues that organic search is a competitive moat because it costs nothing per click and reaches more buyers than paid ads, which often capture people who would buy anyway. Adds that useful websites and tools build mental availability through search.
Share of search volume: The CMO's new best friend
Explains that share of search tracks market share and can predict future sales, while many firms overspend on paid search. Proposes 'share of search volume', measured with SEO tools and Search Console, to guide brand, SEO and content decisions.
The long and the SEO of it
Argues that marketers overvalue PPC because free analytics and last-click attribution give it most of the credit, while SEO builds brand and mental availability over time. Recommends building organic visibility and using PPC selectively for gaps and high-intent buyers.
Why don't more marketers challenge consumers to search for their brand?
Describes how a luxury watch TV ad got the author, who had no interest in the brand, searching for it within minutes. Argues brands should more deliberately prompt people to search for them, since a strong branded search results page shapes perception before purchase.
Interviews & Webinars
23 itemsPodcasts, video interviews and webinars, each with the key ideas covered.
GEO at Board Level: Building the Business Case and Measuring What Matters
- Host
- JBH webinar series (Andy Holland)
- Format
- Webinar (WebinarNinja automated webinar)
- Date
- 15 Jul 2026
Key ideas
- GEO is a commercial strategy, not a technical SEO task, because it decides whether AI recommends a brand to buyers.
- Win board buy-in by framing the risk of inaction and linking GEO activity to commercial outcomes.
- Three-layer GEO model: extraction, reinforcement and validation.
- Report meaningful metrics rather than vanity stats, using JBH's monthly AI visibility audit and prompt-testing protocol.
- Siloing SEO, digital PR and GEO undermines compounding value; includes a six-month GEO roadmap for brands starting from scratch.
Building Your GEO Signal Ecosystem: Owned Media as a Reinforcement Engine
- Host
- JBH webinar series (Andrew Holland)
- Format
- Webinar (WebinarNinja automated webinar)
- Date
- c. Jun 2026
Key ideas
- AI search rewards consistency of signals across a brand's content, not one strong page.
- Fragmented owned media (trend blogs, human-only case studies, disconnected social) can't be combined by AI into a recommendation.
- How to audit a content library for GEO signal gaps and prioritise fixes.
- Rewrite case studies and buyer guides so AI can extract and cite them; structure decision-support content for GEO.
- Offers an owned-media reinforcement framework and GEO signal-strength audit template.
Why More Traffic Isn't Always Better: Performance SEO with Andrew Holland
- Host
- The Simple and Smart SEO Show (Crystal Waddell), Season 5
- Format
- Podcast (Buzzsprout)
- Date
- 27 May 2026
- Length
- 10:24
Key ideas
- Performance SEO is ultimately about turnover, not traffic or rankings.
- Big audiences can be worthless if visitors are far from buying (e.g. a case study where most traffic sought Excel formulas).
- Client example: cutting top-of-funnel content and building many low-volume, high-intent pages left traffic flat but grew revenue roughly from 1m to 3m.
- Organic search is like a supermarket aisle of in-market buyers that brands can win without paying per click.
- SEO works through small online nudges that help buyers decide.
Fame Engineering Explained with Andrew Holland and James Dooley
- Host
- FatRank (James Dooley)
- Format
- YouTube
- Date
- 27 Nov 2025
Key ideas
- Presents 'fame engineering' as the next step beyond PR, SEO and GEO.
- Fame can be engineered using network science and preferential attachment, brand links and AI-driven mapping.
- Covers personal branding versus corporate fame and the role of digital PR.
- Positions TikTok as a modern fame engine.
- Goal is helping brands build authority while reducing wasted marketing spend.
UK SEO Community: How SEO Networking Really Works with James Dooley and Andrew Holland
- Host
- FatRank Podcast (James Dooley)
- Format
- Podcast (Transistor) + YouTube
- Date
- 26 Nov 2025
- Length
- 11:11
Key ideas
- Network-science principles underpin successful ecosystems, from search engines to professional relationships.
- In-person networking supports wellbeing, professional identity and a sense of belonging for SEOs.
- Paid masterminds and private events can yield introductions, client leads and long-term partnerships.
- Face-to-face contact builds deeper trust than online-only relationships; the UK is emerging as a hub for high-level SEO collaboration.
SEO vs GEO James Dooley Interviews Andrew Holland
- Host
- James Dooley (James Dooley Podcast ep 255 / FatRank)
- Format
- YouTube + podcast
- Date
- 26 Nov 2025
- Length
- approx. 13 min
Key ideas
- GEO is about making a brand 'available' to LLMs at the moment of purchase; the underlying job is still growing organic revenue.
- Grounds GEO in Ehrenberg-Bass marketing science: mental and physical availability, with AI becoming another 'search engine' alongside the human brain.
- GEO overlaps with SEO but sits closer to brand marketing, PR and copywriting than query-document matching.
- Being recommended by an LLM is a distinct, measurable outcome that can show results faster than SEO, so it deserves its own offering and budget.
- Prefers 'GEO' over 'AEO' because generative engines create cards, images and recipes, not just answers; pushback is herd mentality, and value is shifting to communities and live experiences.
PWYW Lead Generation – Andrew Holland Interviews James Dooley on PWYW Leads
- Host
- FatRank Podcast (James Dooley; Andrew Holland as interviewer)
- Format
- Podcast (Transistor) + YouTube
- Date
- 25 Nov 2025
- Length
- 07:47
Key ideas
- Questions James Dooley's pay-what-you-want lead generation model from a practical marketing-and-policing perspective.
- Notes small business owners cannot master every digital marketing discipline, which is why outsourced lead gen has value.
- Concludes the model helps the wider economy because businesses reinvest profits locally instead of paying fixed-fee intermediaries.
Chat With Andrew Holland | Future Of SEO Roles, Word Embeddings & Blogging
- Host
- Search With Sean / Chat With Sean (Sean Barber)
- Format
- YouTube
- Date
- 20 Mar 2025
- Length
- approx. 56 min (chapters to 55:17)
Key ideas
- Technical SEO is changing; AI, APIs and workflows are the next step and SEOs must move away from keyword thinking.
- Solve real customer problems rather than chase vanity metrics.
- Google uses embeddings and NLP, so optimise for information gain rather than word count; fluff weakens content.
- Predicts new SEO roles beyond 'prompt engineer', AI agents shifting the interface, and paid recommendations inside AI results.
- Distinguishes push vs pull content (push creates micro-moments), weighs blogs vs service pages, and argues SEO is underinvested relative to paid search.
SEO 911: From Policing to SEO Mastery with Andrew Holland, Unleashing the Power of Digital PR and SEO
- Host
- Indonesia Digital Marketing Podcast (Ryan Kristo Muljono / ToffeeDev), S3 E6
- Format
- Podcast (Apple Podcasts); YouTube clips on ToffeeDev
- Date
- 25 Sep 2024
- Length
- 43 min
Key ideas
- His covert-policing work with entity-based internal search engines shaped how he approaches SEO and digital PR.
- Law-enforcement principles such as accurate information reporting carry over into content creation for SEO.
- Applies Byron Sharp's mental and physical availability to how JBH's SEO department grows brands.
- Shares content promotion tips and lessons from surviving the 2008 financial crisis.
- Focus on buyer-intent keywords and newsworthy stories that earn high-quality backlinks, with case studies of sustained SEO driving revenue.
725: SEO Hacks: Future-Proof Your Business Growth
- Host
- Conquer Local (Jeff Tomlin)
- Format
- Podcast
- Date
- 10 Jul 2024
Key ideas
- Learned SEO building a search engine in police intelligence; later let pandemic clients out of contracts and found the goodwill paid back.
- Grew the 'Growth Through Content' LinkedIn newsletter (~33k subscribers) because a LinkedIn audience is portable, notifies subscribers and builds weekly habit.
- Uses Ehrenberg-Bass 'How Brands Grow' thinking: organic search is the digital shelf for physical availability, and absent brands cede demand to competitors.
- Sell SEO as loss/risk avoidance rather than judging it on ROI/ROAS like paid search; brands paying for their own brand terms (incl. PMax) buy customers they'd get anyway.
- Career advice: become a 'learnerholic' of underlying marketing theory, test ideas, build a personal brand; 'you lose through isolation, not connections'.
Brand Vs AI: How to Grow Your Revenue In an AI Search Engine Future
- Host
- JBH x MyTelescope webinar (Andy Holland with Andrew Lister)
- Format
- Webinar (WebinarNinja, replay)
- Date
- 29 Jan 2024
Key ideas
- Explores how brand and AI interact as search engines become AI-driven.
- Argues brand strength is the route to revenue growth in an AI search future.
- Covers how businesses can use AI to grow, with a closing Q&A.
The Future of SEO: My Rapid Fire Interview with Andrew Holland (podcast title: The Future of SEO: Performance Marketing w/ Andrew Holland)
- Host
- The Simple and Smart SEO Show (Crystal Waddell), S3 E84
- Format
- YouTube (Crystal Waddell); podcast
- Date
- 13 Jan 2024
- Length
- approx. 40 min (chapters to 39:42)
Key ideas
- SEO's future is more marketing-linked and consultative, overlapping with UX, CRO and behavioural science.
- 'Performance SEO' targets sales and revenue; the industry's obsession with traffic is an epidemic.
- Bad data (e.g. last-click attribution, raw traffic) leads businesses into poor decisions; share of search is a better brand signal.
- Discusses online nudges, discounting and double-discounting as profit drains, and the role of branding in conversion.
- Publicity matters more than buying links; brands must tell people they exist, and SGE means moving away from traffic and rankings as goals.
Agency Growth, SGE and Career Growth – Andrew Holland & Jane Hunt
- Host
- Search For Hire
- Format
- YouTube
- Date
- 13 Nov 2023
Key ideas
- Discusses agency growth plans heading into 2024.
- How agencies should prepare clients for Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE).
- Career advice for SEO and digital PR professionals.
- JBH's plans for the US market.
Andrew Holland, of JBH, on the power of digital PR in SEO
- Host
- eMarketing Association (interviewer Kevin Lee)
- Format
- YouTube
- Date
- 1 Nov 2023
Key ideas
- Treats digital PR as the primary lens for SEO and a way to future-proof rankings.
- Traces his path from policing (building an internal search tool to map criminal networks) to digital PR.
- Digital PR spans traditional PR, online publication mentions and syndication; campaigns need clear goals and budgets, and assets also deliver social reach and brand lift alongside links.
- Expert quotes in high-authority publications strengthen both brand reputation and rankings.
- AI is mainly used for ideation so far; SEO is highly exposed to AI and juniors risk over-relying on it, though he sees it as a net positive; pitch SEO on profit.
The new SEO metric that makes SEO 10 x more valuable – Andrew Holland – brightonSEO September 2023
- Host
- brightonSEO (Auditorium 1, SEO Fundamentals session)
- Format
- YouTube (brightonSEO channel) – conference talk recording
- Date
- 15 Sep 2023
Key ideas
- Responds to SEO being seen as 'the weakest link in marketing' by proposing a new reporting metric.
- Argues the metric puts SEO at the heart of all marketing by tying measurement directly to business objectives.
- Draws on research from leading marketing-science institutes to justify the metric.
- Shows how to change SEO practice and improve performance under this reporting approach, with examples from SEO and crime-fighting.
- Aims to give attendees a growth plan they can present to stakeholders.
Mastering SEO, Digital PR and Website content w/ Andrew Holland, Director of SEO at JBH
- Host
- In Growth We Trust (Yoann and Jake)
- Format
- Podcast (Apple Podcasts, Spotify)
- Date
- 5 Sep 2023
- Length
- 1:11:00
Key ideas
- A website people actually enjoy spending time on is worth more than simply ranking.
- Mental availability (being remembered when people aren't actively searching) is central to brand growth through search.
- Explains digital PR as a route to backlinks and how it fits SEO for startups, including web indexing basics and SEO as a long game.
- Argues good website content and listening to 'brand chatter' can save businesses and drive growth.
- Discusses his 17-year police career, growing a 43k LinkedIn following, and urges marketers to enjoy the game rather than compare themselves to others.
EPISODE 32: SEO Success Stories with Andrew Holland of JBH
- Host
- Beyond The Search Bar (Russ Macumber, Impressive)
- Format
- Podcast (Apple Podcasts)
- Date
- 28 Aug 2023
- Length
- 46 min
Key ideas
- Conversation centred on his journey from the police force into SEO and marketing.
- Framed around SEO success stories from his work at JBH (listing gives no further detail).
The Deep Value of SEO in an AI World (ft. Andrew Holland)
- Host
- Evergreen Media Podcast
- Format
- YouTube (Evergreen Media); audio on SoundCloud as 'SEO & Brand Building (ft. Andrew Holland)'
- Date
- 9 May 2023
- Length
- approx. 53+ min (outro at 52:55)
Key ideas
- Explains how businesses should think about SEO and why it matters for brands.
- Distinguishes SEO from content marketing.
- Discusses the effects of AI on doing SEO.
- Covers scaling content and links without losing quality, and building momentum toward outstanding results.
- Argues the goal of SEO should be building a genuinely helpful brand.
The Value of SEO in 2023 & Beyond with Andrew Holland (Director of SEO @ JBH)
- Host
- Usman Akram
- Format
- YouTube
- Date
- 29 Apr 2023
- Length
- approx. 59 min (last chapter at 58:25)
Key ideas
- Assesses the value of SEO in the era of AI.
- Separates SEO for 'evaluation' searches from SEO for 'exploration' searches.
- Frames SEO as an extension of old-school marketing and questions whether dark social erodes its value.
- Discusses how to attribute impact to SEO and which metrics to rely on.
- Argues SEO can work as a demand-generation channel and covers what a site's end goal should be and how companies expand topical themes.
Experimental Link Building Strategies with Andy Holland
- Host
- Let's Talk Link Building (host Aaron Anderson), S1 E23
- Format
- Podcast (Buzzsprout)
- Date
- 24 Mar 2023
- Length
- 35:27
Key ideas
- Recounts his move from police officer to SEO expert and Director of SEO at JBH.
- Discusses second-tier and 'passive' link building as approaches that can lift rankings.
- Shares unconventional link-building tactics he has tested over his career and which he favours.
- Advises on what to check before hiring a link-building or SEO agency.
- Weighs PR-driven link building, questioning whether the publicity itself is worth as much to a business as the link.
SEO CAREER MASTERY – #2 ANDREW HOLLAND
- Host
- Search For Hire (SEO Career Mastery webinar series)
- Format
- YouTube
- Date
- 3 Mar 2023
Key ideas
- Second webinar in Search For Hire's SEO Career Mastery series, featuring him as an SEO Director.
- Walks through his personal path to success in SEO (police officer to SEO leader).
- Gives guidance on how to build a career and work effectively within the SEO industry.
Andrew Holland 🤑 The Value of SEO – AMA (AskMeAnything) Honest Expert Answers
- Host
- SEO Video Show
- Format
- YouTube (livestream)
- Date
- 21 Oct 2022
Key ideas
- Live ask-me-anything format built around his theme 'The Value of SEO' (the subject of his book).
- Explains his route from 17 years in the police into freelance SEO and then agency leadership at Embryo.
- Show also discussed that week's SEO news (Google site name documentation, a SpamBrain update, debate over AI-generated content); description does not detail his specific positions.
The Value of SEO – Kalicube Tuesdays with Andrew Holland
- Host
- Jason Barnard / Kalicube Tuesdays (also released on Fastlane Founders and Legacy podcast)
- Format
- YouTube (Kalicube channel); podcast
- Date
- 19 Jul 2022
- Length
- 28:17
Key ideas
- SEO should be repositioned from a lead-generation tactic to a brand marketing channel so it earns a bigger share of marketing budgets.
- Businesses routinely under-invest in SEO or treat it as a standalone add-on rather than part of brand strategy.
- Because people turn to search engines first, organic visibility builds brand awareness and provides audience insight, not just clicks.
- Uses behavioural science and Google's 'messy middle' model (internal and external purchase triggers) to explain how search shapes buying decisions.
- Distinguishes brand marketing from direct-response advertising and argues SEO results take sustained effort rather than arriving on a fixed timeline.
Newest first. Dates marked “c.” are approximate. Links open the original publisher's page.