Keeping YOUR NerdBrand Strong: A Talk about SEO ... Again.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the
NerdBrand podcast where I'mgoing to talk about SEO versus
SEM.
What are the differences?

(00:38):
Because everybody wants SEO butfor some reason, we all still
miss the mark on understanding,I think, how hard it is, not
exactly always what it is.
There's a lot of thinking, alot of strategy, a lot of effort
into content quality that gointo it.
So having a conversation aboutit is often difficult, because

(01:01):
every business is different andwhat you want to say, what you
want to promote and how you sayit, it's just going to be
different.
So it's used to get your brandnoticed by potential customers
because content is king.
However, how is your grammar?
And do you want to be short andpunchy with your copy?
Do you want to be philosophicalor do you want to be, you know,

(01:26):
clippy?
Or what tone are you going totake?
Because, believe it or not, youthink like, well, how's that
got to do with SEO?
First on Google and instead tryto provide good quality answers
and information to people thatyou would want to help and do

(01:48):
business with.
Then you'll start to see thingspivot and change in a better
direction.
Targeting customers with localSEOs to increase sales is
typical.
It's something that can be done, but you have to think about
what do I want to offer?
What percent offer this?
What BOGO do I want to put out?

(02:10):
What campaign do I want to run?
What do I want to say?
These are things that amarketing agency isn't
necessarily going to know if 15%off such and such or these
things for how long is going tobe good for your bottom line.
They're not CFOs.
So really think about what yourcontent is going to be.
What do you want to offer?
What message do you want to say?
And think about your imagery.

(02:32):
Images say things more thanwords.
So your target audience, theimagery, needs to line up into
what they expect to see, whatyou want to see and expect from
them.
Imagery is very, very importantand on brand for many, many
companies.
Just look at Target and look atthe imagery they use, the

(02:55):
colors and how vibrant they areand the people that are in them.
That's the demographic thatthey want to sell to, and so you
know you want to fix how youappear on Google.
Well, those are the elements tofocus on, because, as we head
toward AI-generated content andresults, the blue links are
going to go away and we aregoing to be left with a prompt

(03:16):
box that's going to give usanswers, and we want our website
and the answers that are on itto be in those prompt responses
that we assume Google willeventually show, and so, with
that, it's going to requirerethinking your entire content
strategy and what you're doing,and so it's going to be a very,

(03:36):
very disruptive year for content, for SEO, for search engine
marketing, which is SEM, so youdo want to update it frequently.
As of this podcast, I think anew algorithm is still rolling
out.
I haven't heard if it'sfinished yet or not, but it's
definitely.
Google is focusing on content,for sure, and the quality of

(03:57):
that.
So if you want to see the newGoogle search, you can go to
nerdbrandagencycom, scroll tothe footer, click on SEO, sem
services.
You can actually watch a videoGoogle produced to show you what
search generative experiencewith AI will be like, and it is
very different and it hasevolved over time, because

(04:19):
that's how fast this moves.
So how can we help you win onsearch right now?
Well, if you're waiting to fixyour content and your website
and you're going to do thisinternally and you're going to
think about this later, it'sreally a bad.
You're not really prepared.
You see, google's not going towait until you're ready to

(04:40):
update your stuff.
They're just not, and yourcompetition is already working
to do so.
So branded content and imageryis important.
What is that?
Well, you have professionalphotography.
Um, that cannot be compared tostock photography, because it's
you, it's your photos, it has anorganic feel that it's from you

(05:03):
and your brand and, um, ifyou're doing a video and you
have B roll and the B rollcontains a lot of footage that
just is not, um, organic to thebrand or original, then, uh,
it's going to be a reallydifficult product, I believe, to
market locally, especially.
So you want to definitely focuson branded content and imagery.

(05:24):
Um, graphic design and artworkUm, again, I not trying to hack
on the DIYers out there.
There's a place for that ifyour business is that small.
But'm not trying to hack on theDIYers out there.
There's a place for that ifyour business is that small.
But when you start to elevateand start to look more
professional and you want to hita higher class of clientele
those that have more expendablemoney and incomes that can come
to you and pay you for yourservices you definitely want to

(05:47):
step up how you present yourselfin a myriad of ways.
So copywriting in your brand'svoice is also very important in
shifting away from informationaltone and speech and things that
are in your copy on yourwebsite or whatever.
I mean, if you have a website,you may not need to redesign it.
If you have a good design, youmight just need to spruce up a

(06:09):
copy.
I mean you just may need to.
You know, sound moreauthoritative.
You may need to sound morefriendly instead of talking at
people, talking with some people, inviting conversation, perhaps
try to make the brand morehuman.
And then a custom website withuser experience focus being its
first goal.

(06:29):
You know UX stands for userexperience, focus being its
first goal.
You know UX stands for userexperience and UI stands for
user interface.
And there's a meme out therethat's very popular of two
ketchup bottles the old ketchupbottle.
Many of us my age remember thatwe didn't really know that if
you smacked it on the neck afterturning it upside down, the
ketchup came right on out.

(06:50):
That if you smacked it on theneck after turning it upside
down, the ketchup came right onout.
We spent many a time hittingthe bottle furiously at the back
of the bottle as it was turnedover, to try to get some ketchup
on our beloved burger and fries, only to create a mess and then
walk away with a shirt thatlooked like a Jackson Pollock
painting.
So somebody got together andsaid this user interface is bad

(07:12):
and UX was like we're going todo some studies.
Yeah, people are mad.
They don't want to do thisanymore.
Let's make something thatactually works.
Now many people think that thenew bottle that's plastic and
has a lid that doesn't createmesses and all of that is UX.
I argue it's user interface.
Still, however, user experiencewas there to look at and study

(07:35):
and question and see thefrustrations that people were
having with that particularproduct, and they fixed it, and
even though we may not agree onhow they did it, and they sell a
lot of ketchup.
So you definitely want to havesome kind of custom experience
created, but in order to do that, you have to do the studies to
see how people are reacting toyour brand, and we often say

(07:58):
advertising makes a lousy mirror, because we all are amazing,
but in reality, we are probablynot as great as we think.
So at the end of the day, youdefinitely want to have an
outsider, come in and find wordsand phrases that people want to
use to search for businesseslike yours.
I mean, it helps really narrowdown, like what you're going to

(08:18):
talk about, because, at the endof the day, yes, we want to
reach people, but we have tostrike a very good balance
between optimization and talkingto people.
That way, we remember that theinternet is made of people, kind
of like Soylent Green, and forthose of you out there that know
that reference, god bless you.
God bless you.
So change your website.

(08:40):
Make it more appealing tosearch engines, from the imagery
, the layout, the design.
Modernize it.
It has to be strong.
If it's not a strong look well,your competition could win
contracts and RFPs that you'regoing after because you just
don't look as sharp as they do.
You don't look as trustworthy,and that's really hard to do
with a faceless brand.
Sometimes you can get away withan entity that is faceless, but

(09:03):
you definitely want to havesomething that can connect with
people, to show that you'relegitimate.
So it's very important, right?
So you want to work on content.
You want to work on whatappeals to your target audience.
There could be several verticalsin that segment, but at the end
of the day, you do have a basethat you need to operate off of
your beliefs, your philosophies,your values, and you will have

(09:23):
an audience that will beattracted to that, because
that's really what you're tryingto do.
You're trying to attractlong-time consumers, not
first-time listeners all thetime.
If you do the first-timelistener all the time, you're
going to have a really hard timereplicating that, making a
living and you're just alwaysgoing to be stressed.
So we don't want that.

(09:45):
So you want to reduce yourstress.
You want to reduce anxiety onyour marketing.
You want to know where yourmarketing is going.
We know how to track thosedollars.
We can even show you from amapping perspective, creepily
where and what road and pathpeople take to get to your store
.
The technology exists, it is outthere.
The world of paid advertisingis vast and massive.

(10:06):
It just is up to your goals andreally, your imagination and
budget.
Most importantly, the last part, because a lot of people are
already doing this too.
So the more highly competitivethe industry is that you are in,
you're going to need to expectto spend more to be competitive,
and Google does a really goodjob of telling you this,

(10:28):
especially if you havecompetitors listed inside of it.
You know it'll say, hey, theseguys are spending this and
they've outspent you this bythis much.
The tools are out there andthey're free and available.
However, you need to rememberthat just because SEO is free,
it's not free for theprofessional who's doing the

(10:50):
work.
It is very expensive, it's veryhard work, it's very time
consuming and it's not limitedto title tags, meta descriptions
or anything else that you maynot understand.
It sometimes just comes rightdown to that ketchup bottle, the
very thing you hold in yourhand, that everyone else does.
They've just done it better andone day you're going to get

(11:12):
there too.
You just need to make thatinvestment.
You just need to figure outwhat do I need to do to get
there and that consulting isfree.
So go to nerdbrandagencycom andcheck us out there for that you
can check on, ask us for aconsultancy of your brand, get
an audit.
We'll take a look at yourwebsite, tell you what's busted,

(11:32):
what's not working and, youknow, help you keep your nerd
brand strong.