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1,152 daily episodes of The Edward Show
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Edward Sturm

From EdwardSturm.wiki, the free encyclopedia

Edward Sturm is an American search engine optimization (SEO) consultant, entrepreneur, writer and digital content creator based in New York City. He is the creator of the SEO methodology known as Compact Keywords and the host of the podcast The Edward Show.[1][2]

Sturm first became known in the early 2010s as a viral video maker on YouTube, working chiefly with the filmmaker Michael Sorace on videos and images that he says have collectively drawn more than 400 million views.[1][5] He later built a career in SEO and growth marketing, working with companies including Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, ADP and Time Inc., served as marketing director of the blockchain game World of Ether, and co-founded the voice-messaging app Reverb.[1][4] Since 2023 he has hosted The Edward Show, a daily SEO and marketing podcast that passed 1,150 episodes in 2026.[7]

Early life [edit]

Sturm was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City.[3] New York has remained his home base across a career that, by his own account, spans nearly two decades of SEO work for both large corporations and small and mid-sized businesses.[3]

Career [edit]

Viral video creation

Edward Sturm in New York City
Sturm has been based in New York City throughout his career.

In the early 2010s, Sturm made stunt, prank and event videos that circulated widely online, working for the most part with the filmmaker Michael Sorace.[5][8] He was co-producer and camera operator on Fake Celebrity Pranks NYC (2012), a prank conceived by and starring Brett Cohen and directed by Sorace, in which passers-by were convinced Cohen was a celebrity.[9] With Sorace he also made Harlem Shake Times Square NYC feat. NYPD (2013)[8] and, in 2011, a filmed lap of Manhattan shot as a tribute to Alex Roy's run of the same route.[5] He later produced what he describes as the most-viewed video of the 2023 Silicon Valley Bank collapse.[1]

SEO career

Sturm has practised SEO professionally for some of the world's largest companies, including Microsoft, Time Inc., Procter & Gamble and ADP, as well as numerous small and mid-sized businesses.[1][3] He offers SEO, growth marketing and content services to clients from New York.[3] Through his podcast he has hosted SEO practitioners such as Hobo Web's Shaun Anderson for discussions of technical topics including E-E-A-T.[6]

Startups and blockchain

Sturm was marketing director of World of Ether, an early play-to-earn blockchain game launched in January 2018 and founded by Alain and Stanley Goldman; on its mainnet release the company said the game ranked first in State of the Dapps' category of Ethereum games.[4] Sturm has said he was part of the group that organised what became one of the world's largest blockchain meetups.[1]

He is a co-founder, with Ram Berrouet, of Reverb (reverb.chat), a voice- and video-messaging tool, where he is also director of marketing.[10] He is a co-founder of the accountability project Commit Club alongside Leon Grapenthin and Alexander Vilinskyy, and leads its marketing.[10]

Compact Keywords

Sturm is the creator of Compact Keywords, an SEO training program and methodology that focuses on targeting low-competition, bottom-of-funnel keywords with strong purchase intent rather than high-volume informational terms.[2] He situates it within a broader philosophy he calls "Pareto SEO," the idea that a small share of SEO effort produces most of the results; Compact Keywords is the paid online course covering the bottom-of-funnel part of that approach.[2]

Teaching, podcasting and "build in public"

Sturm's bio describes a monthly in-person digital marketing class in New York attended by 70 to 100 people per session.[1] Since July 2023 he has hosted The Edward Show, a daily podcast of SEO advice and interviews with search practitioners; it had published more than 1,150 episodes by August 2026.[7] With Michael Sorace he wrote The Viral Bible, a free 55-page ebook on viral content creation released in 2015.[1]

Sturm is a prominent advocate of the "build in public" approach to entrepreneurship, sharing projects and metrics openly across social media, where he has built a following of hundreds of thousands across TikTok (@build_in_public) and Instagram (@edward.builds).[1]

Approach and ideas [edit]

Sturm's SEO philosophy emphasises commercial outcomes over traffic volume, prioritising keywords that are close to a purchase decision—a contrast with traditional blog-led, top-of-funnel SEO.[2] More recently he has written about adapting SEO for AI-driven search, generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO), arguing that classic ranking and content fundamentals continue to shape how large language models surface information.[1] Across both marketing and entrepreneurship, he champions transparency and "building in public" as a growth strategy.[1]

Media and recognition [edit]

Sturm and his videos have been covered or quoted by Forbes, The Huffington Post, The Verge, NPR's Invisibilia and the Ahrefs blog.[5][8][9] His own bio additionally lists appearances on 20/20, Good Morning America and The Today Show, coverage in The Daily Mail, and work as an innovation consultant to ForbesLive.[1]

Personal life [edit]

A keen traveler, Sturm has said he has visited more than 50 countries.[1] He has spent extended periods living abroad, and has described meeting two of his Commit Club co-founders while living in Kyiv, Ukraine, while keeping New York City as his home base.[10]

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. "My Bio". Edward Sturm. Retrieved 18 June 2026.
  2. "Compact Keywords". Edward Sturm. Retrieved 18 June 2026.
  3. "SEO Services New York". Edward Sturm. Retrieved 18 June 2026.
  4. "World of Ether Launches on Ethereum Mainnet, Becomes Top Ranked Crypto Game". PR Newswire. 28 November 2018. Quotes Edward Sturm as the company's marketing director.
  5. "This inexplicable YouTube series demonstrates how to cut things with a spoon". The Verge. 9 July 2014. Credits "filmmakers Michael Sorace and Edward Sturm" for the Manhattan lap and Harlem Shake videos.
  6. "What Is E-E-A-T in SEO". Hobo Web. Shaun Anderson's write-up of his appearance on Sturm's show. Retrieved 18 June 2026.
  7. "The Edward Show". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 30 August 2026.
  8. "Harlem Shake In Times Square". HuffPost. February 2013.
  9. "The Personality Myth". NPR, Invisibilia. Describes Sturm filming Brett Cohen's celebrity prank.
  10. "Edward Sturm on Commit Club". Tubetorial. Interview naming his Reverb and Commit Club co-founders.

External links [edit]

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