Business Class Lounge by SearchPilot, hosted by Will Critchlow (Will Critchlow)

Hear from Will Critchlow, the host of the Business Class Lounge, about his vision for the show, what he wants to learn from interviewing marketing leaders, and why he's starting a podcast. Listen to snippets of the first couple of interviews with Kieran Flanagan, SVP Marketing at HubSpot, and Lisa Schneider, CPO at Cingo and former Chief Digital Officer at Merriam Webster.

This trailer is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Critchlow interviews Kieran Flanagan, SVP Marketing at HubSpot.

Kieran started out in SEO, and has deep channel expertise. At HubSpot he has done many things including being part of founding HubSpot’s international business and at times leading 200-person strong team. He’s now the Senior Vice President of marketing and he’s exactly the kind of person we want to be bringing on this podcast because he has everything from detailed hands-on experience to stories of executive leadership and the understanding of what it takes to report right to the top of a large and successful organisation.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Critchlow interviews Lisa Schneider, award-winning Chief Product Officer and co-founder at Cingo, which is working to close the gap between estate planning and execution.

Lisa and I first worked together when she was Chief Digital Officer at Merriam Webster. She is a visionary leader who has proven unusually capable of defining and capturing missions that inspire and direct teams and products. At Merriam Webster, that included considering the question "what's the mission of a dictionary?" and coming up with answer that worked in the digital age. I always love catching up with Lisa and I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation and our discussion of our shared love of the English language as much as we enjoyed having it.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Critchlow interviews Cian Weeresinghe, Chief Marketing Officer at Wise.

I’ve actually known Cian since college, but it took us a little while to realise we had both ended up in internet marketing. Cian first got into digital at eBay - as one of a cohort of incredibly talented folks in the UK digital industry. That cohort are now scattered doing interesting things around the UK startup scene.

More recently, he ran growth at the Guardian after their massive domain migration in 2013, was CMO at cool travel company Secret Escapes, and is now CMO at Wise - formerly known as TransferWise - I guess he just can’t avoid being suckered in by big domain moves. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Cian.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Critchlow interviews Jes Scholz, Group CMO at Ringier.

Jes has one of the most complicated CMO jobs I know off, with responsibilities spanning verticals, brands and markets. I’ll let her describe it because I don’t even know the full extent of it all.

She has an extremely strong SEO background, and has worked her way up to the group leadership level in a large organization. I have learned a lot from her writing and conference talks on SEO (including sharing a stage with her at SearchLove), but I’ve never had the chance to quiz her on leadership and management topics so it was a real pleasure to be able to do that.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Critchlow interviews Brian Provost - SVP and GM, Search at Yahoo.

Brian has as deep an understanding of news and media SEO as anyone in the world, worked at Define Media Group with many of the largest media properties globally and then ran search strategy at CBS interactive and ViacomCBS. Since May 2022, he’s GM for all of search and SEO at Yahoo which is a huge job, but if anyone can do it, he can. The work’s exciting, but as you’ll hear, there are a few areas where I believe Brian is head and shoulders above pretty much everyone I’ve met and I’m excited to find out how he does them.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Critchlow interviews April Dunford - positioning expert and author of Obviously Awesome

April is most well-known for her positioning work and her excellent book Obviously Awesome. Our conversation built on that and her experience in more general marketing roles at startups and in the enterprise. She’s done a million interviews about positioning, so I wanted to pick her brains about some different things. April is funny, incisive and engaging - if you like her advice, we highly recommend picking up a copy of her book.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Will Critchlow interviews Adam Monago, the VP of Global Digital Marketing at Adec Innovations.

Adam is an award-winning digital marketing expert who I met when he was the VP of Global Head of Digital Marketing and Strategy at ThoughtWorks a couple of years ago. He transformed the digital brand and space of ThoughtWorks, including creating the highly popular Technology Radar. He has always been a proponent and driver for modern digital experiences so that B2B businesses will have higher relevance and better impact. Adam is responsible for some of the smartest B2B campaigns I've seen, and I can't wait to quiz him about how he works.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the Business Class Lounge, Will interviews Stephanie Chang, a Fractional CMO and Growth Advisor.

Stephanie is a neuroscience major turned growth marketer. We first met over a decade ago when she joined the New York office of my agency, Distilled. Since then, she's built her career leading growth and strategy at Etsy and Glossier before starting her own fractional CMO business in 2020.

Over the past three years, she's helped startup CEOs work through their most difficult growth and go-to-market challenges. She's driven, intelligent and inspirational, and I think we're all going to learn a ton from her.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest for this episode is Brian Hale.

Brian is currently VP of Growth at DoorDash. We met over a decade ago when he was in the growth team at Facebook, and we got to work together on some SEO initiatives. In the intervening decade, he rose up the ranks ultimately to lead a large team as VP of Product Growth across Meta (as Facebook had become by then). He's been responsible for as much growth and innovation as anyone I know, and his work has affected an incredible number of people. As you'll hear though, he's also an empathetic and effective leader, and I'm looking forward to quizzing him about growth challenges.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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In a week where we are celebrating the announcement that SearchPilot is working with M&S to bring SEO into their experimentation program, it seemed like a good time to revisit testing in ecommerce generally, how experimentation programs work, and what good looks like! Tune in to the full live stream recording on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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There's only one thing in the news this week as it relates to Google - and that's the leak of internal engineering documentation regarding how organic search works. First reported and analysed by Rand Fishkin and Michael King, it's a treasure trove of rabbit holes (to mix my metaphors) for those of us who geek out on this stuff. But what does it change? What should we be doing differently as a result? Rand said that if you aren't changing things as a result (and didn't have omniscient knowledge of Google's inner workings already) then "you're not paying attention". I disagree. Tune in to find out why. Tune in to the full live stream recording on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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What does leadership really care about when it comes to SEO?

Will spends a lot of time talking to folks in leadership positions about what they really care about (as well as to the teams who report to them). Some of the themes Will explored are: SEO is confusing. We don't have SEO goals; We want to do things right but faster; We've been stung by SEO before. If any of these resonate with you, then listen to both Part 1 and 2!

This is Part 2. You should be able to find Part 1's audio in the show's library.

Tune in to the full live stream on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does leadership really care about when it comes to SEO?

Will spends a lot of time talking to folks in leadership positions about what they really care about (as well as to the teams who report to them).

This is Part 1 before Will accidentally pressed the wrong button and took himself out of the live stream. Thankfully, the YouTube and LinkedIn live streams continued, but the audio file recording was split into two parts. Hence, Part 2's audio upload follows next.

Tune in to the full live stream on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Organic search is the biggest channel for new customer acquisition for most ecommerce sites, but it is frustratingly opaque and often the hardest channel to understand or improve. Are your wishes for SEO is for it to be accountable, transparent, and to drive growth? Then listen on.

Tune in to the full live stream on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can SEOs understand and start speaking the language of business?  

1. Understand the definitions of these key business terms
2. Identify what makes a 'large amount' spend for your organization
3. Develop a dashboard that provides visibility on search's impact on revenue

Fresh off the eTail conference speaking with eCommerce and digital leaders, Will shares his thoughts on why it's so important for SEOs to understand and start speaking the language of business.

Tune in to the full live stream on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More data digging into where Google sends clicks after users perform searches, this time vis-a-vis how budget is attributed and how organic traffic fare against paid search. As always, Will brings this back to the importance of setting metrics and budgets to achieve your SEO goals.

Tune in to the full live stream on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Frank Williams, of Formula 1 fame, apparently would ask this question in response to almost anything he was asked (org changes, budget requests, etc) and it's been bouncing round my head since I heard that.

This week, Will talks about making the car go faster, as well as some tactical discussions about what it's possible to test from an SEO perspective, and why and how we are working to create the best possible places to do on-site SEO.

Tune in to the full live stream on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can we guess? Does it matter?

The more Google relies on machine learning and user signals to make searchers happy, the less explainable the results are, and the harder they have to guess.

Does that matter, and what should we do about it?

Join Will as he meanders through these implications in this episode.

Take the quiz here to test your SEO skills: https://searchpilot.scoreapp.com/

Tune in to the full live stream on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Critchlow interviews Todd "Oilman" Friesen - ex-Salesforce and Vimeo SEO expert.

I’m joined today by Todd Friesen who OG SEOs will know as Oilman. He was already a huge name in the nascent industry when I got started “some time ago” and we first met at an SMX West conference in 2006 or 2007. The reason I’m particularly excited to talk to Todd is because he’s the best example I know of someone who started his career in the churn and burn world of darker-hat SEO, and then made a journey via agency life and director-level in-house roles to one of those relatively-rare VP of SEO positions. 

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Critchlow interviews Abishek Rajendra - VP Organic Growth at Course Hero.

I'm joined today by Abishek Rajendra who came to SEO from an engineering background, and so brings a rare perspective not only on the technical aspects of SEO itself, but also on the mindset of engineers, and the work that we are often asking them to do. He has deep experience with SEO testing, as well as with the more leadership-oriented elements of integrating effective organic growth into your digital marketing plan.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.