Callum: Today I have Lukasz Zelezny on the podcast. Lukasz is a well-known SEO expert. He's very active on LinkedIn, and I've been following him for such a long time. I’m a big fan of his speaking events. He’s just a really knowledgeable and nice guy. So welcome, Lukasz. Welcome to the podcast.

Lukasz: Thank you very much for the introduction. Thank you for having me, and hello to everyone.

Callum: Yeah. So how did you find your way to becoming the SEO expert that you are today? I suppose that's the best way to describe it.

Lukasz: Probably when you ask any SEO who’s been in the industry long enough, you’ll hear a lot of different, crazy stories because it's never like, "Oh, you know, I was dreaming of this as a kid, then I studied it, and voila, I became an SEO."
Back in the day, in the early 2000s, maybe even the late ‘90s when I started getting online, I was still into music. I was really into drum and bass, and in Poland, drum and bass was very niche—an elite type of music. You had to go to big clubs in big cities to play it because everyone else was listening to house or techno. I quickly realized that having a website was the way to reach people. So I started thinking about how to build a website, how to get traffic.
This was way before Google Analytics. We’re talking about the era of guest books and visit counters, things younger listeners may not even remember.

Callum: I remember those! The visit counters and guest books on websites.

Lukasz: Exactly! You’d have those counters showing how many people visited your site, and guest books where people would leave messages.
That’s how I started. Eventually, as I got more involved, people began booking me for DJ gigs, and fast forward a few years, I moved to the UK in the mid-2000s. I realized that while music was great, it was hard to make a living solely from it. So I started doing SEO professionally. I already had some experience from Poland, where I worked in a mountain city with booking.com. Every little B&B had a website, and we worked to get them good traffic.

Callum: That's an amazing story. I remember those counters! I also have a funny story about them. There was a guy in America who used to drop cookies through the counters, and he owned a company called Kaiser Circus. He gave the counters away for free but dropped an eBay cookie every time someone visited. Eventually, he became a multimillionaire through eBay affiliate fraud. Ten years later, eBay found out, got the FBI involved, and he ended up getting 10 years in prison for wire fraud.
Speaking of cookies, did you see Shopify’s announcement today? They’ve launched something called Shopify Audiences, where if your site accepts cookies, you can share that audience with another site in the Shopify ecosystem. I was shocked to see it because for years, we’ve heard that cookies are dying. What are your thoughts on that?

Lukasz: My thoughts are that I really need to spend more time with Google Analytics 4. I think the cookie issue is part of why Google is changing its ecosystem. Google Analytics 4 is not a continuation of Universal Analytics; it’s a completely new tool, and it requires a lot of relearning.
When it comes to cookies, I think it could be an opportunity for SEOs. I've had clients come to me, saying, “We’ve always relied on Facebook, but since Apple’s privacy changes, we can't make it profitable anymore.” So they’re turning to SEO, which I think is positive for the industry.
But I understand that for businesses used to that mechanism, it’s a big shift. Now they’re scratching their heads, wondering what to do next. Facebook was really angry with Apple for those changes, but SEO can be a solution.

Callum: Yeah, Facebook has been hit so hard. I know companies that relied solely on Facebook traffic and targeting, but now that targeting doesn’t work. They can’t reach the right customers anymore. Many brands are shifting budgets to TikTok, SEO, and Google paid media.
Given these uncertain times—COVID, the Ukraine crisis, inflation, supply chain issues—are brands approaching SEO differently now?

Lukasz: Yes, brands are definitely more cautious about how they spend money. At the start of COVID, there was a big fear, but then eCommerce boomed because it was the only thing open.
Now, there’s more focus on how to scale without hiring more people. People are also looking to replace staff with tools, like GPT-3-based AI for content creation. It’s quite good, but it also worries me because soon there will be so much AI-generated content. Who is it for? If you search "top 10 things to see in London" and scrape the top results, you'll see the same 20 things repeated. It’s what I call "non-direct duplicate content"—not word-for-word, but contextually duplicated.

Callum: Do you think Google can detect that? I know they’ve gotten better at spotting spun content, but with GPT-3, it’s getting harder. Google will need to step up their game to identify it. I’ve tested some GPT-3 software, and while it’s not perfect yet, it’s improving. It’s going to be a big challenge for Google.

Lukasz: Exactly. GPT-3 is great for simple questions like, "What is Arabica coffee?" But if you ask something more complex, like which political party you should vote for and why, it generates what I call grammatically correct fluff. It doesn’t provide real value.

Callum: What part of SEO are you most interested in right now? What’s new and exciting for you?

Lukasz: I’m still testing AI, particularly AI-generated voiceovers. Tools like Descript and LOVO allow you to create voiceovers, even imitating your own voice. I saw a demo where Nelson Mandela’s voice read a book after his death—it was eerily accurate. So I’m really interested in tools that help break the wall of text, like AI voiceovers and making websites more engaging.
On the technical side, I’ve also found hidden gems in Google Search Console. By looking at the very bottom of the list for keywords that are ranked low, you can often find niche opportunities that don’t appear in external tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs.

Callum: I love that! I’m going to get my team to dig into Search Console now. Google has made so many improvements to it.

Lukasz: Yes, it’s become a very powerful tool.

Callum: One of the things we get asked about at REVIEWS.io is page speed. We know it’s a ranking factor, but how important is it really? Do slower page speeds significantly impact ranking?

Lukasz: Page speed is important, but I think there’s more buzz around it than real impact on rankings. That said, if you have the option to improve your Core Web Vitals, do it. Google is gradually increasing the importance of this factor, and it’s about more than just speed—it’s about optimizing the user experience.
However, it’s not a silver bullet. People might spend a lot of time optimizing speed and not see dramatic ranking improvements.

Callum: I’ve recently had a few questions about AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). It seemed like AMP was irrelevant, but now I’m hearing people ask about it again. What’s your take on AMP—is it making a comeback?

Lukasz: I’m using AMP on my site, SEO.London, and I think it’s becoming less visible. You may visit a site and not even realize it’s AMP anymore. I think AMP is still being used, but it’s more of a middle-ground solution now.
I also find Google’s Web Stories interesting. They’re similar to Instagram Stories but appear in search results. I’ve seen them generate a lot of traffic in the US and Brazil, though they’re not available in Europe yet.

Callum: I’ve seen Web Stories, and they’re fascinating! But it’s hard to explain to people how they work. Do you think Google will roll them out to other countries?

Lukasz: It’s hard to say. I’ve tried to recommend Web Stories to clients, but it’s difficult to explain how they work. They don’t appear on your website in the usual way, and clients get confused. But I think it could be a great tool for driving traffic, especially for light, viral topics.

Callum: Yeah, I’ve had the same challenge trying to explain Web Stories to my team. It’s a great tool, but Google hasn’t communicated it well. I’m working on it this week for our US team.

Callum: Lukasz, I really appreciate you being on the show today. You’re such a great guest, and you’re so knowledgeable about SEO. If anyone listening isn’t already following Lukasz, make sure you do. I’ll drop his details in the show notes.
Thanks again, Lukasz, and I hope to meet you in person soon. For those listening, where can they see you speak next?

Lukasz: Thank you for having me! It’s been a pleasure. You can catch me at Brighton SEO or a few other conferences. Brighton is always a great event to attend.

Callum: Brighton SEO is such a fantastic event. Thanks again, Lukasz. I really appreciate it.

Lukasz: Thank you, Callum. Take care.