September 24, 2025 • 26 mins
Explore the intricacies of digital marketing with expert Justin Crawmer as he uncovers the strategies that yield results. From PPC to CRO, Justin reveals how businesses can leverage data-driven decisions to improve their marketing ROI. This episode is essential for anyone looking to elevate their digital marketing game and understand the sophisticated tactics that lead to greater traffic, leads, and ultimately, revenue.
Listen on Podbean:
https://brainworkframework.podbean.com/
Connect with Justin Crawmer:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justincrawmer/
Connect with Chris Troka:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-troka-3a093058/
Website: https://focused-biz.com/
Website: https://christroka.com/ #brainwork #framework #business #entrepreneurs #marketing #digital #strategies
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Let me just start by saying there's,in Marketing Worlds, there's
really push versus pull marketing.
Push marketing is where you're pushinga message to an audience that you
hope is interested in why you offer.
You use audience targeting and allthese kind of things like social
media and even things like radio andbillboard and those things where you're
pushing a message to an audience.
What I love about poll marketing thoughis that you're attracting somebody who's
(00:24):
already voiced their own interest inwhat you offer, just being found when
they're looking for what you offer.
You are listening to Brainwork Framework,a Business and Marketing podcast,
brought to you by Focused-biz.com.
Welcome back to another episode.
With us today is the Co-founderof Webtek, Justin Crawmer.
Webtek is a full service digitalmarketing agency specializing in
SEO, PPC, CRO, content creation,web design, and much more.
(00:47):
So excited to have him on today, Justin.
How you doing?
Good Chris, how are you?
Of course.
It's our pleasure man.
We always like to ask our entrepreneurs,tell us about your journey.
What were you doing beforethat kind of led you into what
you're doing with Webtek today?
I guess in terms of the marketing world,I've an entrepreneur my whole life.
I started with a candy storewithin a window washing business.
And then rock chip repairbecame a thing for me.
I was working for an auto glassscompany doing rock chip repair
(01:10):
and windshield replacement sales.
Eventually started my ownand with that company.
I built my own websiteusing GoDaddy website.
It was called at the time and Ipublished it to the web and then
I went to Google that next day andtyped in Utah Auto Glass Company and
I was like, I'm a Utah Glass company.
Why am I not found?
And that started me down the rabbithole of figuring out SEO and how
to get my own website ranked.
(01:31):
And then it led me into affiliatemarketing where I was doing
actually lead generation in theauto insurance space where I started
doing lead generation for I had awebsite called Getautoinsurance.net.
And actually back in the day.
I started doing affiliatemarketing in the lead generation
space for auto insurance leads.
I set up a website, it was calledgetautoinsurance.net, and I got it ranking
(01:52):
number one and number two for the phrase.
Cheap car insurance and cheap autoinsurance, and I was above Geico and
Progressive in all the big brandsand I found myself making a bunch
of money in the affiliate marketingworld, which allowed me to leave my
position that I had in at a companycalled CHG Healthcare, where I was
working in the marketing agency.
It was a big companythat had seven brands.
(02:15):
And the way that I kind of got myselfinto that position as SEM manager at
CHG was by being able to show themthat I could rank these other websites.
And I kind of reallyestablished my career there.
When my affiliate marketing business tookoff I left the company and they offered to
keep me and I ultimately turnedthem into my first client and that's
(02:38):
where Webtek began was with my oldformer employer, was my first client.
That was a little bit of my journey.
There's a lot more there.
But I kind of started out asan entrepreneur found myself
in the corporate world and I
found myself working myself out ofthe corporate world through marketing.
And I was actually met my businesspartner Scott with Webtek.
I met him while I was at CHG.
(02:59):
And he's who I call the grand ofSEO, he's head and shoulders above
anybody else I had ever worked with.
That's how we met and thenwe formed an agency together.
And it's kind of been Iguess history ever since.
It's a part of the journey.
It always feels like we can neverreally hit all the points that we as
entrepreneurs go throughout our journeybut it all is an influence and a learning
experience to where we are today.
(03:20):
And I see a lot of entrepreneurswho will use their past experience
and go into a same industry.
If you were working in healthcare,someone goes into healthcare, if
you're in the rock chip industry,then you go into rock chip.
It's to see that evolution to createthis brand and everything you've done.
Congratulations to that.
But let's dive in more into just theexpertise of everything that you're doing
and how it can help other entrepreneurs.
(03:41):
SEO is search engine optimization.
I feel like this is where most peoplego to find solutions to their problems.
They're gonna research andif you show up, I feel like
you're gonna be a much more warm,pre-qualified lead as opposed to
maybe doing some cold outbound orsome other lead generation tactics.
Do you agree with SEO in that aspect?
And what are we seeing as far asthe trends and changes with AI
(04:04):
and the no click search results?
That's great.
Let me just start by sayingthere's in marketing world, there's
really push versus pull marketing.
Push marketing is where you're pushinga message to an audience that you hope
is interested in what you offer you use.
Audience targeting and all thesekind of things like social media and
even things like radio and billboardand those things where you're
pushing a message to an audience.
(04:25):
What I love about Pull Marketingthough is that you're attracting
somebody who's already voiced theirown interest in what you offer.
Just being found when they'relooking for what you offer.
It's really qualified traffic aspeople coming to your website on
their own research and one thingthat I love about organic is that
it's people really trust the organiclistings more than a paid listing.
(04:46):
And we do pay per click as well.
And there's a lot of benefits to that.
But we're talking SEO right now.
What I love about the organic approachis that it allows people to find you
in the first few listings of Google.
And that's where all the clicks happen.
We can get more into those metricsaround why it's so important to be in
the top three or top five positionsas opposed to just being on the
first page of Google due to clickthrough rates and things like that.
(05:07):
But what I really loveis that people come in.
They feel that Google has vettedevery website in the world and they
put you at the top for a reason.
And they come in pre-qualify.
There's an inherent trust built in.
And I have a lot of stories I cantell you about my own website, moloka
sound.com, which is my sound healingand breath work and music medicine
(05:27):
website that I've done my own SEO for.
And it's been really cool to see howthat has grown from no visibility to
people coming in from all over theplace asking for me to do private
sessions for them or big group eventsor wanting to know when my next event
is or anything like that because they'researching for sound practitioner near
(05:48):
me, one of those types of things.
And when they come in,they're already ready to go.
It's such an easy sale.
You don't have to be pushy.
You're just basically just here I am.
And it's a much better approach.
I'd much rather attract than Chase.
Yes, absolutely.
And I think just the examples you gave.
One, you've built lead gen websitesthat you can rank, you've done this
for companies we've worked with.
(06:09):
You've turned that company intoyour own client, and now you also
do it for the personal healingthe music and breath work as well.
It's just an example that yes, thesepractices can be applied to almost
any industry or business and stillget some pretty great results.
Are there businesses who should avoidSEO and should focus on other methods?
'Cause I know B2C SEO is huge.
(06:31):
B2B, it's a little more challenging.
Is there a path of least resistancefor industry or based on consumer
feedback that you've had?
I would tell you particularlysomething like event marketing
would be a great example.
Let's say a concert sale or an aretreat or a festival or any of
those types of things where it'san event that people have to be
aware of something to search for it.
(06:53):
They may search for concerts near metonight or concerts on a particular
date or something like that.
And of course good to be foundfor those types of things.
But if you're trying to push an eventthat is timely in nature and you have
to create awareness around it first.
People aren't gonna searchfor it without awareness.
That would be one of those types of thingswhere if you're trying to sell concert
(07:14):
tickets, I wouldn't go the SEO route.
If you're anything like that and I cangive you other examples but I think
that's a really good example of whereif you're an industry that people do not
inherently search for, then don't spendyour time on SEO because it is definitely
a long-term investment and you don'twanna spend at least 12 months or so.
Sometimes more depending on howcompetitive it is and where you're
(07:34):
starting and all those kind of things.
But you don't want to go down that routeif people aren't even searching for it.
But I will tell you, there's a lotof good tools out there and agencies
can help you like webtek, my agencyor others out there and you can even
find tools like this that we can talkabout that help you find what we call
keyword research that can help you find.
The demand around estimated searchvolumes for different phrases and you
(07:58):
can see if there's actually even amarket for what you're trying to sell
before you even go down that path.
And that's obviously a very importantpart of any SEO campaign is the beginning
audit and background research stage beforeyou even get started with any execution.
You don't want to be pushing contentout there that's not going to rank
or the volume is just too low thatit may not be worth your time.
(08:20):
And those are focused most onthe top of funnel strategies.
But what's great about that contentis when you build it right for your
audience that becomes a middle of funneltactic too, where now you're nurturing
that lead and prospect becoming intoa customer, which is really cool.
Definitely.
And that's something we could alsotalk about if you want to as well.
Chris is just talking about thecustomer journey in the medical space,
(08:40):
we call it the patient journey aboutwhere they start on a research phase.
Let's just use the patientjourney for example.
In the medical world people willstart by looking at a symptom first.
Maybe they have some sort of rash,they're looking at the symptoms for
their certain type of rash and thenit leads into the treatment of it.
Then they realize they've got somesort of dermatitis or whatever.
(09:01):
And then they go into dermatologistsnear me and then it's looking
at best dermatology in Salt Lakeor looking at comparing 'em.
There's the journey of startingwhere they've got the problem and
then down to middle of the funneland then end of the funnel where
they're like dermatologists near me.
Book an appointment rightnow, that's the ultimate.
(09:23):
Right.
But that educational piece, that awarenessand consideration piece that some of
us can kind of overlook that it's notuntil that consideration phase where
they're picking between three to fivepotential dermatologists in this instance
or maybe a roofer or whatever that
they're now deciding based on the brand asopposed to just being aware of a problem
(09:43):
and then aware that solutions exist andthen further move along in that journey.
I always like to promote removingfriction within the Buyer'ss journey, you
mentioned, the easy next step to book thecall or book this meeting, next steps.
I find the friction is often a pointwhere people aren't sure where to
go or what the next step might be.
I feel like that's a huge piece of thatbuyer's journey is removing that friction
(10:04):
or any obstacles that they might face.
And I think we get thatthrough some of our analytics.
Just looking at past campaignswhere did they get stuck?
And I think that's a really good pointthat I think a lot of SEOs might overlook.
And one of the things that wereally specialize in is CRO
conversion rate optimization.
And I'll just say the four mainpillars of conversion optimization
that we look at are value proposition.
(10:26):
When you're looking at a landingpage when someone lands on
a landing page of a website.
We're considering four main thingsand there's a lot more that goes into
it but to keep it simple, the valueproposition, value prop is like, what
is it that you offer and what kind ofsets you apart from your competitors
and what is your the value proposition?
I think that's probably where thepeople most likely we'll understand.
The next thing is user experienceoffers and calls to action.
(10:49):
Let's lay those all out userexperience having to do with what they
experience when they're on the website.
How quickly does it load?
What's the look and feel of it?
What is the content and some of thosethings that affect the user experience.
The calls to action, those aregonna be things like book now.
Chat with me.
The three big ones in lead generation aregonna be click to call, click to email,
(11:12):
and form submission for the most part.
And then you have thoseother ones I just mentioned.
And then in e-commerce the call toaction's gonna be like, add to cart
and then go through the cart process.
That's the kind of calls to action wherewe really want to focus on the goal of
your business and how do you addressthat with an action for them to perform.
And then the last part is offers reallyunderstanding and this comes down also
(11:33):
to competitive analysis and things likethat we can get into but the offers is
like, buy one, get one free book a free 30minute consultation, whatever the offer is
to kind of get them to reach out to you.
And looking at those four main things.
But I think the reason why I wantto also bring up that is because
it's interesting that Google looksso closely at engagement scores.
We used to measure engagement bylooking at things like time on site.
(11:56):
Bounce rates, pages per session,funnel metrics, things like that,
where we would look and see howengaged people are on your website.
And this is prior to Google Analyticsfour GA four, it's called kind of the
new version of Google that came out.
And it's been a little while nowbut they rolled that out slowly and
eventually now everybody's on GA four.
And GA four, one of the big advancementswas they have a new metric called
(12:17):
engagement rate, which is essentially
defined as like numberof events per session.
Number of things that clicked on, scrolldown, navigated to things like that.
And your engagement rateis really important.
As you rise to the first pageof Google, now you do this.
I'll get into how you can get tothe first page of Google but let's
just say once you get to the firstpage of Google, they don't just
(12:41):
immediately put you on the first page.
There's something that we call auditionfor position, they give you a chance on
Google to be seen for the phrase you'relooking for and then they're gonna look
at your engagement rate relevant to theother websites that are on the first 10
listings of Google or further down also.
But mainly they're looking at whatis the best website for this query
(13:04):
because it all has to do with the userexperience of the search engine and
they care a lot about that of course.
When you get to the first pageof Google, that engagement
score becomes super important.
Not only for your actual trafficcoming to your website, of
course you wanna engage that.
You wanna have high conversion ratesjust because you wanna squeeze the
most conversion outta every visit.
But Google cares a lot about it.
And we have some clients, we do allthis work with great content and
(13:26):
off page link building up authority,relevancy, and trust through all
of the SEO things that we do.
But they may have some resistancearound, putting up certain offers
or different things to have sometechnical issues or legacy software or
something that limits their ability tocreate a really good engagement score.
And if they do that, they'regonna slip in rankings.
(13:49):
It's like Google would actually prefera newer website that doesn't have as
much legacy as we say in the world.
If you have an age domain, lots ofbrand equity and brand history and all
these links pointing the website andall these kind of things we call like
that's essentially like your equity.
But if you get to the first page of Googlewith all that legacy but you don't have a
(14:10):
good user experience and good engagement.
Google doesn't care as much.
They'd rather take theshiny new kid on the block.
That provides a reallygreat user experience.
Answers the question is reallymobile friendly has great offers.
All these things that actuallykind of trumps the legacy now.
However, the best situation is tohave a lot of legacy, a lot of domain
(14:30):
equity, relevancy, authority andtrust that you've built up over time.
And have a great engagement and userexperience and CRO elements all in place.
That's the kind of ultimate situation iswe find a client who's got good legacy
with poor on page and poor CRO, we comein and optimize that and all of a sudden
you harness all the link power that you'vealready got and then you start getting
(14:51):
the rankings and then when the rankingsdrive traffic, then you tweak and optimize
the conversion that the CRO experience.
That is so true and similar experiencesfor me as well, but I think, it kind
of shines a light on there being somehope for the new kid, the new business
on the block who wants to rank andfeeling like if just I could get some
eyeballs on this and people couldfeel and test my experience here,
(15:13):
what that could do for my business.
And same for other businesses whohave invested heavily into SEO
but not the CRO side where it'sreally keeping users on the page.
Clear next steps to the buyer'sjourney without complicating them
because if you make it too complex andthey're engaging, but they're gonna
back up real quick, they're gonna belike, no thanks I'm not interested.
You make a great experience.
You can build this trust expertiseand authority through Google.
(15:35):
But it gives us hope for new businesseswho are just kind of starting
out and just wanna get out there.
Definitely.
And things evolving so quickly.
I think it's probably a good timeto talk about SEO has always been
search engine optimization, right?
That's the term that it's SEO related to.
But now, with all the evolution of AI,with the chat GPTs and what we call
(15:56):
answer engines and Gork and Claude andGemini, the ones that are these new
platforms that people are going to search.
We we're really calling itSearch Everything optimization or
search experience optimization.
Around the whole search world,essentially the way that people search.
There's another term that that'simportant too as well now called
answer engine optimization or AEO.
(16:18):
How do you get yourselffound within chat GPT?
It's a whole other algorithm whichhas actually happens to be similar
in a lot of ways to Google in termsof how they build their knowledge
base and all those kind of things.
A lot of what we've been doing for along time with effective link building
and content creation and what we callsocial promotion and distribution
through syndication and things likethat, where we're taking content and
(16:39):
building conversations and links pointingback to the domain as the kind of
call it the thought leader or thesubject matter expert in the space.
It is all about thought leadership andcreating content that can be discovered by
these other search platforms essentially.
And I'll get into howwe're tracking metrics.
I think that's another interestingthing for marketers knowing how
(16:59):
do you track metrics these days?
But just to kind of conclude that thought.
It's the other side of it too iswhat's called what we're calling zero
click marketing, as you said earlier.
What that means is one of the waysthat we've already told the story of
success with SEO is that link once allyour OnPage optimization is tight, you
have good landing pages and good OnPageoptimization and all that's all tight.
(17:20):
Once that's done, then we alwayssay that links lead to rankings.
Rankings to impressions, impressionsto traffic, and traffic to conversion.
Ultimately, the goal is aboutconversion, but you can't just do
SEO and show conversion right away.
It's a journey and we show that as webuild these links, you get to the first
page of Google and then as you startto get on the first page of Google,
(17:41):
you get what's called an impression.
They just saw you on Google.
And then as you get into the trafficdriving positions, the top three to
five is really where the majoritylike the 90 plus percent of clicks
happen, the top three to five.
If you're not there, you'renot getting clicked on, but you
gotta get impressions first.
But then the traffic goes to thewebsite and the website converts it.
Now because of zero click marketing,just explain what that means.
(18:03):
That means that people are going toGoogle and seeing the AI overview now,
and they're getting the answer to theirquestion without even going anywhere
besides the search results page.
It's a serp, we call thesearch engine results page.
They're getting theanswer right on the serp.
And that's a whole other piece ofreal estate that's really important.
How do you get placementwithin that box of Google.
(18:27):
And that actually ends up coming down to alot of really good off page optimization,
a lot of really good content creationand being a thought leader which ends
up working really well for chat GPTand Gork and all those other out there.
And what's been working well for creatinggood quality content, thought leadership
is now working in this new world of AI.
And I think a good pointto stop for a second.
(18:48):
No, it's great information and reallyinsightful because just the way
we try to reason why we do SEO andfollowing the stages of that journey
really highlight we're really justauditioning for position here and
they want to match the user intent.
And as trends change as peopleare asking chat GT and these other
LLMs for the information, wheredoes that leave us as marketers for
(19:10):
SEO and take it to another level.
But I just think it highlights theimportance of being found, getting found
online and making that information easilyaccessible for both people and for AI.
Exactly.
It's just a matter of gettingfound and being the thought leader.
It is been about that for a long time.
It's just the platforms are evolving now.
It's just AI is evolving how peopleare engaging with their searches but
(19:34):
it's all still super important stuff.
If you've been doing SEO theright way for a long time,
you're benefiting now from this.
And I think in terms of tracking, I don'tknow how nerdy we want to get into this
but Google doesn't even have a channel.
Within Google Analytics theyhave different channels where
you can look at your traffic.
It comes from direct traffic orsearch traffic or referral or email
(19:55):
or different places like sources thatpeople find you and come to your website.
They don't even have a channelfor answer engines yet.
We've actually created what'scalled a custom segment.
We have identified a set list of websitesthat are answer engines like Chat GPT.
And we've defined that as its own channel.
And what we find really interestingthat's been happening is I've said
(20:16):
that links lead to rankings toimpressions of traffic to conversion?
Well, we're actually seeing clientswho've been doing SEO for three plus
years and have really established yearon year metrics that have been growing
year on year each month, have morevisibility from a rankings perspective.
Meaning that they're being found inGoogle just as much or more than they
were last year, but they're actual organictraffic is down now because number one,
(20:39):
they're getting the answers right onGoogle, not even coming to the website.
Number two, they're going to otherplaces to get the information,
so the traffic might be down.
But what's really interesting that we'venoticed across the board, whether it's
e-commerce or lead generation, is thatthe quality metrics are much higher.
You're getting less white noise traffic.
You're getting less irrelevanttraffic coming to your website.
(20:59):
People have more refined searchesand they're getting exactly
what they're looking for.
What that ends up meaning is thatwe're seeing that people have better
conversion me quality metrics.
There'd be things like conversionrates, engagement rates, and also
average order values of your e-commerceor just quality of leads in general.
You're getting less irrelevantleads and spammy leads or whatever.
(21:20):
You're getting people who arelooking exactly for what you're
offering and you're gettingactually less clutter to deal with.
It's actually cleaner in a lot of ways.
It's actually better in that regard.
Just to have traffic never mattered.
It was always about getting trafficfor the purpose of conversion.
And if you're getting conversion withouttraffic, but you're still getting found
online and getting the conversions, you'regetting the quality audience that you're
(21:40):
looking for, it's actually a good thing.
It's a matter of just evolvingwith the way things are.
And it does feel like at the end ofthe day, this is a benefit for many
businesses and marketers out thereto not be having to nurture all these
unqualified, uninterested whitenoise leads that are just cluttering
up our CRMs and automation systemsthat we use to help nurture.
(22:00):
And I think it opens up moretime or quality time for you as a
business owner and your team to havethat one-on-one with the client.
And if they're already prewarmed up, pre-qualified, this
is like a win in our book.
I feel like that trend and change,it'll be interesting to see if
that continues and what shiftswe'll have in the future as well.
Definitely.
And the thing is even where youmention efficiency, it's something like
(22:20):
remarketing is a great example, right?
Just to define that really quick iswhen someone comes to your website,
you can remarket to them, meaning thatyou can set up campaigns that says
if someone came and saw this certainproduct, now follow them around the
web with this certain product or ifthey came to the homepage and did not
convert, it could be as general as that.
Then follow them around reminding ofthe brand, because they say it takes
(22:43):
seven impressions to remember something.
It's a good way of just reallybeing able to get right in front
of them and I guess leave it there.
I know we're running alittle bit short on time.
No, that was excellent.
And Justin, I wanted to askwhere can people connect
with you and find you online?
Webtek.co is probably theeasiest way to find us.
That's W-E-B-T-E-K.CO Andyou can find us on social.
(23:05):
We also have some social presence.
It's not our biggest thing butI would just say go directly
to our website, webtek.co
I was just gonna mention we'll havethose links available down in the show
notes and the description for everybody.
Now, we're about what quarter two of 2025.
Are you preparing for any excitingnew launches, any new product things?
Or are you kind of just doingthe same everything that's been
working great for you already?
(23:26):
We've got a ton going on.
Where do we start?
We're actually building some in-housetools, some proprietary software and
things that will be good for actually formarketing agencies as well as for clients.
We've always been a very much aboutique agency and very hands-on
approach with our clients.
And our big thing iswe do a lot with that.
Everything from smallbusinesses to enterprise.
(23:47):
We work with some really big brandsand been doing that a long time.
That's kind of where I camefrom a bigger brand experience.
But one of the problems that we've beenable that we didn't really wanna dabble
in the thousand dollar month or lesstype clientele because you don't want to.
Back in the day, that was just garbage.
You get what you pay for.
And now these days there areoptions that are AI driven.
We can automate a lot of the thingsthat we used to have to do hands on
(24:09):
and it actually does a good job at it.
It's basically our light package, whichis less management, but it allows you
to work with a professional agency,having the whole strategy component
and all those kind of things built in.
With a lot of the efficienciesand automation that happens there.
And there's just manythings that we're doing.
But I would say that the kinda oneof the biggest things that we're a
bit of a separation in our serviceofferings is that we have more AI driven
(24:32):
automation option versus our other tier.
And I would say the other tier is kind oflike, there's been a bit of a separation
in the SEO world where there's kind ofa reduction of the middle class, right?
You've either got the mom and popor whatever kind of cheaper range
that we can now cater to in a muchbetter way at a lower price point.
And it's so complicated now that theenterprise solutions are looking for
(24:55):
more from us and really understandinghow do we use AI to get better and how do
we account for this shift in the searchworld and what metrics do we track?
And all these really complicatedsituations where Scott and I be
between the two of us have over 40years of experience in the SEO world
and working with over 1500 clients.
That level of experience thatwe can bring to the table can
(25:17):
really help the more advanced.
Level of clients be able to navigatethe super complicated and quickly
evolving world that we're in now.
It's always been fast.
SEO's always been fast, but it's likewe're all reinvigorated by the excitement
of this new wild west that we're in.
It feels like we're going backto pre PanIN, penguin days where
you could get a website to rankin 30 days or less and it's just
like gun sling it all over again.
(25:38):
And we love that we're reinvigorated.
We're excited to be in theSEO world at this point.
That is so exciting.
2025 sounds really great for you.
A lot of new projects coming to the table.
Bring in tech.
You're pivoting and finding the rightmarket fit for some of the services
that you can now serve these clientsa little bit better with more of a
hands-off experience, which is excellent.
Justin, so excited for thefuture of Webtek and yourself.
(26:00):
Congratulations to everything you've done.
Thank you for coming on, sharingyour tips and wisdom with us.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Chris.
It's been a pleasure.
Same here.
Thank you.
Let me just start by saying there's,in Marketing Worlds, there's
really push versus pull marketing.
Push marketing is where you're pushinga message to an audience that you
hope is interested in why you offer.
You use audience targeting and allthese kind of things like social
media and even things like radio andbillboard and those things where you're
pushing a message to an audience.
What I love about poll marketing thoughis that you're attracting somebody who's
(00:24):
already voiced their own interest inwhat you offer, just being found when
they're looking for what you offer.
You are listening to Brainwork Framework,a Business and Marketing podcast,
brought to you by Focused-biz.com.
Welcome back to another episode.
With us today is the Co-founderof Webtek, Justin Crawmer.
Webtek is a full service digitalmarketing agency specializing in
SEO, PPC, CRO, content creation,web design, and much more.
(00:47):
So excited to have him on today, Justin.
How you doing?
Good Chris, how are you?
Of course.
It's our pleasure man.
We always like to ask our entrepreneurs,tell us about your journey.
What were you doing beforethat kind of led you into what
you're doing with Webtek today?
I guess in terms of the marketing world,I've an entrepreneur my whole life.
I started with a candy storewithin a window washing business.
And then rock chip repairbecame a thing for me.
I was working for an auto glassscompany doing rock chip repair
(01:10):
and windshield replacement sales.
Eventually started my ownand with that company.
I built my own websiteusing GoDaddy website.
It was called at the time and Ipublished it to the web and then
I went to Google that next day andtyped in Utah Auto Glass Company and
I was like, I'm a Utah Glass company.
Why am I not found?
And that started me down the rabbithole of figuring out SEO and how
to get my own website ranked.
(01:31):
And then it led me into affiliatemarketing where I was doing
actually lead generation in theauto insurance space where I started
doing lead generation for I had awebsite called Getautoinsurance.net.
And actually back in the day.
I started doing affiliatemarketing in the lead generation
space for auto insurance leads.
I set up a website, it was calledgetautoinsurance.net, and I got it ranking
(01:52):
number one and number two for the phrase.
Cheap car insurance and cheap autoinsurance, and I was above Geico and
Progressive in all the big brandsand I found myself making a bunch
of money in the affiliate marketingworld, which allowed me to leave my
position that I had in at a companycalled CHG Healthcare, where I was
working in the marketing agency.
It was a big companythat had seven brands.
(02:15):
And the way that I kind of got myselfinto that position as SEM manager at
CHG was by being able to show themthat I could rank these other websites.
And I kind of reallyestablished my career there.
When my affiliate marketing business tookoff I left the company and they offered to
keep me and I ultimately turnedthem into my first client and that's
(02:38):
where Webtek began was with my oldformer employer, was my first client.
That was a little bit of my journey.
There's a lot more there.
But I kind of started out asan entrepreneur found myself
in the corporate world and I
found myself working myself out ofthe corporate world through marketing.
And I was actually met my businesspartner Scott with Webtek.
I met him while I was at CHG.
(02:59):
And he's who I call the grand ofSEO, he's head and shoulders above
anybody else I had ever worked with.
That's how we met and thenwe formed an agency together.
And it's kind of been Iguess history ever since.
It's a part of the journey.
It always feels like we can neverreally hit all the points that we as
entrepreneurs go throughout our journeybut it all is an influence and a learning
experience to where we are today.
(03:20):
And I see a lot of entrepreneurswho will use their past experience
and go into a same industry.
If you were working in healthcare,someone goes into healthcare, if
you're in the rock chip industry,then you go into rock chip.
It's to see that evolution to createthis brand and everything you've done.
Congratulations to that.
But let's dive in more into just theexpertise of everything that you're doing
and how it can help other entrepreneurs.
(03:41):
SEO is search engine optimization.
I feel like this is where most peoplego to find solutions to their problems.
They're gonna research andif you show up, I feel like
you're gonna be a much more warm,pre-qualified lead as opposed to
maybe doing some cold outbound orsome other lead generation tactics.
Do you agree with SEO in that aspect?
And what are we seeing as far asthe trends and changes with AI
(04:04):
and the no click search results?
That's great.
Let me just start by sayingthere's in marketing world, there's
really push versus pull marketing.
Push marketing is where you're pushinga message to an audience that you hope
is interested in what you offer you use.
Audience targeting and all thesekind of things like social media and
even things like radio and billboardand those things where you're
pushing a message to an audience.
(04:25):
What I love about Pull Marketingthough is that you're attracting
somebody who's already voiced theirown interest in what you offer.
Just being found when they'relooking for what you offer.
It's really qualified traffic aspeople coming to your website on
their own research and one thingthat I love about organic is that
it's people really trust the organiclistings more than a paid listing.
(04:46):
And we do pay per click as well.
And there's a lot of benefits to that.
But we're talking SEO right now.
What I love about the organic approachis that it allows people to find you
in the first few listings of Google.
And that's where all the clicks happen.
We can get more into those metricsaround why it's so important to be in
the top three or top five positionsas opposed to just being on the
first page of Google due to clickthrough rates and things like that.
(05:07):
But what I really loveis that people come in.
They feel that Google has vettedevery website in the world and they
put you at the top for a reason.
And they come in pre-qualify.
There's an inherent trust built in.
And I have a lot of stories I cantell you about my own website, moloka
sound.com, which is my sound healingand breath work and music medicine
(05:27):
website that I've done my own SEO for.
And it's been really cool to see howthat has grown from no visibility to
people coming in from all over theplace asking for me to do private
sessions for them or big group eventsor wanting to know when my next event
is or anything like that because they'researching for sound practitioner near
(05:48):
me, one of those types of things.
And when they come in,they're already ready to go.
It's such an easy sale.
You don't have to be pushy.
You're just basically just here I am.
And it's a much better approach.
I'd much rather attract than Chase.
Yes, absolutely.
And I think just the examples you gave.
One, you've built lead gen websitesthat you can rank, you've done this
for companies we've worked with.
(06:09):
You've turned that company intoyour own client, and now you also
do it for the personal healingthe music and breath work as well.
It's just an example that yes, thesepractices can be applied to almost
any industry or business and stillget some pretty great results.
Are there businesses who should avoidSEO and should focus on other methods?
'Cause I know B2C SEO is huge.
(06:31):
B2B, it's a little more challenging.
Is there a path of least resistancefor industry or based on consumer
feedback that you've had?
I would tell you particularlysomething like event marketing
would be a great example.
Let's say a concert sale or an aretreat or a festival or any of
those types of things where it'san event that people have to be
aware of something to search for it.
(06:53):
They may search for concerts near metonight or concerts on a particular
date or something like that.
And of course good to be foundfor those types of things.
But if you're trying to push an eventthat is timely in nature and you have
to create awareness around it first.
People aren't gonna searchfor it without awareness.
That would be one of those types of thingswhere if you're trying to sell concert
(07:14):
tickets, I wouldn't go the SEO route.
If you're anything like that and I cangive you other examples but I think
that's a really good example of whereif you're an industry that people do not
inherently search for, then don't spendyour time on SEO because it is definitely
a long-term investment and you don'twanna spend at least 12 months or so.
Sometimes more depending on howcompetitive it is and where you're
(07:34):
starting and all those kind of things.
But you don't want to go down that routeif people aren't even searching for it.
But I will tell you, there's a lotof good tools out there and agencies
can help you like webtek, my agencyor others out there and you can even
find tools like this that we can talkabout that help you find what we call
keyword research that can help you find.
The demand around estimated searchvolumes for different phrases and you
(07:58):
can see if there's actually even amarket for what you're trying to sell
before you even go down that path.
And that's obviously a very importantpart of any SEO campaign is the beginning
audit and background research stage beforeyou even get started with any execution.
You don't want to be pushing contentout there that's not going to rank
or the volume is just too low thatit may not be worth your time.
(08:20):
And those are focused most onthe top of funnel strategies.
But what's great about that contentis when you build it right for your
audience that becomes a middle of funneltactic too, where now you're nurturing
that lead and prospect becoming intoa customer, which is really cool.
Definitely.
And that's something we could alsotalk about if you want to as well.
Chris is just talking about thecustomer journey in the medical space,
(08:40):
we call it the patient journey aboutwhere they start on a research phase.
Let's just use the patientjourney for example.
In the medical world people willstart by looking at a symptom first.
Maybe they have some sort of rash,they're looking at the symptoms for
their certain type of rash and thenit leads into the treatment of it.
Then they realize they've got somesort of dermatitis or whatever.
(09:01):
And then they go into dermatologistsnear me and then it's looking
at best dermatology in Salt Lakeor looking at comparing 'em.
There's the journey of startingwhere they've got the problem and
then down to middle of the funneland then end of the funnel where
they're like dermatologists near me.
Book an appointment rightnow, that's the ultimate.
(09:23):
Right.
But that educational piece, that awarenessand consideration piece that some of
us can kind of overlook that it's notuntil that consideration phase where
they're picking between three to fivepotential dermatologists in this instance
or maybe a roofer or whatever that
they're now deciding based on the brand asopposed to just being aware of a problem
(09:43):
and then aware that solutions exist andthen further move along in that journey.
I always like to promote removingfriction within the Buyer'ss journey, you
mentioned, the easy next step to book thecall or book this meeting, next steps.
I find the friction is often a pointwhere people aren't sure where to
go or what the next step might be.
I feel like that's a huge piece of thatbuyer's journey is removing that friction
(10:04):
or any obstacles that they might face.
And I think we get thatthrough some of our analytics.
Just looking at past campaignswhere did they get stuck?
And I think that's a really good pointthat I think a lot of SEOs might overlook.
And one of the things that wereally specialize in is CRO
conversion rate optimization.
And I'll just say the four mainpillars of conversion optimization
that we look at are value proposition.
(10:26):
When you're looking at a landingpage when someone lands on
a landing page of a website.
We're considering four main thingsand there's a lot more that goes into
it but to keep it simple, the valueproposition, value prop is like, what
is it that you offer and what kind ofsets you apart from your competitors
and what is your the value proposition?
I think that's probably where thepeople most likely we'll understand.
The next thing is user experienceoffers and calls to action.
(10:49):
Let's lay those all out userexperience having to do with what they
experience when they're on the website.
How quickly does it load?
What's the look and feel of it?
What is the content and some of thosethings that affect the user experience.
The calls to action, those aregonna be things like book now.
Chat with me.
The three big ones in lead generation aregonna be click to call, click to email,
(11:12):
and form submission for the most part.
And then you have thoseother ones I just mentioned.
And then in e-commerce the call toaction's gonna be like, add to cart
and then go through the cart process.
That's the kind of calls to action wherewe really want to focus on the goal of
your business and how do you addressthat with an action for them to perform.
And then the last part is offers reallyunderstanding and this comes down also
(11:33):
to competitive analysis and things likethat we can get into but the offers is
like, buy one, get one free book a free 30minute consultation, whatever the offer is
to kind of get them to reach out to you.
And looking at those four main things.
But I think the reason why I wantto also bring up that is because
it's interesting that Google looksso closely at engagement scores.
We used to measure engagement bylooking at things like time on site.
(11:56):
Bounce rates, pages per session,funnel metrics, things like that,
where we would look and see howengaged people are on your website.
And this is prior to Google Analyticsfour GA four, it's called kind of the
new version of Google that came out.
And it's been a little while nowbut they rolled that out slowly and
eventually now everybody's on GA four.
And GA four, one of the big advancementswas they have a new metric called
(12:17):
engagement rate, which is essentially
defined as like numberof events per session.
Number of things that clicked on, scrolldown, navigated to things like that.
And your engagement rateis really important.
As you rise to the first pageof Google, now you do this.
I'll get into how you can get tothe first page of Google but let's
just say once you get to the firstpage of Google, they don't just
(12:41):
immediately put you on the first page.
There's something that we call auditionfor position, they give you a chance on
Google to be seen for the phrase you'relooking for and then they're gonna look
at your engagement rate relevant to theother websites that are on the first 10
listings of Google or further down also.
But mainly they're looking at whatis the best website for this query
(13:04):
because it all has to do with the userexperience of the search engine and
they care a lot about that of course.
When you get to the first pageof Google, that engagement
score becomes super important.
Not only for your actual trafficcoming to your website, of
course you wanna engage that.
You wanna have high conversion ratesjust because you wanna squeeze the
most conversion outta every visit.
But Google cares a lot about it.
And we have some clients, we do allthis work with great content and
(13:26):
off page link building up authority,relevancy, and trust through all
of the SEO things that we do.
But they may have some resistancearound, putting up certain offers
or different things to have sometechnical issues or legacy software or
something that limits their ability tocreate a really good engagement score.
And if they do that, they'regonna slip in rankings.
(13:49):
It's like Google would actually prefera newer website that doesn't have as
much legacy as we say in the world.
If you have an age domain, lots ofbrand equity and brand history and all
these links pointing the website andall these kind of things we call like
that's essentially like your equity.
But if you get to the first page of Googlewith all that legacy but you don't have a
(14:10):
good user experience and good engagement.
Google doesn't care as much.
They'd rather take theshiny new kid on the block.
That provides a reallygreat user experience.
Answers the question is reallymobile friendly has great offers.
All these things that actuallykind of trumps the legacy now.
However, the best situation is tohave a lot of legacy, a lot of domain
(14:30):
equity, relevancy, authority andtrust that you've built up over time.
And have a great engagement and userexperience and CRO elements all in place.
That's the kind of ultimate situation iswe find a client who's got good legacy
with poor on page and poor CRO, we comein and optimize that and all of a sudden
you harness all the link power that you'vealready got and then you start getting
(14:51):
the rankings and then when the rankingsdrive traffic, then you tweak and optimize
the conversion that the CRO experience.
That is so true and similar experiencesfor me as well, but I think, it kind
of shines a light on there being somehope for the new kid, the new business
on the block who wants to rank andfeeling like if just I could get some
eyeballs on this and people couldfeel and test my experience here,
(15:13):
what that could do for my business.
And same for other businesses whohave invested heavily into SEO
but not the CRO side where it'sreally keeping users on the page.
Clear next steps to the buyer'sjourney without complicating them
because if you make it too complex andthey're engaging, but they're gonna
back up real quick, they're gonna belike, no thanks I'm not interested.
You make a great experience.
You can build this trust expertiseand authority through Google.
(15:35):
But it gives us hope for new businesseswho are just kind of starting
out and just wanna get out there.
Definitely.
And things evolving so quickly.
I think it's probably a good timeto talk about SEO has always been
search engine optimization, right?
That's the term that it's SEO related to.
But now, with all the evolution of AI,with the chat GPTs and what we call
(15:56):
answer engines and Gork and Claude andGemini, the ones that are these new
platforms that people are going to search.
We we're really calling itSearch Everything optimization or
search experience optimization.
Around the whole search world,essentially the way that people search.
There's another term that that'simportant too as well now called
answer engine optimization or AEO.
(16:18):
How do you get yourselffound within chat GPT?
It's a whole other algorithm whichhas actually happens to be similar
in a lot of ways to Google in termsof how they build their knowledge
base and all those kind of things.
A lot of what we've been doing for along time with effective link building
and content creation and what we callsocial promotion and distribution
through syndication and things likethat, where we're taking content and
(16:39):
building conversations and links pointingback to the domain as the kind of
call it the thought leader or thesubject matter expert in the space.
It is all about thought leadership andcreating content that can be discovered by
these other search platforms essentially.
And I'll get into howwe're tracking metrics.
I think that's another interestingthing for marketers knowing how
(16:59):
do you track metrics these days?
But just to kind of conclude that thought.
It's the other side of it too iswhat's called what we're calling zero
click marketing, as you said earlier.
What that means is one of the waysthat we've already told the story of
success with SEO is that link once allyour OnPage optimization is tight, you
have good landing pages and good OnPageoptimization and all that's all tight.
(17:20):
Once that's done, then we alwayssay that links lead to rankings.
Rankings to impressions, impressionsto traffic, and traffic to conversion.
Ultimately, the goal is aboutconversion, but you can't just do
SEO and show conversion right away.
It's a journey and we show that as webuild these links, you get to the first
page of Google and then as you startto get on the first page of Google,
(17:41):
you get what's called an impression.
They just saw you on Google.
And then as you get into the trafficdriving positions, the top three to
five is really where the majoritylike the 90 plus percent of clicks
happen, the top three to five.
If you're not there, you'renot getting clicked on, but you
gotta get impressions first.
But then the traffic goes to thewebsite and the website converts it.
Now because of zero click marketing,just explain what that means.
(18:03):
That means that people are going toGoogle and seeing the AI overview now,
and they're getting the answer to theirquestion without even going anywhere
besides the search results page.
It's a serp, we call thesearch engine results page.
They're getting theanswer right on the serp.
And that's a whole other piece ofreal estate that's really important.
How do you get placementwithin that box of Google.
(18:27):
And that actually ends up coming down to alot of really good off page optimization,
a lot of really good content creationand being a thought leader which ends
up working really well for chat GPTand Gork and all those other out there.
And what's been working well for creatinggood quality content, thought leadership
is now working in this new world of AI.
And I think a good pointto stop for a second.
(18:48):
No, it's great information and reallyinsightful because just the way
we try to reason why we do SEO andfollowing the stages of that journey
really highlight we're really justauditioning for position here and
they want to match the user intent.
And as trends change as peopleare asking chat GT and these other
LLMs for the information, wheredoes that leave us as marketers for
(19:10):
SEO and take it to another level.
But I just think it highlights theimportance of being found, getting found
online and making that information easilyaccessible for both people and for AI.
Exactly.
It's just a matter of gettingfound and being the thought leader.
It is been about that for a long time.
It's just the platforms are evolving now.
It's just AI is evolving how peopleare engaging with their searches but
(19:34):
it's all still super important stuff.
If you've been doing SEO theright way for a long time,
you're benefiting now from this.
And I think in terms of tracking, I don'tknow how nerdy we want to get into this
but Google doesn't even have a channel.
Within Google Analytics theyhave different channels where
you can look at your traffic.
It comes from direct traffic orsearch traffic or referral or email
(19:55):
or different places like sources thatpeople find you and come to your website.
They don't even have a channelfor answer engines yet.
We've actually created what'scalled a custom segment.
We have identified a set list of websitesthat are answer engines like Chat GPT.
And we've defined that as its own channel.
And what we find really interestingthat's been happening is I've said
(20:16):
that links lead to rankings toimpressions of traffic to conversion?
Well, we're actually seeing clientswho've been doing SEO for three plus
years and have really established yearon year metrics that have been growing
year on year each month, have morevisibility from a rankings perspective.
Meaning that they're being found inGoogle just as much or more than they
were last year, but they're actual organictraffic is down now because number one,
(20:39):
they're getting the answers right onGoogle, not even coming to the website.
Number two, they're going to otherplaces to get the information,
so the traffic might be down.
But what's really interesting that we'venoticed across the board, whether it's
e-commerce or lead generation, is thatthe quality metrics are much higher.
You're getting less white noise traffic.
You're getting less irrelevanttraffic coming to your website.
(20:59):
People have more refined searchesand they're getting exactly
what they're looking for.
What that ends up meaning is thatwe're seeing that people have better
conversion me quality metrics.
There'd be things like conversionrates, engagement rates, and also
average order values of your e-commerceor just quality of leads in general.
You're getting less irrelevantleads and spammy leads or whatever.
(21:20):
You're getting people who arelooking exactly for what you're
offering and you're gettingactually less clutter to deal with.
It's actually cleaner in a lot of ways.
It's actually better in that regard.
Just to have traffic never mattered.
It was always about getting trafficfor the purpose of conversion.
And if you're getting conversion withouttraffic, but you're still getting found
online and getting the conversions, you'regetting the quality audience that you're
(21:40):
looking for, it's actually a good thing.
It's a matter of just evolvingwith the way things are.
And it does feel like at the end ofthe day, this is a benefit for many
businesses and marketers out thereto not be having to nurture all these
unqualified, uninterested whitenoise leads that are just cluttering
up our CRMs and automation systemsthat we use to help nurture.
(22:00):
And I think it opens up moretime or quality time for you as a
business owner and your team to havethat one-on-one with the client.
And if they're already prewarmed up, pre-qualified, this
is like a win in our book.
I feel like that trend and change,it'll be interesting to see if
that continues and what shiftswe'll have in the future as well.
Definitely.
And the thing is even where youmention efficiency, it's something like
(22:20):
remarketing is a great example, right?
Just to define that really quick iswhen someone comes to your website,
you can remarket to them, meaning thatyou can set up campaigns that says
if someone came and saw this certainproduct, now follow them around the
web with this certain product or ifthey came to the homepage and did not
convert, it could be as general as that.
Then follow them around reminding ofthe brand, because they say it takes
(22:43):
seven impressions to remember something.
It's a good way of just reallybeing able to get right in front
of them and I guess leave it there.
I know we're running alittle bit short on time.
No, that was excellent.
And Justin, I wanted to askwhere can people connect
with you and find you online?
Webtek.co is probably theeasiest way to find us.
That's W-E-B-T-E-K.CO Andyou can find us on social.
(23:05):
We also have some social presence.
It's not our biggest thing butI would just say go directly
to our website, webtek.co
I was just gonna mention we'll havethose links available down in the show
notes and the description for everybody.
Now, we're about what quarter two of 2025.
Are you preparing for any excitingnew launches, any new product things?
Or are you kind of just doingthe same everything that's been
working great for you already?
(23:26):
We've got a ton going on.
Where do we start?
We're actually building some in-housetools, some proprietary software and
things that will be good for actually formarketing agencies as well as for clients.
We've always been a very much aboutique agency and very hands-on
approach with our clients.
And our big thing iswe do a lot with that.
Everything from smallbusinesses to enterprise.
(23:47):
We work with some really big brandsand been doing that a long time.
That's kind of where I camefrom a bigger brand experience.
But one of the problems that we've beenable that we didn't really wanna dabble
in the thousand dollar month or lesstype clientele because you don't want to.
Back in the day, that was just garbage.
You get what you pay for.
And now these days there areoptions that are AI driven.
We can automate a lot of the thingsthat we used to have to do hands on
(24:09):
and it actually does a good job at it.
It's basically our light package, whichis less management, but it allows you
to work with a professional agency,having the whole strategy component
and all those kind of things built in.
With a lot of the efficienciesand automation that happens there.
And there's just manythings that we're doing.
But I would say that the kinda oneof the biggest things that we're a
bit of a separation in our serviceofferings is that we have more AI driven
(24:32):
automation option versus our other tier.
And I would say the other tier is kind oflike, there's been a bit of a separation
in the SEO world where there's kind ofa reduction of the middle class, right?
You've either got the mom and popor whatever kind of cheaper range
that we can now cater to in a muchbetter way at a lower price point.
And it's so complicated now that theenterprise solutions are looking for
(24:55):
more from us and really understandinghow do we use AI to get better and how do
we account for this shift in the searchworld and what metrics do we track?
And all these really complicatedsituations where Scott and I be
between the two of us have over 40years of experience in the SEO world
and working with over 1500 clients.
That level of experience thatwe can bring to the table can
(25:17):
really help the more advanced.
Level of clients be able to navigatethe super complicated and quickly
evolving world that we're in now.
It's always been fast.
SEO's always been fast, but it's likewe're all reinvigorated by the excitement
of this new wild west that we're in.
It feels like we're going backto pre PanIN, penguin days where
you could get a website to rankin 30 days or less and it's just
like gun sling it all over again.
(25:38):
And we love that we're reinvigorated.
We're excited to be in theSEO world at this point.
That is so exciting.
2025 sounds really great for you.
A lot of new projects coming to the table.
Bring in tech.
You're pivoting and finding the rightmarket fit for some of the services
that you can now serve these clientsa little bit better with more of a
hands-off experience, which is excellent.
Justin, so excited for thefuture of Webtek and yourself.
(26:00):
Congratulations to everything you've done.
Thank you for coming on, sharingyour tips and wisdom with us.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Chris.
It's been a pleasure.
Same here.
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.