July 3, 2025 • 67 mins
🎙️ Just wrapped up an awesome chat on the Vudu Power podcast with Plates and Pancakes! 🍽️🥞
I had a blast diving deep into how I help small and medium-sized businesses (and even sports teams!) drive more traffic to their websites and OWN their online presence. I shared why your website is your most valuable digital asset (yep, you own it — unlike social media, where you’re basically renting space).
We talked about everything from creating athlete pages for better recruiting, optimizing images and videos with alt text, to how keywords and backlinks can totally change the game. I even geeked out a bit about skateboarding culture and my favorite skaters — shoutout to Jeff Rowley and Nyjah Huston! 🛹🔥
Whether you’re an athlete trying to build your personal brand, a coach looking to recruit top talent, or a business owner ready to dominate Google, I dropped some serious gems on how to get found online and stay there.
We also talked about how important it is to have your own website as your digital home base, plus how to use social media to drive visitors back to it.
Had so much fun connecting and sharing my journey from skateboarding streets to helping businesses grow online. 🤙
Check it out if you want to learn about SEO, personal branding, and turning your passions into powerful online visibility.
#SEO #DigitalMarketing #Skateboarding #BrandBuilding #WebsiteOptimization #Backlinks #SocialMediaMarketing #AthleteBranding
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the VuduPower podcast.
Welcome to Plates and Pancakes.
We're sitting down todaywith Brandon Leibowitz.
Brandon is the ownerof SEO Optimizers.
They are a digital marketingbusiness that helps small to
medium sized businessescapitalize traffic to their
website. So welcome to the show,Brandon.
Thank you for havingme on today.
(00:22):
Now,I've listened to quite a few
of your podcasts. I spent,you know, the last couple weeks
researching, trying to get readyfor the show.
What you do on the surfacedoesn't look like it.
It kind of fits the show that Inormally do with coaches and
athletes and things like that.
But in today's day and age,with recruiting organizations,
you're, or as an organization,you're trying to bring
(00:43):
athletes in,but you're also trying to
promote your athletes.
Actually with the websiteand how you optimize,
it's kind ofset up to be somewhere that
maybe coaches should paymore attention to.
Driving people to your website'skey, would you say?
Yep. You own that website,so you get full control.
(01:04):
Whereas social,you're just kind of renting
space off these websites wherethey could take you down
anytime. But more importantly,like, you don't have much reach
anymore. Where if you have,let's say on Facebook,
100 people that like you,only five of those 100 people
will ever see what you postwithout having to advertise and
click that blue little buttonsays boost this post up.
So kind of pay to play platform.
(01:25):
But your website,that's where you get
full control.
You own that foreverand that's yours.
So you want to always sendtraffic to your website.
Everything should be used as away to get traffic
to your website,social way to get traffic
to your website,Email marketing way to get
people to your website.
If you do TV or radio orwhatever you're doing,
ultimately you want to send themto your website because that's
where you have full controlover everything.
(01:46):
Okay, so in today's day and age,competitive sports are huge.
I mean that's,that's where a lot of your kids
are getting recruited from moreso than high schools,
which back in the you know,back before competitive sports,
everything went through highschools. Now it's changed.
So as a competitiveorganization,
you're looking to bring kids in.
(02:06):
Obviously you need talent tobuild your organization,
but then you also wantto promote your kids.
So as an organization,I start a website, let's say.
What are the key components?
First,just that a website should have,
I guess,going forward to really help
people once they're in there,kind of find what they need.
(02:27):
I mean, there's a lot thatyou want to do.
But if you're doing athletes,I would make a directory of
every athlete that's been there,past or present.
Because then if someone'ssearching for that
person's name,your website's going to show up.
And that's where, I mean,I love skateboarding.
So follow skateboarding.
And I've looked at,when I search for skateboarding
(02:47):
company or skateboarder names,a couple websites that list them
all out because they werein competition.
So there's this website wherethey have all these competitions
and anytime there's someone thatenters the competition,
they always put theirname in there.
They create a page about them.
They put all their sponsors,what stands they are,
how old they are,their hometown.
So it has some basic informationbecause Google wants content.
(03:08):
You can't just throwa picture up there.
You have to have some stuffthere, some original text.
And they rank for almost everyskateboarder's name when
you search on for them.
So creating a page for everyathlete or anyone that students,
coaches,anyone that's on the team,
create a page for them.
And that's really going to helpout. But Google relies off text.
They can't really readimages or videos.
(03:29):
So if you just have a bunch ofimages and videos on those pages
doesn't really help out.
That's why they listed like sometext, like their sponsors,
their age, their hometown,things like that.
Maybe you get a couple sentencesof something unique about each
person and that's going toreally help them rank on Google.
So when you search forthat person's name,
your website will showup each page.
The more pages you haveon your website,
(03:51):
the more keywords youcould target.
Because each page can onlytarget about maybe like
three to five words.
After that kind of losesrelevancy. So the more pages,
the more keywords youcould target,
the more opportunities you haveto rank on Google and the more
visibility and exposureyou're going to get,
Especially just creating thosepages alone for athletes,
especially if some of them,like, become really famous
and popular. Like,that page is still going to be
(04:11):
there. It's going to be old.
And Google looks at history,how old these pages are.
The older pages get more trust.
So that would potentiallyget you ranked higher.
Okay, so now like you said,with images and pictures,
you don't get a whole lotof text. Should you,
if you're maintaining a website,use alt text?
Would that help withkeywords and maybe
(04:31):
drive some people in or rateyou higher with Google.
Yep. So for images, videos,audio, podcasting,
any of that stuff,you need to make sure your file
name has descriptive wordsbefore you upload it.
So if you're uploading an imageto podcast or Spotify or
wherever, I mean a podcast,you're uploading it.
Don't just name it like podcast,MP4, whatever,
(04:54):
name it something that describeswhat that podcast is or images
or videos, all that very,very important.
Make sure the file name hasthose descriptive words.
When you upload imagesonto your website,
then you could add what'scalled an alt tag. So,
so alt tag also helps the searchengines know what this image is
supposed to be because they wantto make sure the Internet's
(05:15):
accessible for everyone.
So there's an alt tag where ifyou're visually impaired or you
have an old website or an oldercomputer that doesn't
show images,instead of the image appearing,
that alt tag is going to appear.
So if you're visually impairedand you can't see,
there's a screen readersthat read out the text,
but when they get to images,they're just like,
what do we do?
They're going to readout that alt text.
So Google wants you to have alttext that describes what
(05:36):
that image is about.
That's going to help out to makesure that your images sometimes
show up in Google search resultsor Google image searches is by
optimizing the filename alt tag,
the text around that image needsto be related to what that
image is about as well.
So not just havingan image there,
but having some text before thatimage and after that image with
those keywords that you'retrying to target really
(05:59):
helps out.
Maybe resizing the image too tolike, if it's 521 by 531 pixels,
maybe you make it 500 by 500.
Because people search byimage size as well too.
So just trying to make it easierand more streamlined.
And if you want to takeit one step further,
you can right click on an imagebefore you upload it to your,
to the website.
(06:19):
And then you can get clickon properties.
And in properties youcould add the date,
the photographer's name,what type of camera it was.
You can add a ton ofdetails in there.
So it's all this metadata thatyou can add to the image.
And that's just going to reallytake it one step further.
Where most people don't do anyof that stuff and they might
name their image filewith some words,
but alt tag and the metadatareally help differentiate
(06:42):
yourself.
And take you one step aboveyour competitors.
Okay, that's. I mean,there's a ton of information
right there that you justkind of went through.
So as we're talking about this,obviously your company is called
SEO Optimizer Search EngineOptimization,
and we discuss keywords.
How important are the keywordsin getting your website ranked
higher in Google?
(07:02):
No,they're very important because
you want to make sure you rankfor the right keywords.
You don't want just someonefinding you for random keywords
or keywords that don't havemuch search volume.
So there's tools that will letyou see how many people actually
search for that keywordevery single month.
And it's free. It's from Google.
It's called the GoogleKeyword Planner.
So what you do is take a list ofkeywords that you think
(07:23):
you want to rank for,throw it into the Google
Keyword Planner,and then it'll show you how many
people actually searchfor that keyword.
So let's say I'm doing likeskateboarding classes.
I could say all right.
Do I want To rank for the wordskateboarding class?
Skateboarding or skateboardingclasses.
Which one gets more searches.
And I could see using that toolthat maybe skateboarding class
gets 100 people searchinga month,
(07:44):
whereas skateboarding classis the plural version,
might get 5,000 peoplesearching.
Where adding an S or making asynonym or plural has a big
impact on search volume.
And you don't want to justguess at what keywords.
You want to actuallydo some research.
And you can look at yourcompetitors keywords too.
And the easiest way to do thatis just searching Google for
your keywords and skipover the ads.
(08:06):
But look at the organiclistings.
Whoever's ranked on thatfirst page of Google,
Google's rewarding them.
They've done something right.
And you can look at thatblue clickable link,
that's called the SEO title tag.
That's where everyone's puttingtheir keywords.
So you could quickly look at allof your competitors and see what
keywords you're using in there.
Are they using some likeindustry jargon or slang terms
that you've never heard of?
Maybe you want to maybeuse that word.
(08:27):
If you see everyone's using it,that might be something that
you want to incorporate.
So look at your competitors,get some ideas,
and then throw them into theGoogle Keyword Planner to make
sure people actually search forit and then try to incorporate
those keywords intoyour website.
That makes sense there that youneed to be researching what
I guess the People you'recompeting against are doing,
and if they're doingbetter than you,
(08:47):
then you have to figure out away to become more competitive
on Google or whateverthe case may be.
Sohow could you utilize keywords
in your URL?
And is that going tomake a difference?
I mean in the past Googlerewarded what are called
exact match domains.
So if you bought the websiteskateboarding classes.com
(09:09):
and someone searched forskateboarding classes would
always rank at thetop of Google.
But now it's not the URL orthe keywords in the URL,
but having a page inside yourwebsite about that topic,
it's just like the images,like you want to name them each
page with something descriptive.
So if you have a page aboutskateboarding tutorials,
it should probably beskateboarding tutorials or your
(09:31):
website.comforward/skateboardingtutorials.
It shouldn't just be like yourwebsite.comforward/forward 4, 5,
6, 7.
Like putting some numbersor random letters,
you want to make it somewhatdescriptive and most platforms
will do that for youautomatically.
So you don't have to worryabout that too much.
But should be aware that eachpage should have a URL that kind
of describes what that page isabout. It's all about relevancy.
(09:53):
Google looks at the URL,they look at all the technical
coding stuff,they look at the content on that
page to make sure it's allrelated and that it all makes
sense when someone searchfor that keyword,
that your page should hopefullybe relevant and then Google
will want to display it.
So now that you're starting tokind of narrow that down,
you got your URL figured out,you've got pages,
(10:13):
you got a directory ofall your players.
You could do more becausecontent's king when it comes
to your website.
So you're looking at any articleyou could write.
So blogging recaps of gamesrecaps of tournaments,
anything like that is goingto help drive up your traffic.
And those are easy blog postsbecause a lot of people get
(10:35):
stuck about what to blog about.
And you blog about thedifferent games, events,
maybe you got a new player oryou won a championship.
All that stuff is easy.
Content where usually businessowners like what do
I blog about?
How do I blog all the time?
That's the easy way to you foryou to have content and then you
could use that for social mediacontent as well to cross promote
it and definitely yeah tap intothat stuff and write blog posts
(10:59):
about different eventslike that,
different players matchupsdifferent schools or whatever it
is, but leagues that you're in.
And that's going to really helpout for when people search for
that stuff that you show up.
Yeah.
So a lot of this stuffis very new to me.
I think it's very important withwhere recruiting's going,
both to get out tocollege coaches,
but also to bring playersinto your organization.
(11:19):
So working through all this,I mean, it's not as easy as
one might think.
It takes a lot of work to keepyour website up and know how
the keywords are changing.
So let's say you havea skateboard team.
You're trying to promoteyour skateboard team.
You know, you needreally good skaters.
(11:39):
How are you going to build awebsite to kind of get out there
and maybe draw some attentionand try to get guys into
your organization?
Yeah. So for sports,I feel like social might be a
little bit easier because peoplewant to see that stuff where
it's like, it goes viral.
People want to see skateboardingor basketball or football
or wrestling.
They can watch that over andover again all day
(12:00):
long on social,where you can post 20 times a
day on Facebook or Instagram andTwitter or TikTok and no one's
probably going to be mad.
Whereas if I post for mySEO company every day,
everybody like,this is too much information
about SEO.
So it's all about just knowingyour audience.
I feel like social is a greatplace to build that up because
most these players wantthat traction.
But for your website to get yourtraction as well is having,
(12:23):
well, having all that text,having all that content,
but also having what arecalled backlinks.
It's getting other websitesto talk about you.
The more websites thattalk about you,
the more trust Google is goingto give to you and the higher
they're going to rank you.
So if you're an organization andlet's say you're in like,
City of LA or whatever,you can try to reach out to the
City of LA website and get themto link out to you or
(12:45):
talk about you,or you can reach out to like
different parks or schoolsthat you have events,
or if you're in a league,you reach out to that league and
see if they would potentiallylink out to you.
So a backlink is a clickablelink from another website
that points to yours.
So let's say you're reading anarticle on the newyorktimes.com
and in there it saysBrandon Liebolitz.
And you click on it andit goes to my website.
I'd be getting a backlink fromthe newyorktimes.com so the more
(13:08):
websites that talk about you,the more trust Google is
going to give to you.
And if you could getorganizations or players or
if you're in tournaments,you could sponsor events and
sponsor different things.
And usually they'll list you onthat website and you
get that backlink.
And the backlinks are reallywhat ranks websites.
The more backlinks you have fromsites that are related
to what you're doing,the more trust Google is going
(13:30):
to give to you and the higherthey're going to rank you.
Without backlinks,you can make a perfectly
optimized Website,Google doesn't care.
They just don't trust you.
They don't believe you are whoyou say you are. But backlinks,
if you get schools,organizations,
anything like that to link toyou is going to really help move
you up the rankingsreally quickly.
Okay, that I had somethingin there on that.
Now you covered twodifferent points,
(13:50):
so I want to kind of takethem one at a time.
You kind of hit onsocial media and,
and we can push that to the sidefor a minute. Backlinks.
So if you have an organizationand you have athletes,
you really want them to getout there and do podcasts,
to do interviews,to do different things that
would help you create backlinksto come back to the website that
(14:11):
will eventually help them out,but you're driving people
back to your website.
Does that sound pretty accurate?
Yep.
So if someone's doingan interview, ultimately.
Well,if they're doing an interview,
they're probably going topromote their social,
their Facebook, Instagram,YouTube, all that stuff.
But that's just helping allthose social media sites
rank higher on Google.
You want to tell them to linkout to your website if possible.
(14:32):
Or if the athlete hastheir own website,
they should get a linkto their website.
That way they could startbuilding their brand.
And essentially, if you can,you should have all
these athletes,if they're trying to really
make it, build a website.
Because that website islike a portfolio.
It's like a resume for them.
Just like social mediais a resume for them,
that website is also anotherresume, and they own that.
And the more places you're on,the more visibility,
(14:54):
the more exposure,the more people are wanting
to recruit you.
Because if they have someonethat's really good,
but they only have a couplehundred people following
them on social media,and there's someone that's
equally good and they havehundreds of thousands
of followers,they're going to want the bigger
person because they're gettingmore eyeballs to their games and
more visibility and exposure tothe overall organization.
Unfortunately,that's kind of how it works.
(15:15):
All right,so you hit on something there
that I was going toask a little bit maybe later on,
but now that we're there,should an individual athlete be
looking at the investmentof building a website?
It sounds like youwould say yes.
Nowadays it's not that toughto build a website.
It's pretty not easy,but a lot easier with like
WordPress or Wix or Shopifyand Squarespace.
(15:37):
All these platforms makeit pretty easy.
And it's not a bigBarrier to entry.
Where in the past youneed to know coding.
If you just get a basic websiteup with a couple pictures,
videos, and most kids nowadaysare able to do that,
that's gonna really be great.
Buy your domain name,your name.com,
and just build that brand out.
If you can't,if you can't buy your name,
buy like a variation or thedot net or the dot org.
(15:58):
It doesn't really matter becauseif you have a really
common name,you might not be able
to get the dot com,but try to get some variation of
your name and use thatto build your brand.
Because ultimately you are whoyour marketing is, yourself,
and you get full control on thatwebsite to put whatever you want
up there and make it look asgood as you want and use
that as a like resume,portfolio kind of thing.
That was a question I had.
(16:18):
You want to get out there andyou want to claim your business
name. Now if you're an athlete,your,
your name is your business name.
And then I know social mediais huge. As far as YouTube,
where does YouTube fall? I mean,it comes up on Google,
but it's not necessarilya website.
So if a kid's runninga YouTube page,
(16:39):
how does that affect Google?
No,Google owns YouTube and they're
going to show YouTube majorityof the time when you
search in Google.
So when you search in Google,sometimes ad,
I mean sometimes videos appearand those videos,
when they appear,90% of the time it's going to be
YouTube because Google doesn'twant to promote Facebook videos
or any other platforms.
Occasionally they will,but they'd rather show YouTube
(17:01):
because they only careabout making money.
When you search on Google,if you don't click on any ads,
they're not making any money.
But you search on Google and youclick on a YouTube video,
the first thing that appears.
Anytime you watcha YouTube video,
there's always an advertisement.
So YouTube is making money,which is really Google
making money.
And they're going to really pushYouTube as much as they can.
And YouTube is the second mostpopular website on the Internet.
So building a presence up soonerthan later is going to be good
(17:24):
because social media is good.
But YouTube is owned by Googleand Google's going to promote
YouTube as much as they can.
Whereas other social media,they kind of come and go.
I don't feel like YouTube'sgonna go anywhere anytime soon.
Whereas Instagram is kind ofon the decline. I mean,
it's still growing,but Facebook is on the decline.
Instagram's kind ofbouncing around.
TikTok is really growing,but they're all trends,
(17:46):
and eventually they're going togrow and then start declining.
Whereas YouTube,Google's gonna push and push and
push YouTube as much as theycan. Because anytime, huh,
you watch a YouTube video,there's always an advertisement,
and that's what they want.
Let's say you have yourskater organization,
you've got some skaters thatare looking at going pro.
You're trying to help them,because the more kids
you get pro,the more kids you bring
in your organization.
(18:07):
So you've talked them intobuilding a website.
Now you would talk them into aYouTube page and then link the
website and the YouTube,and then from the YouTube,
they could put all the tricksthat they're doing.
If they go out in public andthey're starting to, you know,
run rails or whateverit is they're doing,
you want to get that on YouTubeand then link back
to your website.
(18:27):
Is that kind of how you would,you know,
and then that would promoteyour website also.
Is that kind of how you startbuilding a little bit of a brand
and get your guys out there?
Yep.
And I would say poston every platform,
so get your name on Facebook,on Twitter, on Pinterest,
on Tick Tock, on all them.
Because there's tools likeZapier, Zap Ier,
(18:50):
where it'll automate it. Also,you pick a platform like
Instagram, say, all right,I want to post on Instagram.
That's where my main audienceis. Anytime I post on Instagram,
share that video on YouTube,on Facebook, on Twitter,
on LinkedIn, on my website.
So it kind of automatesit for you. That way,
it post it one time.
You don't have to post on 8different websites and keep it
(19:11):
all active. And by doing that,I've had platforms grow to tens
of thousands of followers.
I was like,I don't really think my audience
is on this platform.
But just having an auto postgrew that platform where
I love skateboarding.
So I have a page on Instagramand grew it to a couple hundred
thousand followers.
But I posted my skateboardvideos on Twitter,
which I think Twitter wouldreally be my audience.
(19:31):
It's grown to 50,000 followersjust by me having Zapier
automatically post fromInstagram to Twitter.
I'm not manually postingon Twitter. Twitter,
it just automatically does it.
And it's grown to 50 thousandfollowers organically.
And you never know where youraudience is going to be.
And automated as much asyou can with social,
because social does takea lot of time.
Now, social,we'll get into that Now,
(19:54):
I kind of pushed that asidea little bit ago.
That's not going to createyour backlinks.
That's not going to moveyou up on Google.
But what that does is it buildsyour platform and then
from that point,is the goal to drive it
back to your website?
Yeah, for the most part.
Or just grow those numbers andyou could get sponsorships and
brand deals and partnershipsand things like that,
or get some ad revenue,but ultimately you want to
(20:15):
diversify and have everythinggo back to your website.
Because five years from now,is Instagram going to be
Instagram? Probably not.
TikTok might still be around.
There's probably some newone that's emerging.
But your website,you build up that audience
there, and ultimately,hopefully you get like an email
address or something to stayin touch with them.
And that's where you have thatfull control to reach out
to them all the time.
(20:35):
So let's go a little bit offtopic and get on maybe something
I can talk a little bit morefreely about for a few minutes.
But of all time,who is your favorite skater?
That one stuff I like,Jeff Rally,
who's a street skater fromwhen I was growing up.
That was really good. And.
But I mean,Nyjah Houston is just too good.
One of the craziestones nowadays,
where it just jumps down every.
(20:56):
Anything and everything.
And it's really impressive.
I was trying to tie it allback in, you know,
as I was working on theinterview this week, and.
And you look back at guys likeJason Lee, you know,
who lucked into the career.
I mean, he was a great skater,but he lucked into the
Hollywood side.
If, if he would have had thesetools back then,
(21:17):
what could he have done tomake his rise, I guess,
so much easier? I mean,he could have had Instagram,
he could have had a Twitter,a YouTube, a webpage.
You know,you see him in movies now,
but really he just workedhis butt off. Where,
if he would have hadthose tools,
would it have made it easier?
Yeah,probably would have made it much
easier because now you havethat voice, that exposure,
(21:38):
and you get sponsorships whereif you have a couple hundred
thousand or even a few tensof thousands of followers,
you start doing brand deals andgetting some money that way.
And then you could be alittle bit more okay,
where you're not like,I have to do all this stuff now.
I could focus more onskateboarding instead of trying
to get money now I have this wayto get some passive income,
which is helping skateboardersout or any athlete out is Just
(22:00):
given that voice to, like,tap into their audience, too,
and speak directly to theiraudience and build a bigger fan
base and engage with them andrespond to comments and DMS
and things like that.
We could really build your.
Build your connectionup with your fans.
Now,the one thing to think about,
I guess,in all this is you take somebody
like Chad Minska,who got real big. You know,
the Internet was just startingto come on. All of a sudden,
(22:21):
he ended up in the social eye,and it wasn't all good
content for him,and it actually sabotaged
his career.
So I guess when you're buildingthese websites in your Instagram
and you're looking at collegecoaches looking back at
what you're posting,good content is going to get you
way further than shock content.
Most people didn't realize thatI was going to take over and
(22:42):
that everything is going tobe there permanently.
And back then they just didn'trealize it. But nowadays,
everyone's realizing, like,your history is out there.
You can.
It's online.
It's going to be upthere somewhere.
Even if you delete it,it's still around.
And just don't be postinganything. Be careful,
and don't be going crazythinking that, oh,
I can just post this video andno one's going to see it,
(23:03):
or only my friends will see it.
Somehow it's going to get outthere. And if it's private,
hidden, there's ways for peopleto get it.
And that access to thatinformation has hurt a lot of
kids that didn't ever expectthat, you know,
a college coach would see that.
And then, you know,I've been around some recruiters
and watched them at ball games,and it seems like if they got
a kid they're interested in,almost the first thing they do
(23:24):
is go to social media and seewhat that kid's page looks like.
We got off a little bit.
But going back to backlinks.
Backlinks are clickable links.
Is that correct?
Anything you can click on?
Yep.
So you have to be ableto click on it.
So if you're reading like anarticle in Sports Illustrated,
it says Brandon Leibowitz,and you click on it and
it goes to my website,then I'd be getting a backlink.
If they just mentioned my name.
(23:45):
That's not a backlink.
It has to be a clickable wherethey click on it and it
goes to my website.
Okay.
So when you're emailing andyou're trying to get, you know,
I mean,part of the recruiting process
is tons of emails.
You're sending emails allthe time to coaches.
Do you want to add yourwebsite's clickable link and all
that stuff to your email so thatyour coaches can go back?
Is there any valuein doing that?
I mean, a little bit.
It's not the same as a backlinkbecause Google wants to see that
(24:07):
you publish on a website.
They know that you just send outmillions of emails and those
would not really be backlinks.
So you gotta be on websites thatare related to what
you're doing.
If you're doing wrestling,you want to be on sites
related to sports.
It doesn't have to be exactlywhat you're doing,
but I think somewhat related.
So find maybe other wrestlingteams in other states where
you're not direct competitors orcoaches or gyms or wherever
(24:29):
you're practicing,whatever like you could
get sponsorships of.
And that's somewhat related towhat you're doing and getting
published on those websites.
That's what Google wants to see.
So that's what youhelp people do.
You help people get to the topof the Google search engine.
The first page of Google iswhat, 10? 10 websites?
Not counting the ads?
Yep, 10 spots.
So if you're going to helpsomebody start to make the climb
(24:53):
from the second pageto the first page.
Where's the first page?
Where is the firstplace you start?
Well, it's not really onesize fits all.
So I gotta kind of evaluate eachwebsite and look at what you're
doing versus the competitors.
Because we're not tryingto be Google.
Google's algorithm changesevery single day. We're.
What matters is who areyour competitors,
meaning who's ranked on thatfirst page of Google
for your keywords,and how much SEO have they done?
(25:15):
Because we got to do a betterjob at SEO than they've done.
And really what itcomes down to is.
Is how many backlinks dothey have versus you?
And there's tools.
You have to pay for them,but they'll show you
anyone's backlinks.
You have to pay for them.
They're about $100 a month.
The more popular ones would be,like, Ahrefs or Moz or Semrush,
and buy this tool,and then you could throw any of
(25:36):
one of your competitorsinto these tools,
and you can see all theirbacklinks, and you can see,
how many backlinks do you have,and you can try to figure out
what that disconnect is and howdo you build more quality
backlinks. And your competitors,you could see all their
backlinks one by one.
You could start reaching out tothose sites and trying
to figure out, like,did they get an interview over
here or did they do asponsorship or were they in a
championship game and someonewrote about it and, like,
(25:57):
a local newspaper or whatever itmay be? And I get creative.
Like,did someone get interviewed and
then reach out to that authorthat wrote that article
and figure out,can they interview one of my
players? Like, how do I.
It's all about getting creative.
Like, are they in Yelp?
Are they on the Chamber ofCommerce? Are they in.
Whatever it may be.
But you could see their entirestrategy using those tools,
like Ahrefs, Moz,or Semrush to look at
all their backlinks.
(26:18):
All right,so if your athletes are out and
about and they're startingto get noticed by people,
should they be asking the personthey did the podcast with
or the article with,should they be asking them to
add a clickable linkto help increase
your organization's backlink,but also the individual's
backlink? Is that.
Is that the overall goal?
Definitely. Definitely.
That's where a lot of peoplemiss that. And just think,
(26:41):
all right,let me link to my socials,
which is good.
You might get some extrafollowers, but really,
you want to link toyour website.
That way you get Google trustyou and make you higher
for your keyword.
So when someone searches forthat player's name
in the future,your website will show up with
all Their accomplishments,their videos or images.
So it's like a resume or kind oflike a portfolio on your website
showcasing their experience,what they've done for
(27:02):
your organization.
And it's just another place forthem to get more visibility
and exposure online.
So instead of just searching forthat person's name on Google and
seeing their Instagram andFacebook and socials,
now they see your websites thereand they see all these other
third party sites aretalking about them.
And that's going to look a lotbetter for recruiters versus
just a Facebook page or anInstagram or a TikTok.
All right,so let's take this a little bit
(27:23):
different of a direction.
So let's say you're in collegenow with the Nil deal.
You have ways of making moneywhile you're in college and
playing in your sports.
I know that you've talked aboutin the past on some of your
other websites that when youwere in high school you kind of
branded yourself a little bit,had a little bit of a
skateboarding clothingline or apparel line.
(27:45):
So let's say an athletewants to do that.
Is it all about thesame process?
Good clickable links,good content stuff?
People want promoting yourselfas a business to try to get
other people to essentially payyou to advertise their stuff?
Essentially, yeah,it's for the most part
the same strategies.
(28:05):
It's just you're change thekeywords from like if you're
promoting yourself to promotinga clothing line,
you're finding clothing relatedkeywords and the backlinks now
need to be related to clothingor fashion or whatever it is
that you're promoting.
So relevancy is reallyimportant.
But overall the same strategieskind of are important.
Having good text onyour website,
building good backlinks and thatis just changing it up for
(28:28):
whatever business you're in.
Now all this takes,this takes time.
This is not an overnight thing.
So the earlier you can startwhile then understanding that
you have to build yourcredibility is going to take
a little bit of time now,especially if you're doing it on
your own. So a company like you,you're able to help somebody
(28:49):
probably get there faster.
But the downfall of that may beare you ready to be
there faster?
So how do you help peopleunderstand that they just
skipped a huge sectionof knowledge?
How do you keep people growingwithout getting in
over their head?
Usually I take careof it for them.
So do more of it done for you.
(29:10):
Kind of letting them focus ontheir business and not worry
about updating their websitewith Keywords or blogging or
doing articles or press releasesor interviews and podcasts or
whatever it is that they'reusing to get visibility and try
to let them focus on theircore capabilities.
If they're an athlete,focus on being an athlete.
Don't focus on learning SEOunless you want to do
that on the side.
But usually you should focus onwhat you know and focus and
(29:32):
delegate to others and that wayyou get more time to really
working on your corecapabilities and skills.
Now we'd gotten know into yourbusiness a little bit right then
and kind of what you do now,you provide an enormous amount
of training on your websitethat's free content that people
can go to and kind of look upthe different things
we've talked about.
(29:53):
Do you find that that helpsin two different ways?
Maybe it gets people to yourwebsite, but then again it,
it builds some credibility withwhat you're trying to do.
Yep It's another way forpeople to find me.
Take classes I've doneover the years,
I've done them up for free.
So if they go to my website orjust search my name on YouTube,
they can see a lot of classesI've done over the years and
(30:14):
watch them and yeah,helps build trust up.
And I just know by teaching overthe years that unfortunately
most people don't take action.
So a lot of people read orlisten or watch something,
but I don't reallytake that action.
And I taught lots of classes andshow you step by step how
to do everything.
And still most people just like,I'd rather have you do it
because this is a lot morethan I thought with SEO,
it's not just let's do thisand set it and forget it,
(30:36):
it's let's set it up and thenmain maintain it and
continuously optimize tokeep Google happy.
Yeah, so this is an avenueyou want to pursue.
It takes an incredibleamount of time.
So using somebody like you coulddefinitely relieve the stress.
I mean, you're trying to coach,you're trying to recruit
players,you're trying to run practices.
You know,in the grand scheme of things,
(30:57):
what is this going to cost?
The budget?
Not that I need you throwing outprices, but I mean, is this a,
is this a spendy thing or isthis something that's manageable
for your everyday,average person?
It varies depending on thecompetitiveness of those
keywords and the sport.
So if you're in a big city or ifyou have like a very
popular sport,it's going to be a little
bit tougher.
To rank versus some obscure,less competitive sport.
(31:18):
Because it comes downto the competition.
The more competitive it is,the more backlinks you
have to build.
That's really what it comes downto is the more people that rank
on that first page of Googlethat are doing what
you're doing,the more backlinks you're
necessarily going to build andthe more time it's going
to take. And also,how old is your website?
If you're brand new,it's going to take a lot longer
versus someone that's beenaround for five or 10 years,
that's been more established.
(31:39):
Google's going to trust youa lot more. So anyone.
I always offer a free websiteanalysis anytime anyone wants to
learn more and happy to checkout their website and see what's
working, what's not working.
And they can always book sometime on my calendar that way.
Really give them a roadmap ofrealistically what it's going
to take, how much time,how much money.
Because it's different for everybusiness, unfortunately.
It's not just set itand this is it.
(32:01):
It's really gotta be looked atfor each website individually.
Right.
And then you just growyour presence.
It kind of grows like a tree andless like grass. I mean,
it's going to take a littlewhile with a lot of with a lot
of time and nurturing to get itto grow into what you want
it to grow into.
But if you're in it forthe right reasons,
you're going to be therein 10 years anyhow.
Yeah. Build that foundation,get those roots planted.
(32:23):
And then over time it justbuilds it up and keeps going and
building it up and getting thatvisibility and growing.
So once you get yourpresence out there,
then it just opens up a wholenew arena of more,
more talent coming in.
You're sending more talent out.
You know, I was looking backover the week back at old
skaters, you know,back from when I was a kid.
(32:43):
And you take a kid like well,he's not a kid anymore,
but Rodney Mullen, I mean,he was in nowhere Florida in his
dad's garage revolutionizingskateboarding.
And nobody knew about it untilhe come out to a few shows.
And then all of a sudden,I mean, he totally changed
skateboarding.
So if your websiteis set up right,
(33:04):
and then now you have a kid likethat that nobody knows about,
looking to join a skateboardingteam,
your website comes up in thefirst few, oh, Google,
Google profiles. Well,you have a better chance of
grabbing that kid than somebodyelse. That's you know,
three pages back.
Nowadays,Internet's connected everyone
and made it much easier to find.
(33:25):
And I think there's probablysome other kid that was
maybe equally as good,but just to get that visibility
exposure and just gave it upafter a few years and
just left it behind.
But if they had that mediumto get the name out there,
get their videos out there,they could have been somewhere
similar to what Rodney was doingback then. But yeah,
it's all about nowadaysthe visibility and the
connectiveness of the Internet'sreally changed everything.
(33:45):
Especially social media hasreally changed everything where
everyone's got a voice andis able to connect.
Whereas in the past you needto build a website,
there's a kind of a highercost of barrier to entry.
Nowadays it's easier to builda website, but social,
you just log in and you havea page right there.
It sounds like you were prettyimmersed into the culture.
I mean,everything about skateboarding
you really liked.
(34:06):
So what was your favoriteskater band?
Logging Molly is a goodskateboarding band. I forgot.
Whos the main one?
I know Mike Valellihas a band too,
but haven't really listenedto too much of his music.
But I've heard the floggingMolly one around, like, St.
Patrick's Day.
They're pretty good,kind of famous band that's kind
of taken off and they'repretty popular.
(34:26):
And I don't.
I don't know how old you are,so, you know,
kind of like the Blink 182s andstuff like that always kind of
popped into my head. You know,I was trying to throw
you for a little,little bit of a loop with
the question. I mean,I've listened to a lot of your.
Your podcast,and it seems like a lot of them
are strictly business,but you have a lot more to talk
about than just business,I'm sure.
Sure. Yeah no,definitely like the other
(34:47):
questions mixing it up.
But yeah,I was thinking skateboarder
band, like where it's like a proskateboarder, but yeah,
like a two stuff was that likeskater inspired kind of music,
but vlogging Molly,old pro skateboarder created
that band and is still a reallygood skateboard to this day.
Was you around when you stillhad to order VHS tapes out of
the back of Thrasher magazineto see skateboarders?
(35:09):
Or were you starting to get intothe Internet era where
you could search?
No,I have the VHS and still have
some at home. So got the V8.
Don't have a VHS playerbut got a couple.
VHS is where got one whereit's like Tony Hawk's old
skateboarding video and got himto sign the vhs. I was like,
all right,this one I probably should save.
All the other ones I couldprobably just throw away because
they're all online nowadays.
(35:29):
But got Tony Hawk signatureon a skateboard video.
That was his company,it's still his company,
Birdhouse.
And like that one's probablysomething good to save as
a collector memorabilia.
Do you ever listento his podcast?
No, I did not know he had one.
But there's a skateboardingpodcast called the Nine Club.
Oh, that's a.
It's a really good podcast.
I'm have to check that out.
Yeah,definitely open to new stuff
(35:51):
because it's always good tohear from and see what his
perspective is on everything andhow he took off and hear his
whole career and life story.
So staying with the skateboardculture,
did you ever think Vans wouldbecome what they are now?
It was a tough one.
I mean, never know who's goingto blow up in bands,
but been around for a while.
So I feel like that's why theygot the credibility
(36:12):
from being around.
I think like 66 is whenthey started,
so they got that history.
Whereas a lot of skateboard shoecompanies came out
like in the 90s,so they're more new but they're
still sticking around.
It's just nowadays it's all bigcorporate kind of Nike Adidas
kind of taking over New Balance.
I mean,I think back to you know,
Fast Times at RidgemontHigh with Spicoli.
(36:33):
He's got the vans and he'swhacking them on his head.
You know,you had to kind of be in that
culture to wear them.
And now you go in,there's a van store in every
city and you're paying.
I don't know, man,what are you paying 50,
60 bucks for a set of canvasvans that back when I was a kid,
you were buying for 10,12 bucks.
Crazy. It's a big difference.
(36:54):
But nowadays like skateboardshoes are like a hundred for
like some normal ones whichare like Nike's 150. It's,
it's a little steep.
Especially when you know you'regoing to get those shoes,
shoes ruined,they're going to get scratched
in holes and ripped up and can'twear them for fashion.
You guys got to know that theseare going to get destroyed.
So what did you,what did you do?
Were you more of a street skateror did you like the ramps?
(37:16):
Where did you kind of fall?
More street.
Weren't many ramps whenI was growing up.
Now there's a lot of poolsand stuff coming back.
But when I was growing upmore just the streets.
But I like it all.
All right,so I guess we'll bring it back
around a little bit.
Full circle skater,counterculture,
all the things that go with it.
How did you end up in tech?
(37:36):
Just fell into it.
Wasn't planning on it but got mydegree in business marketing.
And that first job out of schoolwas like we're doing digital
marketing and want you tohelp out with digital.
And that was back in 2007 andI was just like wait.
After working here for a fewmonths I feel like this
is the future.
Everyone's going to be onlinewith websites and maybe I should
just stick with thisdigital stuff.
Even though had no idea aboutit, wasn't planning on it,
(37:58):
but just kind of fellow into itand never looked back after
working there for a few monthsbecause I realized I could do
freelance work and work fulltime and also find clients like
a restaurant nearby and see ifthey want to help with marketing
and happy to have a full timejob and some extra side
income on the side.
Yeah,I've heard you talk about that
a little bit before.
So you just slowly workedinto what you do now.
(38:19):
Now do you enjoy this workingfor yourself?
You can kind of go anywhere.
We talked about that a littlebit pre show you could be
a nomad if you want.
Do you like that freedom?
Yeah,I feel like everyone should have
that freedom because going inan office for a 9 to 5,
especially with everythingthat's been going on,
if you're able to work remotely,like work remote,
as long as you getyour work done,
doesn't really matterwhere you're at.
(38:40):
But it is nice to go in officeevery once in a while,
like talk to people.
So do Miss that everyonce in a while.
But like the freedom thatI have is flexibility.
Now I spent a little bit of timelooking at your website
and going through it.
You have a tremendous amountof testimonials. You've,
you've helped a lot ofbusinesses gain some
traction on Google.
How were you able to buildup such a good,
(39:00):
I guess wide varietyof clientele over the years?
Been doing it since 2007.
So I've been doing it for awhile and just found
clients here,there they'd find me
through my website,through classes I teach and just
through word of mouth referrals.
But yeah,just kind of all over the place.
Not really focusing on onespecific industry or niche
(39:20):
or type of business.
Just as long as you have aviable product or service and
website that I think could rank,I'll try to help you out and get
you that, that exposure online.
And we can hit back on backlinksa little bit because of the
importance of them.
Now Google is what Google is andthey're Google for a reason.
The backlinks haveto be credible.
There was people that triedcheating backlinks to move
(39:43):
themselves up in theGoogle rankings.
How did Google kind ofput a stop to that?
Google seen all the tricks overthe years and in the past it was
If I have 100 backlinksand you had 200,
you would rank higher than me.
The more backlinks you wouldhave the higher rank.
But over the years,people game the system and find
found ways to build lowquality backlinks.
(40:05):
And Google said it's not thenumber of backlinks,
it's a number of qualitybacklinks.
And what is a qualitybacklink to Google?
A quality backlink is a websitethat's related to you.
So if you're a sporting team,like if you're a baseball team
and you're gettinga backlink from
like a auto body mechanic,that might look a
little strange,like why is the mechanic linking
out to this baseball team?
(40:25):
But if you're a baseball teamand you're getting another
website about sportsor entertainment,
anything somewhat relateddoesn't have to be another
baseball team,but anything somewhat related,
that's what Google wants to see.
So relevancy and thenauthoritativeness. How popular,
how big is this website forgetting a backlink from
my website? It's good.
But if you could get backlinkfrom like the LA Times or New
York Times or Forbes orWall Street Journal,
(40:48):
the bigger the website,the more SEO value.
All right, now Google uses AI,don't they to figure out
how to rank websites.
Yeah,they have machine learning.
So nowadays they don't evenknow how it really works.
It's just learning by itself.
Just kind of weird and scary.
But that's the future.
How has that changed whatyou do? I mean,
in the beginning it was prettystraightforward. Now it's,
(41:09):
now it's changed quite abit with AI, hasn't it?
It's made it more complicated,but just same overall
principles.
Just provide good value content,get good quality backlinks
and reward.
You just don't do anythingspammy or, and that seems too
good to be true,where it's like adding like font
size 0.001 text on your websitewhere you're like hiding stuff
and anything that seems likeyou're manipulating or
(41:31):
gaming the system,Google's seen it and if they
catch you doing it,they're going to penalize you
and drop you down in.
Rankings at any time. Yeah,they can drop you off their
platform. That would be YouTube,Google, just like any other
social media link.
So keeping the quality at a highlevel is the place to start.
Mm, quality over quantity.
(41:53):
Yeah.
And then the people that arelooking for you will,
will find you with alittle bit of work,
either with a professionallike you,
or studying it out on your ownand slowly learning like
you had to learn.
So while on the surface,digital marketing for business
doesn't seem like, you know,it fits the show,
I think as we've talked throughdoes make sense if you're trying
to get a scholarship or play ona team or you have a team and
(42:17):
you're trying to bring kids in.
I mean this is,this is an avenue to do it with
the way the world's changed.
Yeah.
Not many people are thinkingabout websites with sports, but
websites, you own it,you get full control and that's
just another place to get yourname out there with an
Instagram, a TikTok, a YouTube,all these different
social sites.
But now you have a website andthat's just another place that
(42:39):
you actually own and have fullcontrol of where everywhere else
you're just kind ofrenting space,
which they're going to give youvisibility and exposure,
but you don't own anyof that stuff,
your website that'sreally yours,
that you get full control.
I don't have a whole lotmore questions for you.
I don't I,I don't know this stuff
well enough.
So having you on as a guest,maybe getting some of these
(42:59):
questions answered and,and some new ideas out there
might Help somebody that'strying to start something.
I mean, all this relates backto business too.
If you have a business,you're going to do the
same thing. If,if you have a sports team,
you're going to do this.
It's, it's all the same thing.
It's just how you package it.
Is that correct?
Pretty much.
For the most part it's, yeah,just changing it up from
whatever you're doing to ifyou're doing baseball or
(43:20):
football or whateverthat sport is,
or business is just changingthose keywords there.
And so sending Googlethe right signals.
They just really want youto build trust up,
get them to get Googleto trust you,
because Google just doesn'ttrust anybody.
And those backlinks help Googlestart to trust you a
little bit more.
And the more trust Googlegives to you,
the more they're going to rankor the higher they're
(43:41):
going to rank you.
And that's where they look atthose keywords on your website
to figure out what keywords,what athlete names,
whatever you're putting inthere to rank you for.
That all makes sense.
And I and hopefully this helpssome organizations that are
trying, or some, you know,some teams out there that are
trying to build up and,and become something. You know,
I know,I know out where you are.
Softball is, well,every sport super competitive.
(44:02):
But knowing what I knowabout softball,
softball out there issuper competitive.
So I would imagine that thebetter your website is,
the more traffic you have on topof the quality you're putting on
the field is what's goingto drive girls into
your organization.
And then you can decide,you know,
the talent level when you getthem there for tryouts or
whatever the case may be.
But you've got to get the girlsto show up if you're going to
(44:24):
compete at the level thatCalifornia plays.
And I'm sure that's,I'm sure that's the same
all over the country.
You go to other,other places in the country,
you know,I'm sure you go up to Michigan
hockey or or something likethat, you know, Iowa,
Pennsylvania, wrestling.
So understanding your audienceand getting your information
out there is the goal.
(44:45):
Thats the most important. Yeah,I know who your audience is and
speak to them and have itresonate and just try to get
in front of your audience.
Gotta figure who is youraudience and where are they and
how do I get in front of them?
And almost everyone's on Googleand almost everyone's on social
nowadays and getting in frontof them and those Multiple.
And having multiple touch pointsjust really gets you out there
and gets people to remember you.
(45:05):
Because the more placesyou're seeing,
the more likely they're going toremember you versus just
seeing you one time.
They might forget about you.
But if they see you over andover again on all these
different platforms, like, wow,okay, you're all over the place.
Let me check you out a littlebit more and see what,
what's really going on here.
No, that's a good deal.
And I, I know you came on,you're wrapping your day up.
You're probably ready to sitdown, have some supper. I.
(45:26):
I appreciate you spending sometime and going over all this
stuff. What is your website?
If people just wantto check it out.
Yeah.
So everyone that's listening,I create a special
gift for them.
They actually go to mywebsite@SEO optimizers.com
that's S E O P T I I z er s.com forward/gift.
And they can find that there,along with my contact
(45:47):
information and a bunch ofclasses I've thrown up there
that they could see step by stephow to do a lot of this stuff.
And also if they want to booksome time on my calendar happy
to check out their website froman SEO point of view for free.
And they could book some timethere where I'll check it out
and see what's working,what's not working,
and how to get them to thelevel that want to be at.
All right, man. Well,thank you very much and I hope
you have a wonderful evening.
(46:08):
Thanks for having me on.
Welcome to the VuduPower podcast.
Welcome to Plates and Pancakes.
We're sitting down todaywith Brandon Leibowitz.
Brandon is the ownerof SEO Optimizers.
They are a digital marketingbusiness that helps small to
medium sized businessescapitalize traffic to their
website. So welcome to the show,Brandon.
Thank you for havingme on today.
(00:22):
Now,I've listened to quite a few
of your podcasts. I spent,you know, the last couple weeks
researching, trying to get readyfor the show.
What you do on the surfacedoesn't look like it.
It kind of fits the show that Inormally do with coaches and
athletes and things like that.
But in today's day and age,with recruiting organizations,
you're, or as an organization,you're trying to bring
(00:43):
athletes in,but you're also trying to
promote your athletes.
Actually with the websiteand how you optimize,
it's kind ofset up to be somewhere that
maybe coaches should paymore attention to.
Driving people to your website'skey, would you say?
Yep. You own that website,so you get full control.
(01:04):
Whereas social,you're just kind of renting
space off these websites wherethey could take you down
anytime. But more importantly,like, you don't have much reach
anymore. Where if you have,let's say on Facebook,
100 people that like you,only five of those 100 people
will ever see what you postwithout having to advertise and
click that blue little buttonsays boost this post up.
So kind of pay to play platform.
(01:25):
But your website,that's where you get
full control.
You own that foreverand that's yours.
So you want to always sendtraffic to your website.
Everything should be used as away to get traffic
to your website,social way to get traffic
to your website,Email marketing way to get
people to your website.
If you do TV or radio orwhatever you're doing,
ultimately you want to send themto your website because that's
where you have full controlover everything.
(01:46):
Okay, so in today's day and age,competitive sports are huge.
I mean that's,that's where a lot of your kids
are getting recruited from moreso than high schools,
which back in the you know,back before competitive sports,
everything went through highschools. Now it's changed.
So as a competitiveorganization,
you're looking to bring kids in.
(02:06):
Obviously you need talent tobuild your organization,
but then you also wantto promote your kids.
So as an organization,I start a website, let's say.
What are the key components?
First,just that a website should have,
I guess,going forward to really help
people once they're in there,kind of find what they need.
(02:27):
I mean, there's a lot thatyou want to do.
But if you're doing athletes,I would make a directory of
every athlete that's been there,past or present.
Because then if someone'ssearching for that
person's name,your website's going to show up.
And that's where, I mean,I love skateboarding.
So follow skateboarding.
And I've looked at,when I search for skateboarding
(02:47):
company or skateboarder names,a couple websites that list them
all out because they werein competition.
So there's this website wherethey have all these competitions
and anytime there's someone thatenters the competition,
they always put theirname in there.
They create a page about them.
They put all their sponsors,what stands they are,
how old they are,their hometown.
So it has some basic informationbecause Google wants content.
(03:08):
You can't just throwa picture up there.
You have to have some stuffthere, some original text.
And they rank for almost everyskateboarder's name when
you search on for them.
So creating a page for everyathlete or anyone that students,
coaches,anyone that's on the team,
create a page for them.
And that's really going to helpout. But Google relies off text.
They can't really readimages or videos.
(03:29):
So if you just have a bunch ofimages and videos on those pages
doesn't really help out.
That's why they listed like sometext, like their sponsors,
their age, their hometown,things like that.
Maybe you get a couple sentencesof something unique about each
person and that's going toreally help them rank on Google.
So when you search forthat person's name,
your website will showup each page.
The more pages you haveon your website,
(03:51):
the more keywords youcould target.
Because each page can onlytarget about maybe like
three to five words.
After that kind of losesrelevancy. So the more pages,
the more keywords youcould target,
the more opportunities you haveto rank on Google and the more
visibility and exposureyou're going to get,
Especially just creating thosepages alone for athletes,
especially if some of them,like, become really famous
and popular. Like,that page is still going to be
(04:11):
there. It's going to be old.
And Google looks at history,how old these pages are.
The older pages get more trust.
So that would potentiallyget you ranked higher.
Okay, so now like you said,with images and pictures,
you don't get a whole lotof text. Should you,
if you're maintaining a website,use alt text?
Would that help withkeywords and maybe
(04:31):
drive some people in or rateyou higher with Google.
Yep. So for images, videos,audio, podcasting,
any of that stuff,you need to make sure your file
name has descriptive wordsbefore you upload it.
So if you're uploading an imageto podcast or Spotify or
wherever, I mean a podcast,you're uploading it.
Don't just name it like podcast,MP4, whatever,
(04:54):
name it something that describeswhat that podcast is or images
or videos, all that very,very important.
Make sure the file name hasthose descriptive words.
When you upload imagesonto your website,
then you could add what'scalled an alt tag. So,
so alt tag also helps the searchengines know what this image is
supposed to be because they wantto make sure the Internet's
(05:15):
accessible for everyone.
So there's an alt tag where ifyou're visually impaired or you
have an old website or an oldercomputer that doesn't
show images,instead of the image appearing,
that alt tag is going to appear.
So if you're visually impairedand you can't see,
there's a screen readersthat read out the text,
but when they get to images,they're just like,
what do we do?
They're going to readout that alt text.
So Google wants you to have alttext that describes what
(05:36):
that image is about.
That's going to help out to makesure that your images sometimes
show up in Google search resultsor Google image searches is by
optimizing the filename alt tag,
the text around that image needsto be related to what that
image is about as well.
So not just havingan image there,
but having some text before thatimage and after that image with
those keywords that you'retrying to target really
(05:59):
helps out.
Maybe resizing the image too tolike, if it's 521 by 531 pixels,
maybe you make it 500 by 500.
Because people search byimage size as well too.
So just trying to make it easierand more streamlined.
And if you want to takeit one step further,
you can right click on an imagebefore you upload it to your,
to the website.
(06:19):
And then you can get clickon properties.
And in properties youcould add the date,
the photographer's name,what type of camera it was.
You can add a ton ofdetails in there.
So it's all this metadata thatyou can add to the image.
And that's just going to reallytake it one step further.
Where most people don't do anyof that stuff and they might
name their image filewith some words,
but alt tag and the metadatareally help differentiate
(06:42):
yourself.
And take you one step aboveyour competitors.
Okay, that's. I mean,there's a ton of information
right there that you justkind of went through.
So as we're talking about this,obviously your company is called
SEO Optimizer Search EngineOptimization,
and we discuss keywords.
How important are the keywordsin getting your website ranked
higher in Google?
(07:02):
No,they're very important because
you want to make sure you rankfor the right keywords.
You don't want just someonefinding you for random keywords
or keywords that don't havemuch search volume.
So there's tools that will letyou see how many people actually
search for that keywordevery single month.
And it's free. It's from Google.
It's called the GoogleKeyword Planner.
So what you do is take a list ofkeywords that you think
(07:23):
you want to rank for,throw it into the Google
Keyword Planner,and then it'll show you how many
people actually searchfor that keyword.
So let's say I'm doing likeskateboarding classes.
I could say all right.
Do I want To rank for the wordskateboarding class?
Skateboarding or skateboardingclasses.
Which one gets more searches.
And I could see using that toolthat maybe skateboarding class
gets 100 people searchinga month,
(07:44):
whereas skateboarding classis the plural version,
might get 5,000 peoplesearching.
Where adding an S or making asynonym or plural has a big
impact on search volume.
And you don't want to justguess at what keywords.
You want to actuallydo some research.
And you can look at yourcompetitors keywords too.
And the easiest way to do thatis just searching Google for
your keywords and skipover the ads.
(08:06):
But look at the organiclistings.
Whoever's ranked on thatfirst page of Google,
Google's rewarding them.
They've done something right.
And you can look at thatblue clickable link,
that's called the SEO title tag.
That's where everyone's puttingtheir keywords.
So you could quickly look at allof your competitors and see what
keywords you're using in there.
Are they using some likeindustry jargon or slang terms
that you've never heard of?
Maybe you want to maybeuse that word.
(08:27):
If you see everyone's using it,that might be something that
you want to incorporate.
So look at your competitors,get some ideas,
and then throw them into theGoogle Keyword Planner to make
sure people actually search forit and then try to incorporate
those keywords intoyour website.
That makes sense there that youneed to be researching what
I guess the People you'recompeting against are doing,
and if they're doingbetter than you,
(08:47):
then you have to figure out away to become more competitive
on Google or whateverthe case may be.
Sohow could you utilize keywords
in your URL?
And is that going tomake a difference?
I mean in the past Googlerewarded what are called
exact match domains.
So if you bought the websiteskateboarding classes.com
(09:09):
and someone searched forskateboarding classes would
always rank at thetop of Google.
But now it's not the URL orthe keywords in the URL,
but having a page inside yourwebsite about that topic,
it's just like the images,like you want to name them each
page with something descriptive.
So if you have a page aboutskateboarding tutorials,
it should probably beskateboarding tutorials or your
(09:31):
website.comforward/skateboardingtutorials.
It shouldn't just be like yourwebsite.comforward/forward 4, 5,
6, 7.
Like putting some numbersor random letters,
you want to make it somewhatdescriptive and most platforms
will do that for youautomatically.
So you don't have to worryabout that too much.
But should be aware that eachpage should have a URL that kind
of describes what that page isabout. It's all about relevancy.
(09:53):
Google looks at the URL,they look at all the technical
coding stuff,they look at the content on that
page to make sure it's allrelated and that it all makes
sense when someone searchfor that keyword,
that your page should hopefullybe relevant and then Google
will want to display it.
So now that you're starting tokind of narrow that down,
you got your URL figured out,you've got pages,
(10:13):
you got a directory ofall your players.
You could do more becausecontent's king when it comes
to your website.
So you're looking at any articleyou could write.
So blogging recaps of gamesrecaps of tournaments,
anything like that is goingto help drive up your traffic.
And those are easy blog postsbecause a lot of people get
(10:35):
stuck about what to blog about.
And you blog about thedifferent games, events,
maybe you got a new player oryou won a championship.
All that stuff is easy.
Content where usually businessowners like what do
I blog about?
How do I blog all the time?
That's the easy way to you foryou to have content and then you
could use that for social mediacontent as well to cross promote
it and definitely yeah tap intothat stuff and write blog posts
(10:59):
about different eventslike that,
different players matchupsdifferent schools or whatever it
is, but leagues that you're in.
And that's going to really helpout for when people search for
that stuff that you show up.
Yeah.
So a lot of this stuffis very new to me.
I think it's very important withwhere recruiting's going,
both to get out tocollege coaches,
but also to bring playersinto your organization.
(11:19):
So working through all this,I mean, it's not as easy as
one might think.
It takes a lot of work to keepyour website up and know how
the keywords are changing.
So let's say you havea skateboard team.
You're trying to promoteyour skateboard team.
You know, you needreally good skaters.
(11:39):
How are you going to build awebsite to kind of get out there
and maybe draw some attentionand try to get guys into
your organization?
Yeah. So for sports,I feel like social might be a
little bit easier because peoplewant to see that stuff where
it's like, it goes viral.
People want to see skateboardingor basketball or football
or wrestling.
They can watch that over andover again all day
(12:00):
long on social,where you can post 20 times a
day on Facebook or Instagram andTwitter or TikTok and no one's
probably going to be mad.
Whereas if I post for mySEO company every day,
everybody like,this is too much information
about SEO.
So it's all about just knowingyour audience.
I feel like social is a greatplace to build that up because
most these players wantthat traction.
But for your website to get yourtraction as well is having,
(12:23):
well, having all that text,having all that content,
but also having what arecalled backlinks.
It's getting other websitesto talk about you.
The more websites thattalk about you,
the more trust Google is goingto give to you and the higher
they're going to rank you.
So if you're an organization andlet's say you're in like,
City of LA or whatever,you can try to reach out to the
City of LA website and get themto link out to you or
(12:45):
talk about you,or you can reach out to like
different parks or schoolsthat you have events,
or if you're in a league,you reach out to that league and
see if they would potentiallylink out to you.
So a backlink is a clickablelink from another website
that points to yours.
So let's say you're reading anarticle on the newyorktimes.com
and in there it saysBrandon Liebolitz.
And you click on it andit goes to my website.
I'd be getting a backlink fromthe newyorktimes.com so the more
(13:08):
websites that talk about you,the more trust Google is
going to give to you.
And if you could getorganizations or players or
if you're in tournaments,you could sponsor events and
sponsor different things.
And usually they'll list you onthat website and you
get that backlink.
And the backlinks are reallywhat ranks websites.
The more backlinks you have fromsites that are related
to what you're doing,the more trust Google is going
(13:30):
to give to you and the higherthey're going to rank you.
Without backlinks,you can make a perfectly
optimized Website,Google doesn't care.
They just don't trust you.
They don't believe you are whoyou say you are. But backlinks,
if you get schools,organizations,
anything like that to link toyou is going to really help move
you up the rankingsreally quickly.
Okay, that I had somethingin there on that.
Now you covered twodifferent points,
(13:50):
so I want to kind of takethem one at a time.
You kind of hit onsocial media and,
and we can push that to the sidefor a minute. Backlinks.
So if you have an organizationand you have athletes,
you really want them to getout there and do podcasts,
to do interviews,to do different things that
would help you create backlinksto come back to the website that
(14:11):
will eventually help them out,but you're driving people
back to your website.
Does that sound pretty accurate?
Yep.
So if someone's doingan interview, ultimately.
Well,if they're doing an interview,
they're probably going topromote their social,
their Facebook, Instagram,YouTube, all that stuff.
But that's just helping allthose social media sites
rank higher on Google.
You want to tell them to linkout to your website if possible.
(14:32):
Or if the athlete hastheir own website,
they should get a linkto their website.
That way they could startbuilding their brand.
And essentially, if you can,you should have all
these athletes,if they're trying to really
make it, build a website.
Because that website islike a portfolio.
It's like a resume for them.
Just like social mediais a resume for them,
that website is also anotherresume, and they own that.
And the more places you're on,the more visibility,
(14:54):
the more exposure,the more people are wanting
to recruit you.
Because if they have someonethat's really good,
but they only have a couplehundred people following
them on social media,and there's someone that's
equally good and they havehundreds of thousands
of followers,they're going to want the bigger
person because they're gettingmore eyeballs to their games and
more visibility and exposure tothe overall organization.
Unfortunately,that's kind of how it works.
(15:15):
All right,so you hit on something there
that I was going toask a little bit maybe later on,
but now that we're there,should an individual athlete be
looking at the investmentof building a website?
It sounds like youwould say yes.
Nowadays it's not that toughto build a website.
It's pretty not easy,but a lot easier with like
WordPress or Wix or Shopifyand Squarespace.
(15:37):
All these platforms makeit pretty easy.
And it's not a bigBarrier to entry.
Where in the past youneed to know coding.
If you just get a basic websiteup with a couple pictures,
videos, and most kids nowadaysare able to do that,
that's gonna really be great.
Buy your domain name,your name.com,
and just build that brand out.
If you can't,if you can't buy your name,
buy like a variation or thedot net or the dot org.
(15:58):
It doesn't really matter becauseif you have a really
common name,you might not be able
to get the dot com,but try to get some variation of
your name and use thatto build your brand.
Because ultimately you are whoyour marketing is, yourself,
and you get full control on thatwebsite to put whatever you want
up there and make it look asgood as you want and use
that as a like resume,portfolio kind of thing.
That was a question I had.
(16:18):
You want to get out there andyou want to claim your business
name. Now if you're an athlete,your,
your name is your business name.
And then I know social mediais huge. As far as YouTube,
where does YouTube fall? I mean,it comes up on Google,
but it's not necessarilya website.
So if a kid's runninga YouTube page,
(16:39):
how does that affect Google?
No,Google owns YouTube and they're
going to show YouTube majorityof the time when you
search in Google.
So when you search in Google,sometimes ad,
I mean sometimes videos appearand those videos,
when they appear,90% of the time it's going to be
YouTube because Google doesn'twant to promote Facebook videos
or any other platforms.
Occasionally they will,but they'd rather show YouTube
(17:01):
because they only careabout making money.
When you search on Google,if you don't click on any ads,
they're not making any money.
But you search on Google and youclick on a YouTube video,
the first thing that appears.
Anytime you watcha YouTube video,
there's always an advertisement.
So YouTube is making money,which is really Google
making money.
And they're going to really pushYouTube as much as they can.
And YouTube is the second mostpopular website on the Internet.
So building a presence up soonerthan later is going to be good
(17:24):
because social media is good.
But YouTube is owned by Googleand Google's going to promote
YouTube as much as they can.
Whereas other social media,they kind of come and go.
I don't feel like YouTube'sgonna go anywhere anytime soon.
Whereas Instagram is kind ofon the decline. I mean,
it's still growing,but Facebook is on the decline.
Instagram's kind ofbouncing around.
TikTok is really growing,but they're all trends,
(17:46):
and eventually they're going togrow and then start declining.
Whereas YouTube,Google's gonna push and push and
push YouTube as much as theycan. Because anytime, huh,
you watch a YouTube video,there's always an advertisement,
and that's what they want.
Let's say you have yourskater organization,
you've got some skaters thatare looking at going pro.
You're trying to help them,because the more kids
you get pro,the more kids you bring
in your organization.
(18:07):
So you've talked them intobuilding a website.
Now you would talk them into aYouTube page and then link the
website and the YouTube,and then from the YouTube,
they could put all the tricksthat they're doing.
If they go out in public andthey're starting to, you know,
run rails or whateverit is they're doing,
you want to get that on YouTubeand then link back
to your website.
(18:27):
Is that kind of how you would,you know,
and then that would promoteyour website also.
Is that kind of how you startbuilding a little bit of a brand
and get your guys out there?
Yep.
And I would say poston every platform,
so get your name on Facebook,on Twitter, on Pinterest,
on Tick Tock, on all them.
Because there's tools likeZapier, Zap Ier,
(18:50):
where it'll automate it. Also,you pick a platform like
Instagram, say, all right,I want to post on Instagram.
That's where my main audienceis. Anytime I post on Instagram,
share that video on YouTube,on Facebook, on Twitter,
on LinkedIn, on my website.
So it kind of automatesit for you. That way,
it post it one time.
You don't have to post on 8different websites and keep it
(19:11):
all active. And by doing that,I've had platforms grow to tens
of thousands of followers.
I was like,I don't really think my audience
is on this platform.
But just having an auto postgrew that platform where
I love skateboarding.
So I have a page on Instagramand grew it to a couple hundred
thousand followers.
But I posted my skateboardvideos on Twitter,
which I think Twitter wouldreally be my audience.
(19:31):
It's grown to 50,000 followersjust by me having Zapier
automatically post fromInstagram to Twitter.
I'm not manually postingon Twitter. Twitter,
it just automatically does it.
And it's grown to 50 thousandfollowers organically.
And you never know where youraudience is going to be.
And automated as much asyou can with social,
because social does takea lot of time.
Now, social,we'll get into that Now,
(19:54):
I kind of pushed that asidea little bit ago.
That's not going to createyour backlinks.
That's not going to moveyou up on Google.
But what that does is it buildsyour platform and then
from that point,is the goal to drive it
back to your website?
Yeah, for the most part.
Or just grow those numbers andyou could get sponsorships and
brand deals and partnershipsand things like that,
or get some ad revenue,but ultimately you want to
(20:15):
diversify and have everythinggo back to your website.
Because five years from now,is Instagram going to be
Instagram? Probably not.
TikTok might still be around.
There's probably some newone that's emerging.
But your website,you build up that audience
there, and ultimately,hopefully you get like an email
address or something to stayin touch with them.
And that's where you have thatfull control to reach out
to them all the time.
(20:35):
So let's go a little bit offtopic and get on maybe something
I can talk a little bit morefreely about for a few minutes.
But of all time,who is your favorite skater?
That one stuff I like,Jeff Rally,
who's a street skater fromwhen I was growing up.
That was really good. And.
But I mean,Nyjah Houston is just too good.
One of the craziestones nowadays,
where it just jumps down every.
(20:56):
Anything and everything.
And it's really impressive.
I was trying to tie it allback in, you know,
as I was working on theinterview this week, and.
And you look back at guys likeJason Lee, you know,
who lucked into the career.
I mean, he was a great skater,but he lucked into the
Hollywood side.
If, if he would have had thesetools back then,
(21:17):
what could he have done tomake his rise, I guess,
so much easier? I mean,he could have had Instagram,
he could have had a Twitter,a YouTube, a webpage.
You know,you see him in movies now,
but really he just workedhis butt off. Where,
if he would have hadthose tools,
would it have made it easier?
Yeah,probably would have made it much
easier because now you havethat voice, that exposure,
(21:38):
and you get sponsorships whereif you have a couple hundred
thousand or even a few tensof thousands of followers,
you start doing brand deals andgetting some money that way.
And then you could be alittle bit more okay,
where you're not like,I have to do all this stuff now.
I could focus more onskateboarding instead of trying
to get money now I have this wayto get some passive income,
which is helping skateboardersout or any athlete out is Just
(22:00):
given that voice to, like,tap into their audience, too,
and speak directly to theiraudience and build a bigger fan
base and engage with them andrespond to comments and DMS
and things like that.
We could really build your.
Build your connectionup with your fans.
Now,the one thing to think about,
I guess,in all this is you take somebody
like Chad Minska,who got real big. You know,
the Internet was just startingto come on. All of a sudden,
(22:21):
he ended up in the social eye,and it wasn't all good
content for him,and it actually sabotaged
his career.
So I guess when you're buildingthese websites in your Instagram
and you're looking at collegecoaches looking back at
what you're posting,good content is going to get you
way further than shock content.
Most people didn't realize thatI was going to take over and
(22:42):
that everything is going tobe there permanently.
And back then they just didn'trealize it. But nowadays,
everyone's realizing, like,your history is out there.
You can.
It's online.
It's going to be upthere somewhere.
Even if you delete it,it's still around.
And just don't be postinganything. Be careful,
and don't be going crazythinking that, oh,
I can just post this video andno one's going to see it,
(23:03):
or only my friends will see it.
Somehow it's going to get outthere. And if it's private,
hidden, there's ways for peopleto get it.
And that access to thatinformation has hurt a lot of
kids that didn't ever expectthat, you know,
a college coach would see that.
And then, you know,I've been around some recruiters
and watched them at ball games,and it seems like if they got
a kid they're interested in,almost the first thing they do
(23:24):
is go to social media and seewhat that kid's page looks like.
We got off a little bit.
But going back to backlinks.
Backlinks are clickable links.
Is that correct?
Anything you can click on?
Yep.
So you have to be ableto click on it.
So if you're reading like anarticle in Sports Illustrated,
it says Brandon Leibowitz,and you click on it and
it goes to my website,then I'd be getting a backlink.
If they just mentioned my name.
(23:45):
That's not a backlink.
It has to be a clickable wherethey click on it and it
goes to my website.
Okay.
So when you're emailing andyou're trying to get, you know,
I mean,part of the recruiting process
is tons of emails.
You're sending emails allthe time to coaches.
Do you want to add yourwebsite's clickable link and all
that stuff to your email so thatyour coaches can go back?
Is there any valuein doing that?
I mean, a little bit.
It's not the same as a backlinkbecause Google wants to see that
(24:07):
you publish on a website.
They know that you just send outmillions of emails and those
would not really be backlinks.
So you gotta be on websites thatare related to what
you're doing.
If you're doing wrestling,you want to be on sites
related to sports.
It doesn't have to be exactlywhat you're doing,
but I think somewhat related.
So find maybe other wrestlingteams in other states where
you're not direct competitors orcoaches or gyms or wherever
(24:29):
you're practicing,whatever like you could
get sponsorships of.
And that's somewhat related towhat you're doing and getting
published on those websites.
That's what Google wants to see.
So that's what youhelp people do.
You help people get to the topof the Google search engine.
The first page of Google iswhat, 10? 10 websites?
Not counting the ads?
Yep, 10 spots.
So if you're going to helpsomebody start to make the climb
(24:53):
from the second pageto the first page.
Where's the first page?
Where is the firstplace you start?
Well, it's not really onesize fits all.
So I gotta kind of evaluate eachwebsite and look at what you're
doing versus the competitors.
Because we're not tryingto be Google.
Google's algorithm changesevery single day. We're.
What matters is who areyour competitors,
meaning who's ranked on thatfirst page of Google
for your keywords,and how much SEO have they done?
(25:15):
Because we got to do a betterjob at SEO than they've done.
And really what itcomes down to is.
Is how many backlinks dothey have versus you?
And there's tools.
You have to pay for them,but they'll show you
anyone's backlinks.
You have to pay for them.
They're about $100 a month.
The more popular ones would be,like, Ahrefs or Moz or Semrush,
and buy this tool,and then you could throw any of
(25:36):
one of your competitorsinto these tools,
and you can see all theirbacklinks, and you can see,
how many backlinks do you have,and you can try to figure out
what that disconnect is and howdo you build more quality
backlinks. And your competitors,you could see all their
backlinks one by one.
You could start reaching out tothose sites and trying
to figure out, like,did they get an interview over
here or did they do asponsorship or were they in a
championship game and someonewrote about it and, like,
(25:57):
a local newspaper or whatever itmay be? And I get creative.
Like,did someone get interviewed and
then reach out to that authorthat wrote that article
and figure out,can they interview one of my
players? Like, how do I.
It's all about getting creative.
Like, are they in Yelp?
Are they on the Chamber ofCommerce? Are they in.
Whatever it may be.
But you could see their entirestrategy using those tools,
like Ahrefs, Moz,or Semrush to look at
all their backlinks.
(26:18):
All right,so if your athletes are out and
about and they're startingto get noticed by people,
should they be asking the personthey did the podcast with
or the article with,should they be asking them to
add a clickable linkto help increase
your organization's backlink,but also the individual's
backlink? Is that.
Is that the overall goal?
Definitely. Definitely.
That's where a lot of peoplemiss that. And just think,
(26:41):
all right,let me link to my socials,
which is good.
You might get some extrafollowers, but really,
you want to link toyour website.
That way you get Google trustyou and make you higher
for your keyword.
So when someone searches forthat player's name
in the future,your website will show up with
all Their accomplishments,their videos or images.
So it's like a resume or kind oflike a portfolio on your website
showcasing their experience,what they've done for
(27:02):
your organization.
And it's just another place forthem to get more visibility
and exposure online.
So instead of just searching forthat person's name on Google and
seeing their Instagram andFacebook and socials,
now they see your websites thereand they see all these other
third party sites aretalking about them.
And that's going to look a lotbetter for recruiters versus
just a Facebook page or anInstagram or a TikTok.
All right,so let's take this a little bit
(27:23):
different of a direction.
So let's say you're in collegenow with the Nil deal.
You have ways of making moneywhile you're in college and
playing in your sports.
I know that you've talked aboutin the past on some of your
other websites that when youwere in high school you kind of
branded yourself a little bit,had a little bit of a
skateboarding clothingline or apparel line.
(27:45):
So let's say an athletewants to do that.
Is it all about thesame process?
Good clickable links,good content stuff?
People want promoting yourselfas a business to try to get
other people to essentially payyou to advertise their stuff?
Essentially, yeah,it's for the most part
the same strategies.
(28:05):
It's just you're change thekeywords from like if you're
promoting yourself to promotinga clothing line,
you're finding clothing relatedkeywords and the backlinks now
need to be related to clothingor fashion or whatever it is
that you're promoting.
So relevancy is reallyimportant.
But overall the same strategieskind of are important.
Having good text onyour website,
building good backlinks and thatis just changing it up for
(28:28):
whatever business you're in.
Now all this takes,this takes time.
This is not an overnight thing.
So the earlier you can startwhile then understanding that
you have to build yourcredibility is going to take
a little bit of time now,especially if you're doing it on
your own. So a company like you,you're able to help somebody
(28:49):
probably get there faster.
But the downfall of that may beare you ready to be
there faster?
So how do you help peopleunderstand that they just
skipped a huge sectionof knowledge?
How do you keep people growingwithout getting in
over their head?
Usually I take careof it for them.
So do more of it done for you.
(29:10):
Kind of letting them focus ontheir business and not worry
about updating their websitewith Keywords or blogging or
doing articles or press releasesor interviews and podcasts or
whatever it is that they'reusing to get visibility and try
to let them focus on theircore capabilities.
If they're an athlete,focus on being an athlete.
Don't focus on learning SEOunless you want to do
that on the side.
But usually you should focus onwhat you know and focus and
(29:32):
delegate to others and that wayyou get more time to really
working on your corecapabilities and skills.
Now we'd gotten know into yourbusiness a little bit right then
and kind of what you do now,you provide an enormous amount
of training on your websitethat's free content that people
can go to and kind of look upthe different things
we've talked about.
(29:53):
Do you find that that helpsin two different ways?
Maybe it gets people to yourwebsite, but then again it,
it builds some credibility withwhat you're trying to do.
Yep It's another way forpeople to find me.
Take classes I've doneover the years,
I've done them up for free.
So if they go to my website orjust search my name on YouTube,
they can see a lot of classesI've done over the years and
(30:14):
watch them and yeah,helps build trust up.
And I just know by teaching overthe years that unfortunately
most people don't take action.
So a lot of people read orlisten or watch something,
but I don't reallytake that action.
And I taught lots of classes andshow you step by step how
to do everything.
And still most people just like,I'd rather have you do it
because this is a lot morethan I thought with SEO,
it's not just let's do thisand set it and forget it,
(30:36):
it's let's set it up and thenmain maintain it and
continuously optimize tokeep Google happy.
Yeah, so this is an avenueyou want to pursue.
It takes an incredibleamount of time.
So using somebody like you coulddefinitely relieve the stress.
I mean, you're trying to coach,you're trying to recruit
players,you're trying to run practices.
You know,in the grand scheme of things,
(30:57):
what is this going to cost?
The budget?
Not that I need you throwing outprices, but I mean, is this a,
is this a spendy thing or isthis something that's manageable
for your everyday,average person?
It varies depending on thecompetitiveness of those
keywords and the sport.
So if you're in a big city or ifyou have like a very
popular sport,it's going to be a little
bit tougher.
To rank versus some obscure,less competitive sport.
(31:18):
Because it comes downto the competition.
The more competitive it is,the more backlinks you
have to build.
That's really what it comes downto is the more people that rank
on that first page of Googlethat are doing what
you're doing,the more backlinks you're
necessarily going to build andthe more time it's going
to take. And also,how old is your website?
If you're brand new,it's going to take a lot longer
versus someone that's beenaround for five or 10 years,
that's been more established.
(31:39):
Google's going to trust youa lot more. So anyone.
I always offer a free websiteanalysis anytime anyone wants to
learn more and happy to checkout their website and see what's
working, what's not working.
And they can always book sometime on my calendar that way.
Really give them a roadmap ofrealistically what it's going
to take, how much time,how much money.
Because it's different for everybusiness, unfortunately.
It's not just set itand this is it.
(32:01):
It's really gotta be looked atfor each website individually.
Right.
And then you just growyour presence.
It kind of grows like a tree andless like grass. I mean,
it's going to take a littlewhile with a lot of with a lot
of time and nurturing to get itto grow into what you want
it to grow into.
But if you're in it forthe right reasons,
you're going to be therein 10 years anyhow.
Yeah. Build that foundation,get those roots planted.
(32:23):
And then over time it justbuilds it up and keeps going and
building it up and getting thatvisibility and growing.
So once you get yourpresence out there,
then it just opens up a wholenew arena of more,
more talent coming in.
You're sending more talent out.
You know, I was looking backover the week back at old
skaters, you know,back from when I was a kid.
(32:43):
And you take a kid like well,he's not a kid anymore,
but Rodney Mullen, I mean,he was in nowhere Florida in his
dad's garage revolutionizingskateboarding.
And nobody knew about it untilhe come out to a few shows.
And then all of a sudden,I mean, he totally changed
skateboarding.
So if your websiteis set up right,
(33:04):
and then now you have a kid likethat that nobody knows about,
looking to join a skateboardingteam,
your website comes up in thefirst few, oh, Google,
Google profiles. Well,you have a better chance of
grabbing that kid than somebodyelse. That's you know,
three pages back.
Nowadays,Internet's connected everyone
and made it much easier to find.
(33:25):
And I think there's probablysome other kid that was
maybe equally as good,but just to get that visibility
exposure and just gave it upafter a few years and
just left it behind.
But if they had that mediumto get the name out there,
get their videos out there,they could have been somewhere
similar to what Rodney was doingback then. But yeah,
it's all about nowadaysthe visibility and the
connectiveness of the Internet'sreally changed everything.
(33:45):
Especially social media hasreally changed everything where
everyone's got a voice andis able to connect.
Whereas in the past you needto build a website,
there's a kind of a highercost of barrier to entry.
Nowadays it's easier to builda website, but social,
you just log in and you havea page right there.
It sounds like you were prettyimmersed into the culture.
I mean,everything about skateboarding
you really liked.
(34:06):
So what was your favoriteskater band?
Logging Molly is a goodskateboarding band. I forgot.
Whos the main one?
I know Mike Valellihas a band too,
but haven't really listenedto too much of his music.
But I've heard the floggingMolly one around, like, St.
Patrick's Day.
They're pretty good,kind of famous band that's kind
of taken off and they'repretty popular.
(34:26):
And I don't.
I don't know how old you are,so, you know,
kind of like the Blink 182s andstuff like that always kind of
popped into my head. You know,I was trying to throw
you for a little,little bit of a loop with
the question. I mean,I've listened to a lot of your.
Your podcast,and it seems like a lot of them
are strictly business,but you have a lot more to talk
about than just business,I'm sure.
Sure. Yeah no,definitely like the other
(34:47):
questions mixing it up.
But yeah,I was thinking skateboarder
band, like where it's like a proskateboarder, but yeah,
like a two stuff was that likeskater inspired kind of music,
but vlogging Molly,old pro skateboarder created
that band and is still a reallygood skateboard to this day.
Was you around when you stillhad to order VHS tapes out of
the back of Thrasher magazineto see skateboarders?
(35:09):
Or were you starting to get intothe Internet era where
you could search?
No,I have the VHS and still have
some at home. So got the V8.
Don't have a VHS playerbut got a couple.
VHS is where got one whereit's like Tony Hawk's old
skateboarding video and got himto sign the vhs. I was like,
all right,this one I probably should save.
All the other ones I couldprobably just throw away because
they're all online nowadays.
(35:29):
But got Tony Hawk signatureon a skateboard video.
That was his company,it's still his company,
Birdhouse.
And like that one's probablysomething good to save as
a collector memorabilia.
Do you ever listento his podcast?
No, I did not know he had one.
But there's a skateboardingpodcast called the Nine Club.
Oh, that's a.
It's a really good podcast.
I'm have to check that out.
Yeah,definitely open to new stuff
(35:51):
because it's always good tohear from and see what his
perspective is on everything andhow he took off and hear his
whole career and life story.
So staying with the skateboardculture,
did you ever think Vans wouldbecome what they are now?
It was a tough one.
I mean, never know who's goingto blow up in bands,
but been around for a while.
So I feel like that's why theygot the credibility
(36:12):
from being around.
I think like 66 is whenthey started,
so they got that history.
Whereas a lot of skateboard shoecompanies came out
like in the 90s,so they're more new but they're
still sticking around.
It's just nowadays it's all bigcorporate kind of Nike Adidas
kind of taking over New Balance.
I mean,I think back to you know,
Fast Times at RidgemontHigh with Spicoli.
(36:33):
He's got the vans and he'swhacking them on his head.
You know,you had to kind of be in that
culture to wear them.
And now you go in,there's a van store in every
city and you're paying.
I don't know, man,what are you paying 50,
60 bucks for a set of canvasvans that back when I was a kid,
you were buying for 10,12 bucks.
Crazy. It's a big difference.
(36:54):
But nowadays like skateboardshoes are like a hundred for
like some normal ones whichare like Nike's 150. It's,
it's a little steep.
Especially when you know you'regoing to get those shoes,
shoes ruined,they're going to get scratched
in holes and ripped up and can'twear them for fashion.
You guys got to know that theseare going to get destroyed.
So what did you,what did you do?
Were you more of a street skateror did you like the ramps?
(37:16):
Where did you kind of fall?
More street.
Weren't many ramps whenI was growing up.
Now there's a lot of poolsand stuff coming back.
But when I was growing upmore just the streets.
But I like it all.
All right,so I guess we'll bring it back
around a little bit.
Full circle skater,counterculture,
all the things that go with it.
How did you end up in tech?
(37:36):
Just fell into it.
Wasn't planning on it but got mydegree in business marketing.
And that first job out of schoolwas like we're doing digital
marketing and want you tohelp out with digital.
And that was back in 2007 andI was just like wait.
After working here for a fewmonths I feel like this
is the future.
Everyone's going to be onlinewith websites and maybe I should
just stick with thisdigital stuff.
Even though had no idea aboutit, wasn't planning on it,
(37:58):
but just kind of fellow into itand never looked back after
working there for a few monthsbecause I realized I could do
freelance work and work fulltime and also find clients like
a restaurant nearby and see ifthey want to help with marketing
and happy to have a full timejob and some extra side
income on the side.
Yeah,I've heard you talk about that
a little bit before.
So you just slowly workedinto what you do now.
(38:19):
Now do you enjoy this workingfor yourself?
You can kind of go anywhere.
We talked about that a littlebit pre show you could be
a nomad if you want.
Do you like that freedom?
Yeah,I feel like everyone should have
that freedom because going inan office for a 9 to 5,
especially with everythingthat's been going on,
if you're able to work remotely,like work remote,
as long as you getyour work done,
doesn't really matterwhere you're at.
(38:40):
But it is nice to go in officeevery once in a while,
like talk to people.
So do Miss that everyonce in a while.
But like the freedom thatI have is flexibility.
Now I spent a little bit of timelooking at your website
and going through it.
You have a tremendous amountof testimonials. You've,
you've helped a lot ofbusinesses gain some
traction on Google.
How were you able to buildup such a good,
(39:00):
I guess wide varietyof clientele over the years?
Been doing it since 2007.
So I've been doing it for awhile and just found
clients here,there they'd find me
through my website,through classes I teach and just
through word of mouth referrals.
But yeah,just kind of all over the place.
Not really focusing on onespecific industry or niche
(39:20):
or type of business.
Just as long as you have aviable product or service and
website that I think could rank,I'll try to help you out and get
you that, that exposure online.
And we can hit back on backlinksa little bit because of the
importance of them.
Now Google is what Google is andthey're Google for a reason.
The backlinks haveto be credible.
There was people that triedcheating backlinks to move
(39:43):
themselves up in theGoogle rankings.
How did Google kind ofput a stop to that?
Google seen all the tricks overthe years and in the past it was
If I have 100 backlinksand you had 200,
you would rank higher than me.
The more backlinks you wouldhave the higher rank.
But over the years,people game the system and find
found ways to build lowquality backlinks.
(40:05):
And Google said it's not thenumber of backlinks,
it's a number of qualitybacklinks.
And what is a qualitybacklink to Google?
A quality backlink is a websitethat's related to you.
So if you're a sporting team,like if you're a baseball team
and you're gettinga backlink from
like a auto body mechanic,that might look a
little strange,like why is the mechanic linking
out to this baseball team?
(40:25):
But if you're a baseball teamand you're getting another
website about sportsor entertainment,
anything somewhat relateddoesn't have to be another
baseball team,but anything somewhat related,
that's what Google wants to see.
So relevancy and thenauthoritativeness. How popular,
how big is this website forgetting a backlink from
my website? It's good.
But if you could get backlinkfrom like the LA Times or New
York Times or Forbes orWall Street Journal,
(40:48):
the bigger the website,the more SEO value.
All right, now Google uses AI,don't they to figure out
how to rank websites.
Yeah,they have machine learning.
So nowadays they don't evenknow how it really works.
It's just learning by itself.
Just kind of weird and scary.
But that's the future.
How has that changed whatyou do? I mean,
in the beginning it was prettystraightforward. Now it's,
(41:09):
now it's changed quite abit with AI, hasn't it?
It's made it more complicated,but just same overall
principles.
Just provide good value content,get good quality backlinks
and reward.
You just don't do anythingspammy or, and that seems too
good to be true,where it's like adding like font
size 0.001 text on your websitewhere you're like hiding stuff
and anything that seems likeyou're manipulating or
(41:31):
gaming the system,Google's seen it and if they
catch you doing it,they're going to penalize you
and drop you down in.
Rankings at any time. Yeah,they can drop you off their
platform. That would be YouTube,Google, just like any other
social media link.
So keeping the quality at a highlevel is the place to start.
Mm, quality over quantity.
(41:53):
Yeah.
And then the people that arelooking for you will,
will find you with alittle bit of work,
either with a professionallike you,
or studying it out on your ownand slowly learning like
you had to learn.
So while on the surface,digital marketing for business
doesn't seem like, you know,it fits the show,
I think as we've talked throughdoes make sense if you're trying
to get a scholarship or play ona team or you have a team and
(42:17):
you're trying to bring kids in.
I mean this is,this is an avenue to do it with
the way the world's changed.
Yeah.
Not many people are thinkingabout websites with sports, but
websites, you own it,you get full control and that's
just another place to get yourname out there with an
Instagram, a TikTok, a YouTube,all these different
social sites.
But now you have a website andthat's just another place that
(42:39):
you actually own and have fullcontrol of where everywhere else
you're just kind ofrenting space,
which they're going to give youvisibility and exposure,
but you don't own anyof that stuff,
your website that'sreally yours,
that you get full control.
I don't have a whole lotmore questions for you.
I don't I,I don't know this stuff
well enough.
So having you on as a guest,maybe getting some of these
(42:59):
questions answered and,and some new ideas out there
might Help somebody that'strying to start something.
I mean, all this relates backto business too.
If you have a business,you're going to do the
same thing. If,if you have a sports team,
you're going to do this.
It's, it's all the same thing.
It's just how you package it.
Is that correct?
Pretty much.
For the most part it's, yeah,just changing it up from
whatever you're doing to ifyou're doing baseball or
(43:20):
football or whateverthat sport is,
or business is just changingthose keywords there.
And so sending Googlethe right signals.
They just really want youto build trust up,
get them to get Googleto trust you,
because Google just doesn'ttrust anybody.
And those backlinks help Googlestart to trust you a
little bit more.
And the more trust Googlegives to you,
the more they're going to rankor the higher they're
(43:41):
going to rank you.
And that's where they look atthose keywords on your website
to figure out what keywords,what athlete names,
whatever you're putting inthere to rank you for.
That all makes sense.
And I and hopefully this helpssome organizations that are
trying, or some, you know,some teams out there that are
trying to build up and,and become something. You know,
I know,I know out where you are.
Softball is, well,every sport super competitive.
(44:02):
But knowing what I knowabout softball,
softball out there issuper competitive.
So I would imagine that thebetter your website is,
the more traffic you have on topof the quality you're putting on
the field is what's goingto drive girls into
your organization.
And then you can decide,you know,
the talent level when you getthem there for tryouts or
whatever the case may be.
But you've got to get the girlsto show up if you're going to
(44:24):
compete at the level thatCalifornia plays.
And I'm sure that's,I'm sure that's the same
all over the country.
You go to other,other places in the country,
you know,I'm sure you go up to Michigan
hockey or or something likethat, you know, Iowa,
Pennsylvania, wrestling.
So understanding your audienceand getting your information
out there is the goal.
(44:45):
Thats the most important. Yeah,I know who your audience is and
speak to them and have itresonate and just try to get
in front of your audience.
Gotta figure who is youraudience and where are they and
how do I get in front of them?
And almost everyone's on Googleand almost everyone's on social
nowadays and getting in frontof them and those Multiple.
And having multiple touch pointsjust really gets you out there
and gets people to remember you.
(45:05):
Because the more placesyou're seeing,
the more likely they're going toremember you versus just
seeing you one time.
They might forget about you.
But if they see you over andover again on all these
different platforms, like, wow,okay, you're all over the place.
Let me check you out a littlebit more and see what,
what's really going on here.
No, that's a good deal.
And I, I know you came on,you're wrapping your day up.
You're probably ready to sitdown, have some supper. I.
(45:26):
I appreciate you spending sometime and going over all this
stuff. What is your website?
If people just wantto check it out.
Yeah.
So everyone that's listening,I create a special
gift for them.
They actually go to mywebsite@SEO optimizers.com
that's S E O P T I I z er s.com forward/gift.
And they can find that there,along with my contact
(45:47):
information and a bunch ofclasses I've thrown up there
that they could see step by stephow to do a lot of this stuff.
And also if they want to booksome time on my calendar happy
to check out their website froman SEO point of view for free.
And they could book some timethere where I'll check it out
and see what's working,what's not working,
and how to get them to thelevel that want to be at.
All right, man. Well,thank you very much and I hope
you have a wonderful evening.
(46:08):
Thanks for having me on.
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