Search Engine Optimization with Brandon Leibowitz

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If you have a hundred follow or likes on Facebook and you post on Facebook, only five out of those a hundred people will ever see what you post organically.

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Now you're having to click that little blue button and boost it up.

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Social media is more pay to play.

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So in terms of organic optimizations, it unfortunately isn't even worth the time.

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It's not really worth spending money and investing a lot of time on there because reach is just so low and they just keep dropping it down.

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Welcome to The Wayfinder Show with Luis Hernandez, where guests discuss the why and how of making changes that led them down a more authentic path or allow them to level up in some area of their life.

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Our goal is to dig deep and provide not only knowledge, but actionable advice to help you get from where you are to where you want to be.

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Come join us and find the way to your dream life.

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Welcome back to the way finder show.

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My name is Louie Hernandez and I am your host for today.

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I'm very lucky because I have a great guest here today.

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His name is Brandon Liebowitz, Brandon has a company called SEO Optimizers, and SEO today.

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A lot of us who have businesses, we know, that, digital marketing and such is the way of doing business now and getting our word out here.

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You know, he'll share his wisdom so we can all learn.

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And we steal all his secrets and that way we can all go do it ourselves and not have to spend a whole bunch of money on him.

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All right.

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So with that introduction, Brandon, welcome to the Wayfinder show.

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Thank you for having me on today.

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So hopefully I'll help everyone save some money and show them how to get that freeze graphic from Google and stop spending money on ads and show you how to do it yourself.

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I'll just talk about all the steps, all the strategies back today.

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Awesome.

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I love it.

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Thank you so much.

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So before we get into that, Brandon, tell us a little bit about yourself.

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My name is Brandon Lebowitz and I've just kind of fallen into this SEO world.

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Got my degree in business marketing.

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Back in 2007.

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And one of the first jobs I got out of school was helping a company out with their digital marketing.

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I don't really know much about it.

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They don't really teach you that in school back in 2007, at least they didn't teach you that too much.

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And I told the company that, and they said, don't worry, we're.

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I'm a new to this and we're going to learn with you taking the classes and workshops and seminars.

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And after working there for a few months, just realized that this digital thing is probably the future.

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Everyone's probably going to have a website and SEO is just a way to get free traffic.

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And I thought, who doesn't want free traffic?

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And that got me sticking with SEO as working at different advertising agencies as a director of SEO.

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And before work and after work and on my lunch breaks, I'd work on my own company and eventually built that up to where I was able to quit my job and focus solely on this and really been doing that ever since.

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Congrats for that.

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That's that's huge.

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So, let, let's start at a really basic level.

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Like what exactly is SEO?

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SEO is search engine optimization.

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That means optimizing websites for search engines, which Google really just runs the show.

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And when you search on Google, there's ads at the top.

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Those are all paid ads, right?

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Below those ads are the organic, the free listings.

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There's 10 spots on that first page of Google.

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And what we want to do is get your website ranked in one of those 10 positions.

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But nowadays it's not just websites that appear, images appear, maps appear, videos appear.

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If you're selling products, those products will appear.

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And what we want to do is optimize all that and hope to try to take up as much free real estate as possible on that first page of Google without spending money on ads.

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Yeah, so, so what you're saying, so yeah, you always have the ads up top, right?

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A couple up there and then the ones below there, are you saying that those are not paid for?

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Those are all something you can do to get, get on there versus paying to be on that page.

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Is that right?

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You have to invest your time, time is money, or pay someone like myself to do it for you.

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But essentially you're going to save a lot of money because if you're spending money on Google ads to get to the top, you pay for each click.

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A couple cents per click could be a couple of dollars per click could be a hundred dollars for one visitor.

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It's quite expensive and you don't want to be paying for every single click in the long run.

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You would rather do SEO in the short run.

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You might run run paid ads just to get that needed traction and build your company up.

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But in the long run, you don't want to have to rely on those because once you stop spending money, you're You know, before we dive more into the free, I'm kind of curious, how do companies determine what to place on an ad on a value per click?

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Right?

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Like what makes one worth a couple cents versus one a couple hundred dollars.

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It really comes down to the lifetime value of a customer and they try to figure out like out of a in the past I worked at helped out a insurance agency for cars and there each clip was like 100 for car insurance because they knew the lifetime value of a customer is Tens of thousands of dollars because if you sign up our insurance, you hopefully sign up for at least one year And then you recommend it to your friends and family, and hopefully you stay on for more than one year.

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And they knew that each click is a hundred dollars of every hundred visitors you get might get like one or two or three leads on average.

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And they were willing to spend that money knowing that.

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Each lead is costing thousands of dollars, but the lifetime value made it worthwhile.

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And that's where you just got to look at how much each click is going to cost you, how much each lead or sale, and how much is it is a value of a customer in the lifetime, because some of them might buy a product one time off your website, but they might need to buy it again in the future.

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And if you try to really look at that.

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Lifetime value, not just that one time purchase, because you could try to cross promote other products.

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If you're selling, let's say your e commerce website, selling dog food, you could try to sell them on dog leashes or something else after they buy that food that's similar.

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And just try to get those upsells and increase that value of a customer.

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Yeah, that that's brilliant.

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You know, I study, these high tech growth companies a lot, cause I'm fascinated by them.

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I've never really been in the tech industry, but that is something I've realized that they think so longterm and so much about relationships versus transactions, right?

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over your lifetime that I think that's what makes them successful, right?

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And you look at like an Amazon, they talk about just getting you on their ecosystem, right?

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So then it's no longer just buying stuff, but then you're also looking at them for ads.

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TV shows for where to host your internet.

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I mean, everything, right.

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So they really think.

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Really relationally and in longterm like that, which is pretty cool.

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Thanks for clarifying.

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I hadn't really put the two of them together though.

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So with SEO going back to it, what is it that we do to get at the top of Google, get on that first page?

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You know, one of those 10, what can we do?

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There's a lot that needs to be done and it's not really a one size fits all, but there are some things that every website should have.

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And that would be like text.

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Google feeds off text.

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The more text you have on every single page on your website, the easier it is for the search engines to read, understand, and really know what keywords you're targeting.

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If your website's like an e commerce website with just a bunch of product pictures, it's going to be tough to Google.

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I mean, Google's getting better at reading images, but they can't really read images.

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All they could read is a file name.

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So whatever you name that file before you upload it to your website is very, very important.

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If it's a product, like if you're a mechanic and you're fixing a car, you could name it like fixing a Toyota Prius dot JPEG.

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Upload that to your website.

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Google reads that file name and can better understand it.

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But the more text you have around all that stuff, the easier it is for a search engine to read and really know what your website is all about.

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That's pretty much it.

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One of the most important things that if everybody does that and nothing else I talk about, I can almost guarantee they'll get more traffic, but Google doesn't really believe all the stuff that you put on the website.

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So just by putting all that text there, it's a great starting point, but Google just looks at it saying, are you really who you say you are?

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Because we don't trust you.

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Too many people will put.

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Words on their website that have nothing to do with their business.

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And we want you to prove that you really are who you say you are.

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And that's done by getting other websites to talk about you.

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It's called building backlinks.

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And what is a backlink?

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A backlink is a clickable link from another website that points to yours.

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Let's say for example, we're on a website like entrepreneur.

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com or reading it.

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And that article, it says Brandon Leibovitz and you click on that and it goes to my website.

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I'd be getting a backlink from entrepreneur.

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com and the more backlinks you have from sites that are related to what you're doing, the more popular, the more trust Google is going to give to you and the higher they're going to rank you.

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Those two are kind of the more important things is content, good quality content on your website with your keywords and then building trust through those backlinks.

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Interesting.

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Yeah, you know, it's interesting now with the Wayfinder show, um, we've been at it for about a year and a half and I think we're getting our systems and all that.

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We're getting good, great guests and everything.

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Obviously we're getting great guests.

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I always thought when I started the podcast that the way to grow was to, you know, the guests you got, we're going to, Make it, you know, if you got somebody really big, it was going to make your podcast, really popular and really big.

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What I learned over time is that doesn't make a difference at all.

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Some of my most popular guests, you know, we had a gentleman on from, another podcast that gets over 60, 000 downloads an episode and he hardly got any clicks or mentioned, you know, but then some random person that, you know, it was her first podcast, got like thousands of.

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Of visits right away, very early on and we're like, wow, it was amazing.

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Because of the backlinks.

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When I started talking to coaches about growing a podcast and it's the same thing they're saying, you want to grow your show, you got to get on other podcasts and mention you, or you got to get other podcasts to mention you, I get on the show and mention a podcast or they got to mention me, organically.

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And that'll do it.

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So I think that creates a social proof, it definitely builds that trust up because these podcast website or platforms are kind of doing the same thing.

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They're looking for like keywords.

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So if somebody really popular has a podcast and then they mentioned your name in one of the titles, they're going to read that, see that you're mentioned there, it's not really a backlink, but it's a mention the citation of your name on someone else's podcast.

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High performing podcast.

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And if it gets a lot of downloads, that probably is going to help that platform.

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Like Spotify might say, Oh, wow.

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We see that your name was mentioned on this episode.

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It's gone 60, 000 downloads.

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Maybe we should look at other content that has your name on it and maybe lift it up a little bit and push it up.

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But definitely the more you network with other people, hopefully they would also give you back links.

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If you have your own website.

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I always do.

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Or podcast hosts to make sure they have their own website.

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A lot of them post their podcast on Spotify or YouTube or iTunes, but they don't have their own website.

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And if you want drive traffic and rank higher, having your own website is great, but putting every episode of your podcast on its own page, on your website, and then sharing it with your guests, because now if you create a page about me and share it with me, instead of me sharing a YouTube link, I'm going to share that link to your website where.

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My audio, the videos there, everything's all in one place.

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That's going to help you get backlinks.

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And I might share that on social media.

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And if I have like my Twitter has like about 40, 000, 50, 000 followers, I think.

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And if I share it on my Twitter and tweet it, you might get some traffic, get some Twitter followers.

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So it's just going to help me that snowball effect of it, just growing and growing and just spreading the word as much as possible.

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Yeah.

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That's amazing.

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Thank you.

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So, so it sounds to me like after, once we release your episode, we're, we're going to be the biggest podcast in the world is what it sounds like.

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I'll give you a backlink, but I get you more backlinks.

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Can I get more backlinks in the competition?

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One backlink is great.

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And my website is a good backlink, but the more you have, the higher you're going to rank.

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And if that's one thing I always tell podcasters is like, it's kind of low hanging fruit for you to get back.

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It's not as hard as most people because most people need a.

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Offer something of value, like I would usually write for other people's blogs as a way to get back links.

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That takes time, but if you've already spent the time recording an episode of the podcast and you give it to your guest, that link, they're probably going to share it and hopefully give you that back link, write a blog about you.

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And that's just going to help you help both of you rank higher on Google.

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Awesome.

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So, Brandon, what about, the content that you write on your website, how can you make sure you are using the right language to get yourself, you know, higher up in the rankings as well, so that Google recognizes you more?

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Is are there certain words you should be trying to include depending on your industry?

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And if so, how do you find out what that is?

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You definitely wanna do keyword research and not just guess.

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There's tools like the Google Keyword Planner that will show you how many people actually search for your keyword every single month that way you're not just guessing and thinking this is the right keyword when there might be a synonym or a plural or a singular version or some other word that's completely off topic but Gets more search volume and you don't want to just guess at it.

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So keyword planner from Google is free and it's from Google.

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There's paid tools if you want to buy a tool, but Google's giving you a free tool.

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And I use that one.

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If you want to pay for a tool, popular ones, it'd be like mods or Ahrefs or SEMrush, those are more popular paid tools, but really you don't need to be spending money on those paid tools with the Google keyword planner.

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Um, And like some of my clients or one of my clients recently, they are.

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Well, even for myself, like one of my keywords was SEO classes.

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I found out the word SEO training actually got double amount of searches.

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I see classes, I think got 2, 500 searches.

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SEO training got 5, 000 searches.

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Okay.

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I've thought SEO classes would get more searches, but now I'm like, all right, maybe I should target.

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SEO training, or to take it even one step further, now I'm going to target SEO training classes.

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So I get all three words in one keyword and Google is able to pick up on the order and the variations, but I know SEO training gets the most searches.

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So I put that at the beginning and then classes I'd put at the end because it gets less searches and you really want to do the keyword research and not just guess at it because you might guess right, but then you might also guess wrong and lose out on doubling your traffic potentially just by changing a couple words.

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Yeah.

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And, is there any, evidence out there showing how much more, traffic goes to a paid ad versus an SEO link?

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Google kind of keeps that top secret, but I'm not sure it was the exact numbers anymore.

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But I know most people try to skip over the ads because they know it's an ad.

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They don't trust it.

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They'd rather see the organic, but the ads do get a lot of accidental clicks, or if it's a really good ad, that's really targeted, you might click on it as well.

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But in general, Organic is more trusted by people.

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So those tend to get more clicks, but Google is sneaky.

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Google only cares about making money and they want you to click on those ads.

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So they try to change them, blend them in more so you do hopefully click on it accidentally.

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Gotcha.

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Okay.

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What are, you know, so you said you started in 2007 doing this, that seems like an eternity in the world of digital marketing and computers, even, you know, like 2007, I'm not sure how much I was even, well, Google's, I know they were out, but I don't know how much I was using a computer compared to today, right?

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So to find things, I think I was still probably using the yellow pages or 411, right?

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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So I'm curious to know how this has all evolved over your lifetime in this and, and what, where do you see it going?

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What are the trends?

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I mean, Google's just always been trying to provide the best results and Google's changing all the time because they're trying to stop spammers because people find loopholes and ways to gain the system.

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And Google says, hold on, we don't want you to gain the system and just rank.

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We want you to work for the SEO and work for that traffic or spend money on those paid ads.

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But Google really for the most part, Hasn't changed too much of what they're looking for, which is really good quality content, good quality backlinks.

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But with AI, that's really shifted everything where now is Google going to only be AI in the search results?

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Are they going to mix AI with the organic or what's going to happen?

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Or are people going to stop using Google and go to chat GPT, but you can't really do transactional?

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Product or purchases yet on AI or chat GPD, but we'll have to see what happens because there is no constant.

00:17:34.993 --> 00:17:50.534
It's just evolving and changing so quickly that let's have to stay, see what happens and try to stay up to date with all those changes and just, but see what's going to stick around because there's a lot of changes, and people realize AI search results are kind of the same as Google search results.

00:17:50.959 --> 00:17:55.409
Not much of a difference because how are they making AI versus organic searches?

00:17:55.419 --> 00:18:04.878
They're probably looking at the same thing, content, keywords on the website and backlinks to prove that you have trustworthy, reliable, accurate content, and those backlinks help that out.

00:18:05.618 --> 00:18:05.959
Okay.

00:18:06.429 --> 00:18:07.949
What about, Social media.

00:18:09.219 --> 00:18:18.038
How does that, I feel like, you know, I'll, I'll look for recommendations for things on Facebook, just as much, if not more than Google.

00:18:18.038 --> 00:18:25.479
Now, social media, it doesn't really help out SEO too much.

00:18:26.189 --> 00:18:29.278
Google's kind of can't really see what happens on social media.

00:18:29.328 --> 00:18:33.729
Google's blocked from a lot of social media sites, but they can see is that you have a profile.

00:18:33.858 --> 00:18:38.719
So if you have a Facebook and Instagram, a Twitter, LinkedIn, a YouTube, all that looks great.

00:18:38.983 --> 00:18:49.503
Like a natural business should have all those, but in terms of helping with SEO, it's not going to help out too much with SEO, but social media is great as a way to get business, get leads, get your name out there.

00:18:49.594 --> 00:18:51.163
You don't have to wait the six months.

00:18:51.479 --> 00:18:56.469
Or longer that SEO takes, you could just pretty much build a following right away and jump in on there.

00:18:56.919 --> 00:18:59.078
So social media is great if that's where your audience is.

00:18:59.078 --> 00:19:15.348
And it's all about testing and seeing what works and what doesn't work and test out social, test out email, test out paid ads, test out SEO and whatever's working, I would spend more time and push more time and effort into those social media will work for a lot of people, but it doesn't work for everybody.

00:19:16.098 --> 00:19:20.538
A dentist isn't the most entertaining on Facebook or Instagram.

00:19:20.538 --> 00:19:22.919
It kind of works, but it might not work for everybody.

00:19:23.128 --> 00:19:28.199
That's where you just got to know who your audience is and where are they and how can I get in front of them at the right moments?

00:19:28.949 --> 00:19:29.328
Sure.

00:19:30.169 --> 00:19:37.683
I guess I was wondering if we can use the same principles of SEO In social media, right?

00:19:37.794 --> 00:19:41.443
So is the SEO game happening on social media as well?

00:19:42.653 --> 00:19:45.173
Anywhere where you could search, there's ways to.

00:19:45.574 --> 00:19:46.544
Pretty much optimized for it.

00:19:46.544 --> 00:19:50.453
So SEO is not just only for Google, it could be for Amazon.

00:19:51.364 --> 00:20:02.294
You're searching on Amazon or Yelp or anywhere where there's search, Facebook, Instagram, all those platforms, anywhere where you search, there's ways to do keyword research, figure out what keywords are going to be the best.

00:20:02.554 --> 00:20:04.064
Each platform is going to be different.

00:20:04.064 --> 00:20:13.193
What works on Google probably would work on social media, but it might be slightly different because the way people search and use hashtags and things like that are going to be a little different.

00:20:13.733 --> 00:20:18.463
Even from Google to YouTube, it's gonna be a little different the way people search and keywords that people use.

00:20:19.364 --> 00:20:19.733
Okay.

00:20:20.804 --> 00:20:21.693
Do you do that though?

00:20:21.713 --> 00:20:30.223
Do you optimize for the different social medias, like say, Hey, Brandon, I want you, I have such and such a business, you know, I want to do it on Facebook.

00:20:30.534 --> 00:20:33.884
Do you create campaigns on there as well?

00:20:33.884 --> 00:20:35.733
Or do you stick to Google?

00:20:36.963 --> 00:20:41.134
It's tough to do organic social media anymore because reach is so low.

00:20:41.574 --> 00:20:52.364
If you have a hundred follower likes on Facebook and you post on Facebook, only five out of those hundred people will ever see what you post organically that you having to click that little blue button and boost it up.

00:20:52.723 --> 00:20:54.314
Social media is more pay to play.

00:20:54.773 --> 00:20:59.644
So in terms of organic optimizations, it unfortunately isn't even worth the time.

00:20:59.743 --> 00:21:08.134
It's not really worth spending money and investing a lot of time on there because reach is just so low and they just keep dropping it down on Facebook, Instagram.

00:21:08.554 --> 00:21:10.284
It's maybe like 30 percent reach.

00:21:10.534 --> 00:21:14.344
So it's not like Facebook, but eventually it's going to just keep dropping down.

00:21:14.344 --> 00:21:16.683
And all social media is kind of pay to play.

00:21:16.693 --> 00:21:20.844
Organic is really tough to do nowadays on social media, unfortunately.

00:21:21.433 --> 00:21:24.743
But still you want to put hashtags and research those keywords.

00:21:24.753 --> 00:21:29.624
It's just not worth pushing it like you would on Google or something else like that.

00:21:30.433 --> 00:21:35.743
Do you think, I mean, clearly they must be eaten into Google's social, market though, right?

00:21:35.804 --> 00:21:42.653
I mean, I would imagine their, market penetration has gone down as other social media becomes more effective, don't you think?

00:21:43.213 --> 00:21:43.808
Or am I wrong?

00:21:45.239 --> 00:21:49.269
I think people search a lot on TikTok, but who knows?

00:21:49.308 --> 00:22:01.159
I mean, I've heard like TikTok gets more searches on Google, but not really sure if that's true or not, maybe just general searches, like dances and things like that, but more transactional, I don't really see that happening on social.

00:22:01.429 --> 00:22:09.854
It's more like informational or trends or sports and news and entertainment and connecting with friends versus, Hey, I need a.

00:22:10.344 --> 00:22:15.983
Change the locks on my house, or I need a stuff like that, where you're just going to go on Google or Yelp or something like that.

00:22:16.743 --> 00:22:16.953
Yeah.

00:22:16.953 --> 00:22:17.663
That makes sense.

00:22:17.794 --> 00:22:18.173
Okay.

00:22:19.003 --> 00:22:22.344
Well, what else, what else should our listeners know about this?

00:22:22.354 --> 00:22:29.953
And you know, at what level, if they're starting a business of some sort or have a business or, or, or whatnot, how, what should they know?

00:22:31.503 --> 00:22:33.243
Just be patient with it all.

00:22:33.273 --> 00:22:34.203
It takes time.

00:22:34.203 --> 00:22:35.003
It's not immediate.

00:22:35.074 --> 00:22:41.634
Unfortunately, SEO is a more long term play where it could take six months or longer.

00:22:42.068 --> 00:22:49.909
Or shorter, but usually it takes about six months or more depending on the competition, how competitive those keywords are and just don't get discouraged.

00:22:49.949 --> 00:22:56.778
Keep working and building it up and you'll see slowly over time, your traffic's going to increase, but it's not going to have that.

00:22:56.788 --> 00:22:58.999
I mean, sometimes you go viral to get that giant spike, but.

00:22:59.398 --> 00:23:03.179
In general, you have to build it up and build it up and invest that time.

00:23:03.499 --> 00:23:07.538
And that is where you just have to be patient and Google really just doesn't trust anybody.

00:23:07.568 --> 00:23:08.628
That's the part that takes time.

00:23:08.709 --> 00:23:14.519
Google just looks at your website and says, Alright, we see that you put these keywords on your website, but are you really who you say you are?

00:23:14.558 --> 00:23:15.348
Because we don't trust you.

00:23:16.193 --> 00:23:20.953
Hundreds, thousands of other websites that are really legitimate and we trust them, we just don't trust you.

00:23:20.953 --> 00:23:34.614
And building that trust comes through those backlinks, which takes time to build, you know, I'm wondering if there's a way of like, what is considered a good return on investment for SEO?

00:23:35.064 --> 00:23:38.844
If we're getting a hundred clicks per dollar, is that, is that considered good?

00:23:38.844 --> 00:23:42.183
Like, do you have a base measurement to know that you're successful?

00:23:43.243 --> 00:23:50.294
SEO is kind of tough to track keywords to revenue, but you could track traffic.

00:23:50.324 --> 00:23:53.594
So Google analytics is a free tool from Google.

00:23:53.634 --> 00:23:55.084
I'll show you how much traffic you're getting.

00:23:55.663 --> 00:23:59.304
And they took away about like 15 years ago, the keywords that we're making.

00:23:59.753 --> 00:24:03.804
So in the past, you could see like, Oh, somebody searched on Google, clicked on this keyword.

00:24:03.804 --> 00:24:06.124
This keyword brought me a thousand dollars.

00:24:06.334 --> 00:24:07.903
Now it just lumps them all together.

00:24:08.259 --> 00:24:23.919
And you can't really see what keywords are working or not working, but you could see how many leads, how many phone calls, how many sales you got from Google organic, from paid ads, from social media, from email, all in Google analytics, which I would recommend everybody.

00:24:24.263 --> 00:24:35.473
Use a tool to track Google analytics is free and it's going to be a lot better than like Shopify analytics or any other platforms that are giving you the free ones, I would use Google, but it's really tough.

00:24:35.473 --> 00:24:38.933
And then also you look at like how much search volume is for each keyword.

00:24:38.933 --> 00:24:52.544
Like some keywords might not get a bunch of searches, but you know, that one visitor is going to bring you a lot of revenue versus other keywords might get tens of thousands of searches, but they're all for something that's not going to bring too big of a spend.

00:24:52.903 --> 00:24:53.773
And that's where you just cut up.

00:24:54.159 --> 00:24:59.259
Overall look at how much you're, how much time you're investing in SEO and how much are you getting out of it?

00:25:00.199 --> 00:25:00.489
Okay.

00:25:01.608 --> 00:25:01.878
Interesting.

00:25:01.929 --> 00:25:06.919
So, how about you, like in your business, do you, do you have a special niche that you work with?

00:25:06.929 --> 00:25:08.999
Like what, what type of clients do you take on?

00:25:09.798 --> 00:25:13.608
Mostly focusing on local and e commerce.

00:25:14.209 --> 00:25:28.489
So if you have a local business, getting you up on Google, but then also getting you up on Maps, which is a Google business profile and making sure that you rank higher on Google Maps, getting your website to rank there organically and for your e commerce, then just helping.

00:25:28.784 --> 00:25:32.394
You make sure that you rank on Google for your website, but also your products.

00:25:32.854 --> 00:25:34.703
And that's through Google Merchant Center.

00:25:34.814 --> 00:25:40.034
So you create a feed, you submit it to Google, and then Google will start showing your products in the search results.

00:25:40.403 --> 00:25:46.703
If you've ever searched and you've seen the products in the search results, they have images there, they have reviews, they have prices.

00:25:47.074 --> 00:25:48.763
So it's, it really draws your eye in.

00:25:48.763 --> 00:25:55.263
If the products are like at the middle or the bottom of the page, it's going to draw your eyes in much more than just the organic, the websites.

00:25:55.683 --> 00:26:01.034
You really want to take up as much free real estate as possible on that first page of Google and try to optimize for everything.

00:26:01.064 --> 00:26:15.624
But in terms of any specific niches or industries, I work with pretty much everything or almost everything, as long as it's not just you're selling t shirts, because then it's going to be hyper competitive How are you going to compete against Amazon and Target and Walmart?

00:26:15.634 --> 00:26:18.354
So finding something niche that helps differentiate yourself.

00:26:18.874 --> 00:26:22.814
And then I can really help move the needle and get you ranked higher.

00:26:23.554 --> 00:26:30.423
So like a local plumber, roofer or something like that would probably be the kind of client you're working with.

00:26:31.023 --> 00:26:31.334
Yep.

00:26:31.364 --> 00:26:49.784
For the local could be a dentist, a lawyer, mechanic, restaurant, any local businesses, our move a little bit faster because you're not dealing with national competition versus someone selling widgets across the country, hyper competitive, and it's gonna take a lot more time to build you up.

00:26:50.294 --> 00:26:51.403
Yeah, understood.

00:26:51.423 --> 00:26:54.193
I think I got a good idea and we got some good advice.

00:26:54.193 --> 00:26:58.064
I think I also realized that it's probably more than I want to do myself.

00:26:58.064 --> 00:26:59.993
So I think I'd hire you to come and do it.

00:27:00.084 --> 00:27:05.134
So it's a lot of work, but I mean, people could do the content.

00:27:05.173 --> 00:27:06.993
So like writing more content on your website.

00:27:07.378 --> 00:27:26.148
Yeah, that's something that everyone could just start right away building backlinks that takes a lot of time and effort getting backlinks, but that's also very important, even if you got like one or two backlinks a month, that's still a huge win, so I don't think that you have to build hundreds or thousands of these backlinks really need to build more than your competition.

00:27:26.148 --> 00:27:31.739
And most websites usually have around, I'd say like maybe a hundred backlinks, give or take.

00:27:32.249 --> 00:27:35.489
So that's where you just have to slowly build it up over time.

00:27:35.903 --> 00:27:36.983
And just work on it.

00:27:37.084 --> 00:27:38.144
Don't get discouraged.

00:27:38.433 --> 00:27:39.647
It is a long term play, but.

00:27:40.003 --> 00:27:43.423
SEO is like a puzzle and you got to put all those pieces together.

00:27:43.794 --> 00:27:48.503
And if you just do one thing, but you're not putting all the pieces together, it's not going to fully work.

00:27:48.503 --> 00:27:56.243
So some pieces are bigger than others, like the content and those backlinks are really, really big pieces of that puzzle that they're not being done.

00:27:56.273 --> 00:27:58.253
It's going to be really, really tough to rank on Google.

00:27:58.739 --> 00:28:05.489
So I'd recommend to everyone later on, if they have time working on adding more texts to their homepage, all their product pages, service pages.

00:28:05.489 --> 00:28:10.558
And if you have a lot of pages on your website, just try to do one a week or one every couple of days.

00:28:10.558 --> 00:28:13.669
And just once it's done, you don't really have to do it ever again.

00:28:13.719 --> 00:28:18.378
It's just get it done, check off the bucket list, and then move on to the next thing that you have to do.

00:28:19.048 --> 00:28:20.298
Yeah, is that true?

00:28:20.298 --> 00:28:21.828
Like never having to do it again?

00:28:21.828 --> 00:28:39.979
I feel like technology changes so quickly like, you know with computers the way they do their algorithms and I have a I'm a real estate broker and I used to advertise a lot on Facebook for houses and then Facebook would go and change it the way they do it Like every few months and I just couldn't keep up.

00:28:40.388 --> 00:28:40.689
Right.

00:28:40.739 --> 00:28:44.439
And so, which is one of the big reasons why I see value in what you do.

00:28:44.959 --> 00:28:51.568
Keeping up is, is have to battle, but wouldn't you agree that it would, it's not a set of them, forget it kind of thing.

00:28:51.568 --> 00:28:54.689
You do have to go back and adjust at time.

00:28:55.499 --> 00:28:55.588
Yep.

00:28:55.759 --> 00:29:05.169
So I was talking more about like putting keywords on your website, but the back links is a part that you know, that you're always going to be building more backlinks, but add more text to your website.

00:29:05.509 --> 00:29:06.919
Don't really need to do it that often.

00:29:06.979 --> 00:29:17.788
Like if you're a plumber and you're doing like toilet repairs or leaky toilet, you write that page about how you've helped with leaky toilets, and you don't really need to change that too much unless things change.

00:29:17.828 --> 00:29:20.798
Like I started doing digital marketing in 2007.

00:29:20.798 --> 00:29:22.009
It was called internet marketing.

00:29:23.189 --> 00:29:25.199
I put that keyword everywhere on my website.

00:29:25.199 --> 00:29:26.689
Now it's called digital marketing.

00:29:26.689 --> 00:29:28.808
And that's where I have to go in and update that.

00:29:29.459 --> 00:29:39.608
Generally, you're not going to have that like too often, maybe is it like if you're a dentist, people are going to be searching for like teeth cleaning or cavities or root canals.

00:29:39.618 --> 00:29:43.239
So keywords don't really change too much, but every once in a while, things change.

00:29:43.398 --> 00:29:45.729
That's where you have to go in and update those.

00:29:47.009 --> 00:29:47.308
Got it.

00:29:47.499 --> 00:29:47.818
Okay.

00:29:47.999 --> 00:29:48.179
Yeah.

00:29:48.179 --> 00:29:49.269
That's a great example too.

00:29:50.209 --> 00:29:50.489
All right.

00:29:50.489 --> 00:29:53.378
Well, Brandon, thanks again for all this information.

00:29:53.749 --> 00:29:58.878
At this point, I'd like to Switch gears and go over to our world famous Wayfinder 4.

00:29:59.538 --> 00:30:00.169
You ready for it?

00:30:00.939 --> 00:30:01.709
Sounds good.

00:30:02.189 --> 00:30:02.588
All right.

00:30:02.638 --> 00:30:05.209
So give us a hack that you use.

00:30:05.439 --> 00:30:09.318
Just something you use every day to just kind of cheat life with.

00:30:10.828 --> 00:30:26.048
I mean, now I would say AI is something that I've used a little bit more, chat GPT, because with SEO, a lot of it is content creation and almost all the writers I use Had been using AI and charging me full price.

00:30:26.068 --> 00:30:30.138
So I'm like, why am I paying these writers when I should play around with it.

00:30:30.368 --> 00:30:36.568
But AI does help out with a lot of other stuff, like coming up with topics for blog posts or giving you ideas.

00:30:36.578 --> 00:30:48.679
Like if you're going on a vacation and traveling around somewhere, you could say, give me a seven day itinerary to Greece and I'll tell you what to do for breakfast, lunch, dinner, we'll give you recommendations and pretty good at a lot of stuff.

00:30:48.679 --> 00:30:49.878
So that one is.

00:30:50.344 --> 00:30:51.153
Pretty fun.

00:30:51.153 --> 00:30:55.364
And I tell people play around with it and it's kind of interesting to see.

00:30:55.364 --> 00:30:57.933
Chad, GPT, you preferred a AI.

00:31:00.023 --> 00:31:11.483
Yeah, pretty much for now because it just seems like it's better one or the gives out the best better results, but still not perfect and still got to take everything with a grain of salt because it's not a hundred percent accurate.

00:31:12.413 --> 00:31:12.753
Okay.

00:31:13.294 --> 00:31:14.163
How about a favorite?

00:31:14.773 --> 00:31:19.394
This could be a book, movie, show, a hobby activity.

00:31:20.814 --> 00:31:20.983
Yeah.

00:31:20.993 --> 00:31:22.683
I like going down to the beach.

00:31:22.953 --> 00:31:39.534
I live in Los Angeles or in Venice Beach, so the beach is not that far from me and try to go down there and get that work life balance and really just escape from the computer because I am on the computer a lot doing what I do and it's nice to get away, let your eyes rest for a while.

00:31:39.564 --> 00:31:41.124
The beach is a nice spot to be.

00:31:41.124 --> 00:31:43.804
How about a piece of advice for you, younger self?

00:31:43.804 --> 00:31:58.223
I'd say getting a mentor, maybe something I had and still have mentors, but getting one sooner than later, because they could kind of pretty much guide you along and tell you what works, what doesn't work.

00:31:58.223 --> 00:32:04.253
And you could learn from their mistakes and hopefully avoid them and just help you accelerate and grow much faster.

00:32:05.023 --> 00:32:05.584
I love that.

00:32:05.703 --> 00:32:08.233
That's the first time I've heard somebody say that, but that's such a good one.

00:32:08.693 --> 00:32:09.003
Yeah.

00:32:09.903 --> 00:32:10.074
Yeah.

00:32:10.074 --> 00:32:11.183
Mentors are invaluable.

00:32:11.443 --> 00:32:19.054
If you don't know where to find a mentor, I teach classes at the Small Business Association and they're partnered with SCORE.

00:32:19.263 --> 00:32:20.233
So if you go to SCORE.

00:32:20.503 --> 00:32:26.953
org, they'll match you up with a mentor anywhere in the country or world, especially nowadays with Zoom and everything.

00:32:26.953 --> 00:32:31.463
So if you can't find a mentor and like, I don't know where to go, where to find one, SCORE.

00:32:31.653 --> 00:32:32.104
org.

00:32:32.534 --> 00:32:37.634
Is a great resource that will link you up with someone in person or online or virtual.

00:32:37.634 --> 00:32:46.503
And you could find people that have done that or that work in the industry, similar to you, and they're just retired and willing to share their knowledge and help you learn from them.

00:32:46.923 --> 00:32:48.713
That is an excellent resource.

00:32:48.794 --> 00:32:49.584
Thank you for sharing.

00:32:49.624 --> 00:32:50.574
I forgot about score.

00:32:50.574 --> 00:32:53.844
I, I had a score mentor in my early twenties.

00:32:54.648 --> 00:32:58.189
Ended up being a big impact in my life and yeah, that's great.

00:32:58.969 --> 00:33:00.699
How about a big opportunity?

00:33:03.138 --> 00:33:05.909
I am working on finishing a book.

00:33:06.038 --> 00:33:07.409
Well, finish the book.

00:33:07.638 --> 00:33:12.878
Just working on publishing it and editing it and just working on that.

00:33:12.878 --> 00:33:18.769
So that is my big opportunity that will hopefully be done in the next month or so.

00:33:18.818 --> 00:33:23.388
It's all about how to be a guest on other people's podcasts and the value of it.

00:33:23.398 --> 00:33:35.138
And because I'm being a guest on other people's podcasts to get my name out there, get exposure visibility, but also for SEO purposes to get backlinks, the more websites I'm published on.

00:33:35.739 --> 00:33:43.659
The higher I'm going to rank on Google and being a guest on other people's podcasts usually results in them giving me a backlink to my website.

00:33:44.068 --> 00:33:54.618
And that helps my website rank higher and me get more traffic pretty much indefinitely, but podcasts are great to get your name out there and get exposure on other audiences, other platforms.

00:33:54.669 --> 00:33:57.689
But the backlinks are really the main thing that I'm doing it for.

00:33:58.048 --> 00:34:03.419
So that I break that down in that book and hopefully we'll have that out there very soon for everybody.

00:34:04.538 --> 00:34:05.098
I love that.

00:34:05.118 --> 00:34:05.509
Yeah.

00:34:05.578 --> 00:34:07.519
And that'll be something I'll probably read.

00:34:07.519 --> 00:34:16.548
Cause I'm just starting to try and become a guest on another podcast for the same reasons you're saying to grow essentially, to create backlinks for the Wayfinder show.

00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:20.079
And I'm finding it to be very effective because we are growing now.

00:34:20.128 --> 00:34:24.039
For the first time I'm seeing, you know, the numbers go up like all the time.

00:34:24.039 --> 00:34:28.969
It's kind of fun to look at the scorecard, you know, there, how many downloads and visits and all that per week.

00:34:29.398 --> 00:34:30.813
But yeah, So that's pretty neat.

00:34:31.333 --> 00:34:33.003
So I look forward to that book for sure.

00:34:34.333 --> 00:34:42.563
Oh, Brandon, if people don't want to do it themselves and they realize like I do that this can be pretty overwhelming.

00:34:42.563 --> 00:34:46.264
We really need an SEO expert to help us with our businesses.

00:34:46.264 --> 00:34:47.393
How can you go about doing that?

00:34:48.494 --> 00:34:50.603
I created a special gift for everybody.

00:34:50.903 --> 00:34:53.344
If you go to my website at SEO optimizers.

00:34:54.844 --> 00:35:00.333
com that's S E O O P T I M I Z E R S.

00:35:00.623 --> 00:35:02.153
com forward slash gift.

00:35:02.724 --> 00:35:04.043
They can find that gift there.

00:35:04.679 --> 00:35:16.398
Along with my contact information and a bunch of classes I've done over the years, I've done it for free so they can see step by step how to do the last step that we talked about and want a free website analysis.

00:35:16.809 --> 00:35:21.989
I'm happy to check out their website from an SEO point of view, and they could book some time on my calendar there for free as well.

00:35:22.893 --> 00:35:23.454
Amazing.

00:35:23.474 --> 00:35:24.414
Thank you so much for that.

00:35:24.414 --> 00:35:25.264
It's very generous.

00:35:25.994 --> 00:35:27.764
Brandon, this has been a lot of fun.

00:35:27.773 --> 00:35:28.204
Thank you.

00:35:28.204 --> 00:35:34.384
And, and again, forgive me for the initial sarcasm getting started and thanks for putting up with me for that.

00:35:34.764 --> 00:35:43.463
it's been great and I hope our listeners will, you know, if you've got a business or something out there that you need SEO work for, I hope you give Brandon a shout.

00:35:43.864 --> 00:35:45.494
Look them up on SEO optimizers.

00:35:45.494 --> 00:35:45.773
com.

00:35:46.764 --> 00:35:47.463
Thank you, Brandon.

00:35:52.233 --> 00:35:53.994
We hope you've enjoyed The Wayfinder Show.

00:35:54.143 --> 00:35:58.364
If you got value from this episode, please take a few seconds to leave us a 5 star rating and review.

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This will allow us to help more people find their way to live more authentic and exciting lives.

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We'll catch you on the next episode.