In this episode of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni break down essential strategies to future-proof your website in the evolving digital landscape. Whether you're managing a small business website or looking to improve your site's performance, this episode is packed with practical tips to make your online presence work harder for you.

What is a Cookie-less Internet and How Will It Affect My Website?

In the You Ask, We Answer segment, Jonny and Pascal explain the move towards a cookie-less internet in simple terms. They discuss the shift away from third-party cookies, what it means for your website's privacy and tracking capabilities, and how to adjust your analytics and advertising to stay ahead of the curve.

How Can I Improve My Website’s Accessibility?

In the Website Engine Room, Jonny introduces UserWay, a powerful tool that ensures your website complies with digital accessibility standards. Learn how accessibility impacts SEO and why ensuring your website is user-friendly for all visitors can also boost your search engine rankings.

How Do Leaked Google Search API Documents Impact SEO?

Jonny and Pascal review an insightful article by Rand Fishkin titled "An Anonymous Source Shared Thousands of Leaked Google Search API Documents". In Website Stories, they discuss how these documents confirm the importance of dwell time, internal linking, and page titles—reinforcing what many SEO experts already knew. This is a must-know for anyone looking to improve their site’s visibility on Google.

What Security Features Should I Add to My Website?

In the Website Call to Action, Jonny advises on essential security measures every website should implement, including SSL certificates and two-factor authentication (2FA). Discover why security updates are critical for building trust with your visitors and improving your website’s credibility.

How Can I Keep My Blog Content Relevant for SEO?

Pascal encourages website owners to review and update blog categories to stay relevant in a changing digital landscape. Find out how keeping your content organised with updated categories and tags can improve SEO and attract more traffic to your site.

Key Takeaways:

• What is a Cookie-less Internet? Understanding the shift and how to prepare your website for it.
• Website Accessibility: Tools like UserWay make it easier to implement accessibility features.
• Google Search API Leaks: Important SEO takeaways from Rand Fishkin’s analysis.
• Website Security: The must-have security features that build trust and credibility with your users.
• Content Categories: Why updating your blog’s content categories can lead to higher SEO rankings and better engagement.

Resources Mentioned:

• UserWay - Digital Accessibility Tool
• ChatPDF - AI-powered PDF Curation
• Rand Fishkin's Article on Leaked Google API Docs

Call to Action:

Looking to master your website in 90 days? Visit 90DayMarketingMastery.com to book a discovery call with Jonny or Pascal. Subscribe to the podcast for more insights, and don't forget to share your questions for future episodes!

Connect with Jonny and Pascal on LinkedIn for more updates:

• Jonny Ross on LinkedIn
• Pascal Fintoni on LinkedIn

Hello and welcome to another episode of

the 90 Day Website Mastery Podcast. It's

episode 31. We're excited to bring you

even more valuable insights and practical

advice to help you enhance your website's

performance. Join us as we explore

strategies to make your website work

harder for you and reignite your pride in

your online presence. I'm here with my

co-host Pascal Fintoni and we have 4

segments in each episode. We start with

you ask, we answer where we've got a

question submitted by our community

asking us if we can help solve something

for you. We have the website stories

where 1 article or podcast or perhaps a

video has taken our interest and we want

to explore it further. And we then move

onto the website engine room where we

share an app each or a piece of kit that

we can help you as a website manager and

a website content creator make your life

easier and be proud of your website. And

then lastly, of course, we finish with a

call to action. Every piece of content

should have a call to action. So our last

segment is the website call to action.

Pascal, how are you today?

I'm very good. Listen, I've gone through

the show notes and this is going to be

another 1 that's packed full with

suggestions, advice, and hints. And a lot

of it will be actually giving people lots

of prep research and homework. I hope you

don't mind, but this is what it's all

about. You've got to investigate, you've

got to upskill yourselves into what it

means to be a website manager. And I

think you're going to find the Ask We

Answer and website stories particularly

interesting.

Well, with that note, let's move on to

You Ask, We Answer.

Now, this is a question that I spotted

online. I'm going to say from memory,

LinkedIn, but I could be wrong. And there

was some exchanges in and around

websites, stats, analytics, and so on,

Johnny. And somebody actually quite

smartly said, listen, can we just keep

things simple? I keep hearing that I've

got to get ready for a cookie-less

internet. And I'm really not sure that

people know what it means. Certainly, I

could do someone explain to me what it

means in plain English and what I should

do about it. And then people kind of

plowed in and make things even more

complicated. So this is going to be,

Johnny, and my attempts to make things

very, very simple and clarify what we

mean by a cookie less. But perhaps,

Johnny, do you want to start by telling

us about cookies, which I know I'm very

fond of, in terms of eating them, but

also, yeah, once again, a bizarre term

that has been adopted a long time ago

that maybe people have lost track of its

meaning.

Chocolate chip ones are probably my

favorite. And interestingly, there was my

8 year old was using the Amazon Firestick

the other day and it came up with some

kind of cookie consent for some strange

reason. Normally you only see that on the

setup, but anyway, she was laughing her

head off saying, daddy, it's asking me

about cookies on my TV screen. So there

we go, but you're right. So cookies in

the terms of websites and digital, they

are small text files that sit on your

device and help website owners, help

analytics, help advertisers track what

you're doing. And also are used for being

able to, perhaps you've logged into

something, that cookie enables you to

stay logged in on that device. So they

can be extremely helpful, but they can

really go into your privacy. And and

they're certainly used for for tracking

what's going on. But there's big changes.

And And probably Apple were way ahead of

this, stopping third-party cookies a long

time ago. So the likes of Facebook

advertising, Instagram advertising would

use the cookie to be able to remarket to

you, to be able to track what you're

doing, to be able to track which websites

you're going to. And that would help Meta

decide how to advertise and who to

advertise to. But the likes of Apple

stopped that third party tracking quite a

while ago. And are limiting first party

tracking. So I'm conscious I don't want

to go too detailed Pascal, so to help

bring me back. But yeah, in answer to the

initial question, what are cookies? I

guess I've given some answer there.

So that means that the expression a

cookie less world or internet is not true

because you're still going to have your

own cookie. So as a website manager and

owner, you're going to have the ability

to make life easier for yourself and your

visitors. I thought it was important.

Thank you, Johnny, that you reminded us

that we get benefits from visiting

website more than once. We don't have to

necessarily re-enter our details again,

or we can see the pages that we visited

being recommended and so on. So the issue

is more, well, the issue, actually, what

I welcome is a more private way in which

you can use web browsers and visit the

internet. So the kind of reaction, the

open arms kind of reaction comes from, I

would say perhaps less ethical marketers

to begin with, I would argue, but also,

yeah, well, nothing can last forever. I

agree to a point that Google is playing a

clever game as well, saying, well, we're

going to stop all of you, but ourselves,

tracking things and so on. So yeah, we're

going to have that kind of things. But

for me, it also brings back this idea of

if you really want to have data and

intelligence by your customers, current

and future, you're going to have to use

different methods. And interestingly, you

know, I've explored this in previous

episodes of this podcast and the

webinars. So think about what advertising

can help you capture interesting data

about your customers. But also why don't

you use that as a setting point by your

organization that you've aligned your

kind of activities and behavior to

actually welcome and embrace a more

private internet.

Yeah, for sure. It is about privacy. It

is absolutely about privacy. But the

likes of Google, of course, have us using

Google Chrome. And so they are not

worried as much about a cookieless

internet because they have so many

people, such a high percentage using

Google Chrome that they can still access

a lot of data that they want to access

anyway. But the likes, I guess the bigger

issue from my point of view as a small

business owner working with many small to

medium businesses, I think the bigger

issue is the likes of meta. So the likes

of advertising and the likes of analytics

even as well. So if you're using Google

analytics, then there's a lot of ways

that Google's combating this. But it's

about making sure that, Let's take Google

Analytics first. So it's about making

sure that you set up as many event

tracking things that you can put in place

as possible. So helping Google understand

what happens when someone clicks a

button. Are you wanting people to watch a

video? Or you want it, What do you want

people to do? And have you used, for

example, Google Tag Manager to tag the

entire website so that Google can fully

understand what you're wanting people to

do and are they doing these things? And

that's how you can build that analytical

data to absolutely help from, for

example, Google Ads. So if you want to

perform well in Google Ads, then you

really need to make sure that you've got

as much event tracking going on, which

we've said for years, but this takes it

up to another level that sort of if

you're not doing this now, then it has an

impact on how your pay-per-click will

perform and how your analytics data is

how good that data is. So setting up

events and then setting up key events and

then likewise Inside Meta, there's a

bigger issue because the only way for

Meta to get data now is by you physically

in a way giving it data. It can't rely on

the cookies. So that's making sure that

you've got the MetaPixel installed. It's

making use of the conversion API so that

you can again set the types of events and

conversions on your website so that again

you can make it abundantly clear to

Facebook and Instagram what's going on on

your website, what you want people to do,

What happens when they click this button?

What happens when they watch this video?

What happens when they fill out this

form? Because if you want good return on

investment on any of these channels, then

you have to help them understand what's a

good conversion and what does engagement

look like? And then it's about uploading

customer lists and customer data. There's

a whole GDPR question here, but it's

about, are you prepared to give more data

to the likes of Meta, because if you want

to continue advertising with them, you're

going to have to consider it. And that's

the big fundamental change, I guess.

Thank you very much. So for me, what does

it mean to be operating in a cookie-less

internet is to be more reflective, to be

more strategic, and to reflect on your

website and the environment that you

control. And actually, are you currently

squeezing enough intelligence about your

visitors? And that could be the starting

point to make sure that then if there is

less data available to your list, you're

getting more formats there. Then think

about these kind of offsite interactions

and what do you want from this? So you

can break it down, pen and paper,

whiteboard moment, and then this would

give you the kind of framework for a

conversation that you can have with your

web developers, with the advertisers, you

can send questions to Johnny and I and

we'll take it from there. But for me,

that's kind of the reaction is we're

going to slow things down and be more

reflective and just closing on that

segment with a bit of trivia. If ever you

want to experience where the cookies came

from, apart from your favorite kind of

biscuit manufacturer, according to a

historian, this was invented in 1994 by

an engineer working on Netscape, 1 of the

early web browsers.

Well, there we go. Let's move on to our

next segment, which is website stories.

Now, this is going to be a very

interesting selection. We're not going to

have time to go through all of it in 1

go. And as I mentioned in introduction,

this is going to be your prep on your

research. But this was mentioned about a

week ago, Johnny, in the green room, this

idea of the news that Google search API

documents had been leaked to actually

someone that we're very fond of. There's

been a voice of reason in the world of

SEO and content marketing, Rand Fishkin,

currently working at Spark Toro. So Rand

Fishkin seemingly has received from an

anonymous source, thousands of leaked

document for the Google search API. And

he wrote an article about it, which is

the selection for today. You also run a

webinar a few days ago. So I mean, the

title says he told, you know, an

anonymous source, share thousands of

leaked Google search API documents with

me, everyone in SEO should see them. So

what is interesting back to his own

values and the way he's been operated

forever, he's not keeping it to himself,

he's sharing it with everybody else. Now,

the article and the other kind of

commentaries talk about this idea of the

confirmation by, you know, that what we

thought was happening mechanically and

intuitively is indeed the case that the

algorithm is very complex. There's

interconnection between different models.

But what I thought was very, very

interesting from the article and the

early reaction, I mean, obviously at the

time of publishing the article, Ranj

Fiske and his colleagues, I don't have

time to go through the entirety of the

leaked document with this idea of 2

things. The behavior on site seems to

have an impact on your ranking on search

engine results, primarily Google. So what

people do and what they click and how

long they stay and so on, it's something

that actually having a massive influence

and we cannot gather that ourselves but

it's nice to have the confirmation.

Clearly a bias towards Chrome browsers

which is probably not helpful as

information. Links being important, both

internal links and external links. And

this idea of, at a granular level, page

title, which is something that you have

claimed for many, many years, Johnny,

that they're very, very important. And of

course, this idea of making sure that

content suggests authority, both in terms

of the individuals in the business, but

also at a site level. And I'm literally

scanning through a summary statement,

which is a lot busier than I have time to

go through this. So I suppose for me,

it's asking your reaction about the

leaked document. Can it be trusted to

begin with? But also, yeah, range

generosity for sharing that information

with everybody else. And also this idea

of actually, once you settle and come

down from the, would you say exciting

news, it kind of confirms what we knew

already.

Yeah, yeah. And that's where I sit with

this, that there's actually nothing new I

don't think in here. And certainly if you

were as an SEO expert to make assumptions

on certain things, those assumptions are

right. So all it's doing is backing up

what we already believed and what we

already knew and what we've already been

saying for a long time. What I do like

about it is it does clarify some of these

things and it's sort of a, it's a data

point to be able to turn around to people

and say, well, actually look, you know,

I've been saying this for a while and

look, this is the case. So that whole

thing of dwell time on a website, what,

and how the, the user interacts and how

they scroll and how long do they spend

and what, how many pages did they look at

and how many buttons do they click? All

of that, of course, send signals. You

know, why is Google, why does Google

Analytics have a free Google Analytics

product? It wants to know what's going on

on your website. It wants to have the

keys to your shop to fully understand

what's going on. Well, why would it want

that in the first place? Well, it wants

it to start deciding who to rank were.

So, you know, who's more engaging than

others. So for me, it was nothing too

obvious. But I think it reinforces that

this is about helpful, resourceful

content. It reinforces that, you know,

yes, SEO titles are still important. It

reinforces that links are still

important, really important. It's their

way of understanding trust. So yeah, it's

a good check sheet in terms of are we

doing these things? In terms of is there

anything new? Well, probably for a lot of

small businesses out there, yes, but

that's purely because they haven't really

caught up in the times of search engine

optimization. So yeah, it's a handy

document. It's a, and, but it reinforces

what we should be doing in the first

place.

My recommendation, Jonny, sorry, is you

and I are going to spend time looking at

this and enjoy some of the very detailed

kind of insights, But be patient if SEO

and digital marketing is not your central

occupation, where the market will work it

out and give you the highlights and the

things that you need to know. But I

thought it was important to capture it

early. I want to thank Ren Fishkin for

his generosity, but also may I just say,

Johnny, that it's quite reassuring that

it means that you and I have been talking

a lot of sense for many years.

I would agree, Pascal. We already knew

that, but it's nice to have that

validation. Absolutely. And on that, we

will move to our next segment, which is

the website engine room.

Now in this segment, Jonny and I share

the 1 app, the 1 solution that can make

life easier as a web seminar content

creator. So what discoveries from the

interweb are you bringing back to the

fore, Jonny Ross?

Well, we've been talking a lot about

accessibility on websites. And again, if

you use common sense, what we're looking

for is a privacy website, It's privacy

across websites, but we're also looking

for accessibility. Websites that work

across lots of different devices, but

work for every single type of person.

Whatever accessibility needs that they

might have. And accessibility is often

never looked at, rarely thought about, or

something that's thought about right at

the end. And, you know, that's just

unfair. And at the same time, it's, it's

now becoming a large ranking factor. And

also understanding that there's an

audience out there that actually have a

lot of money to spend, but if they can't

access your website, they can't spend it.

And it's also understanding that Google

wants a fair playground for every single

user out there. And if your website

doesn't work well, or isn't easy to use,

or isn't accessible, then it is going to

have a negative effect on your ranking.

So that was quite a long reason as to why

I'm about to share this tool, but this

tool solves this problem very, very

quickly and easily. My, having said

everything though, when you're moving

into your next web build, I'd like you to

really bring accessibility right to the

beginning. But on current web builds,

userway.org, userway.org is a simple

plugin that you can put onto your website

that instantly makes your website

accessible. And it allows the user to be

able to change contrast, to highlight

links, change text spacing, bigger text,

pause animations, all sorts of stuff.

It's dyslexia friendly. It's it's very,

very, very clever. Useaway.org. They have

free plans. They have pay plans. The free

plan works just as well, to be perfectly

honest, unless you're a very big website,

the free plan is perfect. So it was quite

a long talk there, but that was my reason

for understanding why userway.org is a

really good app to be looking at.

Now it's important to give the rationale

and the why, some of the context. I'll do

the same, although mine would be a bit

shorter, Johnny. So I've been kind of

looking at the practice of content

curation, reporting back on complex

reports. I mean, 1 case in point what we

discussed a moment ago. And it is clear

to me that as a visitor, I need value

from content curation or content

reporting. So I came across this great

app that challenges your kind of thinking

when it comes to if you want to be seen

to be discussing, summarizing, exploring

a report, typically the PDF format on

online, then you've got to go about it in

a way that is meaningful, helpful. You've

got to go deep, not shallow, if you want

to express and showcase authority. I came

across something called Chat PDF. So be

careful, it's not the other 1, it's Chat

PDF. And what Chat PDF really does

superbly, it allows you to upload a PDF,

could be yours, it could be from the

authority, a public authority in your

sector where they publicly released a

report that is analyzing your sector or

practice and more. And through questions

and through conversation and chat, the

chat PDF allows you to explore the

content of that document. But that

exchange, that conversation is exactly

what should be featured on your website.

So I see this as a great source of

inspiration for doing content curation

almost at a more advanced level than

just, hey, I came across this, here's a

link, go check it out. Or hey, I've got

1, who wants 1? You want to be

essentially writing extensively about the

report. And if you think that that seems

like an odd practice, I would recommend

that you go check out the Hootsuite

social media trends report and look at

that page. It's just so extensive and so

rich in content that you don't even need

to be convinced that the report is worth

your while. I know that's

counterintuitive, Johnny, because we all

think, well, I should be not sharing the

content, people will download the PDF.

But actually we see that the behavior

wants the opposite. Share the reason why

I should be interested and I will

download the PDF. So PDF for superior

content curation and promotion.

Brilliant, thanks Pascal. And our final

segment for this podcast as always is the

website call to action.

Everyone be ready for the 1 change or 1

adjustment that is going to make life so

much easier and make your website work

harder for you. Johnny, what is your

recommendation?

Well, people buy from people that they

trust, people buy from brands that they

trust. Start building more trust and

credibility on your website by making

sure that you're running regular security

updates, by making sure that you have the

correct SSL certificate installed and it

passes trust signals. And more

importantly, start implementing 2FA,

two-factor authentication. None of us

like it. We don't like that whole thing

where we've got to get an auth app or the

text message, but actually people are now

expecting it and they're slightly

concerned in some way if you don't have

it. So it's about building trust. How can

you build trust? Regular security

updates, 2 factor authentication and

making sure your SSL certificates are

installed correctly. What's your website

call to action this

podcast? This is very simple because this

is an exercise that I did only 2 days

ago. Do you have a blog? Do you have

content categories? And how can you be

sure they are still current? How do you

know that the language in the industry

has not moved on? How do you know that

the labeling you've used from 2, 3 years

ago is still valid? That's really

important. We went through an exercise

with a client and we horrified that how

outdated the content categories of their

blog was. So if you think that even your

own thinking has changed in terms of the

kind of content you've produced from 2, 3

years ago, even a year ago, and maybe you

have too many actually categories or too

few, but this is literally an exercise

where I want you to review and update

your content categories in terms of the

naming or the tagging of your blog

articles because the likelihood is you're

missing on traffic and you're missing

suddenly on a dwell time that Johnny

mentioned a moment ago.

I hate to admit it, but when I see blogs

being uploaded and see categories being

selected, I think, God, they're out of

date. But there's so many things on the

plate. When do you update them? And

actually there's the call to action. It's

Time to update the blog categories. What

another great episode. This has been the

90 day website mastery podcast. It's our

31st episode. And hopefully we've helped

you understand a bit more about the

cookie-less future and really thinking

about how to boost website security and

some apps that's gonna help you get more

out of content and be prouder of your

website. For more information, visit the

90-daymarketingmastery.com, where you

will be able to book a discovery call

with either myself or Pascal. Thanks for

joining us, give us feedback and what

would you like us to answer in the next

episode? Please let us know. Thanks

Pascal, it's been very nice seeing you

indeed. We will see you.

Thank you very much.

We'll leave you with a nice, making some

notes and putting some things into place.

Speak to you all soon, take care.

Thanks for watching!

Thanks

for watching!