83 - George Nguyen (WIX) on the importance of fresh and diverse voices in your content

Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Azim, um, digital Asks podcast. We're flying through season six and I've got an amazing guest with me, Jordan from wix. Um, a just an absolute legend, someone I'm very pleased to, uh, to call a friend. We're talking all about the importance of fresh voices in your content. And uh, if you can see the fact that we're both smiling now, it's because literally just before I hit record, we had a good, good little laugh. But yeah. George, welcome to the show, my friend.

Speaker B: Thank you. I feel like, uh, I feel like it's, it's an honor to be here. I, uh, like, it's just like hanging out with a friend. Right. And I hope we get to bring our audience today into that conversation. I hope you learned something or at least I hope you laugh at us. Yeah. Thank you for being so complimentary. I feel like some people are so complimentary of me. Right. And I, what I have to say about you is like, I'm, I'm so glad you're back doing this.

Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Speaker B: I wish that everyone could see your, your Moz Con session because it was both entertaining and full of heart rate. Um, yeah, do it.

Speaker A: I appreciate it. I appreciate that. M Man. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, yeah, as you can see, Georgia, George is a great guy and uh, God, I feel, I feel a bit emotional after that. Thanks very much. I, I typically like, you won't hear me talking a lot after this other than asking you questions. Like I've seen podcasts where the in Intro is like 15 minutes long. Nobody's here for me. Everybody's here to watch, learn and listen from you. So before we get into it, as always, please like rate, share and subscrib. You can get this on YouTube video and Spotify video, which is where, uh, most of you enjoy this stuff. But let's get in to the meat and bones of it. First question, George, 30 seconds, quick fire round. Who are you and why should people know about you other than the fact that you're a legend?

Speaker B: I'm not quite sure people should know about me. I don't, uh, I don't ever think about myself that way. But unless I'm applying for a job. Uh, my name is George Nguyen. I'm the director of SEO editorial at wix. I am not currently applying for jobs. Anyway, like, I opened up. WIX is like my. What did he just drop? I run our SEO Learning Hubs article based content. My mission is a very niche One within the industry. Essentially. I'm an educator and I work within marketing. I work within uh, SEO primarily, but other facets of digital marketing to bring the best tactics. What pros, professionals that I get paid to do this with, huge clients are using right now. And I want to bring that to everybody. I uh, believe in that because I learned most of what I know for free. And I want other people too as well.

Speaker A: Love that, love that. Uh, and the first person to stick to the 32nd thing. So amazing. This is going to be a great episode. Um, so yeah, look, let's dive right in. What inspired you to you know, focus on bringing in like fresh and ah, diverse voices to, to the WIX blog.

Speaker B: Feeling alone 100%, full stop. Um, the last time I got laid off was like 2018. Actually that was the only time I got laid off. I um, remember I had moved to a new location in the United States. I had only been there for eight months. I didn't know that many people, um, the area around me, there weren't very many Asian people to connect to. And that feeling, once I resumed working, I was at search engine land. After that, that feeling kind of persisted, especially because I had transitioned from working in office to working completely remotely. And so it took me a long time to understand how much of myself I could be in front of, um, very different people than I was used to. I grew up in a community of many Asian people, many Hispanic people, and working in a predominantly white space. Um, I didn't always know if my sarcasm or my snarkiness would carry through or if people would be okay with that. And so I never wanted people to feel like that. I felt like I continued to feel like that for a long time because I didn't see other, uh, you know, role models, other Asian people on the stages or participating at the upper echelons of conversations about our industry and where we're headed. And so to bring that representation for the next generation of marketers, and it doesn't even have to marketers, just next generation of website owners or anywhere, any vocation is a beautiful thing because you get to show them that they can be themselves and that this craft is for everyone if that's what you choose. So, so that's, that's in a nutshell.

Speaker A: Look that, that's amazing. Like I could literally just press stop there and we would have a fantastic episode. Um, I think having such a powerful foundation to build from and like a grounding to start from is just the only way is up really. Which like I Said, I've said this to you a million times before when we filmed out, but on a recording. I just want to say, look, that is fantastic. Like, uh, the purest of intentions, which can only lead to good things, I think. So let's talk a little bit more about the, the people that you, that you bring in to do this. How do you go about finding those people to contribute?

Speaker B: The SEO Learning Hub, um, by policy is by referral only. And I don't uh, like actively go looking for contributors on a regular basis, but sometimes we have a content. Whatever the situation may be, we keep track of our diversity in various ways. People who self identify, uh, on their social, things like that, so that we can understand where our gaps are. By no means are we ever going to reach a perfect status of diversity, whether that's bipoc diversity, you, uh, know, neurodiversity, so on and so forth. But at least understanding where there's a deficit can help you attack that deficit. Right? And also because of studies like the, uh, FCDC's BIPOC diversity study and Lydian Fonte's Gender Gap in SEO Publishing, uh, we understand where in the spectrum of SEO publications, digital marketing publications, we stand. And so that's, that's important to us. But then also the human element of just giving people opportunities. Sometimes our existing contributors will tell me, hey, I really want to put this person in front of you. Can I make an introduction? And when I have bandwidth, more often than not, I'll take that meeting. I want to know what people are. That having been said, I'm a person of color. And I find that this could be totally false. Right. Like, I find that people of color are pretty willing to talk to, um, that could be false. They could be willing to talk to everybody. I don't know. Right. But that's just, I think that's something that you have going for you if you're somebody like me. Right. The values that you bring forth will attract people like magnetism. And to broadcast that, being on podcasts like yours, Azim, um, letting people know, like, hey, that's what I'm about, that's what I'm here for, that opens serious doors. So broadcasting that intent and then carrying it through is a big deal. But if you are, let's say, somebody who, uh, doesn't have that going for you. Right. But you still want to do the right thing with your brand diversity and publishing. I always tell people to start with communities because communities have leaders, distinct leaders, and those leaders will have their pulse on pretty much Everything about their, their membership. So usually you can find some sort of trade based organization. Obviously Women in Tech SEO is I think the biggest one in the SEO space. Right. Um, there's fcdc, uh, there's now our Asians in Search Slack community, which you're a part of. I'm like by far the weakest leader of those three groups I've mentioned here. I shout out to those people, um, and what I want to touch on there is like uh, to, I want to touch on something else. But like to wrap up that knowing who leads those communities can help you. You can talk to them to get what you need. You need a writer to do xyz, you need someone to um, rework your content. There's like new contributions, there's a lot of ways that you can work with them. And the best part, there is also the people in those networks are generally likely and happy to reshare whatever it is you publish from one of their members because they're proud of those things, especially if those opportunities don't come by very often. So communities are the place to go, in my opinion. Um, also, it's like getting you're plucking a contributor, an expert from your own target audience sometimes and that's even better for the business overall. Right. Um, I also had another thought there, but I think it kind of. Oh, this was the thought. Um, I mentioned that for a long time it felt like I didn't really know how, who I could be or how I could approach what my goals. I always knew that diversity was something I felt strongly about, but in my early days in the industry, I didn't know how to project that. I didn't know how to bring that into my work as much. I felt like, um, yeah, I felt like some jobs were just a little bit unnatural to me. Like even being on a podcast, I feel like one on one conversations are where I'm best at, which is why podcasts like works. But that's why I don't step on stage very often and things like that. Finding your medium and your way to approach diversity might be different than mine. Mine is to work behind the scenes with the contributors we select. Right. For you it might be something else. And so my position has afforded me the opportunity to work within what I'm comfortable with. But also like, it's kind of forced me out because WIX likes to have me at Brighton SEO and things like that too, which, uh, I also enjoy. But it's also, I'm an anxious person.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, lots of context There a little bit of advice for you though. A little bit advice, tons of context.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, I totally understand. Uh, for me, slightly similar, I just have a straightforward pitch form. Every so often I'll put it out and I can't remember the exact wording that I use, but I don't explicitly say I don't want white men to pitch, but I'll always say, um, you're welcome to. But the mission of the podcast is to typically give voice, a voice to the marginalized soul. People of color, women, people from the LGBTQ community, ETC. Those are the voices that I, I will prioritize, however mindful that not everybody is confident enough to go in and put themselves out there and fill out a pitch form. So, uh, I will try and do what you do on probably a much, much smaller scale and I'll, I'll reach out to people. I've done it before in the past through the Women in Tech SEO, um, like, speakers list. I'll find someone who might be an expert in, I don't know, digital PR or technical SEO. And I, uh, look for someone who, uh, I don't know, someone who's, I can't remember how they had it before, but like a new face in the industry, someone who I've known to be a new face. And I'll say, look, um, love to have you on the podcast talking about this, this and this. Generally with those types of people, it's much more of a back and forth, like, I don't feel I'm ready, etc, etc. And I was like, look, we can just do one, um, we can keep it between me and you. If you want, I can send you the recording, see how you feel, just go from there. But literally, let's do it, see how you feel, go from there. Um, and that, that's how we do it pretty much.

Speaker B: Let me give those people a piece of advice for anyone who has been approached to do something, um, that's a bit more public, that's out of their realm, especially if it's um, as you know, if it's like a podcast, is podcast pretty low maintenance? Um, Azim sent me a list of questions I think like three months ago. And then we got on this call. He's like, you ready? Like, were the questions okay? And I was like, oh, right, sent that. And at the time, of course, like when I first got it, I reviewed the questions, right? But having not seen it at all this quarter, and he's like, nah, nah, just go into a cold. And here we are. So if you're still listening this far into the episode, maybe, like, don't feel burdened by the amount you have to prepare. Also, this is a Zim's podcast and if it sinks, it's totally correct. I'm so good at passing off the buck, man.

Speaker A: Now, in one of my, like, previous episodes, right at the very start, I was unsure about swearing and I was like, well, this is all. I do it all. Like nobody else does it. So I'm only anxious about upsetting myself if I swear. So it. Anyway, let's move on. Um, we're talking about, you know, featuring diverse voices and, uh, the importance of that. Um, you mentioned, and we're talking a lot about, you know, the, the WIX blog. Are there any, um, particular standard articles or authors that you featured and some that have any, you know, particularly lasted or, you know, resonated with you, like sort of hit you?

Speaker B: Um, so when we're talking about. Here is the WIX SEO Learning Hub. Specifically, WIX has three publications and the SEO Learning Hub is the one. I. I wish that I could give my authors more of an opportunity to expand on how they actually felt about something and grasp, kind of communicate their feelings about certain topics in a much more personal way. In that regard, I'm a little bit disappointed, uh, with myself because I haven't steered things in that direction lately. I've been able to move things a little bit closer, like, um, Petra, whose last name I've never been able to pronounce. So I'm just gonna spell it out. K I, S H E R C Z E, G, H. I've committed it to memory because I can't pronounce it. She m Did something on SEO career development that you're featured in. Right. Um, that kind of stuff is stuff I want to do more often because it deals with people in their life. That having been said, uh, we have so many talented authors that it's. It's sort of really unfair. But I am going to do the little bit unfair thing and give a huge shout out to our homeboy Ashwin, because he's a, a mutual connection here. And Ashwin does have an amazing way with words that, uh, there's some authors you can, by reading a paragraph, you're like, I know who wrote this, right? The crispness and the flow. So I definitely have to shout out Ashwin at this point. But I don't want to say that anyone is like, everybody has their strengths, otherwise we wouldn't continue. Um, I want to say that, you know, everybody's Trying to do their own little thing. A lot of them have their own websites, trying to start their own communities. And that's what's really, really beautiful. I wish I had a list of everybody who was doing something on the side, whether that was a consulting thing or something, for it to actually drive a community. Um, but I don't often.

Speaker A: No, no, that makes, that, um, makes total sense. I guess naturally, since we're, we're talking about things like this, um, I'm led to move on to. In terms of how does this type of approach, how has it impacted reader, uh, engagement and reach? How many people are seeing this? What impact does this approach have?

Speaker B: Um, well, let's talk like a metric that most people understand. Time on page. Our time on page is really, really good. It is so good. I'm not going to say it again because I'm starting to sound like a certain politician that I don't like, but just like overemphasizing how good it is. Right. Um, and you have every context is everything we do. Not if you're, if you're looking for raw numbers, traffic. Right. Um, what the other publications have. You know, some people think of them as competing publications. I don't like to think of them that way because we all do something very, very different. Um, but if you're talking like a Search Engine Land or a search engine, we definitely don't get that kind of traffic because we don't publish news, we publish education. Best practices, tactics, strategy. Right. Um, that having been said, the publications that we appear alongside in studies, when people talk about the industry, you know, like the Moz Blog, um, Semrush, Ahref, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, um, those types of websites, you have to contextualize that we've only been around since about May 2022. So to be considered in that sphere with an editorial staff of essentially like two people, I, I used to say one, but now looking at it, Crystal Carter does so much that she is, she is in essence an editor amongst the other things that she does. Right. But you have two people here. You don't have an entire staff, you don't have a huge machine. Like as a team, we do more, we do the podcast, we do event sponsorships, we do our meetups. Right. We do co marketing things, we try to help out with the product. There's a lot going on there. But I'm so proud of the ground that we've covered in just over two years. And I would say that the contributors are the key to that success because you tap into them, you tap into their networks. Getting them to believe is everything. That's like, yeah, we compensate our writers, but if you're talking about somebody with a lot of followers who owns their own agencies, um, you cannot pay somebody to write when their job is to run an agency. Like, you're never going to pay them enough. Like, are you going to pay a doctor to babysit? Uh, what are you. It's not feasible, right? So you have to sell them on something else. And sometimes that's the WIX domain and getting featured there. And that partnership looks good for them. Right? I'll take what I can get. Realistically. But for me, in terms of the diversity, telling them that, hey, look, this is the reason I talk to everybody in my onboards and I ask them the same question. Why is it that you want to contribute with us? And I ask them to be honest. And sometimes they're like, yeah, I really want that link on your domain, which isn't the most inspired thing, but the truth is the truth and I respect it. And for me it is that, well, I constantly get career development through what I'm reading and what I'm editing. But also I get a, uh, medium to change the industry in the way that I want to, which is through diversity, to highlight these people. And so when I tell contributors, potential contributors, that uh, this is like one of the main things that keeps me in this role, they see that and they feel that and that helps drive the work. And then when it comes time to, you know, promote their content, share, talk about their experience collaborating, usually it's all positive as long as I do a good job, which I always intend to do. Right. So you're, you're getting somebody who works to improve how well you write. Like, remember, my name's not on the content. Yes, I'm the publisher, but my name's not on the content. It's still yours, so it's going to come out better. And you get to know that, hey, a uh, deep seated component of equity that goes into this whole thing and so you get to feel good from that perspective, from someone is helping you improve your work from the compensation perspective. You didn't just spend time building your profile without like maybe offsetting it with some babysitting money. That's, that's uh, the way we attack the situation with as many tools as we can to make it as easy to say yes and as easy to promote us and to tell your clients about our content as possible. And through the editorial experience, you see that. Wow. If if this is the way George will edit my content and this is the way he does it across the board, I can look at this more seriously when I put it in front of my stakeholders or my.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, absolutely. And I was just thinking, as you were speaking, obviously the passion with which you speak. I've written for publications before and it's just a very cold, uh, process is just like we want you to talk about X nothing for ages. You send them a document, then you hear nothing back and they're like, yeah, it's great knowing that it's not been read and then it's published and then you're done. I could have written like, you know, something not controversial or rude or whatever, but I could have written something factually incorrect and I know it hasn't been checked and um, that would have been published and gone live. And in comparison the, the passion and the care with which you take is just. Excuse me. It's just really, really impressive and you should take some time to reflect on that because, um, that, that shows really well for you. Um, again, mindful that I'm talking a lot, but I want to go back to one of the things that you said there in terms of the size of the team and you mentioned that it's just like maybe one or two people. Other than that, in terms of head count resource, what sort of difficulties have you had in terms of the editorial process in the past? And um, how did you get over them? In essence, it's just a roundabout way of. Or I'll ask you separately. Tell me about the difficulties first. And then to give you a bit of a heads up, my next question will be what's your biggest regret? So don't tell me your regret yet, but tell me some of the difficulties.

Speaker B: Um, I would say that being too proud to formalize my workflows, like trusting myself too much to remember to do this before publishing, take it slow. Like during the first few months I thought that I could just read something and then edit it as I read it. Now the workflow is at least 3 full complete read throughs before anything goes live. Before it was just like two. Um, there's a lot of things that I, I was overconfident. I would definitely. Yeah. And I would also say that the first year you run a publication like on your own is, uh, we're using profanities here. Yeah, yeah, go for it. Yeah, yeah, man. It's a shit show, dude.

Speaker A: It's.

Speaker B: So if it's a fresh publication at first, it's really fun. Because you're like, I can publish on anything. I'm not cannibalizing any content. Nothing has to be done with intention, um, which is how I felt for about three months. And then you start realizing the greater context of things, especially if you're at an enterprise, um, and there's other people working on the website. You really have to be diligent about things like that. And also seasonality. Uh, people like to go on vacation in the summer. So if you're, like, trying to plan out your editorial calendar and you don't, you're. You're setting yourself up for a bad time later on, which I definitely can't remember.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, deepest, biggest regret. You know, I don't. I can't say that I, uh, I regretted anything about the content or the strategy or how things turned out. I only regret the level to which, um, I've allowed the work situation to get the best of my emotions. And that's kind of. It doesn't matter what setting you're in, really, in marketing, because every setting is stressful to some extent. Being the person that is in charge of a publication means all those backlinks, so. Well, not all of them, but a ton of them point back to you. You are responsible for all of that. And so I had to get something up initially. And I don't think that I, um, have been the kindest. And if I saw my. If I, My younger self from a decade ago, saw the way that I have worked, where I've learned to work, I'd be both impressed and scared. And I'd question whether or not it's worth it. I question whether or not it's worth it on a regular basis to give so much of yourself to make it like it's kind of my identity. You don't have to know who I am through the industry to know what I do for a living, because I talk about it, because I'm passionate about. About it. But, um, I think that people could handle their job with more balance, with m. More work, life balance than I have. I'm fortunate enough to have people like you in my life that I consider true friends outside of all of this. But then I'm also. That also ties us together in a work sense. Right? I mean, here we are on this podcast, and so everything is kind of linked. Yeah. You can't have the best of both worlds, but you can manage better. Learning to fight against stakeholders that would have you do whatever is a real thing. Learning how to present the conditions that you're working in uh, in a way that they can understand is a big deal. And I think initially I was very immature at that. It came off as very me, me, me. And that is what I do regret. I see now that I, uh, should have been better at communicating those things. When you, like, pressure cracks everything, you got to learn to deal with as, as you go through your career, and I don't think that I've always been the best at that.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Um, I always say in my confidence talk, look, pressure makes diamonds. But the flip, excuse me, the flip side of that is it also bursts pipes. But the fact that you recognize those, uh, behaviors in yourself is, like I said, it's a massive step in the right direction. Um, speaking of directions, we're rapidly heading towards the, the end of the show. But there's definitely one last question I wanted to ask you before we, we wrap up. And it would be really, uh, bad of me if I didn't leave it with this question. So there's probably going to be people that, uh, listening to this, watching us, um, who have a mind to start including more sort of diverse perspectives in their content strategies. What advice would you have for, for those people listening and watching? Where would that begin? What can they do?

Speaker B: Don't, like, don't overthink what it takes to. People are people, are people. Right. Like, just because they have a different cultural identity than you or they have different circumstances than you doesn't mean they, you can't appeal to what is common. You can see the differences. And like, when you're talking about diversity, we are talking about differences that make us all beautiful and make, uh, you know, life worth living, essentially. But you can still focus on commonality here. Everybody is trying to build a career. Everybody is trying to. If you're a publication that pays or promotes content, everyone's trying to build their profile, everyone's trying to get paid. Everyone is trying to be somebody, the hero of their own story and finding a way to work with that. Like, yeah, of course the diversity component is what we're talking about here. But that isn't what you have to appeal to necessarily when you're communicating with people. If that's what makes you. If, uh, you're not a person of color, for example, right. And you're scared about how this might go. Take it slowly, one at a time, then ask for referrals because hopefully those diverse people will know more diverse people, and that will help get you through the door. Put your best foot forward through, in the collaboration so that when they give you that Referral. Other people are already excited to work with you. And, uh, also review all of your messaging. Like, anything that you have templated that goes out to contributors, have it reviewed because you don't know how that wording is going to come off to anybody. And you don't want to, like, you don't want to have your own internal communications with a potential contributor put on blast in front of the world on x or on LinkedIn, um, because of an unfortunate oversight. So cover your bases, scale slowly, get those referrals and appeal to the things that, like, appeal to goals, appeal to dreams, hopes. For me, that looks different than for other people. I, I try to go for the middle of the Venn diagram between who I am and who, like a contributor like you, Azim, might be. What is the middle of that Venn diagram? What can you offer? It's simple marketing, really, but go back to your principles and speak their language. Everything that you say about a Persona in, in your target audience is the same thing here, but it's a potential contributor. And the best part is potential contributors often come from the target audience. So you can still use that information. You can figure out.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Um, solid gold and a literal, perfect way to wind up this episode. So thank you very much. Couldn't agree with you more. In fact, um, the Venn diagram thing, absolutely stealing that 100%. Uh, before you go though, George, it would be, uh, a crime if I didn't give you the opportunity to let listeners and viewers know where they can find you. Follow you.

Speaker B: Um, check out the first and foremost, check out the SEO learning hub on wix wix.com SEO learn. And I say that first and foremost because how much of my advice is really all that good if I can't produce good content? And you should be the judge, I put that in front of everyone. Right. Check out the content and see whether I'm as good as I say I am. Right. Um, and if you have feelings about, you want to chat about it, anything like that, I'm on X. My tag is G E, O, C H I, N, G U or my, my handle or whatever. Um, it's just the first three letters of all of my names. And on LinkedIn, I'm just George Wynn. But if you send a request, please, like, say, hi, I heard you from this place. Otherwise I'm just.

Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. Um, yeah, 100%. Um, definitely show me those links. I'll put them in the show notes so they'll go across all the platforms. Um, and yeah, look, thanks very much. For being a brilliant guest. I knew you would be, um, your friend, great guy. And I knew this would be, ah, an awesome episode. So thanks for giving up some of your time. Um, and as always, for the listeners and viewers, please, like, write, share, subscribe, tell a friend to tell a friend, and then tell that friend to tell six more friends. Because, like George says, the power of referrals. Um, and, yeah, look, that's a great way to end. End the episode. Um, and as always, I can't even talk. As always. Uh, we'll see you for the next one.