August 28, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, I sit down with Melih Oztalay, a veteran marketer and CEO of a 38-year-old digital agency based in Michigan. With roots going back to the earliest days of the internet, Melih brings a seasoned perspective on how marketing has evolved—and where it's headed next.
We dive deep into the realities of marketing in the AI age, practical steps small businesses can take to improve their visibility, and why emotional resistance to change can be the biggest barrier to progress.
The 4 A’s of Change Framework
Melih shares his powerful 4 A’s framework, developed after witnessing how clients struggled to adapt to SEO changes:
- Anticipate Change: Understand it’s coming.
- Accept Change: Let go of emotional resistance.
- Adapt to Change: Adjust your strategies and tools.
- Adopt the Change: Implement and move forward.
This mindset shift is essential for staying competitive in a constantly evolving digital world.
The Impact of AI on Marketing
- How AI-powered search results may now be 4x more valuable than traditional Google searches
- Real-world examples of using ChatGPT and Perplexity to boost productivity—from building Mac backups to creating towel product images
- Why schema markup is now more crucial than ever for both traditional SEO and AI sourcing
- Tips on using AI to generate Q&A schema from your podcast transcripts and blog content
Common Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- Why skipping the marketing foundation sabotages sales
- The dangers of keyword stuffing and outdated SEO tactics (like white text on white backgrounds!)
- Why every page on your website needs to have a clear focus and intent
- The importance of not being afraid to use AI tools—even if you’re just getting started
Actionable AI and SEO Tips for Small Businesses
- Use ChatGPT to generate schema markup from blog URLs
- Ask AI why your business isn’t showing up in AI search results—and follow the suggestions to improve
- Build “notability” by publishing press releases, getting quoted in industry publications, and appearing in directories like Wikipedia
- Let AI help interpret your analytics and recommend next steps for improvement
Key Takeaways for Marketers
- Marketing is a starting point, not an end point—your job is never truly done
- Use AI to learn, test, and optimize, not to replace thinking
- Don’t ignore change—lean into it with the right mindset and tools
Whether you’re a marketer trying to navigate AI disruption, or a small business owner seeking practical ways to improve your online presence, this episode offers a wealth of ideas and a grounded approach to digital transformation.
Connect with Melih Oztalay
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melihoztalay/
Website: https://smartfindsmarketing.com/
Looking to leverage AI? Want better results? Want to think about what you want to leverage?
Check and see how I am using it for FREE on YouTube.
From "Holy cow, it can do that?" to "Wait, how does this work again?" – I've got all your AI curiosities covered. It's the perfect after-podcast snack for your tech-hungry brain.
Watch here
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Kendra Korman .
If you're a coach, consultantor marketer, you know marketing
is far from a perfect science,and that's why this show is
called Imperfect Marketing.
Join me and my guests as weexplore how to grow your
business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned
along the way.
Hello and welcome back toanother episode of Imperfect
(00:27):
Marketing.
I am your host today.
I'm really excited because I amjoined by May Lee, who is going
to be helping us talk aboutstrategic digital marketing.
Welcome, Thank you so much forjoining me.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hello, kendra, glad we have a chance to do this show
together.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So how did you get into digital marketing?
Jeez, do you remember?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, I do, I remember.
So our company is 38 years old.
Right, it's a marketing agencyout of the Detroit metro area,
specifically in Birmingham,michigan.
If you go back to 87, when thecorporation was created, we
didn't really have the internet,right, we had AOL and
CompuServe and those guys.
It was in 94 that I started theinternet group.
The story goes I was invited toSun Microsystems offices in
(01:17):
Southfield, michigan.
Back at that time I wasliterally shown the internet,
like with Yahoo and Netscape,you know, using Netscape, and
that was kind of the startingpoint of this whole process.
But then the question was whydo you tie this into marketing?
Right, well, the 1990s was alot of fun, but it was like the
wild, wild west of the Internet.
We didn't really have rules, wedidn't have any boundaries, no
(01:40):
structure and nothing going on.
But that's how things started.
Started was back in those days.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Very cool.
I love those stories because Iremember Netscape.
I used that and I rememberstarting with retargeting when
that first came out in the early2000s and it was just, it was
crazy, right, the different adnetworks.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Public ads was a big deal.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Was the only thing right when retargeting came out.
It was like this is so cool.
So, yeah, no, I totally getthat.
And yes, I do remember Netscapevery, very well and I'm like
how did we live without Chrome?
That's what I want to know.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
That's where we were and where we are today.
It's been a long ride, believeme.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
We are asking Jeeves because he was the best that
there was at the time.
So let's talk a little bitabout.
You have a framework right 4A'sframework that you talk about
and leverage.
Tell me a little bit about thisand how this helps businesses
align with real business growth.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
How did I develop the concept of the four A's of
change?
And it all comes down to August2013,.
Google releases the Hummingbirdalgorithm.
The Hummingbird algorithm isfairly significant in terms of
how it impacts search engineoptimization, how it impacts you
know ranking positions, and soon.
At the time, it was like onemore change, right?
(03:06):
Yes, it was pretty significant,made a huge dent into how
people continue to use you know,optimize for Google.
But about 90 days later, I losta very large client.
The way that the story goes isthey said hey, listen, we love
you, you're doing everythinggood, but we're no longer
playing the Google game, and soI had to take a step back and
try and figure out well, how doI get these, you know, get them
(03:29):
to understand that this is theworld that we live in, this is
digital marketing.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
They're not playing the Google game.
There's only one game.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Right, they're not playing the game.
No, I know exactly.
And so I had to come up with.
I had two responses to that.
The first response was saylisten, if you want to get off
the Google train, you're free todo that, but should you decide
to get back on this trainsomewhere down the road, it'll
(03:59):
cost you exponentially to catchup to your competitors who have
not gotten off the train.
I said you got to live withthis, okay.
Well, once I brought thecompetitors into the
conversation, things change alittle bit, but not necessarily
(04:19):
to the level that I was hopingit would change in this
particular situation.
But at the same time, itstarted to raise a question in
my mind about change and acompany or an individual's
ability to take emotion out ofthe picture and realize that you
know you need to accept change.
So I came up with the four A'sAnticipate change, which pretty
(04:40):
much everybody says yeah, I knowthat the second one is the one
that's the hardest.
Pretty much everybody says yeah, I know that the second one is
the one that's the hardest whichis accept change.
This is the emotional factor,and when you're in business, you
really need to take emotion outof the picture.
You could fuss and fume all daylong about this change.
It could have an impact on theinvestment you already made.
(05:02):
It could have an impact on thebudget.
Moving forward, it could have alot of different impact.
Okay, it doesn't change thefact that this is going on and
you have no control.
We're moving forward.
And it doesn't change the factthat your competitors are going
to continue going down this roadtoo.
So the faster you accept change, the faster you're going to be
(05:27):
able to stay in touch with you,stay competitive in the
marketplace or get ahead of yourcompetition.
So fretting, fussing and fumingfor a month or two months or
sit there and have issues withthis is not going to do you any
good.
Move on, all right, that's thesecond A.
The third A is a little biteasier.
It's about adapting to thechange, meaning that what are
(05:50):
the processes I have to change?
What's the SEO I need to change?
What's the AI I need to change?
Whatever it is right, figureout what needs to be changed and
start making those changes.
Plan for those changes.
And the last one I like, whichis the easiest one, which is
adopt the changes, and it wasjust implement them, which is
the last part.
But the biggest hurdle in thesefour A's is that second one and
(06:14):
the individual that we'reworking with.
And just get over the emotionalaspect and just move on and
just stay focused on the idea ofbeing staying competitive in
the marketplace.
Those are euphorias very cool.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So you talked about a different a in one of them
which was, I think, adapting tochange, and that was ai.
I just read an article not toolong ago actually I think I just
read it this morning of thedate of our recording that each
AI search result that's likedriving traffic to your website
(06:52):
is worth four.
Like Google searchers, likeregular search engine clickers.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I'm willing to buy into that idea and I think the
best thing to do is just use myown experience right.
I went to Google to do someresearch, ran my search, went to
ChatGPT, ran my search.
In Google's case, I had toclick on 10 different websites
before, I think, I found what Iwas looking for.
(07:21):
And I'm not saying that theresults were irrelevant, but
it's not what I was trying to dowith my research.
I went to ChatGPT, looked at myresults over there.
Not only did I have fiveresults, but each of the five
results meaning the websites itwas sourcing for this research
were exactly what I was lookingfor.
I got to where I was goingfaster with ChatGPT than I did
(07:45):
with a regular Google search.
So to that extent, I wouldagree with what you're saying.
Yes, one ChatGPT result, or ifyou get sourced and you're in
this ChatGPT research is muchmore valuable than what you're
getting from Google.
And listen, Google's not stupid.
That's why they got Geministarted, right.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I use perplexity a lot.
I remember during the holidayseason perplexity actually
rolled out inside perplexity,shopping and buying, where you
could actually purchase stuffwithout even leaving perplexity
when it did all the research,which was really cool too.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
So these AI systems definitely understand
monetization, which is good,right, Because I remember when
Facebook came out right.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
When Facebook came out, we were like how are they
going to monetize this?
Then nobody had any idea howthey were going to monetize it.
No, I know Right, and it's likenow everything starts with the
monetization piece, Right, whichis, I think, very good for for
business, especially smallbusiness, because it makes it so
much more accessible.
So how is that changing?
(08:53):
You know, you've got AI, you'vegot AI search.
You've got regular SEO andsearch engine optimization,
which is a little bit differentat times but becoming, I think,
a little bit more of the same.
It's optimizing for AI to anextent.
Now Then there's thegeo-targeting to make sure
you're getting people that arein-network and nearby.
What are you seeing?
(09:13):
How is this changing whatbusinesses are doing?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Let's give the viewers something to chew on.
That I think will be helpful,that they can actually go and do
something with their website.
That I think will be helpful,that they can actually go and do
something with their website.
So my answer is going to bethat you need to add schema
S-C-H-E-M-A schema code to yourwebsite.
Now you're going to say, well,I've known that since 2007.
(09:38):
Well, yeah, I know.
I'm glad you know that since2007, when Google and Microsoft
and Yahoo got together andcreated schemaorg.
Yeah, we know all that.
But schema has been changingover the years and there's even
a different form.
And when I say different form,there's additional schema code
(10:02):
put into your website and intoyour web pages, especially like
your blog pages.
My suggestion is let's create ablog page right Once it's been
published.
Take the URL, go to chat, gptor Gemini or Copilot or Cloud or
Plexity, whichever one you'reusing Open the URL and ask it to
(10:24):
provide you the schema code forthat page.
Copy and paste the code, writeinto it and you're off to the
races.
And what I mean?
Off to the races?
What does that mean in thiscase?
The more schema code you havein a website or on a webpage,
not only is it better for theGoogles of the world, for those
traditional search engines, toidentify what you're about and
(10:48):
what your page is about or thatspecific URL is about, but it
actually facilitates especiallythe newer type codes that get
added in facilitate the AIchatbots to better understand
and you have a higherprobability of being sourced
when somebody's searching forwhatever it is that is relevant
(11:09):
to that page or to your website.
There's the other thing I wouldsuggest Go to your favorite
chatbot and ask it to recommendcompanies that are in your
industry, right, whateverservices or products that you
provide.
Take a look at the list.
Nine times out of 10, you'renot going to show up, Okay.
(11:30):
So your second step is going tobe tell me how do I get
recommended?
So it's going to give you alist of hey for your website,
for your situation.
These are the recommendations.
Follow those recommendations,work through that list, and one
of the things that you're goingto find in that list is is your
(11:53):
website or your webpageidentified as something notable?
What does that mean?
Have you put out any pressreleases that would identify and
verify who you are as a company, what services and products
that you offer?
So press releases are valuableto that extent.
Are you in Wikipedia, forexample, which also is a huge
(12:16):
bump in something what's calledbeing notable?
Are you as a company?
Are you linked or quoted in apublication a newspaper, a
magazine, industry publication,that type of thing?
These are things that arenotable and they are also
required in order to get sourcedinside of a AI chatbot or a
(12:39):
response, I should say.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Very cool tips.
So, yes, get yourself onWikipedia, get your company on
Wikipedia and definitely ask,don't struggle.
You know I have team membersthat are part of my agency, that
have names like Susie Strategyand Frank Fundraiser and that
are just projects.
They're just custom GPTs with aset of knowledge that I believe
(13:02):
in and trust, and then they askme a lot of questions.
I just had a 20-minuteconversation with Susie today,
actually when I was workingthrough some stuff, and I don't
always take what she saysverbatim right, but it gives me
some information and makes it alittle bit easier for me to
focus some of my ideas and getwhere I need to go.
So that's always good.
(13:22):
I love that and I think it'sjust really important to think
about that and not to be afraidto ask AI, because AI will tell
you right exactly how you needto do it.
I remember I got a phone callfrom a client and they're like
we're not coming up in searchfor the service that they were
providing in the area.
And I was like, because youdidn't use any one of those
words on the entire page, notone of those words is on that
(13:46):
page.
I'm like we can't do that.
And then so they went away andthey're like, okay.
Then they come back and they'relike, can we put it in white
text on a white background?
And I'm like, no, you used tobe able to.
I was like yes, that was a thing.
Right, I was like that was athing in 1990.
(14:06):
We don't do that anymore.
We don't game the system,because if you try to game the
system, you lose, guaranteed atthis point, right.
So yeah, so I've got lots offun stories, so yeah.
So ask AI, what are some greatthings?
I was like okay.
I was like here's all the wordsthat you need to add to the
page.
This is you know, you want tocome up for a city.
(14:26):
The city has got to be on thatpage somewhere, right?
You can't, just you're notgoing to magically show up if
you're not using those words.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
But the difficulty, I think, for a lot of people is
they want their website to comeup for and I'm just throwing out
an idea 20 different keywords,right?
Well, organically, you can'tstuff one page with all of that,
right?
There's something calledkeyword density.
That is very important and youknow, depending on who you talk
to, it ranges from one to 3%.
(14:55):
So if you have 800 words onthat page, you could only have
one to 3% of that with keywords.
Something that's relevant,right.
But what does this turn into?
Well, if you want 20 differentkeywords that you want to be
shown up for, you're gonna need20 different pages.
You can't have one page.
Try to get right for everything.
(15:16):
It's just not possible.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Every page needs to stand for something.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
All this goes back to the hummingbird that silly
thing called hummingbird back in2013.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I know that.
I still remember that was ahuge one.
It was definitely a huge one.
A lot of people took a hit onthat one.
So we know we need to be doingthe schema.
I think I talk to people allthe time about podcasting.
One of my previous guestsactually even suggested using
podcasts to do Q&A schema, sothat you've got question and
answer format, and I'll do thatwith the transcript right.
(15:51):
So I've done that for a fewclients and so there's a lot of
technology available to us.
I find that sometimes we don'talways use it the right way.
So what are some of themistakes that you're seeing
small to mid-sized businessesmake?
Because they're going aftersales, not necessarily marketing
and relationships and brandbuilding.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
You bring up two very interesting points.
The first one is the fact thatthey're so focused on sales that
they miss the fact that theyneed the marketing foundation
right?
Without the marketingfoundation, you're not
supporting your sales efforts,and so, instead of, you know,
just throwing out an idea,instead of closing every lead
that you're talking to, you'regoing to end up closing every
(16:33):
fifth lead that you're talkingto.
You're going to end up closingevery fifth lead that you're
talking to because yourmarketing foundation isn't there
and you're spinning your wheels.
You're better off putting alittle bit of investing a little
time into that marketingfoundation.
Let's I don't know, take awhole week and find four hours
out of the week, spread acrossseven days or five days, just so
(16:55):
you can, you know, focus onthat.
I think that's a huge mistakethat we tend to see quite often.
The other one is the one thatyou're bringing up just using
the tools that are on the market.
Well, ai is a phenomenal toolright now.
It's been on the market for twoand a half years.
Well, ai is a phenomenal toolright now.
It's been on the market for twoand a half years.
Figure out how and don't beafraid of it.
(17:15):
You mentioned that earliertonight.
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Don't be afraid, just go toChatGPT and ask it anything you
want.
The other day I used it to helpme build up my backup system for
my MacBook Pro.
Listen, I don't know all theterminal commands to go in there
and type all this out, but Iwent to ChatGPT and I said, oh
(17:36):
here's, give me a backup planfor my MacBook Pro, give me a
backup plan.
And it told me exactly whatcommands to put into terminal to
set things up.
The good news is, all you haveto do is click the copy button,
dump it into terminal, paste itinto terminal and you go through
this process.
I mean, that's just one exampleof how you can use AI, but
(17:59):
imagine what you can do as itrelates to creating blog posts,
right, creating photos, images.
We have a client project inwhich we're doing it's towels,
wholesale towels.
Well, we got ChatGPT to createthe towel images with people
(18:21):
right In a spa setting and theywith the right colors,
everything that you want.
All you have to do is go tellit what you want.
You know you might need sometime to learn how much detail to
give it or whatever the case is, but this goes to the other
core element, which is beingafraid of using the tools on the
(18:44):
market.
Either it's because of timeissue I don't have enough time
for this or it could be a costissue.
I don't want to spend moremoney, whatever that might look
like.
At the end of the day, believeme, you're going to have missed
opportunities and it will, infact, cost you more in the long
run if you don't invest yourtime or invest some budget.
(19:08):
There is no version of a zerobudget.
I'm sorry.
Does that work?
Yes, it just I'm sorry, so thatworked.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Anyway, those are two scenarios.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
No, I think that that's so important.
I actually was using perplexitybecause my SharePoint is like
way over space.
If you guys use Microsoft, youcan understand that Anyway.
So I needed to archive a bunchof things and I'm like okay, how
can I bulk archive anythingthat's older than like 2021?
Right, and I wanted to do thatbecause I backed up my whole
(19:39):
SharePoint onto a backup driveand stuff like that, so I'll
still be able to access it.
But I'm going to bulk, get ridof the stuff and I'm like I have
no idea how to do that.
Can I do it?
And it's like, yes, you can.
Here are three different ways.
You can do it step by step.
I'm like fantastic.
And I'm like you know, one ofthem involved buying something,
and you know the rest were justusing built in Microsoft tools,
(20:01):
and I'm like sign me up, I'lllet you know how it goes,
because I'm on the time toactually do that step.
At least I know what I need todo.
I have done the backup, though,but yeah, I mean, it's just so
amazing how much we can do andhow much knowledge we have
access to that will allow us tounderstand, step by step.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And the variety that's associated with that
knowledge is crazy.
Pick a subject, pick a topic.
It doesn't make a difference.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Any subject, any topic.
It's crazy and again, it's notperfect out the gate.
I was writing some, when I'mwriting these posts, I was like,
is this true?
And so I go.
And it had a source and it wasa real website.
And I went to the website and Iread it and I'm like I don't
(20:47):
know about this source.
Well, interestingly enough, itwasn't exactly true.
They had like that site hadactually like, twisted the truth
a little bit so that it wasn't100% accurate.
So definitely be checking itand trying it out before you
just assume it's all right,which I always think is
important.
So yeah, but I thought that wasinteresting because I was like
(21:10):
I don't know about this sitebeing 100% reliable.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You can get AI to verify the information.
You can ask it how accurate isthis, or is this accurate?
Just be very blunt about it andlet it come back with you know
parts of it where it will say,yep, this is right and this is
wrong.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Perplexity, gives me a chart at the end and goes line
by line and says true, andsometimes it says sort of.
It says true, false or sort of.
You know, it says it says true,false or sort of, and then it
says like how, why, it's sort oftrue, which I think is always
so interesting.
Um, but that's so much fun.
(21:48):
Yeah, I, I love it.
You've got to adapt, you've gotto adjust and you've got to be
aware of of what's going on intoday's market.
This has been an amazingconversation, I think, with some
really strong takeaways foranybody watching and listening
about how you can improve youronline presence, and I think
that's a big piece of who we are.
(22:09):
Right Back in the 90s, youneeded a website to be real.
Then you needed social media tobe real.
Well, now you need to be foundin AI to be real, right, so it
just keeps growing and beingdifferent and there's just so
much opportunity out there.
This has been fantastic.
Thank you so much for your time.
Before I let you go, though, Ihave to ask you the question
(22:30):
that I ask all of my guests, andthat is this show is called
Imperfect Marketing, becausemarketing is anything but a
perfect science, as we both know, what has been your biggest
marketing lesson learned alongthe way?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
The marketing lesson, I would say it is keeping up,
especially in our industry.
There's no question, you got tokeep up with what's going on.
I have the ability of being anindustry author and a guest
speaker, which forces me,whether I like it or not, to
always stay on top of what'sgoing on.
But that's the thing you said.
(23:04):
Marketing is not a perfectthing, and I agree with that too
, because ultimately, marketingis about finding a starting
point, not an end point.
There is no end point tomarketing.
You find a starting point and,based on the results, you go
back through and you changethings right.
So if you think of marketingbeing a cycle, you have a cycle
(23:24):
of a strategy.
You have activities, you havethose activities have tasks and
you have to understand how tomeasure those things, and
usually whatever we have isalready being measured.
So once now, with the AI tools,you take the measurements, you
dump it into chat, gpt and saytell me what this?
all means right and take it onestep further and say how do I
(23:46):
correct?
What are some steps I can do toimprove on these results?
Because you're not correctinganything.
That's the other thing.
You're improving on it, right?
You found a starting point.
You base on the results, youmake changes.
No-transcript.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
That's very cool.
I love that.
Marketing is a starting point,not an end point.
It is never done.
That's why our to-do lists areforever and, as a marketer, I
love AI because it helps me getthrough more of that to-do list
than I ever did before.
Notice, I didn't say all of theto-do list because I don't
think we will ever be throughall of the to-do list.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
There's no version of that.
No, I agree.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Never, never, never, so again.
Thank you so much, Meili, formeeting with me and having this
conversation.
I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
It was great being on the show Kendra.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Oh, ways to connect with you in the show notes or
the description.
If you're watching on YouTube,so be sure to go ahead and jump
on down there and connect withMeili to learn more, and if
you're looking to connect withhim for his services, again feel
free to do that too.
Thank you again so much fortuning in to another episode of
Imperfect Marketing.
If you learned something today,it would really help us if you
(25:27):
would rate or subscribe whereveryou're listening or watching.
Thanks so much and have a greatrest of your day.
Hi, I'm Kendra Korman .
If you're a coach, consultantor marketer, you know marketing
is far from a perfect science,and that's why this show is
called Imperfect Marketing.
Join me and my guests as weexplore how to grow your
business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned
along the way.
Hello and welcome back toanother episode of Imperfect
(00:27):
Marketing.
I am your host today.
I'm really excited because I amjoined by May Lee, who is going
to be helping us talk aboutstrategic digital marketing.
Welcome, Thank you so much forjoining me.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hello, kendra, glad we have a chance to do this show
together.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So how did you get into digital marketing?
Jeez, do you remember?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, I do, I remember.
So our company is 38 years old.
Right, it's a marketing agencyout of the Detroit metro area,
specifically in Birmingham,michigan.
If you go back to 87, when thecorporation was created, we
didn't really have the internet,right, we had AOL and
CompuServe and those guys.
It was in 94 that I started theinternet group.
The story goes I was invited toSun Microsystems offices in
(01:17):
Southfield, michigan.
Back at that time I wasliterally shown the internet,
like with Yahoo and Netscape,you know, using Netscape, and
that was kind of the startingpoint of this whole process.
But then the question was whydo you tie this into marketing?
Right, well, the 1990s was alot of fun, but it was like the
wild, wild west of the Internet.
We didn't really have rules, wedidn't have any boundaries, no
(01:40):
structure and nothing going on.
But that's how things started.
Started was back in those days.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Very cool.
I love those stories because Iremember Netscape.
I used that and I rememberstarting with retargeting when
that first came out in the early2000s and it was just, it was
crazy, right, the different adnetworks.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Public ads was a big deal.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Was the only thing right when retargeting came out.
It was like this is so cool.
So, yeah, no, I totally getthat.
And yes, I do remember Netscapevery, very well and I'm like
how did we live without Chrome?
That's what I want to know.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
That's where we were and where we are today.
It's been a long ride, believeme.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
We are asking Jeeves because he was the best that
there was at the time.
So let's talk a little bitabout.
You have a framework right 4A'sframework that you talk about
and leverage.
Tell me a little bit about thisand how this helps businesses
align with real business growth.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
How did I develop the concept of the four A's of
change?
And it all comes down to August2013,.
Google releases the Hummingbirdalgorithm.
The Hummingbird algorithm isfairly significant in terms of
how it impacts search engineoptimization, how it impacts you
know ranking positions, and soon.
At the time, it was like onemore change, right?
(03:06):
Yes, it was pretty significant,made a huge dent into how
people continue to use you know,optimize for Google.
But about 90 days later, I losta very large client.
The way that the story goes isthey said hey, listen, we love
you, you're doing everythinggood, but we're no longer
playing the Google game, and soI had to take a step back and
try and figure out well, how doI get these, you know, get them
(03:29):
to understand that this is theworld that we live in, this is
digital marketing.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
They're not playing the Google game.
There's only one game.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Right, they're not playing the game.
No, I know exactly.
And so I had to come up with.
I had two responses to that.
The first response was saylisten, if you want to get off
the Google train, you're free todo that, but should you decide
to get back on this trainsomewhere down the road, it'll
(03:59):
cost you exponentially to catchup to your competitors who have
not gotten off the train.
I said you got to live withthis, okay.
Well, once I brought thecompetitors into the
conversation, things change alittle bit, but not necessarily
(04:19):
to the level that I was hopingit would change in this
particular situation.
But at the same time, itstarted to raise a question in
my mind about change and acompany or an individual's
ability to take emotion out ofthe picture and realize that you
know you need to accept change.
So I came up with the four A'sAnticipate change, which pretty
(04:40):
much everybody says yeah, I knowthat the second one is the one
that's the hardest.
Pretty much everybody says yeah, I know that the second one is
the one that's the hardest whichis accept change.
This is the emotional factor,and when you're in business, you
really need to take emotion outof the picture.
You could fuss and fume all daylong about this change.
It could have an impact on theinvestment you already made.
(05:02):
It could have an impact on thebudget.
Moving forward, it could have alot of different impact.
Okay, it doesn't change thefact that this is going on and
you have no control.
We're moving forward.
And it doesn't change the factthat your competitors are going
to continue going down this roadtoo.
So the faster you accept change, the faster you're going to be
(05:27):
able to stay in touch with you,stay competitive in the
marketplace or get ahead of yourcompetition.
So fretting, fussing and fumingfor a month or two months or
sit there and have issues withthis is not going to do you any
good.
Move on, all right, that's thesecond A.
The third A is a little biteasier.
It's about adapting to thechange, meaning that what are
(05:50):
the processes I have to change?
What's the SEO I need to change?
What's the AI I need to change?
Whatever it is right, figureout what needs to be changed and
start making those changes.
Plan for those changes.
And the last one I like, whichis the easiest one, which is
adopt the changes, and it wasjust implement them, which is
the last part.
But the biggest hurdle in thesefour A's is that second one and
(06:14):
the individual that we'reworking with.
And just get over the emotionalaspect and just move on and
just stay focused on the idea ofbeing staying competitive in
the marketplace.
Those are euphorias very cool.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So you talked about a different a in one of them
which was, I think, adapting tochange, and that was ai.
I just read an article not toolong ago actually I think I just
read it this morning of thedate of our recording that each
AI search result that's likedriving traffic to your website
(06:52):
is worth four.
Like Google searchers, likeregular search engine clickers.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I'm willing to buy into that idea and I think the
best thing to do is just use myown experience right.
I went to Google to do someresearch, ran my search, went to
ChatGPT, ran my search.
In Google's case, I had toclick on 10 different websites
before, I think, I found what Iwas looking for.
(07:21):
And I'm not saying that theresults were irrelevant, but
it's not what I was trying to dowith my research.
I went to ChatGPT, looked at myresults over there.
Not only did I have fiveresults, but each of the five
results meaning the websites itwas sourcing for this research
were exactly what I was lookingfor.
I got to where I was goingfaster with ChatGPT than I did
(07:45):
with a regular Google search.
So to that extent, I wouldagree with what you're saying.
Yes, one ChatGPT result, or ifyou get sourced and you're in
this ChatGPT research is muchmore valuable than what you're
getting from Google.
And listen, Google's not stupid.
That's why they got Geministarted, right.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I use perplexity a lot.
I remember during the holidayseason perplexity actually
rolled out inside perplexity,shopping and buying, where you
could actually purchase stuffwithout even leaving perplexity
when it did all the research,which was really cool too.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
So these AI systems definitely understand
monetization, which is good,right, Because I remember when
Facebook came out right.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
When Facebook came out, we were like how are they
going to monetize this?
Then nobody had any idea howthey were going to monetize it.
No, I know Right, and it's likenow everything starts with the
monetization piece, Right, whichis, I think, very good for for
business, especially smallbusiness, because it makes it so
much more accessible.
So how is that changing?
(08:53):
You know, you've got AI, you'vegot AI search.
You've got regular SEO andsearch engine optimization,
which is a little bit differentat times but becoming, I think,
a little bit more of the same.
It's optimizing for AI to anextent.
Now Then there's thegeo-targeting to make sure
you're getting people that arein-network and nearby.
What are you seeing?
(09:13):
How is this changing whatbusinesses are doing?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Let's give the viewers something to chew on.
That I think will be helpful,that they can actually go and do
something with their website.
That I think will be helpful,that they can actually go and do
something with their website.
So my answer is going to bethat you need to add schema
S-C-H-E-M-A schema code to yourwebsite.
Now you're going to say, well,I've known that since 2007.
(09:38):
Well, yeah, I know.
I'm glad you know that since2007, when Google and Microsoft
and Yahoo got together andcreated schemaorg.
Yeah, we know all that.
But schema has been changingover the years and there's even
a different form.
And when I say different form,there's additional schema code
(10:02):
put into your website and intoyour web pages, especially like
your blog pages.
My suggestion is let's create ablog page right Once it's been
published.
Take the URL, go to chat, gptor Gemini or Copilot or Cloud or
Plexity, whichever one you'reusing Open the URL and ask it to
(10:24):
provide you the schema code forthat page.
Copy and paste the code, writeinto it and you're off to the
races.
And what I mean?
Off to the races?
What does that mean in thiscase?
The more schema code you havein a website or on a webpage,
not only is it better for theGoogles of the world, for those
traditional search engines, toidentify what you're about and
(10:48):
what your page is about or thatspecific URL is about, but it
actually facilitates especiallythe newer type codes that get
added in facilitate the AIchatbots to better understand
and you have a higherprobability of being sourced
when somebody's searching forwhatever it is that is relevant
(11:09):
to that page or to your website.
There's the other thing I wouldsuggest Go to your favorite
chatbot and ask it to recommendcompanies that are in your
industry, right, whateverservices or products that you
provide.
Take a look at the list.
Nine times out of 10, you'renot going to show up, Okay.
(11:30):
So your second step is going tobe tell me how do I get
recommended?
So it's going to give you alist of hey for your website,
for your situation.
These are the recommendations.
Follow those recommendations,work through that list, and one
of the things that you're goingto find in that list is is your
(11:53):
website or your webpageidentified as something notable?
What does that mean?
Have you put out any pressreleases that would identify and
verify who you are as a company, what services and products
that you offer?
So press releases are valuableto that extent.
Are you in Wikipedia, forexample, which also is a huge
(12:16):
bump in something what's calledbeing notable?
Are you as a company?
Are you linked or quoted in apublication a newspaper, a
magazine, industry publication,that type of thing?
These are things that arenotable and they are also
required in order to get sourcedinside of a AI chatbot or a
(12:39):
response, I should say.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Very cool tips.
So, yes, get yourself onWikipedia, get your company on
Wikipedia and definitely ask,don't struggle.
You know I have team membersthat are part of my agency, that
have names like Susie Strategyand Frank Fundraiser and that
are just projects.
They're just custom GPTs with aset of knowledge that I believe
(13:02):
in and trust, and then they askme a lot of questions.
I just had a 20-minuteconversation with Susie today,
actually when I was workingthrough some stuff, and I don't
always take what she saysverbatim right, but it gives me
some information and makes it alittle bit easier for me to
focus some of my ideas and getwhere I need to go.
So that's always good.
(13:22):
I love that and I think it'sjust really important to think
about that and not to be afraidto ask AI, because AI will tell
you right exactly how you needto do it.
I remember I got a phone callfrom a client and they're like
we're not coming up in searchfor the service that they were
providing in the area.
And I was like, because youdidn't use any one of those
words on the entire page, notone of those words is on that
(13:46):
page.
I'm like we can't do that.
And then so they went away andthey're like, okay.
Then they come back and they'relike, can we put it in white
text on a white background?
And I'm like, no, you used tobe able to.
I was like yes, that was a thing.
Right, I was like that was athing in 1990.
(14:06):
We don't do that anymore.
We don't game the system,because if you try to game the
system, you lose, guaranteed atthis point, right.
So yeah, so I've got lots offun stories, so yeah.
So ask AI, what are some greatthings?
I was like okay.
I was like here's all the wordsthat you need to add to the
page.
This is you know, you want tocome up for a city.
(14:26):
The city has got to be on thatpage somewhere, right?
You can't, just you're notgoing to magically show up if
you're not using those words.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
But the difficulty, I think, for a lot of people is
they want their website to comeup for and I'm just throwing out
an idea 20 different keywords,right?
Well, organically, you can'tstuff one page with all of that,
right?
There's something calledkeyword density.
That is very important and youknow, depending on who you talk
to, it ranges from one to 3%.
(14:55):
So if you have 800 words onthat page, you could only have
one to 3% of that with keywords.
Something that's relevant,right.
But what does this turn into?
Well, if you want 20 differentkeywords that you want to be
shown up for, you're gonna need20 different pages.
You can't have one page.
Try to get right for everything.
(15:16):
It's just not possible.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Every page needs to stand for something.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
All this goes back to the hummingbird that silly
thing called hummingbird back in2013.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I know that.
I still remember that was ahuge one.
It was definitely a huge one.
A lot of people took a hit onthat one.
So we know we need to be doingthe schema.
I think I talk to people allthe time about podcasting.
One of my previous guestsactually even suggested using
podcasts to do Q&A schema, sothat you've got question and
answer format, and I'll do thatwith the transcript right.
(15:51):
So I've done that for a fewclients and so there's a lot of
technology available to us.
I find that sometimes we don'talways use it the right way.
So what are some of themistakes that you're seeing
small to mid-sized businessesmake?
Because they're going aftersales, not necessarily marketing
and relationships and brandbuilding.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
You bring up two very interesting points.
The first one is the fact thatthey're so focused on sales that
they miss the fact that theyneed the marketing foundation
right?
Without the marketingfoundation, you're not
supporting your sales efforts,and so, instead of, you know,
just throwing out an idea,instead of closing every lead
that you're talking to, you'regoing to end up closing every
(16:33):
fifth lead that you're talkingto.
You're going to end up closingevery fifth lead that you're
talking to because yourmarketing foundation isn't there
and you're spinning your wheels.
You're better off putting alittle bit of investing a little
time into that marketingfoundation.
Let's I don't know, take awhole week and find four hours
out of the week, spread acrossseven days or five days, just so
(16:55):
you can, you know, focus onthat.
I think that's a huge mistakethat we tend to see quite often.
The other one is the one thatyou're bringing up just using
the tools that are on the market.
Well, ai is a phenomenal toolright now.
It's been on the market for twoand a half years.
Well, ai is a phenomenal toolright now.
It's been on the market for twoand a half years.
Figure out how and don't beafraid of it.
(17:15):
You mentioned that earliertonight.
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Don't be afraid, just go toChatGPT and ask it anything you
want.
The other day I used it to helpme build up my backup system for
my MacBook Pro.
Listen, I don't know all theterminal commands to go in there
and type all this out, but Iwent to ChatGPT and I said, oh
(17:36):
here's, give me a backup planfor my MacBook Pro, give me a
backup plan.
And it told me exactly whatcommands to put into terminal to
set things up.
The good news is, all you haveto do is click the copy button,
dump it into terminal, paste itinto terminal and you go through
this process.
I mean, that's just one exampleof how you can use AI, but
(17:59):
imagine what you can do as itrelates to creating blog posts,
right, creating photos, images.
We have a client project inwhich we're doing it's towels,
wholesale towels.
Well, we got ChatGPT to createthe towel images with people
(18:21):
right In a spa setting and theywith the right colors,
everything that you want.
All you have to do is go tellit what you want.
You know you might need sometime to learn how much detail to
give it or whatever the case is, but this goes to the other
core element, which is beingafraid of using the tools on the
(18:44):
market.
Either it's because of timeissue I don't have enough time
for this or it could be a costissue.
I don't want to spend moremoney, whatever that might look
like.
At the end of the day, believeme, you're going to have missed
opportunities and it will, infact, cost you more in the long
run if you don't invest yourtime or invest some budget.
(19:08):
There is no version of a zerobudget.
I'm sorry.
Does that work?
Yes, it just I'm sorry, so thatworked.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Anyway, those are two scenarios.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
No, I think that that's so important.
I actually was using perplexitybecause my SharePoint is like
way over space.
If you guys use Microsoft, youcan understand that Anyway.
So I needed to archive a bunchof things and I'm like okay, how
can I bulk archive anythingthat's older than like 2021?
Right, and I wanted to do thatbecause I backed up my whole
(19:39):
SharePoint onto a backup driveand stuff like that, so I'll
still be able to access it.
But I'm going to bulk, get ridof the stuff and I'm like I have
no idea how to do that.
Can I do it?
And it's like, yes, you can.
Here are three different ways.
You can do it step by step.
I'm like fantastic.
And I'm like you know, one ofthem involved buying something,
and you know the rest were justusing built in Microsoft tools,
(20:01):
and I'm like sign me up, I'lllet you know how it goes,
because I'm on the time toactually do that step.
At least I know what I need todo.
I have done the backup, though,but yeah, I mean, it's just so
amazing how much we can do andhow much knowledge we have
access to that will allow us tounderstand, step by step.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And the variety that's associated with that
knowledge is crazy.
Pick a subject, pick a topic.
It doesn't make a difference.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Any subject, any topic.
It's crazy and again, it's notperfect out the gate.
I was writing some, when I'mwriting these posts, I was like,
is this true?
And so I go.
And it had a source and it wasa real website.
And I went to the website and Iread it and I'm like I don't
(20:47):
know about this source.
Well, interestingly enough, itwasn't exactly true.
They had like that site hadactually like, twisted the truth
a little bit so that it wasn't100% accurate.
So definitely be checking itand trying it out before you
just assume it's all right,which I always think is
important.
So yeah, but I thought that wasinteresting because I was like
(21:10):
I don't know about this sitebeing 100% reliable.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You can get AI to verify the information.
You can ask it how accurate isthis, or is this accurate?
Just be very blunt about it andlet it come back with you know
parts of it where it will say,yep, this is right and this is
wrong.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Perplexity, gives me a chart at the end and goes line
by line and says true, andsometimes it says sort of.
It says true, false or sort of.
You know, it says it says true,false or sort of, and then it
says like how, why, it's sort oftrue, which I think is always
so interesting.
Um, but that's so much fun.
(21:48):
Yeah, I, I love it.
You've got to adapt, you've gotto adjust and you've got to be
aware of of what's going on intoday's market.
This has been an amazingconversation, I think, with some
really strong takeaways foranybody watching and listening
about how you can improve youronline presence, and I think
that's a big piece of who we are.
(22:09):
Right Back in the 90s, youneeded a website to be real.
Then you needed social media tobe real.
Well, now you need to be foundin AI to be real, right, so it
just keeps growing and beingdifferent and there's just so
much opportunity out there.
This has been fantastic.
Thank you so much for your time.
Before I let you go, though, Ihave to ask you the question
(22:30):
that I ask all of my guests, andthat is this show is called
Imperfect Marketing, becausemarketing is anything but a
perfect science, as we both know, what has been your biggest
marketing lesson learned alongthe way?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
The marketing lesson, I would say it is keeping up,
especially in our industry.
There's no question, you got tokeep up with what's going on.
I have the ability of being anindustry author and a guest
speaker, which forces me,whether I like it or not, to
always stay on top of what'sgoing on.
But that's the thing you said.
(23:04):
Marketing is not a perfectthing, and I agree with that too
, because ultimately, marketingis about finding a starting
point, not an end point.
There is no end point tomarketing.
You find a starting point and,based on the results, you go
back through and you changethings right.
So if you think of marketingbeing a cycle, you have a cycle
(23:24):
of a strategy.
You have activities, you havethose activities have tasks and
you have to understand how tomeasure those things, and
usually whatever we have isalready being measured.
So once now, with the AI tools,you take the measurements, you
dump it into chat, gpt and saytell me what this?
all means right and take it onestep further and say how do I
(23:46):
correct?
What are some steps I can do toimprove on these results?
Because you're not correctinganything.
That's the other thing.
You're improving on it, right?
You found a starting point.
You base on the results, youmake changes.
No-transcript.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
That's very cool.
I love that.
Marketing is a starting point,not an end point.
It is never done.
That's why our to-do lists areforever and, as a marketer, I
love AI because it helps me getthrough more of that to-do list
than I ever did before.
Notice, I didn't say all of theto-do list because I don't
think we will ever be throughall of the to-do list.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
There's no version of that.
No, I agree.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Never, never, never, so again.
Thank you so much, Meili, formeeting with me and having this
conversation.
I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
It was great being on the show Kendra.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Oh, ways to connect with you in the show notes or
the description.
If you're watching on YouTube,so be sure to go ahead and jump
on down there and connect withMeili to learn more, and if
you're looking to connect withhim for his services, again feel
free to do that too.
Thank you again so much fortuning in to another episode of
Imperfect Marketing.
If you learned something today,it would really help us if you
(25:27):
would rate or subscribe whereveryou're listening or watching.
Thanks so much and have a greatrest of your day.
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