July 23, 2025 • 28 mins
🎙️ Just dropped a new episode with Roberta on the Speaking and Communicating podcast — and wow, we went deep into all things digital marketing! 🚀
I had a blast sharing how I got started in SEO way back in 2007 (yes, before TikTok was even a thing 😅), how I built SEO Optimizers from scratch, and why I still believe Google traffic is king 👑
We talked about:
✅ Why Google Ads beat Facebook & Instagram for buyer intent
✅ The real reason backlinks matter so much for SEO
✅ Why social media builds trust but won’t pay the bills 💸
✅ How to avoid trendy hashtags that tank your engagement 🚫
✅ What long-tail keywords are worth your time
✅ And why patience (and smart strategy) pays off in digital marketing 🧘
If you’ve got a website and want to get more traffic, leads, and conversions without wasting money on the wrong platforms, this episode is packed with tips you can start using today. 🙌
🎁 Plus, I dropped a special gift for listeners — a free library of SEO classes, walkthroughs, and tools to help boost your site’s visibility 👉 seooptimizers.com/gift
Give it a listen, let me know what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave Roberta a review!
🎧 Now streaming: Speaking and Communicating with Roberta
#SEO #DigitalMarketing #GoogleAds #Backlinks #WebsiteTraffic #MarketingTips #SocialMediaStrategy #SpeakingAndCommunicating #BrandonLeibowitz #SEOOptimizers #EntrepreneurLife #OnlineMarketing #SEOClass #MarketingStrategy #PodcastGuest #GrowthMindset #SmallBusinessTips #VisibilityMatters #LeadGeneration #OnlineSuccess #ContentMarketing #MarketingMastery
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome back to the Speakingand Communicating podcast.
I am your host, Roberta.
If you are looking to improveyour communication skills both
professionally and personally,this is the podcast you
should be tuning into.
And by the end of this episode,please remember to subscribe,
give a rating and a review.
Now,when it comes to communication,
(00:23):
one of the most important thingsis how you craft your message
and communicate it to the restof the world so that they
understand exactly what it isthat you do and how
you help them.
Today, my guest,Brandon Libowitz,
who is a digital marketingspecialist, is here to help us
with just that.
(00:44):
And before I go any further,please help me welcome him
to the show. Hi, Brandon.
Hi.
Thank you for havingme on today.
You are welcome.
And thank you for being here.
From sunny California,I'm guessing.
Yep From Los Angeles,California.
Oh, okay.
Say hi to Universal Studios.
(01:05):
So tell us a little bitabout yourself.
I've been involved with digital,I think the mic.
So tell us a little bitabout yourself.
My name is Brandon Lieboitz andI've been involved with digital
(01:27):
marketing since 2007,helping people get more traffic
to their website using differentstrategies such as search
engine optimization,social media marketing,
helping out with paid ads,and just trying to help people
get more visibility andexposure online.
Got my degree in businessmarketing and just kind of fell
into this role back in 2007.
Wasn't planning on doingdigital marketing,
(01:48):
but first job I got atschool said, look,
we want you to help out withdigital. And said,
I don't know much about it.
But they said, don't worry,we don't know much
about it either.
We're going to take you toclasses, workshops, seminars,
and learn alongside with you.
And after working therefor a few months,
just realized everyone'sprobably going to have a
website in the future.
And there's a lot of differentways to get traffic,
but SEO is just a wayto get free traffic.
(02:08):
So I really focused onthat over the years,
trying to tap into that freetraffic from Google,
working at different advertisingagencies as a director of SEO.
And before work or after workon my lunch breaks,
I would work on my own companyand built it up to where I was
able to eventually quit my joband focus solely on this.
And been doing that ever since,since 2007.
(02:29):
That's before social mediabecame as big as it is today.
How did you, like you said,how did you have the foresight
to know that, hey,wait a minute,
there's going to come in time?
Because that's 15 years ago.
Things have changed a lotin the last 15 years.
That there's going to come atime when this is all that
everybody's looking for online.
(02:50):
I mean,they had Facebook around back
then, there's MySpace,there's like Reddit,
and all these like Social Web2.0 type of sites that
were around,that were gaining trajectory
and projected.
And I just thought thateveryone's probably going to
have a website in the future andjust stick with this
digital marketing.
Wasn't planning on doing socialor any of that stuff.
(03:11):
I just thought people are goingto have a website and kind of
figure out how to marketthemselves online.
Now when it comes to marketingyourselves online,
there's a lot of ads,so to speak, that say, oh,
I'm gonna help you withyour Facebook ads,
I'm gonna help you withthe Instagram ads.
But you talk about Google Adsand you say that they are better
(03:32):
than those two. Why is that?
Well, it just depends whatyou're doing.
So most of the time when peopleare on social media,
they're not looking tomake a purchase,
they're just looking to connectwith friends and family.
And when they see those ads,you're just interrupting them.
And people don't wantthose ads there.
And you're just targeting peoplebased off interests.
(03:53):
So you could say, oh,someone like, I'm a realtor,
I want to find people thatjust got married,
that live in the city,but that doesn't mean they
want to buy a house.
They might want to buy one inthe future or in the past,
but doesn't mean they want itright now. But on Google,
someone's searchinghomes for sale near me,
they're looking right now.
They have that intent,that buyer intent,
which is the biggestthing is intent.
(04:14):
Social media has no intent.
Google has intent wherepeople are looking.
And if you want sales,then you want to do Google.
If you're just trying to getyour name out there and
get brand awareness,then social media is great.
But if you're trying to actuallyget sales, leads, phone calls,
whatever that converginggoal is,
and you probably want to stickwith Google Ads or anywhere
people actually search,because when they're searching,
(04:35):
they're looking versus wherethey're browsing with
friends and family,they're not looking to make
a purchase. I mean,sometimes they might,
but most of the time they'renot really looking.
Like most of people are notgoing to go on Facebook
looking for a dentist.
They're probably going to go onGoogle looking for a dentist or
Yelp looking for a Dentist andthen check them out on social
media to make sure they'rea real company.
Put a face behind the company.
(04:56):
Make sure the real legitimate,credible have reviews,
have status updates,connect with them.
You can see what other peoplesee say about them.
So it builds trust for people.
So social is really meant to puta face behind the company.
It's not really meantto get leads.
It's evolved over the years tolike pay to play platforms
to get leads,but really it's to put a face
behind the company.
Because you could buy off awebsite and you're just like,
(05:19):
who is this website?
Maybe you go looking for a newTV and like, I want to buy a tv.
And then you see Best Buy ranksthere, Amazon ranks there,
but maybe Bob's TV ranks there.
And like, who's Bob's TV?
But Bob's TV might have beenaround for 50 years, 80 years,
and it's like a physical storeand they're a real legitimate
business, but you're just like,I don't know who they are.
(05:41):
Social media puts a face behindthat company saying, oh, look,
Bob's TV has a Facebook.
You could ask us questions,you could read reviews so you
could see that we're legitimate.
Just like Amazon or BestBuy is legitimate,
Bob's TV's is legitimate,but you probably have
never heard of them.
So social really helpsbuild that trust up.
Mm So if Bob's TVhas places, Google Ads,
(06:04):
so people search for them,obviously they would need
to have a websitebecause you know how sometimes
they say, oh, websites are dead.
You know,as long as you have a face,
private Facebook group,you're going to attract people
who are looking foryour services.
What do you think of that?
I mean, Facebook is on decline,so less and less people
are using it.
And what if someone wants tomake a purchase and they don't
(06:27):
have a Facebook page,then you just lock them out.
Not everyone has Facebook.
So you're kind of excluding alot of people by just saying,
oh, you can only buy onmy Facebook page.
And Facebook takes a bigpercentage of those sales if you
sell online through FacebookMarketplace and things
like that.
Plus you're just rentingspace off Facebook.
They could take you down anytimeand you just lost your entire
(06:50):
business. Whereas your website,you own that.
No one could take yourwebsite down. I mean,
your hosting could go down,but you still own your website.
That's yours forever.
Facebook is not yours.
Facebook is Facebook's.
You're just helping Facebookget more traffic,
helping Facebook makemore money.
You're not really helpingyourself out by having
a Facebook group.
Having a Facebook group is good,but that's not.
(07:13):
The Facebook group is to getpeople off of Facebook
onto your website,not the other way around.
You don't want people going fromyour website to Facebook because
you got to think what'son the Facebook page.
There's ads on theFacebook group,
there's all these distractions,there's notifications,
there's friend requests.
So if they are on that Facebookgroup or page,
they're probably going to getdistracted and leave that page
(07:35):
and forget about you prettyquickly because there's too many
distractions on Facebook.
Is the same similarto Instagram,
because I know some people say,oh, I'll help you with your
Instagram ads.
You know how you scrollon Instagram,
you'll see about three of yourfriends posts and then the
next one is an ad.
And usually it's something thatprobably you've searched before
(07:56):
or how effective are those?
Well, remarketing ads are very,very effective.
So if you go on Amazon,you look at the product,
you don't buy it.
Those ads follow you around.
Those are really effective.
Extremely effective.
Especially I mean that's calledlike card abandoners,
people that don't makea conversion.
And I would 100% recommend toeveryone run remarketing ads
(08:18):
because these areall warm leads.
People have been to yourwebsite, they know who you are.
And you can run remarketing onGoogle, you can run it on Gmail,
on YouTube, on Facebook,Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest.
And that's what I do is I runremarketing ads everywhere.
So you stay top of mind becauseyou need about like 5,
5 touch points before someoneactually trusts you to
make a purchase.
(08:38):
So if you're sellinga high ticket item,
they go to your website,they don't make a purchase,
but they see your ads.
Following them around all overthe Internet keeps
you top of mind.
And Google is goingto be the best.
Because Google's partnered withevery website on the Internet
that shows banner ads exceptfor social media.
Google's blocked fromall social media.
But if you want your ads to showon like Yahoo, on Fox, cnn,
(09:00):
Forbes, Wall Street Journal,doesn't matter what website that
your visitors are going to,as long as there's ads there and
they've been to your website,those ads will follow them
around on any website they go tothrough Google Ads or if
they're on Facebook,then you can run Facebook
or Instagram,you can run Instagram,
but those are limited.
Like Google runs the Internetand has partnered with almost
(09:22):
every website on the Internetlike if you want your ad to be
on Yahoo you can get your ad onYahoo through Google for.
A couple centsso if I Google something okay
and the searches of 6 billioncome up this the 6 billion
search what did they do so wrongcompared to the first search
(09:45):
that appears that they are laston the list of suggestions
if I Google something.
If someone's not on that rankingon Google then they're not doing
SEO properly so you have to dosearch engine optimization to
rank on Google so if they're notranking they're not doing SEO or
(10:05):
their competitors are doing abetter job of SEO than they are.
A lot of us are not tech nerdsso I don't even know what that
means Would you like toexplain that to us?
SEO is search engineoptimization and that means
ranking websites on Google sowhen you search on Google
there's ads that. The top,those are all paid ads.
And right below the ads arethe organic listings.
(10:26):
And SEO is getting you in theorganic free listings.
What are some key things that Ishould follow in error to appear
at the top of the key listings?
There are over 200 rankingfactors to rank on Google,
but I would say one of the moreimportant ones is adding more
text to your website.
(10:46):
The more text you have on everysingle page on your website,
the easier it is for Google toread and understand and know
what keywords you're targeting.
Because they can't read images,they can't read videos,
they can't understand audio,yet they're getting better at
it, but they need text.
The more text,the more they're going to
understand and know what you'retargeting and be able to rank
you for the correct keywords.
(11:06):
But you have to have text onevery single page on your
website. Not just the homepage,but every page,
if you want to rank on Googleneeds to have content on it.
It's so very important.
Speaking of keywords,how will I know that these are
the keywords I should use inmy website descriptions?
Well,you want to do keyword research
using tools like the GoogleKeyword Planner.
(11:27):
So you go make a list ofkeywords that you want to rank
for or that you think youwant to rank for,
and then you go to the GoogleKeyword Planner,
put them into that tool.
It's a free tool from Google andit'll show you how many people
actually search for that keywordevery single month.
Plus it'll give you a couplehundred other variations of that
keyword. Synonyms, plurals,variations of it.
And I'll show you how manypeople search for those.
(11:48):
So you could go through thatlist and find out which keywords
seem relevant and thenincorporate them into your
website if they're relevant.
But don't take every keyword.
You got to focus on which oneshave buyer intent and have a
decent amount of search volume.
That's going to really help out.
Mm You spoke earlierabout competitors.
How would you know how yourcompetitors use SEO?
(12:13):
Just search on Google for yourkeywords. So go to Google.
Search for your keywordson Google,
see who's on that firstpage of Google.
Make note of all those websites.
Skip the ads.
The ads are different.
But make note of all thosewebsites on that first
page of Google.
And then using different toolslike Ahrefs or Moz or Semrush,
you have to pay for these tools,but they'll show you all
(12:35):
of Their backlinks.
And backlinks are whatranks websites.
Backlinks are clickable linksfrom another website that
points to yours.
So if you're reading an articleon the latimes.com and in there
it says Brandon Lebowitz,and then you click on that and
it goes to my website,I'd be getting a backlink from
the latimes.com So the morewebsites that talk about you,
the more trust Google gives toyou and the higher they rank you
(12:58):
because they don't believe youare who you say you are.
They don't care what keywordsyou put on the website.
Anyone could build a websitenowadays and say, like,
I'm a dentist in Los Angeles.
Google's like,are you really a dentist?
We don't want to send people toyour dentist office and find
out that you're not there,that you're you don't exist.
It's a bad user experience.
So they want to see that.
If I'm a dentist,I should be on, like, WebMD,
(13:18):
I should be on Wikipedia,I should be on Yelp,
I should be on yellowpages.comI should be on MapQuest,
I should be on Google Maps,Bing Maps, Apple Maps,
all these websites.
The more websitesthat you're on,
the more trust Google'sgoing to give to you.
And then they look at thekeywords on your website.
That doesn't work the other wayaround. Without backlinks,
it's pretty much impossibleto rank on Google.
A lot of people are not aware ofthe backlights that you
(13:41):
just mentioned.
Sowhat can they do if I'm saying,
okay, this is the first time I'mcreating my website so that
I tell people theseare my services,
where will I go in order toestablish that? Wait a minute,
I need to list on MapQuest andall of the things that
you mentioned?
Yeah, that's where you do thecompetitor research.
(14:02):
Search on Google for yourcompetitor or for your keywords,
see who's on that firstpage of Google,
make note of all those websites,and then throw them into those
different tools like Ahrefsor Moz or Semrush,
and they'll show you all theirbacklinks. And then one by one,
you could start reachingout to those sites.
Because if they're ranked onthat first page of Google,
they're doing something right.
And it's more than likelybecause of those backlinks.
(14:23):
And if you start building thesame or similar backlinks,
Google's going to reward youwith the same rankings that Your
competitors are getting.
But you have to look at yourcompetitors and use those
different tools. Ahrefs, Mars,Semrush. You just pick one.
They're all prettymuch the same,
but you have to pay for one.
So it doesn't matterwhich one you use,
but you just got pick one,use that.
And that's going to let you seeeverything your competition is
(14:45):
doing. Nothing is hidden.
I could see everythingyou're doing.
You can see everythingI'm doing.
Nothing is hitting withdigital marketing.
And then when it comes to.
Here's the thing.
So if I want people to,you know,
drive traffic to my website,as you said, and I write all the
(15:05):
keywords I have,I do all the stuff that
you talk about today.
How do you have,you know how when you say
dentists near me,let's use the dentist example.
And then they showthose that are.
It's sort of like they show amap and then they show
a few businessesthat are within your area,
(15:27):
within Los Angeles.
They'll share theLos Angeles map.
And then they'll show thebusinesses in Earth.
They list about five or 10of those three maps.
Just three on the maps.
Oh, three on the maps.
Yeah.
And then 10 organic websites.
And they might have four ads atthe top or three or two
(15:47):
or one or zero.
The ads are kind of random.
They might have three ads at thebottom or two or one or zero.
But in between those are the 10organic results. The websites.
There'll be maps,but there will be three listings
on the maps, maybe four.
If they show an ad that.
Did those listings pay for thatspace to show up when you,
when you say near me oris it all organic?
(16:09):
If it says ad, they're paying.
If it doesn't say ad,then it's organic.
Okay.
It's not going to be all ads.
If Google is all ads,no one would go on Google.
Everyone would just be like,I'm going on Bing or Yahoo
or DuckDuckGo.
Because no one wants to seea page full of ads.
So there'll be a couple ads andthen there'll be a lot
of organic results.
Because they can't just havea page full of ads.
That's a bad user experience.
(16:30):
And nobody wants to go on awebsite that's just full of ads.
You're gonna be like, nope,I'm going on another website
that's unbiased becauseI don't want to.
Seeing what peopleare paying for.
Yeah, because, you know,we like that, we like buying,
but we don't want to be sold to.
So those people who pay ads likewhen you search for something
and then they are the firsttwo that appear,
(16:50):
those are ads and then itbecomes the organic traffic.
That ad space,is it just the two companies,
did they pay more money thanother companies in that
same industry?
That's why they appearas the top two ads.
And then you find theorganic pages
because usually it's about twoand then the organic and then
(17:13):
about two at the bottom as wellbefore you go to the next page.
Actually 0 to 4 ads.
It could be 0 ads 1, 2,3 or 4 at the top, right.
The bottom it might be 0, 1,2 or 3 ads.
So the top lab at most 4,the bottom will have at most 3.
(17:33):
Right now.
But everything changes.
So who knows what's gonnahappen in the future.
But the time being at most fourat the top and most three
at the bottom.
And then there might beone ad on the maps.
So does that mean if you,if you are the top before even
the organic traffic you havepaid do how is the payment?
(17:54):
Is it you pay more,you're going to appear first
or is it universal fees?
It gets kind of complicated.
So it's whoever pays the mostbut also they look
at ad relevancy,click through rate user
experience and landing page.
So if you say you'll pay $5 andI'll pay $5 and 10 cents,
(18:16):
usually I'd rank higher.
But if your website's moreoptimized then Google's going to
say okay, you're paying $5,we're going to rank you because
you're more optimized.
Even though I'm willingto pay more.
Google wants to show who'smore optimized.
So you have to havesome optimization.
Making sure your keywords are inthe ad in the URL and the text
on the landing page.
Make sure you have a good clickthrough rate all all
(18:37):
that goes into it.
So they have the algorithm.
It's not just whoeverspends the most,
it's a bunch of other variablesthat go into their algorithm
for the, for the paid ads.
Algorithm A word that a lot ofus non tech people are so afraid
of when it comes to YouTube.
You know how you when you searchfor something and if I
(18:58):
want to post a video,I have been advised,
I want your thoughts on that.
I've been advised that, okay,before you title your video,
look at how for that topic,what is the most searched way of
titling the YouTube video?
Instead of saying how to bea great public speaker.
(19:20):
It could be how to be a goodpublic speaker that could be
at the top of the search.
So I must change my videoand title it like that.
The first thing that appeared.
What do you think of that?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
You want to do keyword research,you have to always do
keyword research.
You don't want to just throwkeywords in there,
thinking those are the best.
You need to do keywordresearch through.
(19:42):
Like the Google keyword plannerfor SEO or YouTube has a keyword
research tool for YouTube.
So definitely,definitely spine your
competitors,research your competitors,
analyze them,and then take those keywords,
throw them into the differenttools to see how many people
actually search for that keywordevery single month.
Because just because they'reranked up there doesn't
necessarily mean it's the bestkeyword. It probably is,
(20:03):
but it doesn't mean it.
That's why you got to do yourown research and due diligence
to make sure it actuallyis a good keyword.
Okay. And you know,on Instagram, you have hashtags.
Here's the perceptionsome of us have.
If I hashtag the wordcommunication,
it's going to show communicationskills,
communication or communicate,and all the suggestions,
(20:27):
and it will show how many peoplesearch for the order.
On Instagram,do I pick the one with the
highest search numbersas a hashtag?
Because that's what we do.
Definitely not.
You have to go after intent.
A lot of people throw,like Throwback Thursday.
Motivational Monday,all that stuff.
But that doesn't mean anything.
(20:48):
Or like one word.
Hashtags are really bad.
Like communication.
What does that mean?
It can mean a ton ofdifferent things,
but communication skills.
That means they're looking toimprove the communication skills
they actually want to use orlearn more about what
you're doing.
But communication canmean so many things.
You have to think about intentbehind those searches.
(21:09):
If it's just one word,those are the worst keywords.
You never want to use aone word or hashtag.
Don't want to use one word,two or more words,
long tail keywords orlong tail hashtags.
Less people are using it,but the people using
it have intent.
Like I could use a hashtag, SEO.
It's good.
But what does that mean?
(21:30):
It could mean like, what is SEO?
How do I do?
SEO means so many differentthings.
But I'm doing SEO classes.
I'd want to put like SEO class,SEO classes, SEO courses,
SEO training.
Less people are goingto be using them,
but the people use looking forthat actually want to learn
more and take my classes.
So it's all about intent.
You don't want to just rank forany keyword just to get traffic
(21:53):
or just get followers,because that's not going
to do anything.
You want people to actuallymake a purchase.
That's ultimate goal.
Getting followers is good,but that doesn't result
in sales.
Getting traffic to yourwebsite is good,
but if they're not buying,that doesn't do any
good for you.
You have to have targetedpeople that have intent.
I have been doingthis all wrong.
And if you think about the factthat even Facebook now has
(22:16):
hashtags other than Instagram.
You got Twitter hashtagging,you've got even TikTok.
TikTok mostly works on hashtags,So a lot of us always look
for okay in this word.
This is the highest number of,of hashtags for this word.
So let me pick that in relationto my post, obviously.
(22:37):
So that's what we've been doingall along, thinking, oh,
the more people search for it,then the more there's going
to be traffic coming here.
But also the more competitive itbecomes too. So the more people,
the more general,broad keyword or hashtags,
the more competitive it is.
So you're gonna have a thousandpeople may be posting pictures
(22:58):
or videos with that hashtagevery hour.
Whereas the long tail,the two or more words might only
have five or ten people postingwith that hashtag.
So less competition means you'regoing to show and get more
exposure to people that actuallycare about what you're offering.
You got to think about the user.
If you're looking for yourproduct or service,
what would you use?
(23:19):
If you're looking for yours,would you go into Instagram
and type in communicate?
Probably not.
You're probably put something,two or three words.
Like when you search on Googlemost people never just put
one word in there.
Unless you're tryingto figure out like,
what does this word mean?
There's like a dictionary,but other than that,
people don't really search oneword words or hashtags.
It's 2, 3, 4, 5 words, 10 words.
(23:42):
The more words in it,the more targeted it is.
Like someone searching onGoogle for men's shoes.
What does that mean?
It means so many differentthings.
But if someone searches formen's Nike tennis shoes,
size 10, color white,I mean that's a really specific
search keyword.
Not many people are goingto be searching for it.
(24:04):
But the people searchingfor that,
they know exactly what sizeshoe, what color, what brand,
they're ready to makea purchase.
Someone searchingfor men's shoes,
they're at the upper funnelwhere they're just
browsing around.
They don't know what typeof shoe they want.
They just know they wantsomething for men.
They don't know if they wanttennis shoes, dress shoes,
running shoes, who knows?
There's no intent.
(24:26):
And in that men's shoes example,so that means my website,
if I'm selling men's shoes,I must have those keywords
men's shoes,and then have a picture maybe,
and then say color black,size 10.
So I'm more likely to showup in the search because I had.
It's going to pick those up.
Yeah.
(24:47):
If you don't have iton your website,
then Google's not going to knowthat you're trying to target it.
So you have to have thatcontent on your page.
Okay what other advicecan you give us?
I've been doing this all wrong.
What other advice can you givesomeone who has a website if
they're thinking, okay,I just started having a website,
I just created one,where do I go next in order to
(25:10):
have this SEO build backlinks.
Build backlinks sooner thanlater because backlinks take
a lot of time to build.
It takes a lot of time forGoogle to trust you.
And the sooner you startbuilding backlinks,
the sooner you startgetting traffic.
But if you don't build backlinksuntil six months, a year later,
you're going to have to it's alla waiting game. I tell people,
(25:31):
even before you buildyour website,
when you just have your URL,start building backlinks.
Because SEO takes about sixmonths or more to take effect
because of the backlinks.
The backlinks are whatranks websites.
And then secondly,once I've done the backlinks,
what do I do next?
The keywords.
Oh no,the backlinks are never done.
(25:51):
You're always going to bebuilding new backlinks because
to Google a normal website wouldalways be getting backlinks.
So if Google sees that you builda bunch of backlinks
and it stops,Google thinks that you
went out of business.
You have to always bebuilding backlinks.
Backlinks are how Google'salgorithm started.
That's how Google became popularbecause they rank websites
based off backlinks.
So it's really important tobuild backlinks and making sure
(26:14):
that you have a good strongbacklink profile and you keep
building new backlinks and thenyou have to optimize your
website because once you getGoogle to trust you,
they're going to look at thekeywords on your website to
figure out what keywordsto rank you for.
So that's where you got to havethe keywords and all the
technical kind of codingplaces on your website,
which a little technical.
I don't know how technicalyou want to get like,
but if you add content,just text to your website,
(26:37):
that's easy enough withouthaving to go into the coding and
change like a title tag or metadescription or schema or alt
tags or site maps and all thosereally technical things which
help out. But the content,the text on the page is
so very important.
If you just have abunch of images,
Google is going to struggle.
They can't really read images,need you to supply
(26:57):
them with text.
I know you wanted to talka lot more about Google,
but I can ask you aTwitter question.
Yeah.
I have been advised that ifI hash, if I post my,
my tweet and I write somethingand then I pick the hashtag,
one of the extra hashtagsI should have,
even though it's not relatedto my tweet,
(27:19):
is one of the ones that arecurrently trending.
Is that true?
No. That is the worst idea ever.
Because what if likethe President is,
is trending all the time.
So you could put the treasure,the President in there and
what's that going to get you?
A bunch of random people thatare looking for the President.
But I mean,unless you're selling Something
(27:41):
that's trending, great.
But if you're not sellingsomething that's trending,
then putting hashtags that haveno relevancy is going to get you
followers that have no interestin your product or service.
Remember, you want to get salestraffic and followers
don't do anything.
You want sales and you need tofind people that want to use
your product or service.
Someone's searching fora trending hashtag.
(28:02):
They're just looking for viralstuff. They're not looking.
It's entertainment to them.
They just want to seewhat's going on.
Imagine you're selling tennisshoes and then you put in there
Obama. It's gonna be like,why did you put Obama?
Oh, today the View was trending.
So you're,you're looking for men's shoes.
You're a guy. And my hashtag,the View,
(28:24):
which is a woman's talk show,which is,
has zero relevance to you.
Well, I've never met a man whowatches the View,
but so you put your stuff,your communication skills
and all of that and oh,they said I must write the.
Somebody advised me to writethe trending hashtag.
So I write the View andtherefore it's, it's just not.
It didn't make sense to me but Ithought, hey, I'm not a techie.
(28:47):
Maybe this person knowswhat they're doing.
It sounds like they mightunfortunately not know what
they're doing because you haveto think about the
user ultimately.
Take a step back and pretend ifyou're looking for your proctor
service, does this make sense?
If not, don't do it.
Yeah.
What other,what last word of wisdom would
(29:08):
you give to us whenit comes to SEO?
Like I said especially a lotof our listeners are not,
even though they're just not.
The kind of take is that I feellike what you were explaining
today have reached that levelof sophistication.
Just to be patient.
It takes time.
With digital marketing andSEO and everything,
(29:29):
especially SEO takes time.
So be patient,don't expect immediate results.
If you want immediate traction,run paid ads that will get
you traffic right away.
But SEO is more of a long termplay where it's going to get
you traffic indefinitely,but it takes time
to get up there.
So of people get discouragedwhen they don't see those
rankings coming in.
And I always tell people,just be patient,
keep working it and over timeyou're going to slowly start
(29:52):
seeing yourself moving up,getting more traffic and
getting more traffic.
But it's not immediate.
It does take time.
Words of wisdom fromBrandon Lebowitz,
the digital marketingspecialist. Thank you so much,
Brandon, for being here today.
Thank you for having me on.
And I did create a special giftfor all your listeners
(30:12):
if they want.
To check out special gifts.
If they go to my website@SEOoptimizers.com,
that's S E-O O-P-T-I I Z E-RS.com forward slash skip.
They can find that there,along with my contact
information.
A bunch of classes I've doneover the years I've thrown up
for free so they couldsee step by step,
(30:33):
how to do a lot of this stuff.
And they can watch us anytime,all there for free.
Thank you very much.
We love free gifts,and especially this one is very
helpful because tons of us havewebsites and as I've given
some examples earlier,we've been doing it.
Some of the stuff,we've been doing it all wrong.
So this has been very helpful.
We're going to search thosegifts for sure.
(30:54):
Thank you so much, Brandon.
Thank you for havingme on today.
My pleasure.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Give a rating and a review,and we'll be with you next time.
Welcome back to the Speakingand Communicating podcast.
I am your host, Roberta.
If you are looking to improveyour communication skills both
professionally and personally,this is the podcast you
should be tuning into.
And by the end of this episode,please remember to subscribe,
give a rating and a review.
Now,when it comes to communication,
(00:23):
one of the most important thingsis how you craft your message
and communicate it to the restof the world so that they
understand exactly what it isthat you do and how
you help them.
Today, my guest,Brandon Libowitz,
who is a digital marketingspecialist, is here to help us
with just that.
(00:44):
And before I go any further,please help me welcome him
to the show. Hi, Brandon.
Hi.
Thank you for havingme on today.
You are welcome.
And thank you for being here.
From sunny California,I'm guessing.
Yep From Los Angeles,California.
Oh, okay.
Say hi to Universal Studios.
(01:05):
So tell us a little bitabout yourself.
I've been involved with digital,I think the mic.
So tell us a little bitabout yourself.
My name is Brandon Lieboitz andI've been involved with digital
(01:27):
marketing since 2007,helping people get more traffic
to their website using differentstrategies such as search
engine optimization,social media marketing,
helping out with paid ads,and just trying to help people
get more visibility andexposure online.
Got my degree in businessmarketing and just kind of fell
into this role back in 2007.
Wasn't planning on doingdigital marketing,
(01:48):
but first job I got atschool said, look,
we want you to help out withdigital. And said,
I don't know much about it.
But they said, don't worry,we don't know much
about it either.
We're going to take you toclasses, workshops, seminars,
and learn alongside with you.
And after working therefor a few months,
just realized everyone'sprobably going to have a
website in the future.
And there's a lot of differentways to get traffic,
but SEO is just a wayto get free traffic.
(02:08):
So I really focused onthat over the years,
trying to tap into that freetraffic from Google,
working at different advertisingagencies as a director of SEO.
And before work or after workon my lunch breaks,
I would work on my own companyand built it up to where I was
able to eventually quit my joband focus solely on this.
And been doing that ever since,since 2007.
(02:29):
That's before social mediabecame as big as it is today.
How did you, like you said,how did you have the foresight
to know that, hey,wait a minute,
there's going to come in time?
Because that's 15 years ago.
Things have changed a lotin the last 15 years.
That there's going to come atime when this is all that
everybody's looking for online.
(02:50):
I mean,they had Facebook around back
then, there's MySpace,there's like Reddit,
and all these like Social Web2.0 type of sites that
were around,that were gaining trajectory
and projected.
And I just thought thateveryone's probably going to
have a website in the future andjust stick with this
digital marketing.
Wasn't planning on doing socialor any of that stuff.
(03:11):
I just thought people are goingto have a website and kind of
figure out how to marketthemselves online.
Now when it comes to marketingyourselves online,
there's a lot of ads,so to speak, that say, oh,
I'm gonna help you withyour Facebook ads,
I'm gonna help you withthe Instagram ads.
But you talk about Google Adsand you say that they are better
(03:32):
than those two. Why is that?
Well, it just depends whatyou're doing.
So most of the time when peopleare on social media,
they're not looking tomake a purchase,
they're just looking to connectwith friends and family.
And when they see those ads,you're just interrupting them.
And people don't wantthose ads there.
And you're just targeting peoplebased off interests.
(03:53):
So you could say, oh,someone like, I'm a realtor,
I want to find people thatjust got married,
that live in the city,but that doesn't mean they
want to buy a house.
They might want to buy one inthe future or in the past,
but doesn't mean they want itright now. But on Google,
someone's searchinghomes for sale near me,
they're looking right now.
They have that intent,that buyer intent,
which is the biggestthing is intent.
(04:14):
Social media has no intent.
Google has intent wherepeople are looking.
And if you want sales,then you want to do Google.
If you're just trying to getyour name out there and
get brand awareness,then social media is great.
But if you're trying to actuallyget sales, leads, phone calls,
whatever that converginggoal is,
and you probably want to stickwith Google Ads or anywhere
people actually search,because when they're searching,
(04:35):
they're looking versus wherethey're browsing with
friends and family,they're not looking to make
a purchase. I mean,sometimes they might,
but most of the time they'renot really looking.
Like most of people are notgoing to go on Facebook
looking for a dentist.
They're probably going to go onGoogle looking for a dentist or
Yelp looking for a Dentist andthen check them out on social
media to make sure they'rea real company.
Put a face behind the company.
(04:56):
Make sure the real legitimate,credible have reviews,
have status updates,connect with them.
You can see what other peoplesee say about them.
So it builds trust for people.
So social is really meant to puta face behind the company.
It's not really meantto get leads.
It's evolved over the years tolike pay to play platforms
to get leads,but really it's to put a face
behind the company.
Because you could buy off awebsite and you're just like,
(05:19):
who is this website?
Maybe you go looking for a newTV and like, I want to buy a tv.
And then you see Best Buy ranksthere, Amazon ranks there,
but maybe Bob's TV ranks there.
And like, who's Bob's TV?
But Bob's TV might have beenaround for 50 years, 80 years,
and it's like a physical storeand they're a real legitimate
business, but you're just like,I don't know who they are.
(05:41):
Social media puts a face behindthat company saying, oh, look,
Bob's TV has a Facebook.
You could ask us questions,you could read reviews so you
could see that we're legitimate.
Just like Amazon or BestBuy is legitimate,
Bob's TV's is legitimate,but you probably have
never heard of them.
So social really helpsbuild that trust up.
Mm So if Bob's TVhas places, Google Ads,
(06:04):
so people search for them,obviously they would need
to have a websitebecause you know how sometimes
they say, oh, websites are dead.
You know,as long as you have a face,
private Facebook group,you're going to attract people
who are looking foryour services.
What do you think of that?
I mean, Facebook is on decline,so less and less people
are using it.
And what if someone wants tomake a purchase and they don't
(06:27):
have a Facebook page,then you just lock them out.
Not everyone has Facebook.
So you're kind of excluding alot of people by just saying,
oh, you can only buy onmy Facebook page.
And Facebook takes a bigpercentage of those sales if you
sell online through FacebookMarketplace and things
like that.
Plus you're just rentingspace off Facebook.
They could take you down anytimeand you just lost your entire
(06:50):
business. Whereas your website,you own that.
No one could take yourwebsite down. I mean,
your hosting could go down,but you still own your website.
That's yours forever.
Facebook is not yours.
Facebook is Facebook's.
You're just helping Facebookget more traffic,
helping Facebook makemore money.
You're not really helpingyourself out by having
a Facebook group.
Having a Facebook group is good,but that's not.
(07:13):
The Facebook group is to getpeople off of Facebook
onto your website,not the other way around.
You don't want people going fromyour website to Facebook because
you got to think what'son the Facebook page.
There's ads on theFacebook group,
there's all these distractions,there's notifications,
there's friend requests.
So if they are on that Facebookgroup or page,
they're probably going to getdistracted and leave that page
(07:35):
and forget about you prettyquickly because there's too many
distractions on Facebook.
Is the same similarto Instagram,
because I know some people say,oh, I'll help you with your
Instagram ads.
You know how you scrollon Instagram,
you'll see about three of yourfriends posts and then the
next one is an ad.
And usually it's something thatprobably you've searched before
(07:56):
or how effective are those?
Well, remarketing ads are very,very effective.
So if you go on Amazon,you look at the product,
you don't buy it.
Those ads follow you around.
Those are really effective.
Extremely effective.
Especially I mean that's calledlike card abandoners,
people that don't makea conversion.
And I would 100% recommend toeveryone run remarketing ads
(08:18):
because these areall warm leads.
People have been to yourwebsite, they know who you are.
And you can run remarketing onGoogle, you can run it on Gmail,
on YouTube, on Facebook,Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest.
And that's what I do is I runremarketing ads everywhere.
So you stay top of mind becauseyou need about like 5,
5 touch points before someoneactually trusts you to
make a purchase.
(08:38):
So if you're sellinga high ticket item,
they go to your website,they don't make a purchase,
but they see your ads.
Following them around all overthe Internet keeps
you top of mind.
And Google is goingto be the best.
Because Google's partnered withevery website on the Internet
that shows banner ads exceptfor social media.
Google's blocked fromall social media.
But if you want your ads to showon like Yahoo, on Fox, cnn,
(09:00):
Forbes, Wall Street Journal,doesn't matter what website that
your visitors are going to,as long as there's ads there and
they've been to your website,those ads will follow them
around on any website they go tothrough Google Ads or if
they're on Facebook,then you can run Facebook
or Instagram,you can run Instagram,
but those are limited.
Like Google runs the Internetand has partnered with almost
(09:22):
every website on the Internetlike if you want your ad to be
on Yahoo you can get your ad onYahoo through Google for.
A couple centsso if I Google something okay
and the searches of 6 billioncome up this the 6 billion
search what did they do so wrongcompared to the first search
(09:45):
that appears that they are laston the list of suggestions
if I Google something.
If someone's not on that rankingon Google then they're not doing
SEO properly so you have to dosearch engine optimization to
rank on Google so if they're notranking they're not doing SEO or
(10:05):
their competitors are doing abetter job of SEO than they are.
A lot of us are not tech nerdsso I don't even know what that
means Would you like toexplain that to us?
SEO is search engineoptimization and that means
ranking websites on Google sowhen you search on Google
there's ads that. The top,those are all paid ads.
And right below the ads arethe organic listings.
(10:26):
And SEO is getting you in theorganic free listings.
What are some key things that Ishould follow in error to appear
at the top of the key listings?
There are over 200 rankingfactors to rank on Google,
but I would say one of the moreimportant ones is adding more
text to your website.
(10:46):
The more text you have on everysingle page on your website,
the easier it is for Google toread and understand and know
what keywords you're targeting.
Because they can't read images,they can't read videos,
they can't understand audio,yet they're getting better at
it, but they need text.
The more text,the more they're going to
understand and know what you'retargeting and be able to rank
you for the correct keywords.
(11:06):
But you have to have text onevery single page on your
website. Not just the homepage,but every page,
if you want to rank on Googleneeds to have content on it.
It's so very important.
Speaking of keywords,how will I know that these are
the keywords I should use inmy website descriptions?
Well,you want to do keyword research
using tools like the GoogleKeyword Planner.
(11:27):
So you go make a list ofkeywords that you want to rank
for or that you think youwant to rank for,
and then you go to the GoogleKeyword Planner,
put them into that tool.
It's a free tool from Google andit'll show you how many people
actually search for that keywordevery single month.
Plus it'll give you a couplehundred other variations of that
keyword. Synonyms, plurals,variations of it.
And I'll show you how manypeople search for those.
(11:48):
So you could go through thatlist and find out which keywords
seem relevant and thenincorporate them into your
website if they're relevant.
But don't take every keyword.
You got to focus on which oneshave buyer intent and have a
decent amount of search volume.
That's going to really help out.
Mm You spoke earlierabout competitors.
How would you know how yourcompetitors use SEO?
(12:13):
Just search on Google for yourkeywords. So go to Google.
Search for your keywordson Google,
see who's on that firstpage of Google.
Make note of all those websites.
Skip the ads.
The ads are different.
But make note of all thosewebsites on that first
page of Google.
And then using different toolslike Ahrefs or Moz or Semrush,
you have to pay for these tools,but they'll show you all
(12:35):
of Their backlinks.
And backlinks are whatranks websites.
Backlinks are clickable linksfrom another website that
points to yours.
So if you're reading an articleon the latimes.com and in there
it says Brandon Lebowitz,and then you click on that and
it goes to my website,I'd be getting a backlink from
the latimes.com So the morewebsites that talk about you,
the more trust Google gives toyou and the higher they rank you
(12:58):
because they don't believe youare who you say you are.
They don't care what keywordsyou put on the website.
Anyone could build a websitenowadays and say, like,
I'm a dentist in Los Angeles.
Google's like,are you really a dentist?
We don't want to send people toyour dentist office and find
out that you're not there,that you're you don't exist.
It's a bad user experience.
So they want to see that.
If I'm a dentist,I should be on, like, WebMD,
(13:18):
I should be on Wikipedia,I should be on Yelp,
I should be on yellowpages.comI should be on MapQuest,
I should be on Google Maps,Bing Maps, Apple Maps,
all these websites.
The more websitesthat you're on,
the more trust Google'sgoing to give to you.
And then they look at thekeywords on your website.
That doesn't work the other wayaround. Without backlinks,
it's pretty much impossibleto rank on Google.
A lot of people are not aware ofthe backlights that you
(13:41):
just mentioned.
Sowhat can they do if I'm saying,
okay, this is the first time I'mcreating my website so that
I tell people theseare my services,
where will I go in order toestablish that? Wait a minute,
I need to list on MapQuest andall of the things that
you mentioned?
Yeah, that's where you do thecompetitor research.
(14:02):
Search on Google for yourcompetitor or for your keywords,
see who's on that firstpage of Google,
make note of all those websites,and then throw them into those
different tools like Ahrefsor Moz or Semrush,
and they'll show you all theirbacklinks. And then one by one,
you could start reachingout to those sites.
Because if they're ranked onthat first page of Google,
they're doing something right.
And it's more than likelybecause of those backlinks.
(14:23):
And if you start building thesame or similar backlinks,
Google's going to reward youwith the same rankings that Your
competitors are getting.
But you have to look at yourcompetitors and use those
different tools. Ahrefs, Mars,Semrush. You just pick one.
They're all prettymuch the same,
but you have to pay for one.
So it doesn't matterwhich one you use,
but you just got pick one,use that.
And that's going to let you seeeverything your competition is
(14:45):
doing. Nothing is hidden.
I could see everythingyou're doing.
You can see everythingI'm doing.
Nothing is hitting withdigital marketing.
And then when it comes to.
Here's the thing.
So if I want people to,you know,
drive traffic to my website,as you said, and I write all the
(15:05):
keywords I have,I do all the stuff that
you talk about today.
How do you have,you know how when you say
dentists near me,let's use the dentist example.
And then they showthose that are.
It's sort of like they show amap and then they show
a few businessesthat are within your area,
(15:27):
within Los Angeles.
They'll share theLos Angeles map.
And then they'll show thebusinesses in Earth.
They list about five or 10of those three maps.
Just three on the maps.
Oh, three on the maps.
Yeah.
And then 10 organic websites.
And they might have four ads atthe top or three or two
(15:47):
or one or zero.
The ads are kind of random.
They might have three ads at thebottom or two or one or zero.
But in between those are the 10organic results. The websites.
There'll be maps,but there will be three listings
on the maps, maybe four.
If they show an ad that.
Did those listings pay for thatspace to show up when you,
when you say near me oris it all organic?
(16:09):
If it says ad, they're paying.
If it doesn't say ad,then it's organic.
Okay.
It's not going to be all ads.
If Google is all ads,no one would go on Google.
Everyone would just be like,I'm going on Bing or Yahoo
or DuckDuckGo.
Because no one wants to seea page full of ads.
So there'll be a couple ads andthen there'll be a lot
of organic results.
Because they can't just havea page full of ads.
That's a bad user experience.
(16:30):
And nobody wants to go on awebsite that's just full of ads.
You're gonna be like, nope,I'm going on another website
that's unbiased becauseI don't want to.
Seeing what peopleare paying for.
Yeah, because, you know,we like that, we like buying,
but we don't want to be sold to.
So those people who pay ads likewhen you search for something
and then they are the firsttwo that appear,
(16:50):
those are ads and then itbecomes the organic traffic.
That ad space,is it just the two companies,
did they pay more money thanother companies in that
same industry?
That's why they appearas the top two ads.
And then you find theorganic pages
because usually it's about twoand then the organic and then
(17:13):
about two at the bottom as wellbefore you go to the next page.
Actually 0 to 4 ads.
It could be 0 ads 1, 2,3 or 4 at the top, right.
The bottom it might be 0, 1,2 or 3 ads.
So the top lab at most 4,the bottom will have at most 3.
(17:33):
Right now.
But everything changes.
So who knows what's gonnahappen in the future.
But the time being at most fourat the top and most three
at the bottom.
And then there might beone ad on the maps.
So does that mean if you,if you are the top before even
the organic traffic you havepaid do how is the payment?
(17:54):
Is it you pay more,you're going to appear first
or is it universal fees?
It gets kind of complicated.
So it's whoever pays the mostbut also they look
at ad relevancy,click through rate user
experience and landing page.
So if you say you'll pay $5 andI'll pay $5 and 10 cents,
(18:16):
usually I'd rank higher.
But if your website's moreoptimized then Google's going to
say okay, you're paying $5,we're going to rank you because
you're more optimized.
Even though I'm willingto pay more.
Google wants to show who'smore optimized.
So you have to havesome optimization.
Making sure your keywords are inthe ad in the URL and the text
on the landing page.
Make sure you have a good clickthrough rate all all
(18:37):
that goes into it.
So they have the algorithm.
It's not just whoeverspends the most,
it's a bunch of other variablesthat go into their algorithm
for the, for the paid ads.
Algorithm A word that a lot ofus non tech people are so afraid
of when it comes to YouTube.
You know how you when you searchfor something and if I
(18:58):
want to post a video,I have been advised,
I want your thoughts on that.
I've been advised that, okay,before you title your video,
look at how for that topic,what is the most searched way of
titling the YouTube video?
Instead of saying how to bea great public speaker.
(19:20):
It could be how to be a goodpublic speaker that could be
at the top of the search.
So I must change my videoand title it like that.
The first thing that appeared.
What do you think of that?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
You want to do keyword research,you have to always do
keyword research.
You don't want to just throwkeywords in there,
thinking those are the best.
You need to do keywordresearch through.
(19:42):
Like the Google keyword plannerfor SEO or YouTube has a keyword
research tool for YouTube.
So definitely,definitely spine your
competitors,research your competitors,
analyze them,and then take those keywords,
throw them into the differenttools to see how many people
actually search for that keywordevery single month.
Because just because they'reranked up there doesn't
necessarily mean it's the bestkeyword. It probably is,
(20:03):
but it doesn't mean it.
That's why you got to do yourown research and due diligence
to make sure it actuallyis a good keyword.
Okay. And you know,on Instagram, you have hashtags.
Here's the perceptionsome of us have.
If I hashtag the wordcommunication,
it's going to show communicationskills,
communication or communicate,and all the suggestions,
(20:27):
and it will show how many peoplesearch for the order.
On Instagram,do I pick the one with the
highest search numbersas a hashtag?
Because that's what we do.
Definitely not.
You have to go after intent.
A lot of people throw,like Throwback Thursday.
Motivational Monday,all that stuff.
But that doesn't mean anything.
(20:48):
Or like one word.
Hashtags are really bad.
Like communication.
What does that mean?
It can mean a ton ofdifferent things,
but communication skills.
That means they're looking toimprove the communication skills
they actually want to use orlearn more about what
you're doing.
But communication canmean so many things.
You have to think about intentbehind those searches.
(21:09):
If it's just one word,those are the worst keywords.
You never want to use aone word or hashtag.
Don't want to use one word,two or more words,
long tail keywords orlong tail hashtags.
Less people are using it,but the people using
it have intent.
Like I could use a hashtag, SEO.
It's good.
But what does that mean?
(21:30):
It could mean like, what is SEO?
How do I do?
SEO means so many differentthings.
But I'm doing SEO classes.
I'd want to put like SEO class,SEO classes, SEO courses,
SEO training.
Less people are goingto be using them,
but the people use looking forthat actually want to learn
more and take my classes.
So it's all about intent.
You don't want to just rank forany keyword just to get traffic
(21:53):
or just get followers,because that's not going
to do anything.
You want people to actuallymake a purchase.
That's ultimate goal.
Getting followers is good,but that doesn't result
in sales.
Getting traffic to yourwebsite is good,
but if they're not buying,that doesn't do any
good for you.
You have to have targetedpeople that have intent.
I have been doingthis all wrong.
And if you think about the factthat even Facebook now has
(22:16):
hashtags other than Instagram.
You got Twitter hashtagging,you've got even TikTok.
TikTok mostly works on hashtags,So a lot of us always look
for okay in this word.
This is the highest number of,of hashtags for this word.
So let me pick that in relationto my post, obviously.
(22:37):
So that's what we've been doingall along, thinking, oh,
the more people search for it,then the more there's going
to be traffic coming here.
But also the more competitive itbecomes too. So the more people,
the more general,broad keyword or hashtags,
the more competitive it is.
So you're gonna have a thousandpeople may be posting pictures
(22:58):
or videos with that hashtagevery hour.
Whereas the long tail,the two or more words might only
have five or ten people postingwith that hashtag.
So less competition means you'regoing to show and get more
exposure to people that actuallycare about what you're offering.
You got to think about the user.
If you're looking for yourproduct or service,
what would you use?
(23:19):
If you're looking for yours,would you go into Instagram
and type in communicate?
Probably not.
You're probably put something,two or three words.
Like when you search on Googlemost people never just put
one word in there.
Unless you're tryingto figure out like,
what does this word mean?
There's like a dictionary,but other than that,
people don't really search oneword words or hashtags.
It's 2, 3, 4, 5 words, 10 words.
(23:42):
The more words in it,the more targeted it is.
Like someone searching onGoogle for men's shoes.
What does that mean?
It means so many differentthings.
But if someone searches formen's Nike tennis shoes,
size 10, color white,I mean that's a really specific
search keyword.
Not many people are goingto be searching for it.
(24:04):
But the people searchingfor that,
they know exactly what sizeshoe, what color, what brand,
they're ready to makea purchase.
Someone searchingfor men's shoes,
they're at the upper funnelwhere they're just
browsing around.
They don't know what typeof shoe they want.
They just know they wantsomething for men.
They don't know if they wanttennis shoes, dress shoes,
running shoes, who knows?
There's no intent.
(24:26):
And in that men's shoes example,so that means my website,
if I'm selling men's shoes,I must have those keywords
men's shoes,and then have a picture maybe,
and then say color black,size 10.
So I'm more likely to showup in the search because I had.
It's going to pick those up.
Yeah.
(24:47):
If you don't have iton your website,
then Google's not going to knowthat you're trying to target it.
So you have to have thatcontent on your page.
Okay what other advicecan you give us?
I've been doing this all wrong.
What other advice can you givesomeone who has a website if
they're thinking, okay,I just started having a website,
I just created one,where do I go next in order to
(25:10):
have this SEO build backlinks.
Build backlinks sooner thanlater because backlinks take
a lot of time to build.
It takes a lot of time forGoogle to trust you.
And the sooner you startbuilding backlinks,
the sooner you startgetting traffic.
But if you don't build backlinksuntil six months, a year later,
you're going to have to it's alla waiting game. I tell people,
(25:31):
even before you buildyour website,
when you just have your URL,start building backlinks.
Because SEO takes about sixmonths or more to take effect
because of the backlinks.
The backlinks are whatranks websites.
And then secondly,once I've done the backlinks,
what do I do next?
The keywords.
Oh no,the backlinks are never done.
(25:51):
You're always going to bebuilding new backlinks because
to Google a normal website wouldalways be getting backlinks.
So if Google sees that you builda bunch of backlinks
and it stops,Google thinks that you
went out of business.
You have to always bebuilding backlinks.
Backlinks are how Google'salgorithm started.
That's how Google became popularbecause they rank websites
based off backlinks.
So it's really important tobuild backlinks and making sure
(26:14):
that you have a good strongbacklink profile and you keep
building new backlinks and thenyou have to optimize your
website because once you getGoogle to trust you,
they're going to look at thekeywords on your website to
figure out what keywordsto rank you for.
So that's where you got to havethe keywords and all the
technical kind of codingplaces on your website,
which a little technical.
I don't know how technicalyou want to get like,
but if you add content,just text to your website,
(26:37):
that's easy enough withouthaving to go into the coding and
change like a title tag or metadescription or schema or alt
tags or site maps and all thosereally technical things which
help out. But the content,the text on the page is
so very important.
If you just have abunch of images,
Google is going to struggle.
They can't really read images,need you to supply
(26:57):
them with text.
I know you wanted to talka lot more about Google,
but I can ask you aTwitter question.
Yeah.
I have been advised that ifI hash, if I post my,
my tweet and I write somethingand then I pick the hashtag,
one of the extra hashtagsI should have,
even though it's not relatedto my tweet,
(27:19):
is one of the ones that arecurrently trending.
Is that true?
No. That is the worst idea ever.
Because what if likethe President is,
is trending all the time.
So you could put the treasure,the President in there and
what's that going to get you?
A bunch of random people thatare looking for the President.
But I mean,unless you're selling Something
(27:41):
that's trending, great.
But if you're not sellingsomething that's trending,
then putting hashtags that haveno relevancy is going to get you
followers that have no interestin your product or service.
Remember, you want to get salestraffic and followers
don't do anything.
You want sales and you need tofind people that want to use
your product or service.
Someone's searching fora trending hashtag.
(28:02):
They're just looking for viralstuff. They're not looking.
It's entertainment to them.
They just want to seewhat's going on.
Imagine you're selling tennisshoes and then you put in there
Obama. It's gonna be like,why did you put Obama?
Oh, today the View was trending.
So you're,you're looking for men's shoes.
You're a guy. And my hashtag,the View,
(28:24):
which is a woman's talk show,which is,
has zero relevance to you.
Well, I've never met a man whowatches the View,
but so you put your stuff,your communication skills
and all of that and oh,they said I must write the.
Somebody advised me to writethe trending hashtag.
So I write the View andtherefore it's, it's just not.
It didn't make sense to me but Ithought, hey, I'm not a techie.
(28:47):
Maybe this person knowswhat they're doing.
It sounds like they mightunfortunately not know what
they're doing because you haveto think about the
user ultimately.
Take a step back and pretend ifyou're looking for your proctor
service, does this make sense?
If not, don't do it.
Yeah.
What other,what last word of wisdom would
(29:08):
you give to us whenit comes to SEO?
Like I said especially a lotof our listeners are not,
even though they're just not.
The kind of take is that I feellike what you were explaining
today have reached that levelof sophistication.
Just to be patient.
It takes time.
With digital marketing andSEO and everything,
(29:29):
especially SEO takes time.
So be patient,don't expect immediate results.
If you want immediate traction,run paid ads that will get
you traffic right away.
But SEO is more of a long termplay where it's going to get
you traffic indefinitely,but it takes time
to get up there.
So of people get discouragedwhen they don't see those
rankings coming in.
And I always tell people,just be patient,
keep working it and over timeyou're going to slowly start
(29:52):
seeing yourself moving up,getting more traffic and
getting more traffic.
But it's not immediate.
It does take time.
Words of wisdom fromBrandon Lebowitz,
the digital marketingspecialist. Thank you so much,
Brandon, for being here today.
Thank you for having me on.
And I did create a special giftfor all your listeners
(30:12):
if they want.
To check out special gifts.
If they go to my website@SEOoptimizers.com,
that's S E-O O-P-T-I I Z E-RS.com forward slash skip.
They can find that there,along with my contact
information.
A bunch of classes I've doneover the years I've thrown up
for free so they couldsee step by step,
(30:33):
how to do a lot of this stuff.
And they can watch us anytime,all there for free.
Thank you very much.
We love free gifts,and especially this one is very
helpful because tons of us havewebsites and as I've given
some examples earlier,we've been doing it.
Some of the stuff,we've been doing it all wrong.
So this has been very helpful.
We're going to search thosegifts for sure.
(30:54):
Thank you so much, Brandon.
Thank you for havingme on today.
My pleasure.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Give a rating and a review,and we'll be with you next time.
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