March 19, 2025 • 24 mins
🚀 Hey everyone! I had an amazing time as a guest on this podcast, diving deep into SEO, digital marketing, and how to tap into free traffic that actually converts! 💰✨
I run SEO Optimizers, where I help businesses rank higher on Google, drive more leads, and grow without breaking the bank on paid ads. We talked about:
✅ The power of content & backlinks 🔗
✅ Automating SEO to save time 🕒
✅ Google’s latest algorithm changes 📊
✅ Why SEO is like real estate—own more of the search results! 🏆
If you’re tired of being stuck in the SEO maze, this episode is for you! 🎙️ Listen in and let’s get you ranking!
📍 Grab my free SEO training 👉 SEOoptimizers.com/gift
🔗 DM me with your SEO questions! Let’s connect: @BrandonLeibowitz
#SEO #DigitalMarketing #GoogleRankings #OnlineGrowth 🚀
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey,and welcome back to the podcast.
We're here with Brandonleibowitz from SEO
optimizers.com Now Brandon runsand operates this company
called SEO Optimizers.
They are a digital marketingcompany that focuses on helping
small and medium sizedbusinesses get more
online traffic,which then converts to clients,
sales and leads.
(00:21):
And so in SEO terms,Brandon is here basically
guest blog posting,but in podcast format. Right.
And we're meeting,we're talking,
he's sharing content,will get some, some backlinks.
As a result,he'll rank in the search terms.
And in the meantime,have fun and help these
businesses that are stuckwith SEO. So Brandon,
nice to meet you and whatdo you have to say?
(00:42):
Thanks for having me on today.
Glad to have you.
And so so yeah, SEO,like people talk about it a lot
and I feel like maybe in thepast, like two to three years,
I finally gotten my head aroundit because it seems like just up
until then there was all thisjust minutia and it seems like
just the last few yearsespecially people have like
structured it better and saidlike, here are these buckets,
(01:04):
right?
Here's like local SEO andon page and off page.
And I feel like I get abetter sense of like,
what needs to be done.
And so what are your thoughtson this whole search engine
optimization thing?
And how do you stand out fromall these other agencies?
SEO is a way to get free trafficto your website.
And who doesn't wantfree traffic?
So help people when they'researching on Google
(01:25):
for your keywords,make sure that your
website appears.
But also when you're searchingon Google, images appear.
So optimizing your images,if you have any videos,
optimize those videos.
Videos sometimes appear.
If you're a local business,catch up on Google Maps and just
try to take up as much freereal estate as possible.
Because that's really whatSEO is all about.
It's all about just tapping intothat free traffic from
(01:46):
the search engines.
And it's not just websites.
There's a lot of otherstuff nowadays.
So just trying to tap into asmuch traffic as possible without
spending money on paid ads andbeen doing it since 2007 and
seeing all the changes over theyears and how Google
has changed,but really focus on good quality
content and good qualitybacklinks.
There's a lot of other variablesthat go in SEO,
(02:07):
but those two things are some ofthe more important aspects.
That if you optimize yourcontent and you have good
content and then you havegood backlinks,
that's going to help Googletrust you and know what keywords
to rank you for.
Fantastic.
You make it sound doable, right?
The content and backlinks.
And I like what you said thereabout how there's all this free
real estate. And I mean,you're not joking.
(02:27):
Whenever I get like an SEO sortof guest on my show, it's just,
it's a lesson in itself toGoogle you and to Google your
company name and tosee like all the,
the podcast guest appearances,the guest blog posts,
the review sites,the different social networks
and I think all these thingslike, oh, yeah,
I could go over to Pinterest andpost there and get
(02:48):
these backlinks.
And you mentioned there aboutthe Google image search results
and about, you know,optimizing your videos and like,
oh, there's, you know,I post on YouTube,
but I could also post to Vimeo.
And so it seems at first likea whole mess of stuff,
like a huge,big long to do list.
But then it seems like the,the solution,
there's probably like threesolutions, right?
(03:08):
There's a solutionof do nothing,
keep doing what you're doing,and be frustrated about the free
traffic you're not getting.
It seems like option two is totry to do some of this yourself.
But you know,there's like 520 things to do
just this month with SEO.
And it seems like the thirdoption is maybe go to a company
such as yourself where you say,you know, this month,
here's what's doable and we'llput a person on it,
(03:31):
we'll put a team on it,and we'll get to these tasks
and show you some results.
And so like,what are your thoughts on this?
What are your thoughts on justmaking sense of all these Google
changes since 2007?
And what are your thoughts onpeople just being overwhelmed
with all the things thatcould be done?
Well, there's a lot youcould automate.
So the more you could automate,the easier life is going to be
using tools like Zapier orZapier is a great tool where
(03:54):
you say, all right,anytime I post on my own blog,
share it on Twitter,on Facebook, on LinkedIn,
on Pinterest,and pretty much does it for you.
It's not going tomake it perfect.
You might have to add somehashtags and things like that,
but at least it kind of sets thefoundation to save time.
But there is a lot that needsto be done when you're doing
content and publishing it outthere and getting all the
different platforms and makingsure like if you do
(04:15):
a podcast episode,you want to share it on all
the social media sites,probably want to share it
on your own website.
And there's ways to kind ofautomate some of those tasks.
Not completely,but anything to help you save
time is going to make you moreefficient so you can focus on
the more important things,creating good content,
creating good videos,creating good podcasts,
or whatever content you'reputting out there.
But once it's out there,it takes a little bit of time
(04:37):
to get that exposure,but a little bit of time is much
less than the time that youinvested creating that content.
So if you're just creatingcontent and throwing it up there
and hoping people find it,it might work, might not work.
But if you spend the extra timeto really promote it,
that's where you spend an extra30 minutes promoting it.
You're going to see thatdifference in the number of
views, traffic, likes, comments,whatever,
wherever you're posting it.
(04:58):
But you'll see that engagementand people are going to stick
and resonate more with it.
So does take time.
And unfortunately there'sno little shortcuts.
But there are tools.
Like Zapier is a greatfree tool,
and there's other tools thatcould help kind of automate
some of those tasks.
But you do need to spend thetime and you need to learn them
and stay up to date with whatGoogle wants you to do.
Because Google changesevery single day.
So what works today doesn'tnecessarily work tomorrow.
(05:21):
For the most part it will,but Google changes all the time,
so you never know what they'regoing to look for.
But the main thing they're doingis they're trying to stop spam.
So if you're doing anything thatseems shady or too good to be
true or like a shortcut thatpotentially could get you
in trouble with Google.
But if you're not doing anythingthat seems weird or sketchy,
then you only have to worry toomuch about the algorithm
(05:41):
updates.
Except for sometimes we'll tellyou, like, all right,
if your website's notmobile friendly,
we're not going to show you onmobile devices back in like
2013. So that was a sign, like,hey,
if you're not mobile friendly,Google's not going to show
you on mobile devices.
And nowadays that's over halfthe traffic comes from mobile.
So most websites are responsivemobile friendly nowadays.
But there's tools thatwill let you check,
(06:02):
like the Google MobileFriendly test tool,
and it'll show you if awebsite's mobile friendly
or not to Google,because it might Be mobile
friendly on your phone.
But Google might say the fontsare too unique or the colors are
too close to one another.
That won't be mobile friendly.
And I've seen thathappen before.
So it's a little nuances thatyou have to check all that
stuff. But for the most part,if you're not doing anything
(06:22):
weird or sketchy,then you don't have to worry too
much about algorithm updates.
But it is good to tryto stay up to date.
Talk to other Webmasters orother people that do SEO or
other people in your industry orjoin forums or Facebook groups,
or read blogs or listen topodcasts and just try to learn
as much as you can tojust be up to date.
Because Google doesn't reallytell you when they make those
changes because they don't wantyou to know. They want you to.
(06:44):
They don't want you doing SEO.
They want you to run paid ads.
That's how they makeall their money.
So they have to have theorganic, the SEO listings.
Because we went on Googleand it's just all ads.
You'd be like, no,I'm going on bing,
Yahoo or DuckDuckGo or Braveor different search engine.
But they have to havethat balance.
But they don't really like SEO.
They want you to spend thatmoney on paid ads.
(07:04):
Those are some good insightsthat, yeah, like they don't want
you to do SEO,they want you to do paid ads.
And so it's sort of thatmoving target.
But then there are thosetools available,
like that Google Webmasterconsole.
That's a great tip because.
And I didn't even know that,that your your website could
look great on a phone.
But,but then according to Google,
they might say, oh, well,the colors aren't contrasted
(07:25):
enough or the font'snot what we want.
And that's really good to know.
And every now and then I get oneof those errors like, oh,
such and such website isn'tmobile friendly.
And I'm like what is that?
And like,I don't always check because
I'm just like, oh,I know that I'm using whatever
WordPress theme,but maybe it's a WordPress theme
from like, you know, five,10 years ago.
And now I know from you that Ineed to check that because there
(07:46):
might be some specific issuethat's easily fixable, but,
but it's also easy not to fix itand let it go by the wayside.
Next thing you know,you're not even being shown in
the search results for mobile.
So that, that is a good insight.
And another good insight becauseI'm just trying to, you know,
digest what,what you've been saying.
Cause it was all really great isyou're saying that there's your,
there's the content sideof things, right?
(08:07):
You put all this work and effortinto content and then you also
need to pay attention to thedistribution and that a lot
of that can be automated.
Like with Zapier,where you make your blog post,
it checks your RSS feed,goes to these social profiles.
But then also there's somethingin there that you said
it was very helpful.
Where you said like, there was,you said kind of like have a
checklist of like where you wantyour post to end up and maybe
(08:30):
make adjustments and hashtags.
But what was really great is yousaid like budget like 30 minutes
of time with every post,like have a set block of time
just to like get it out there.
Because it's so easy,it's so tempting to just say,
cool, I made my blog postfor the week.
Now I'm going to go answer someemails and do some customer
service or some,or manage my team or
something else.
And there's that reallyimportant aspect there
(08:52):
of just the,the marketing of your content.
And then also you mentioned howimportant it is to do that
networking, to be on,on these social networks.
Not just to play aroundand read,
but also to participateand to you know,
get some of these jointventures worked out.
And you know it's a it's atwo way street, right?
You want links back,you want to link to others and
(09:13):
you don't want to just be someirrelevant person who's
not existing.
And also that ties exactly inwith you being here on a podcast
and doing that partof the networking.
And with podcasting it's fun tojump into stories, right?
You've kind of given us somekind of like, you know,
facts and ideas.
But stories are what are kind ofthe more interesting things
because it shows what,what you do and the people
(09:34):
that you help.
So what comes to mind as far aslike a case study or a success
story or something that you guysat SEO Optimizers have had
a lot of fun with.
One recently been working withthem for a few years but helping
out a fashion leveling companyand they make fashion for like
music events and festivals.
(09:54):
So it's a little bit more niche.
The more niche it is,the less competition,
the more realistic it isto be able to rank.
Because just ranking for likefashion or women's clothing,
hyper competitive.
But if you can find somethingunique niche about
your business,that's going to always,
always help out.
So with them worked with them,went on their website,
made changes to their structureand their hierarchy of their
(10:16):
different categories orcollections since they
were on Shopify,because that's a big part
of your website,is how you organize it,
how you structure it,helps Google and search engines
find and really understand whatthat website's about.
Because search engines are justrobots and they get lost.
So the easier you make it forthem to find that content,
know what that content reallyis supposed to be about,
the more they're reward you.
(10:37):
And by doing that,they pretty much shot up the
rankings because they'rea pretty big brand.
They had a good backlink profilealready built up,
so they had some trustwith Google,
but Google just kind of gotstuck with the website.
They had a lot of duplicate pageor duplicate categories where
they were just kind of competingagainst themselves.
This is another thingyou have to realize,
like if you have pages that areabout the same topic now,
(10:57):
you're your own competitor,where you're just cannibalizing
your results and merging thosepages together that let
Google know, okay,this is the main page.
All these other onesare duplicates.
Let's redirect the old ones tothe new one or the main one that
we're going to keep as acentral hub. So again,
this is kind of gettinga little technical,
but you do need to go in andmake sure that Google's able to
read that website becausethey're having trouble
(11:19):
reading the website,they're going to get stuck,
lost and confused and they'renot going to know what keywords
to rank you for.
So by making those changes,Google is able to better read
their website and shop them upto pretty much the top position.
Number one, number two,number three for almost all
their keywords that are reallycompetitive keywords where
before they're on page two,page three.
So they were close tobeing on page one.
It's just they needed thatlittle bump of the trust from or
(11:42):
a little bump of Google readingtheir website better and me
building some new backlinks tojust keep that growth going.
Because to Google a normalwebsite would always be having
some backlinks being sent it.
So building backlinks byfinding other sites,
I relate to what they're doing.
So with them they were aclothing fashion website.
So finding anything relatedto fashion, clothing,
those types of websites,and trying to build
(12:04):
relationships with thosewebmasters to see potentially if
there's like a partnership or ifwe could give like free product
to somebody as an influencer andthey write a blog post about it
on their website and giveus a clickable link.
So it's lots of different waysto build backlinks and it's just
you want to really get on sites.
I relate to what you're doing.
That's a big part of SEO,is relevancy.
The more related the backlinksare to your website,
(12:25):
the better off you'regoing to be.
The more related those keywordsare on your website to what
someone's searching on Google,the more likely Google's going
to show you for all that,for that keyword.
So just making sure everythingties together.
Got them up there and theysaw sales shot up.
Because we're trackingeverything through Google
Analytics to look athow much traffic,
how much revenue they'regetting.
Because we could tie it directlythere. They also have a store,
(12:45):
it's a little tougher totie revenue to that.
But you could track like instore conversions and things
like that with geotargeting aradius mainly through
cell phones.
So they could see if your cellphone, you walk into that store,
they could track thatas a conversion.
Doesn't show how muchthey spent.
But all that just helps outbecause sometimes it gets tough
with tracking if there's.
Sometimes you gotta getcreative. Figure I,
(13:06):
if I can't track revenuespecifically if it's like an
in store physical purchase,what other alternatives are
there because you want totrack those conversions.
That way you could show what'sreally going on because
traffic is great,but traffic is just half battle
once people get to your websiteto get them to buy.
And that's a whole anotheraspect where it's conversion
rate optimization,optimizing that website for
conversions where then we goin and look at the website,
(13:28):
try to figure out, all right,maybe we should move the add to
cart but in a little bit higher.
Change the add to cart to buynow or do all this A B testing
because you never know what'sgoing to work until you test.
And then once you see somethingthat works like maybe add to
cart, change it to buy now.
That works better. All right,let's see if changing the color
of the buy now button a littlebit darker shade of orange
or whatever the color is.
(13:49):
Let's see how that affectsconversions.
Because there is noperfect website.
You always want to be Testing tomaximize the value of every
potential traffic visitor to getthem to convert into a client,
phone call, email,whatever that conversion goal
is that you're focused on.
Amazing.
And it's a lot of fun justhearing how passionate you are
and just hearing about justtaking all these quick dips into
(14:11):
the geeky technical aspects ofit and also kind of just
experiencing a little bit of howit sometimes seems to be like
an art and a science.
Right.
With you and your team doingsome of this SEO work,
like it's easy enough to saylike oh well, like you know,
I'm mobile responsive,I have a fast page load time,
I have a sitemap file.
But then like you,you as someone who's seen,
(14:32):
seen everything,you might look at a
site and be like,oh well the problem is that the,
the organization,the hierarchy needs,
needs to be a little bitdifferent or like some like
structured marker or somethinglike that to make Google
more happy.
I can see how you can have a lotof fun solving these problems.
And like you said doing theoutreach to get these backlinks
and just figuring outlike what's that,
(14:53):
that list of all those similarsites in the space to just keep
reaching out and develop theserelationships. Whereas again,
if some company was trying to dothis themselves and they were
just like sending an email hereand there or just seeing
what comes their way,that just seems like little
drips and drabs of whatcould be done.
(15:14):
But then if there's someone likeyou and your team who is like
looking at like you know,dozens or hundreds of,
of you know,websites per day or like sending
out on a consistent basis someof these emails and replying and
following up and like you said,conversion rate optimization
and moving a button,changing a color,
changing the wording and thenmeasuring that and seeing
(15:35):
what the difference is,looking at the,
the geotargeting and how thedifferent kinds of like in store
sale or website sale,I can see how you can have a lot
of fun solving thesehard problems.
And it always seems like yousolve one problem and it
opens up even new,better problems for
you to solve. But,but that's part of
entrepreneurship, right?
And that seems like itcan be a lot of fun.
(15:55):
And so many people out therejust maybe treat SEO as like a
one time thing or an every nowand then thing or they stop.
And I just, I like how with youthere's just,
there's always more detail,there's always something more
to try. Like you said,there's never a perfect website.
There's always just somethingnew that that could be done.
And so with all of your Like youknow, multiple decades of SEO,
(16:16):
you said that you've beenat this since 2007.
You've seen so much change.
Is there anything you feel likesharing that has surprised you
about Google and SEO that wasjust like completely, like just,
you know,completely new for you?
I mean,lots of stuff that was new that
I didn't really expect comingup. But I mean like AI,
(16:38):
a big one.
That one I don't think anyoneexpected coming up.
And just trying to figure outwhat's going to happen with AI.
Are they going to incorporateinto the search results?
Because that might be somethingthat. Well,
Bing's doing that currently andGoogle is competing
against Bing.
They don't want to losethat market share,
so they're going to do anythingthey can to hold on to it.
But we'll have to see howthat's going to happen.
That one's pretty interesting.
(16:58):
Happened kind of really quicklyand it's just been exponential
how fast it's been growing withAI and it's not slowing down and
just have to see how that'sgoing to work out and how it's
going to come to play with that.
But like that's thebiggest thing.
Everything else is kind of makessense that Google's doing.
Like if your websiteloads slowly,
they're not going to rank you ashigh because they want a
good user experience.
If you're searching on Googleand you click on a website,
(17:19):
it takes like 10 seconds,especially on mobile,
you're going to be like, no,I'm hitting that back button.
So stuff like that,or making sure your website
looks mobile friendly,like cleaning up spam,
making sure you're notdoing anything,
like any weird stuffto build backlinks,
all that stuff makes sense.
It's just, yeah,just really trying to figure out
what's going to happenwith this AI stuff.
That's one where it's a littleblack box of who knows what's
(17:40):
going to happen? Is it going to.
Are they going to incorporateinto search results?
Are people going to useit more than Google?
Is that going to take over?
But we'll just have to see andwait to see what happens.
And I mean,do you have any guesses
or do you think,is there anything we
can do to prepare?
Yeah, I don't know.
It's tough because itchanges so quickly.
So if Google puts insearch results,
they might leave it there,they might take it away.
(18:01):
They're testing so youNever really know,
but for the most part,Google's still going
to be there,but we'll just have to see what
it's going to do and howit's going to change.
And might change its look andfeel a little bit in the future,
but probably stillwill be websites.
Because you can't doeverything on AI.
You can't just buy stuff yeton AI, so for E commerce,
can't really do that or a lotof stuff it can't do.
It's more good for just likequestions and answers.
(18:23):
Right?
And I think about that all thetime when there's all these
promises about AI.
And I mean I have been amazedby things like ChatGPT.
But on the other hand,when I open the front page of
YouTube or Amazon or somethinglike that,
I only see like 10 to 20% oflike, what I really want.
And I'm like, okay,as soon as they get
(18:44):
that dialed in,as soon as I open up
the Netflix screen,I don't have to click through
and I see like,everything is like what I want.
Or whenever whenever Amazonfigures out that program where
they order things for youand just deliver them,
guessing about what theythink you'll need.
As soon as that's figured out,then I'll be like,
even more impressed on anotherlevel. But but in the meantime,
(19:05):
I'm like, okay, like,we're not quite there yet,
but what is good even aboutjust, you know,
these ideas that you'rethrowing out?
It seems like it's reallyvaluable to tap into the,
the curiosity factor.
And for someone out thereto say, you know, oh,
there's so much to knowwith SEO, like,
I don't want to know all of it,but it's,
it seems like it's valuable toat least be aware of a lot
of these concepts,even if they're not,
(19:27):
they're not capable ofimplementing it themselves.
Even if they want to have yourcompany and your team do it.
It seems like it's helpfuljust to like,
always be exposing yourself tothis information, right?
To what changes are happeningwith SEO and with AI.
That way you don't haveto play catch up.
And even if you don't understandit all or you can't use it all,
at least it'll be just kind ofgoing through your head and at
(19:50):
least you'll just be a part ofit. You'll be, be looking at it.
Yep.
It helps to be on top of it,be ready and just constantly
be ready to keep learning.
Because with digital,there is no Constant,
just changing all the time.
So it's gotta be ready and juststay up to date with all the
changes and just be prepared forsomething that just a curveball
be thrown at you and just gottaadapt and adjust with it and
(20:12):
just figure out, all right, now,how do I go?
How do I keep my businessafloat?
Or what do I do now to appeaseGoogle or whatever platform
search engines.
Out there,whoever takes over in,
in the coming decades? And,and it can be fun,
and it can be.
If you look at your othercompetitors who refuse to learn,
who refuse to change,who want to be the,
the Blockbuster orthe taxi company,
(20:34):
then they can go by the waysidewhile you continue to
remain in business.
And so if a company or,or a person out there says,
okay, I,I know now that I need to take
this SEO idea seriously and Ineed to talk with Brandon and
his team at SEO Optimizers toget some of this stuff figured
out. They might say,I like what he did with the
fashion company. He,he did this and this and this
(20:56):
and fixed up their website,fixed up their,
their outreach andtheir backlinks.
And I'd like something similar.
How does somebody know if theircompany is a good fit for your
agency? And if they are,how do they contact you?
Yeah the best would be, well,I create a special gift
for everybody.
So anyone listening or watching,if they go to my website
at SEO optimizers. Com,that's S E O O P T I I z e r
(21:22):
s.com forward slash gift.
They could find that there,along with my contact
information and a bunch ofclasses I've done over the years
I've thrown up for free.
So you can see step by step howto do a lot of stuff that
we talked about.
And also they want to booksome time on my calendar.
I'm happy to check out theirwebsite from an SEO point
of view for free.
And they could book sometime there as well.
Very nice.
That's seooptimizers.com gift,or where you can check out
(21:46):
what Brandon has for you,where you can get that little
bit of free training.
You can use that contactinformation to then take
the next step.
And then also you can find themall over social media at
Brandon Leibowitz.
I want to spell out his lastname for the AI or the Google
gods or the voice search or whoknows, whatever. That's Brandon.
L E I B O W I T Z Brandonleibowitz from SEO
(22:11):
optimizers.com and so as we'rewrapping up our conversation
here.
Brandon you've been doing searsearch search engine SEO
for 15 plus years.
If you could tell your youngerself who is just then jumping
into search engine optimization,is there any advice you'd give
your past self about all this?
(22:31):
Probably getting mentors soonerthan later and just asking for
help from other people thathave ran businesses.
It doesn't have to be SEO orwhatever you're doing,
but just anybody thathas some experience,
some knowledge that youcould feed off.
And there's plenty of websiteor ways to get mentors like
networking events and talkingto other people.
Or if you can't find one,There's a website,
(22:53):
score.org where they'll connectyou with a mentor.
And now with everythingbeing online,
you don't have to be in thephysical city that they're in.
And that's a great way to findsomeone that's going to help
just you learn from theirmistakes and grow from what's
worked and help them in the pastand really just help you
grow much quicker.
So that's somethingI wish I did more.
I have mentors usethem in the past,
but I just wish I'd reallyjumped in earlier because that
(23:15):
would really help grow muchfaster would a shortcut.
A lot of time for sure.
So. So score.org I love that.
I haven't heard of that.
And then SEO optimizers.com theadvice is to get a mentor
because you can't learn karatefrom reading a book and you
can't learn how to drive a carfrom watching YouTube.
Sometimes you need that actualphysical person to get you
to where you need to go.
(23:36):
And if SEO is the place whereyou're stuck or the place where
you want to get your businessmore dialed in,
use that free traffic,that free real estate from the
you to go right now isseooptimizers.com gift.
And thank you very much,Brandon for showing up and just
blowing our minds and reallyimpressing us with your SEO
knowledge. I appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you for havingme on today.
Hey,and welcome back to the podcast.
We're here with Brandonleibowitz from SEO
optimizers.com Now Brandon runsand operates this company
called SEO Optimizers.
They are a digital marketingcompany that focuses on helping
small and medium sizedbusinesses get more
online traffic,which then converts to clients,
sales and leads.
(00:21):
And so in SEO terms,Brandon is here basically
guest blog posting,but in podcast format. Right.
And we're meeting,we're talking,
he's sharing content,will get some, some backlinks.
As a result,he'll rank in the search terms.
And in the meantime,have fun and help these
businesses that are stuckwith SEO. So Brandon,
nice to meet you and whatdo you have to say?
(00:42):
Thanks for having me on today.
Glad to have you.
And so so yeah, SEO,like people talk about it a lot
and I feel like maybe in thepast, like two to three years,
I finally gotten my head aroundit because it seems like just up
until then there was all thisjust minutia and it seems like
just the last few yearsespecially people have like
structured it better and saidlike, here are these buckets,
(01:04):
right?
Here's like local SEO andon page and off page.
And I feel like I get abetter sense of like,
what needs to be done.
And so what are your thoughtson this whole search engine
optimization thing?
And how do you stand out fromall these other agencies?
SEO is a way to get free trafficto your website.
And who doesn't wantfree traffic?
So help people when they'researching on Google
(01:25):
for your keywords,make sure that your
website appears.
But also when you're searchingon Google, images appear.
So optimizing your images,if you have any videos,
optimize those videos.
Videos sometimes appear.
If you're a local business,catch up on Google Maps and just
try to take up as much freereal estate as possible.
Because that's really whatSEO is all about.
It's all about just tapping intothat free traffic from
(01:46):
the search engines.
And it's not just websites.
There's a lot of otherstuff nowadays.
So just trying to tap into asmuch traffic as possible without
spending money on paid ads andbeen doing it since 2007 and
seeing all the changes over theyears and how Google
has changed,but really focus on good quality
content and good qualitybacklinks.
There's a lot of other variablesthat go in SEO,
(02:07):
but those two things are some ofthe more important aspects.
That if you optimize yourcontent and you have good
content and then you havegood backlinks,
that's going to help Googletrust you and know what keywords
to rank you for.
Fantastic.
You make it sound doable, right?
The content and backlinks.
And I like what you said thereabout how there's all this free
real estate. And I mean,you're not joking.
(02:27):
Whenever I get like an SEO sortof guest on my show, it's just,
it's a lesson in itself toGoogle you and to Google your
company name and tosee like all the,
the podcast guest appearances,the guest blog posts,
the review sites,the different social networks
and I think all these thingslike, oh, yeah,
I could go over to Pinterest andpost there and get
(02:48):
these backlinks.
And you mentioned there aboutthe Google image search results
and about, you know,optimizing your videos and like,
oh, there's, you know,I post on YouTube,
but I could also post to Vimeo.
And so it seems at first likea whole mess of stuff,
like a huge,big long to do list.
But then it seems like the,the solution,
there's probably like threesolutions, right?
(03:08):
There's a solutionof do nothing,
keep doing what you're doing,and be frustrated about the free
traffic you're not getting.
It seems like option two is totry to do some of this yourself.
But you know,there's like 520 things to do
just this month with SEO.
And it seems like the thirdoption is maybe go to a company
such as yourself where you say,you know, this month,
here's what's doable and we'llput a person on it,
(03:31):
we'll put a team on it,and we'll get to these tasks
and show you some results.
And so like,what are your thoughts on this?
What are your thoughts on justmaking sense of all these Google
changes since 2007?
And what are your thoughts onpeople just being overwhelmed
with all the things thatcould be done?
Well, there's a lot youcould automate.
So the more you could automate,the easier life is going to be
using tools like Zapier orZapier is a great tool where
(03:54):
you say, all right,anytime I post on my own blog,
share it on Twitter,on Facebook, on LinkedIn,
on Pinterest,and pretty much does it for you.
It's not going tomake it perfect.
You might have to add somehashtags and things like that,
but at least it kind of sets thefoundation to save time.
But there is a lot that needsto be done when you're doing
content and publishing it outthere and getting all the
different platforms and makingsure like if you do
(04:15):
a podcast episode,you want to share it on all
the social media sites,probably want to share it
on your own website.
And there's ways to kind ofautomate some of those tasks.
Not completely,but anything to help you save
time is going to make you moreefficient so you can focus on
the more important things,creating good content,
creating good videos,creating good podcasts,
or whatever content you'reputting out there.
But once it's out there,it takes a little bit of time
(04:37):
to get that exposure,but a little bit of time is much
less than the time that youinvested creating that content.
So if you're just creatingcontent and throwing it up there
and hoping people find it,it might work, might not work.
But if you spend the extra timeto really promote it,
that's where you spend an extra30 minutes promoting it.
You're going to see thatdifference in the number of
views, traffic, likes, comments,whatever,
wherever you're posting it.
(04:58):
But you'll see that engagementand people are going to stick
and resonate more with it.
So does take time.
And unfortunately there'sno little shortcuts.
But there are tools.
Like Zapier is a greatfree tool,
and there's other tools thatcould help kind of automate
some of those tasks.
But you do need to spend thetime and you need to learn them
and stay up to date with whatGoogle wants you to do.
Because Google changesevery single day.
So what works today doesn'tnecessarily work tomorrow.
(05:21):
For the most part it will,but Google changes all the time,
so you never know what they'regoing to look for.
But the main thing they're doingis they're trying to stop spam.
So if you're doing anything thatseems shady or too good to be
true or like a shortcut thatpotentially could get you
in trouble with Google.
But if you're not doing anythingthat seems weird or sketchy,
then you only have to worry toomuch about the algorithm
(05:41):
updates.
Except for sometimes we'll tellyou, like, all right,
if your website's notmobile friendly,
we're not going to show you onmobile devices back in like
2013. So that was a sign, like,hey,
if you're not mobile friendly,Google's not going to show
you on mobile devices.
And nowadays that's over halfthe traffic comes from mobile.
So most websites are responsivemobile friendly nowadays.
But there's tools thatwill let you check,
(06:02):
like the Google MobileFriendly test tool,
and it'll show you if awebsite's mobile friendly
or not to Google,because it might Be mobile
friendly on your phone.
But Google might say the fontsare too unique or the colors are
too close to one another.
That won't be mobile friendly.
And I've seen thathappen before.
So it's a little nuances thatyou have to check all that
stuff. But for the most part,if you're not doing anything
(06:22):
weird or sketchy,then you don't have to worry too
much about algorithm updates.
But it is good to tryto stay up to date.
Talk to other Webmasters orother people that do SEO or
other people in your industry orjoin forums or Facebook groups,
or read blogs or listen topodcasts and just try to learn
as much as you can tojust be up to date.
Because Google doesn't reallytell you when they make those
changes because they don't wantyou to know. They want you to.
(06:44):
They don't want you doing SEO.
They want you to run paid ads.
That's how they makeall their money.
So they have to have theorganic, the SEO listings.
Because we went on Googleand it's just all ads.
You'd be like, no,I'm going on bing,
Yahoo or DuckDuckGo or Braveor different search engine.
But they have to havethat balance.
But they don't really like SEO.
They want you to spend thatmoney on paid ads.
(07:04):
Those are some good insightsthat, yeah, like they don't want
you to do SEO,they want you to do paid ads.
And so it's sort of thatmoving target.
But then there are thosetools available,
like that Google Webmasterconsole.
That's a great tip because.
And I didn't even know that,that your your website could
look great on a phone.
But,but then according to Google,
they might say, oh, well,the colors aren't contrasted
(07:25):
enough or the font'snot what we want.
And that's really good to know.
And every now and then I get oneof those errors like, oh,
such and such website isn'tmobile friendly.
And I'm like what is that?
And like,I don't always check because
I'm just like, oh,I know that I'm using whatever
WordPress theme,but maybe it's a WordPress theme
from like, you know, five,10 years ago.
And now I know from you that Ineed to check that because there
(07:46):
might be some specific issuethat's easily fixable, but,
but it's also easy not to fix itand let it go by the wayside.
Next thing you know,you're not even being shown in
the search results for mobile.
So that, that is a good insight.
And another good insight becauseI'm just trying to, you know,
digest what,what you've been saying.
Cause it was all really great isyou're saying that there's your,
there's the content sideof things, right?
(08:07):
You put all this work and effortinto content and then you also
need to pay attention to thedistribution and that a lot
of that can be automated.
Like with Zapier,where you make your blog post,
it checks your RSS feed,goes to these social profiles.
But then also there's somethingin there that you said
it was very helpful.
Where you said like, there was,you said kind of like have a
checklist of like where you wantyour post to end up and maybe
(08:30):
make adjustments and hashtags.
But what was really great is yousaid like budget like 30 minutes
of time with every post,like have a set block of time
just to like get it out there.
Because it's so easy,it's so tempting to just say,
cool, I made my blog postfor the week.
Now I'm going to go answer someemails and do some customer
service or some,or manage my team or
something else.
And there's that reallyimportant aspect there
(08:52):
of just the,the marketing of your content.
And then also you mentioned howimportant it is to do that
networking, to be on,on these social networks.
Not just to play aroundand read,
but also to participateand to you know,
get some of these jointventures worked out.
And you know it's a it's atwo way street, right?
You want links back,you want to link to others and
(09:13):
you don't want to just be someirrelevant person who's
not existing.
And also that ties exactly inwith you being here on a podcast
and doing that partof the networking.
And with podcasting it's fun tojump into stories, right?
You've kind of given us somekind of like, you know,
facts and ideas.
But stories are what are kind ofthe more interesting things
because it shows what,what you do and the people
(09:34):
that you help.
So what comes to mind as far aslike a case study or a success
story or something that you guysat SEO Optimizers have had
a lot of fun with.
One recently been working withthem for a few years but helping
out a fashion leveling companyand they make fashion for like
music events and festivals.
(09:54):
So it's a little bit more niche.
The more niche it is,the less competition,
the more realistic it isto be able to rank.
Because just ranking for likefashion or women's clothing,
hyper competitive.
But if you can find somethingunique niche about
your business,that's going to always,
always help out.
So with them worked with them,went on their website,
made changes to their structureand their hierarchy of their
(10:16):
different categories orcollections since they
were on Shopify,because that's a big part
of your website,is how you organize it,
how you structure it,helps Google and search engines
find and really understand whatthat website's about.
Because search engines are justrobots and they get lost.
So the easier you make it forthem to find that content,
know what that content reallyis supposed to be about,
the more they're reward you.
(10:37):
And by doing that,they pretty much shot up the
rankings because they'rea pretty big brand.
They had a good backlink profilealready built up,
so they had some trustwith Google,
but Google just kind of gotstuck with the website.
They had a lot of duplicate pageor duplicate categories where
they were just kind of competingagainst themselves.
This is another thingyou have to realize,
like if you have pages that areabout the same topic now,
(10:57):
you're your own competitor,where you're just cannibalizing
your results and merging thosepages together that let
Google know, okay,this is the main page.
All these other onesare duplicates.
Let's redirect the old ones tothe new one or the main one that
we're going to keep as acentral hub. So again,
this is kind of gettinga little technical,
but you do need to go in andmake sure that Google's able to
read that website becausethey're having trouble
(11:19):
reading the website,they're going to get stuck,
lost and confused and they'renot going to know what keywords
to rank you for.
So by making those changes,Google is able to better read
their website and shop them upto pretty much the top position.
Number one, number two,number three for almost all
their keywords that are reallycompetitive keywords where
before they're on page two,page three.
So they were close tobeing on page one.
It's just they needed thatlittle bump of the trust from or
(11:42):
a little bump of Google readingtheir website better and me
building some new backlinks tojust keep that growth going.
Because to Google a normalwebsite would always be having
some backlinks being sent it.
So building backlinks byfinding other sites,
I relate to what they're doing.
So with them they were aclothing fashion website.
So finding anything relatedto fashion, clothing,
those types of websites,and trying to build
(12:04):
relationships with thosewebmasters to see potentially if
there's like a partnership or ifwe could give like free product
to somebody as an influencer andthey write a blog post about it
on their website and giveus a clickable link.
So it's lots of different waysto build backlinks and it's just
you want to really get on sites.
I relate to what you're doing.
That's a big part of SEO,is relevancy.
The more related the backlinksare to your website,
(12:25):
the better off you'regoing to be.
The more related those keywordsare on your website to what
someone's searching on Google,the more likely Google's going
to show you for all that,for that keyword.
So just making sure everythingties together.
Got them up there and theysaw sales shot up.
Because we're trackingeverything through Google
Analytics to look athow much traffic,
how much revenue they'regetting.
Because we could tie it directlythere. They also have a store,
(12:45):
it's a little tougher totie revenue to that.
But you could track like instore conversions and things
like that with geotargeting aradius mainly through
cell phones.
So they could see if your cellphone, you walk into that store,
they could track thatas a conversion.
Doesn't show how muchthey spent.
But all that just helps outbecause sometimes it gets tough
with tracking if there's.
Sometimes you gotta getcreative. Figure I,
(13:06):
if I can't track revenuespecifically if it's like an
in store physical purchase,what other alternatives are
there because you want totrack those conversions.
That way you could show what'sreally going on because
traffic is great,but traffic is just half battle
once people get to your websiteto get them to buy.
And that's a whole anotheraspect where it's conversion
rate optimization,optimizing that website for
conversions where then we goin and look at the website,
(13:28):
try to figure out, all right,maybe we should move the add to
cart but in a little bit higher.
Change the add to cart to buynow or do all this A B testing
because you never know what'sgoing to work until you test.
And then once you see somethingthat works like maybe add to
cart, change it to buy now.
That works better. All right,let's see if changing the color
of the buy now button a littlebit darker shade of orange
or whatever the color is.
(13:49):
Let's see how that affectsconversions.
Because there is noperfect website.
You always want to be Testing tomaximize the value of every
potential traffic visitor to getthem to convert into a client,
phone call, email,whatever that conversion goal
is that you're focused on.
Amazing.
And it's a lot of fun justhearing how passionate you are
and just hearing about justtaking all these quick dips into
(14:11):
the geeky technical aspects ofit and also kind of just
experiencing a little bit of howit sometimes seems to be like
an art and a science.
Right.
With you and your team doingsome of this SEO work,
like it's easy enough to saylike oh well, like you know,
I'm mobile responsive,I have a fast page load time,
I have a sitemap file.
But then like you,you as someone who's seen,
(14:32):
seen everything,you might look at a
site and be like,oh well the problem is that the,
the organization,the hierarchy needs,
needs to be a little bitdifferent or like some like
structured marker or somethinglike that to make Google
more happy.
I can see how you can have a lotof fun solving these problems.
And like you said doing theoutreach to get these backlinks
and just figuring outlike what's that,
(14:53):
that list of all those similarsites in the space to just keep
reaching out and develop theserelationships. Whereas again,
if some company was trying to dothis themselves and they were
just like sending an email hereand there or just seeing
what comes their way,that just seems like little
drips and drabs of whatcould be done.
(15:14):
But then if there's someone likeyou and your team who is like
looking at like you know,dozens or hundreds of,
of you know,websites per day or like sending
out on a consistent basis someof these emails and replying and
following up and like you said,conversion rate optimization
and moving a button,changing a color,
changing the wording and thenmeasuring that and seeing
(15:35):
what the difference is,looking at the,
the geotargeting and how thedifferent kinds of like in store
sale or website sale,I can see how you can have a lot
of fun solving thesehard problems.
And it always seems like yousolve one problem and it
opens up even new,better problems for
you to solve. But,but that's part of
entrepreneurship, right?
And that seems like itcan be a lot of fun.
(15:55):
And so many people out therejust maybe treat SEO as like a
one time thing or an every nowand then thing or they stop.
And I just, I like how with youthere's just,
there's always more detail,there's always something more
to try. Like you said,there's never a perfect website.
There's always just somethingnew that that could be done.
And so with all of your Like youknow, multiple decades of SEO,
(16:16):
you said that you've beenat this since 2007.
You've seen so much change.
Is there anything you feel likesharing that has surprised you
about Google and SEO that wasjust like completely, like just,
you know,completely new for you?
I mean,lots of stuff that was new that
I didn't really expect comingup. But I mean like AI,
(16:38):
a big one.
That one I don't think anyoneexpected coming up.
And just trying to figure outwhat's going to happen with AI.
Are they going to incorporateinto the search results?
Because that might be somethingthat. Well,
Bing's doing that currently andGoogle is competing
against Bing.
They don't want to losethat market share,
so they're going to do anythingthey can to hold on to it.
But we'll have to see howthat's going to happen.
That one's pretty interesting.
(16:58):
Happened kind of really quicklyand it's just been exponential
how fast it's been growing withAI and it's not slowing down and
just have to see how that'sgoing to work out and how it's
going to come to play with that.
But like that's thebiggest thing.
Everything else is kind of makessense that Google's doing.
Like if your websiteloads slowly,
they're not going to rank you ashigh because they want a
good user experience.
If you're searching on Googleand you click on a website,
(17:19):
it takes like 10 seconds,especially on mobile,
you're going to be like, no,I'm hitting that back button.
So stuff like that,or making sure your website
looks mobile friendly,like cleaning up spam,
making sure you're notdoing anything,
like any weird stuffto build backlinks,
all that stuff makes sense.
It's just, yeah,just really trying to figure out
what's going to happenwith this AI stuff.
That's one where it's a littleblack box of who knows what's
(17:40):
going to happen? Is it going to.
Are they going to incorporateinto search results?
Are people going to useit more than Google?
Is that going to take over?
But we'll just have to see andwait to see what happens.
And I mean,do you have any guesses
or do you think,is there anything we
can do to prepare?
Yeah, I don't know.
It's tough because itchanges so quickly.
So if Google puts insearch results,
they might leave it there,they might take it away.
(18:01):
They're testing so youNever really know,
but for the most part,Google's still going
to be there,but we'll just have to see what
it's going to do and howit's going to change.
And might change its look andfeel a little bit in the future,
but probably stillwill be websites.
Because you can't doeverything on AI.
You can't just buy stuff yeton AI, so for E commerce,
can't really do that or a lotof stuff it can't do.
It's more good for just likequestions and answers.
(18:23):
Right?
And I think about that all thetime when there's all these
promises about AI.
And I mean I have been amazedby things like ChatGPT.
But on the other hand,when I open the front page of
YouTube or Amazon or somethinglike that,
I only see like 10 to 20% oflike, what I really want.
And I'm like, okay,as soon as they get
(18:44):
that dialed in,as soon as I open up
the Netflix screen,I don't have to click through
and I see like,everything is like what I want.
Or whenever whenever Amazonfigures out that program where
they order things for youand just deliver them,
guessing about what theythink you'll need.
As soon as that's figured out,then I'll be like,
even more impressed on anotherlevel. But but in the meantime,
(19:05):
I'm like, okay, like,we're not quite there yet,
but what is good even aboutjust, you know,
these ideas that you'rethrowing out?
It seems like it's reallyvaluable to tap into the,
the curiosity factor.
And for someone out thereto say, you know, oh,
there's so much to knowwith SEO, like,
I don't want to know all of it,but it's,
it seems like it's valuable toat least be aware of a lot
of these concepts,even if they're not,
(19:27):
they're not capable ofimplementing it themselves.
Even if they want to have yourcompany and your team do it.
It seems like it's helpfuljust to like,
always be exposing yourself tothis information, right?
To what changes are happeningwith SEO and with AI.
That way you don't haveto play catch up.
And even if you don't understandit all or you can't use it all,
at least it'll be just kind ofgoing through your head and at
(19:50):
least you'll just be a part ofit. You'll be, be looking at it.
Yep.
It helps to be on top of it,be ready and just constantly
be ready to keep learning.
Because with digital,there is no Constant,
just changing all the time.
So it's gotta be ready and juststay up to date with all the
changes and just be prepared forsomething that just a curveball
be thrown at you and just gottaadapt and adjust with it and
(20:12):
just figure out, all right, now,how do I go?
How do I keep my businessafloat?
Or what do I do now to appeaseGoogle or whatever platform
search engines.
Out there,whoever takes over in,
in the coming decades? And,and it can be fun,
and it can be.
If you look at your othercompetitors who refuse to learn,
who refuse to change,who want to be the,
the Blockbuster orthe taxi company,
(20:34):
then they can go by the waysidewhile you continue to
remain in business.
And so if a company or,or a person out there says,
okay, I,I know now that I need to take
this SEO idea seriously and Ineed to talk with Brandon and
his team at SEO Optimizers toget some of this stuff figured
out. They might say,I like what he did with the
fashion company. He,he did this and this and this
(20:56):
and fixed up their website,fixed up their,
their outreach andtheir backlinks.
And I'd like something similar.
How does somebody know if theircompany is a good fit for your
agency? And if they are,how do they contact you?
Yeah the best would be, well,I create a special gift
for everybody.
So anyone listening or watching,if they go to my website
at SEO optimizers. Com,that's S E O O P T I I z e r
(21:22):
s.com forward slash gift.
They could find that there,along with my contact
information and a bunch ofclasses I've done over the years
I've thrown up for free.
So you can see step by step howto do a lot of stuff that
we talked about.
And also they want to booksome time on my calendar.
I'm happy to check out theirwebsite from an SEO point
of view for free.
And they could book sometime there as well.
Very nice.
That's seooptimizers.com gift,or where you can check out
(21:46):
what Brandon has for you,where you can get that little
bit of free training.
You can use that contactinformation to then take
the next step.
And then also you can find themall over social media at
Brandon Leibowitz.
I want to spell out his lastname for the AI or the Google
gods or the voice search or whoknows, whatever. That's Brandon.
L E I B O W I T Z Brandonleibowitz from SEO
(22:11):
optimizers.com and so as we'rewrapping up our conversation
here.
Brandon you've been doing searsearch search engine SEO
for 15 plus years.
If you could tell your youngerself who is just then jumping
into search engine optimization,is there any advice you'd give
your past self about all this?
(22:31):
Probably getting mentors soonerthan later and just asking for
help from other people thathave ran businesses.
It doesn't have to be SEO orwhatever you're doing,
but just anybody thathas some experience,
some knowledge that youcould feed off.
And there's plenty of websiteor ways to get mentors like
networking events and talkingto other people.
Or if you can't find one,There's a website,
(22:53):
score.org where they'll connectyou with a mentor.
And now with everythingbeing online,
you don't have to be in thephysical city that they're in.
And that's a great way to findsomeone that's going to help
just you learn from theirmistakes and grow from what's
worked and help them in the pastand really just help you
grow much quicker.
So that's somethingI wish I did more.
I have mentors usethem in the past,
but I just wish I'd reallyjumped in earlier because that
(23:15):
would really help grow muchfaster would a shortcut.
A lot of time for sure.
So. So score.org I love that.
I haven't heard of that.
And then SEO optimizers.com theadvice is to get a mentor
because you can't learn karatefrom reading a book and you
can't learn how to drive a carfrom watching YouTube.
Sometimes you need that actualphysical person to get you
to where you need to go.
(23:36):
And if SEO is the place whereyou're stuck or the place where
you want to get your businessmore dialed in,
use that free traffic,that free real estate from the
you to go right now isseooptimizers.com gift.
And thank you very much,Brandon for showing up and just
blowing our minds and reallyimpressing us with your SEO
knowledge. I appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you for havingme on today.
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