December 4, 2024 • 38 mins
In this episode, Danny speaks with Mike King, SEO pioneer and founder of iPullRank, to explore the power of authentic representation through mentorship in the field of digital marketing and SEO. They discuss Mike’s journey from computer science to SEO leadership. These mentors helped shape his path and model for diversity in the industry and emphasized the importance of visibility for aspiring professionals reflecting all forms of diversity. Listeners will gain insights into the future of SEO, the impact of AI advancements, effective brand-building strategies, and tips on navigating the world of SEO and professional mentorship.
Episode Highlights:
- Although Mike studied computer science, he found his true calling outside the classroom, ultimately leading him to a career in SEO.
- Mike discusses the importance of explicit and implicit mentors, crediting individuals like Tony Effick, Rand Fishkin, and Will Reynolds for guiding his growth in SEO and helping him think strategically about the big picture in digital marketing and professional network-building.
- Mike advises small businesses, particularly, to focus on building genuine brand connections and targeting long-tail keywords rather than relying on SEO shortcuts, as Google increasingly favors quality and user-focused content.
- With the rise of AI-driven search, Mike predicts that SEO optimization will shift toward micro-optimizations within specific content segments and leveraging structured data.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Mentor.
I'm your host, danny Gavin, and, together with industry leaders
and marketing experts, we'llexplore the meeting point of
mentorship and marketing.
We'll discover how theseconnections have affected
careers, marketing strategiesand lives.
Now get ready to get human.
Hello everyone, I'm Danny Gavin, founder of Optage marketing
(00:36):
professor and the host of theDigital Marketing Mentor.
Get ready to get humantechnology, seo, generative AI
and even engineering skills tohelp create powerful marketing
campaigns to grow businesseslike SAP, american Express,
nordstrom, etsy and Adidas.
Mike's the author of asoon-to-be-released book, the
Science of SEO, which I can'twait to read, and he's been
recognized by USA Today as oneof the top 10 influencers in
(00:58):
2022, and was named one of thetop marketing influencers to
follow by LinkedIn in 2021.
He's a musician and he's oneheck of a dresser.
How are you today, mike?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I'm fantastic, excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
And we're doing remote location from San Diego,
which is pretty cool.
I know typically you're in NewYork.
How do you like East Coastversus West Coast?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You know what?
I would be completely honestwith you the West Coast is lazy
compared to us.
On the East Coast, you know,everything is totally easy and
chill and you know it seems likeeverything is wellness first,
which is great, because it'sjust like I get out of New York
and, you know, the wave ofstress is just gone, because
everything here is like how canyou feel better?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, I feel like when you're walking down the
street in Manhattan, no one'sreally asking you that.
So let's start off with whereyou went to school and what you
studied.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, I went to Howard University in DC, which
has been getting a lot morevisibility as of late, with
Kamala Harris being an alumnus,and I studied systems and
computer science.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
When you look back at that experience.
I know it's a long time ago,but are there any experiences
specifically inside or outsidethe classroom that were
impactful in directing your path?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So I feel like you just nicely called me old there,
but yeah, I think it was reallymore outside of the classroom,
because for me, you know, I'vebeen coding since I was 12.
And what I learned in class wasa lot of math, which was great,
but as far as like what we werelearning, it was like C++,
(02:26):
which I already knew, and thenJava, which I didn't know but
was really similar to C++, so Ididn't really feel very
challenged by computer science,and so I learned a lot more
about just life, frankly, oncampus and how to connect with
people, and I spent more timelike doing music related stuff
there and I just felt like, okay, this is where I want to take
(02:49):
my life and then, ultimately, mypath through music is what got
me to SEO.
You know, obviously I learnedacademic things, of course, but
the things that, like reallyimpacted my life, that were new,
were more like social,emotional skills that I picked
up.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So in the year 2024, if someone were to come to you
and said you know, should I goto college?
It sounds like there's a lot ofways that I can learn things
outside of it.
What's the advice that yougenerally give?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
College is super valuable, but it's not a
requirement for everyone, right?
Like, if you don't know whatyou want to do or how to do it,
then of course, go to college,because not only will they give
you those skills, but you'llalso build your network in a
variety of ways by going toschool and obviously, depending
on where you go to school, thatnetwork may be more inherently
valuable as well.
(03:35):
So there's definitely a reasonto go to college, but if you're
someone who's self-motivated, aself-starter and autodid like
they can learn themselves orwhatever then you don't
necessarily need it, becauseit's more about, like what you
can actually do than where youlearned it.
You know, I meet a lot ofpeople as we interview folks to
(03:57):
come on board at iPoleRank and,like, you'll have these people
that are very well decorated,they went to these great schools
, they have master's degrees.
When you sit them down to dosomething, they have no idea
what to do, whereas we'll alsohave people who, like you know,
might be college dropouts ornever went to college or just
took some course or whatever,and they know what to do.
(04:19):
So for me, I really just lookfor people that can actually do
things, and sometimes they comein the form of college graduates
.
Sometimes they don't.
I'm not a college graduate, youknow.
So like I went but I didn'tfinish, and so that to me is not
a requirement to be good atsomething, because obviously
I've seen firsthand that you canbe good at things without
(04:40):
graduating college.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So, mike, how would you define a mentor?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
So I think that there are both implicit mentors and
explicit mentors, right?
So the explicit mentor is whatyou think, or what most people
think of when they think mentorslike someone who sits you down
and says like, hey, you're notthinking big enough, or you're
doing this wrong, or you shouldthink about this in this way or
that way, or whatever.
And then there are the implicitmentors, people that you kind
of just like look up to andyou're like, okay, they're doing
(05:06):
this thing this way.
Well, maybe I should thinkabout this thing another way.
And so you're learning bywatching what they do, and you
may or may not have interactionswith them directly, but you are
changing how you areinteracting in the world based
on information that you'regleaning from that person.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
And it sounds like to be a well-rounded individual.
It's important to have both.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I mean it could be.
You know, I've really landed onthat because I have not had a
lot of explicit mentors and sowhen I think about, you know
where my improvements come from.
It's a lot of like reading,self-evaluation, looking at, you
know, the people that I respectand saying like, hey, it looks
like they learned something here.
Perhaps I can reconsider whatI'm doing.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
And so, yeah, I think you can get it either way, like
through a combination, or youcan get it from one or the
others.
So let's talk about one of yourexplicit mentors, tony Effick.
How has he been influential toyour life?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Tony is probably like one of the only people to sit
me down and be like, look, youneed to think bigger about what
you're doing, Right?
So, like my path into SEO andit's probably similar to you
know a lot of people's is thatyou kind of come in, you have no
idea what you're doing, youfigure it out and then you're
like, cool, this is how SEOworks, this is what I'm doing.
(06:22):
You make small adjustments asyou go based on things that you
learn, but I was literally yourtypical technical content
linking SEO, and then I workedat a big ad agency which was in
the Publicis Network andeverything around me is all
about creative and strategy andthese sorts of things that I fit
(06:45):
into and I know enough about,but I wasn't thinking big
picture.
And so Tony was like, nah, nah,here's how search fits into the
big picture of a strategy andhere's how you do big picture
strategic thinking.
And so he helped me reallylevel up and he was one of the
sources of why I started doingall the persona-based stuff,
(07:07):
because it was a good wait, likeI can now see the matrix and I
know where all this stuff fitsinto it and then I could add on
(07:28):
to my skillset in a way thatmade you know bigger picture
sense, and so it really allowedme to figure out like okay,
here's how everything I can doplays together, Cause I've been
building websites since like1995.
But when you're website sincelike 1995.
But when you're an SEO, they'rejust like cool, do the meta
tags.
(07:49):
And then you're having theseconversations with the actual
people who have developer intheir title, who don't want to
listen to you because they'relike you're the meta tag guy.
But then when you come in andyou have a big picture
discussion and you can sayhere's how all these pieces fit
together, not just from astrategic perspective discussion
, and you can say here's how allthese pieces fit together, not
just from a strategicperspective, but you can break
things down from a tacticalperspective.
(08:10):
You quickly get a lot of buy-infrom a lot of people at the
higher levels and then you canactually make your ideas come to
life.
So Tony was really instrumentalin helping me understand that
big picture so I can play in thebigger ocean of strategy than
just like sit at the littlekid's table for SEO.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Do you still keep in touch with Tony?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Tony still lives in Brooklyn.
He's at Google now.
He runs something reallyimportant at YouTube or whatever
, and we'll catch up here andthere.
He has a bunch of kids.
I have a bunch of kids Well, Ihave two kids, not a bunch of
kids and we always talk aboutlike hey, let's get the kids
together.
You know, I was there for hisbirthday a couple of years, so
(08:58):
Tony is like still someonethat's in my orbit and when
things are not going well, I'llsend a text like hey, tony, like
what do you think I should dohere?
You know, so it's been a supervaluable relationship to me and
you know I've learned so muchfrom him both explicitly and
implicitly.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
It's wonderful that you have someone like that, that
when you really really need it,you can send him a text, and
that's important.
So let's talk about some of theimplicit mentors people around
you that you look up to and haveinfluenced you.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Ran Fishkin has done so much for me, both explicitly
and implicitly.
You know, he's always someone Ican reach out to when things
again aren't going well and hecan give me some feedback and
whatever.
You know, I remember one time Iwas going to do a whiteboard
Friday at Moz and I had no ideawhat to talk about and I sat
down with with Rand for like 30seconds and he stares in the
(09:46):
space for a couple of secondsand then he's like you should
talk about this and it was likethe perfect idea, Right.
So it's kind of like indicativeof my experiences with Rand.
You know, a lot of times I'llhave no idea or some idea, and
he'll just help me quicklyrefine things on how to do it.
Or, as another example, withthe Google leak, he came to my
(10:08):
house and I was just like yo,things aren't going well right
now, I don't know what I'm doing, we're hanging on by a thread,
and that's not something I wouldtypically be vulnerable with
people to say like I would just,you know, power through it.
And then a few weeks later he'slike, hey, I got these leaked
documents.
I think you can help me, youknow, parse through them and
(10:29):
it's become like the singlebiggest opportunity in my career
.
It's led to some of the biggestdeals I've ever closed.
So that's what I mean.
Like he's looked out for me inways that he didn't have to do,
Right, and that's just him.
Like I don't think it'sanything specifically special
about me, it's just how he is inthe world.
He's always happy to help.
(10:50):
So Rand has done a lot of stufflike that for me.
Another implicit mentor I wouldsay would be Will Reynolds.
Right, Like when I, you know,went to my first SEO conference,
which was MozCon, I was justlike, looking around, like, wow,
this is so cool.
Like all these like thoughtleaders, they have all these
cool ideas, they're so clever.
But nothing in me crossed mymind that made me think like, oh
(11:12):
, I can do this too, Until I sawWill Reynolds get on stage and
I was like, oh, they let Blackpeople do this, Okay.
And so there's been a lot ofthings that you know I've
watched Will Reynolds do andit's been like, okay, that's the
way you're supposed to do this,right.
Like he's very vocal about youknow kind of his like altruism
(11:33):
and how he runs his companiesand just the way he is in the
world.
And again you look at that andyou're like, okay, this is a
paragon of how this is meant tobe done.
And then you take away the bitsand pieces that resonate with
you and then you create your ownbit.
So you know, I would look athim as someone like that as well
.
And then you know there's justa lot of people in business that
(11:55):
, like you take little tidbitsfrom where you're like, oh, this
guy's doing, or this woman isdoing, something that's really
interesting.
Perhaps I should try that.
So I take a lot of inspirationfrom a lot of places, from
people that I know, I don't know, and then I use that to
determine, like, OK, here's whatI want to do and here's who I
want to be in the world.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
So you mentioned Will being important because he kind
of showed you what was possible.
Do you feel, like you're thatas well, now for young
African-American men to look up?
Oh wow, look at this successfulperson, I can accomplish this
as well.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, a lot of people reach out to me and this is why
representation matters.
I was literally sitting in thisroom watching all these people
being like oh yeah, this is notfor me and that's not something
that I typically do like in lifein general just from all the
experiences that I've had and soon but in that situation I felt
(12:50):
that way.
So many people have reached outto me not just you know Black
people, but also you know peopleof color in general reached out
to me and they say, like hey,you know, I love to see you
doing what you do in theauthentic way that you do it,
because sometimes it's not justabout like you know what you
look like, how you present orwhatever.
It's also just the way you arein the world.
(13:12):
Like I'm not somebody who codeswitches, I'm not somebody who
you know acts differently inthese environments, and for some
people that makes themuncomfortable.
But for me I'm like I'm here,this is who I am, you know like
I'm not changing who I am justbecause you know this is how
everyone else acts.
(13:36):
I get a lot of people that reachout to me for that and they're
like I really appreciate thatyou're not acting differently in
this world.
But yeah, also, you know, blackpeople reach out to me as well
and they're like wow, you know,you're such inspiration or
whatever.
And I appreciate that and Idon't take that for granted at
all.
Like, I understand the gravityof my position and what I do and
I always look to pay thatforward wherever I can.
(13:57):
And so when people reach out tome and they're like, hey, you
know I'm trying to figure thisout, I always try to make time
to be like hey, you know, here'swhat I've done, here's what's
worked for me.
It may not work for you, butlet's talk through it.
I'm happy to do that sort ofstuff because you never know
what impact you're going to haveon that next person and so on
and so forth.
And you know, I just want to domy best to make the spaces I'm
(14:20):
in better for people like me whoalso want to be in those spaces
.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It's so amazing, so powerful.
I know, at Brighton SEO lastyear or, yeah, already last year
one of my employees was with meand I was so excited that I
could introduce him to you,because it's like this is
someone you know has potentiallywalked the same path as you and
someone to look up and look howsuccessful he is, and it was
(14:44):
just nice, right Nice to be ableto create that connection.
It was just very inspiring forme.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, again, like I feel like it's my duty to do
that, because I don't wantanyone to feel the way that I
felt in that room where I waslike this is not for me, because
who's to say it's not for me,it's for whoever can do it.
And you know, I mean I thinkthe things that I've shared with
the SEO community Imagine if Ihadn't had that moment watching
(15:12):
Will Reynolds and I didn't shareany of that watching Will
Reynolds and I didn't share anyof that.
I think that would have been ahuge disservice.
And I'm sure there have beenpeople in the past who were even
better than the things thatI've done, who have felt that
way and not felt like they couldbe included here and we've
missed out on the things thatthey had to contribute.
So, yeah, I think it's reallyimportant for me to keep doing
that work.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
And it's interesting.
You make me think about theconcept of representation.
I know Rand posted somethingabout it recently, but why it's
so important at a conference?
But it's funny, it's just thatpoint.
I've never really thought aboutit.
But just to have a mix ofpeople so that everyone in the
crowd has someone that they canlook up to and say that could be
me.
It's so powerful.
You don't really think aboutthat, right?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, and I think I might actually be underselling
how impactful that was for me tosee Will Like, literally while
he was speaking, I pitched forSMX East and then I got it, and
then that created all of thisfor me.
So, you know, for someone to beable to see themselves on the
stage is so powerful, all right,so now let's talk about your
(16:17):
mentorship style.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So obviously you've spoken now how you mentor
basically anyone who wants tocome to you, right?
But I mean, let's talk aboutemployees and your colleagues at
iPullRank.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
How do you mentor them?
I don't know if I'm the best atthis, to be honest, but here's
my approach.
You know, when we interviewpeople, one of the key outputs
from the interview, once you'vemade it through, is that we
build out a coaching plan.
Here's what we need this roleto do, here's what you want to
accomplish, here's what you wantto go.
Ok, cool, here's our plan toclose those gaps.
And then I effectively manageagainst that plan.
(16:51):
Right, like we come up with aseries of OKRs collectively,
come up with a series of OKRscollectively, and when I say
collectively, they put togetherthe first draft and then we'll
edit it together and say, okay,well, you've got all these
things, but we also need this,and then we have an action plan
based on that.
So what are the things you wantto accomplish?
What are the things you need tolearn?
Where do you need moreexperience and needs to be more
(17:12):
comfortable, confident andeffective?
That's where we're building ourplan off of, and then, from
there, I do bi-weeklyone-on-ones where we're
discussing those items and we'realso discussing how are you
doing, how's your life going,how are you aligning with our
values as a company and ourvalue set is PROUD, which stands
for Proactive, reliable,outstanding, useful and
(17:33):
Dedicated, and we talk throughlike, okay, well, where did you
not exemplify those things aswell, so we can figure out, like
how can we continuously improve?
You know, I'm more like let'sdo the big picture plan and then
let's work on that over time sothat we can get you to where
you need to go and also where Ineed you to go, so that we can
do better work.
So I don't know if that's thebest approach, but you know I
(17:55):
like structured approaches sothat we're all clear on what it
is that we're doing.
It also leaves space forvariance, as required as well,
but that's the way I do it.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I love it and I think one of the unique things which,
just from talking to people,you know, often you have a need
in a company.
You hire someone to fill thathole Right, and it's like, OK,
these are things we need fromyou to fill that hole right.
And it's like, okay, these arethings we need from you.
Go ahead right, but you'reactually saying no, I'm starting
with what you want right, Withwhat you need to accomplish, and
then let's see how that fitsinto what our goals and what our
plans are, and that way youkeep the person motivated but
(18:27):
also fulfill what the companyneeds.
I don't think that everyoneapproaches it that way, K.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I mean, that was just the way that made sense to me.
Here's the thing like perhapsit was a function of me never
staying anywhere long enough,but in the places that I worked
I don't think there was enoughof a like performance and
mentoring culture, even withTony.
Tony was only my manager forlike six months and then he
moved on to another agents, sothere wasn't really enough of a
space for me to see, like what'sthe long-term approach to
(18:55):
performance management andmentorship look like.
So I was just like well, whatwould I want?
And then also, I've read allthe books you know, like work
rules and things like that, likeall the books, and I was like
cool, let me take pieces fromthis and then put together an
approach that makes sense to me.
So that's how I landed on it.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I know that one of my colleagues is going to be
really excited that we mentionedthe word OKR in this episode,
so kudos to you, mike.
Let's transition over to SEO.
My question to you we've gotthe Google leaks from a couple
of months ago and a lot of it tome feels like it's pointing
towards optimizing for thetraditional 10, 11 links on
(19:35):
Google.
Now we also have the AIoverviews that are coming in and
the question is, man, how do Ioptimize for those?
Right, so we'll get into it inmore detail, but do you feel
like these are two like?
Are these competing?
Are they really connected?
And I know it's kind of deep,but I'd love to know your
opinion.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, they're not competing at all, they just
operate differently, right?
So, like when you're trying tooptimize for a standard organic
search or standard web search orwhatever you want to call it,
it's more about how relevant isthe entirety of the page to that
query, and then, of course,you've got you know the
authority metrics.
Do you have the links?
And then another big component,which has been reinforced by
(20:14):
the leak and also the DOJantitrust trial testimony, is
that the user behavior and howthey interact with your page
matters a whole lot.
Are you driving clicks?
Are people staying on your siteafter they've clicked through?
So on and so forth.
But as far as that, as itcompares to AI overviews, ai
(20:38):
overviews are driven by what'scalled retrieval, augmented
generation, which is a paradigmwhere you're combining a large
language model with the searchengine, and so the way that
works is that it breaks yourpages down into chunks and then
it looks for the most relevantchunk to the keyword and also
the prompt that they're using inthe background relevant chunk
(20:59):
to the keyword and also theprompt that they're using in the
background.
So really, what that's about islike where's the most relevant
paragraph or most relevantsentence to what the user is
looking for.
So I think of that as kind oflike a micro optimization,
whereas for web search it's moreof like a macro optimization
for the page.
So they don't necessarilyconflict with each other.
It's just that doing it for AIoverviews is going to be way
(21:22):
more granular than what you'redoing for the standard search.
And then the other thing withAI overviews is that it also
uses the structured data heavily, so not just like the
individual structured data thatyou have on your page, but also
the structured data that Googleis building across the web and
about the world and so on.
There are going to be instanceswhere it's just a fact that
(21:44):
Google has seen across the weband corroborated it and you
can't necessarily change it,because that fact is like all
across the web, you can't justchange it on your site.
But when they're using contentthat is only found on a handful
of sites, then you have thatopportunity to change what that
answer is going to be and appearin those citations to the AI
(22:05):
operators.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Awesome, that's a great explanation, thank you.
Talking about the Google leak,I don't want to spend too much
time, but just a question.
You know, you and I and lots ofother people, we've made a lot
of money, or we've make money.
It's our livelihood is throughthis thing called Google, and so
it's kind of like thislove-hate relationship where
it's like man, if Google were todisappear today, it really
would affect us, right.
But on the other hand, thatdoesn't mean that suddenly
(22:28):
everything they do is correct.
Was there a part of you gettinginvolved in this?
Or just in general, when youmaybe do call out like the big
brothers, like Google Is general, when you maybe do call out
like the big brothers, likeGoogle, is there a part where
it's like I'm kind of likehitting the hand that feeds me?
How do you, how do you dealwith that?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, I mean, there's definitely an aspect of that
and even with the DOJ trial, youknow them deciding that it's
monopoly and there's likeconsiderations that they may
break up Google and so on,everything I see them talk about
.
I'm like, yes, I do want Googleto be held accountable, but I
don't want you to do any of thethings that y'all are
considering.
Like I don't want it to be themgetting rid of Chrome, I don't
want it to be them getting ridof Android, I don't want it to
(23:09):
be them having to give up alltheir data, their query logs and
so on to like other searchengines and so on.
I just want them to make abetter search experience.
Because even during that trial,they talk about how, like, yeah
, google is the best, you knowit is a marvel of human
technology and so, yes, it is alove hate relationship.
(23:29):
Because, you know, as a user,I'm like, wow, I remember what
search engines were like beforethis.
Like AltaVista was trash, lycoswas trash, like you know what I
mean.
Like this is remarkable.
As a computer scientist, thisis remarkable.
But at the same time, you gottarecognize, like, when they make
these changes, what is thatdoing to these small businesses?
(23:51):
It's crushing these businesses.
So, To your point, anythingthat they do to change Google is
going to have dramatic secondorder effects, right?
Like if, if search is no longeras viable, yes, that's going to
send a shockwave across the SEOagency, which is already, or
industry, which is already anunderpaid industry.
(24:14):
Right, we are responsible forthe biggest portion of traffic
from any channels, but we arethe channel that costs the least
.
It's ridiculous, right?
So, yes, it is biting the handthat feeds, because, at the same
time, I am exposing how Googleactually works, which is going
(24:35):
to make the job even moredifficult for Google.
But at the same time, I come atthis not only just as someone
who's trying to make money offof Google, but someone with a
very intense curiosity on howinformation retrieval works and
these advancements that Googlehas made that have changed the
(24:57):
science of how search works.
So, of course, I want to knowhow it works and, by design,
google has to not tell me how itworks, and I'm smart enough to
figure out how it works.
So of course, I'm going toshare that, because it enriches
me, of course, for my business,but it also satisfies this deep
(25:18):
curiosity that I have about thistechnology and you know, allows
me to contribute in ways thatthen I get back even more
information from other people inthis space who are also just
researching this from a, youknow, slightly different angle.
So it's it's biting the handthat feeds, but it's also like I
have to do it.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Another interesting conclusion from the leak and
which is not a direct conclusionin a way was that, like we
should focus on customers andnot the leak.
Do you want to talk more aboutthat?
What pushed you to kind of cometo that conclusion?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
When you think about impacting the things that Google
is measuring at scale, it's notby doing these little hacks,
it's by making something thatpeople actually want and
promoting it right.
Because, when you think aboutit again, I look at this as like
user experience, relevance andauthority.
Well, when we say things likebe a brand, which no one wants
(26:10):
to hear because it's such anambiguous idea, brands are going
to be the ones that are goingto have the better user
experience, because peopleremember these brands and
they're like oh yeah, I searchedfor something.
A brand I know has showed up.
I am, of course, going to clickon that more than a brand I
don't know.
And brands have the money andthe wherewithal to invest in
(26:31):
relevance, making robust,comprehensive pieces of content
and experiences that are beyondjust one piece of content.
And then brands are also goingto be able to capture that
authority because, again, if yousee a brand you recognize, you
have a higher likelihood oflinking to that brand.
So, at the end of the day, whatyou need to do is be a brand in
(26:53):
order to create this stuff atscale.
Sure, you can go buy a bunch oflinks so you have the same
number of links, but you're notgoing to have the same quality
of links, because we've justlearned how quality is measured
it's based on pages that getmore traffic and rank for things
.
Where you're building your linksfrom are not going to be sites
that get a bunch of traffic orrank for things.
(27:13):
So a brand is going to beat youthere.
A brand is going to beat you inuser metrics because, again, a
brand is going to be moreattractive to people.
Sure, you can fake that bygetting a whole bunch of people
to click your things, but it'sgoing to be people from, like
you know, random countries inthe middle of nowhere and it's
not going to have the samesignal as a user logged into
(27:34):
Chrome in the United States orwherever location you're trying
to rank for, so it's going to bea diluted signal anyway.
So, again, the focus needs tobe on like well, how do I do
this stuff at scale?
And it's going to be byactually building a brand that
people remember and want to readcontent from.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
So I used to pitch that SEO was David and Goliath.
It was the leveling field thatallowed the David to win.
So how do we, based on what youjust said, what does a small,
medium-sized business do?
Feels like it's difficult.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Well, I think that part hasn't changed, because
when you're a small business,you start from the long tail.
You use that as the opportunityto drive the traffic.
You build up your branded termso more people are coming to you
that way, and then over time,you're going to have the brand
signals, the authority and therelevance to be more competitive
.
It's just not a situation where, like, you can launch a new
(28:29):
website today and then gocompete with Amazon.
Like that's just not realistic.
That's how things used to workwhen Google was far less
sophisticated, and then alsoGoogle was far less
sophisticated and then also SEOwas far less sophisticated.
But we're at a point whereGoogle is trying to replicate
the real world experience withthese brands and so you have to
(28:50):
build a brand.
That's not saying that youcan't drive traffic and make
revenue from search.
You can.
You just have to be reallystrategic about the keywords
that you're going after and it'sgoing to be just a bigger
collection of those lower searchvolume, longer tail keywords.
And that's also.
The benefit of AI is that youcan expect the long tail traffic
(29:15):
is going to get even biggerbecause Google can handle longer
queries now as a function ofgenerative AI.
Previously the limitation onhow long a query could be was 32
words.
Now I think they can expandfurther than that because of the
fact that they're able tounderstand longer queries and
more in-depth, and so, as aresult of that, the long tail is
(29:37):
going to be a biggeropportunity than it was before,
and it's going to be easier forthese smaller brands to compete
there, because you know, bigbrands may not have content for
those super long tail queries,and so you can build a business
there.
Plenty of businesses have doneit by making really bad content
right, like, if you look atevery e-commerce site, they have
(29:58):
or not every, but a lot ofe-commerce sites.
They have those product listingpages that are every
permutation of every query thatpeople are searching for, based
on internal search.
They throw some content on thebottom and it works really well.
Well, how about you make thegood content for those queries
and then you drive the trafficthat way?
So, yeah, you can still beDavid versus Goliath, just not
(30:19):
on a keyword like TV.
Right, it's got to be likewhat's the best TV for traveling
in a car with three kids?
Like that's the query where youneed to win.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Awesome.
Thank you for giving hope.
How far are we from the SERPchanging and just having like an
AI overview?
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I think Google does want to go there to some degree.
I think how far we are is goingto be a function of well, how
can they monetize that right?
Like there was a demo it didn'tget a ton of views, but it was
a demo when they were launchingall the Gemini stuff, where they
had these like bespoke UIswhere, based on what your search
was, they built a UI in realtime for what those results
(31:00):
would be like and how they wouldpresent them.
And it was all based ongenerative AI and your query.
And I think that's a reallyinteresting way to do things,
because it really limits it to aseries of options, but only the
series of options that alignwith your intent and what you're
ultimately looking to do,options that align with your
intent and what you'reultimately looking to do.
(31:21):
So I think that, yes, googledoes want to get to this space
where you know it's like theStar Trek computer you just get
precisely what you need andnothing else.
But I don't know that that'sgoing to be monetizable in the
way that Google has beenprinting money for the last 25
years.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
And that's the hardest part.
So the question is will therebe a competitor who comes and
figures it out and then Googlegoes away?
But it's difficult to who knows?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, I don't think that's realistic in the short
term, because you know whatGoogle has is 25 years of data
to indicate what we want to see,and I think you know from using
other search engines.
You perform a search and you'relike this is like 70% there.
That other 30% is what makesGoogle so sticky for people, and
(32:03):
I don't think that search GPTis going to be the answer until
they have enough data.
But the reality is that Googlesearch usage to this day is 100x
higher than chat GPT usage, andwhen I last measured this, 40%
of users go from chat GPT backto Google.
Because generative AI isinherently a broken product
(32:26):
where there's a lot ofhallucination, and so a lot of
users still want to verify theirinformation.
So I don't think that search GPTis going to be the answer in
the short term, and I think thatthe other aspect of it is that
Google doesn't have the samecosts that these generative AI
companies have, because Googlemakes their own chips, whereas
everyone else is beholden toNVIDIA, and NVIDIA can't make
(32:49):
enough fast enough.
So people are going to run outof money faster than Google does
, and Google is going to haveplenty of time to look around
and see all these other products, take the best components and
then build a better version.
And then the last component ofit is that Gemini is baked into
several multi-billion userproducts Gmail, docs, so on and
(33:14):
so forth.
So, no matter what you areusing Google's generative AI,
and Google's just going to getbetter.
And then, unless ChatGPT doessomething dramatically better,
which they could, I don't thinkthat they're going to beat
Google at this game.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
So at the end of 2024 , moving into 2025, are there
any traditional SEO tactics orSEO work that you feel people
should stop doing or maybe focusless on?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, the volume game and I say this understanding
that the volume game is a largepart of my monthly recurring
revenue.
But people really need to focuson quality and the content that
they're creating, and thenquality and the links that
they're built.
So when I say quality again, Imentioned it a bit before like
Google is giving more value tolinks that drive traffic, links
(34:04):
from pages that drive trafficand pages that are ranking well,
and so you need to focus moreon getting your links from there
, and you don't necessarily needa thousand of them to perform,
whereas right now, most peopleare like, okay, well, that site
has 100 links from DA40s, I'mgoing to get 105 links from
DA46s or something like that,and you don't have to do that.
(34:30):
The noise on the web thatthat's creating is exactly what
Google doesn't want, right?
And then Google is alsocrawling less, indexing less, so
you need to focus on makingcontent.
That's actually great, that bitinto the world of Mike King,
the musician, the rapper.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Who are your top three musical influencers or
influences, and why?
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Some of your viewers may not have the same context
for rap as me, but I'm going tolist them anyway Ghostface
Killer, who is from Wu-Tang Clan.
Method man, who is also fromthe Wu-Tang Clan, and a rapper
by the name of Pharoah Monch.
So Method man was the personthat made me want to rap.
I heard his first album and Iwas like yo, I want to try that.
And over time you just getbetter at it.
(35:31):
And then Ghostface I mean Ithink his style, not just as a
rapper but just as he likepresents, he's just so cool and
so interesting and, you know, sovisually compelling in how he,
you know, tells his stories inmusic and also just like the way
he dresses and things like that, like those have always had big
(36:10):
influences on me.
And then Pharoah Monge is justthe best rapper there is right
Like.
And then Pharoah Monch is justthe best rapper there is right
Like stylistically, lyricallyand so on.
So many of the people that I Irap is, you know, like a direct
descendant of how he raps.
So yeah, those three guysdefinitely changed my life as it
(36:31):
relates to hip hop.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Lovely and I live in Houston, Texas.
We've got a couple of decentrappers that come from our town.
Any thoughts on H-Town Rap?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Man, I love UGK.
Obviously they're fantastic.
There's this guy named K Renofrom out in Houston, and he was
an incredible lyricist.
I mean, I love rap fromeverywhere, man, and there's
nuances of how people do thingsin every region, even overseas,
and she's like yo, that's dope,like I really like you know the
(37:04):
regional sound or whatever.
So, yeah, those are the twogroups that like come to mind
for me from Houston, butobviously there's, you know,
paul Wall and all those otherguys too that have their own
flavor and stuff.
But yeah, I love rap fromeverywhere.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
So, mike, can you share with our listeners when
and how they can get their handson, or stay in the loop about,
your upcoming book?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, just follow me on all the things at iPullRank
and I post updates here andthere.
I believe it's for pre-order onTarget and Amazon and all that.
But when it comes out, we'regoing to make a lot of noise
with this book, so you'll knowExactly.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Awesome.
Well, mike, thank you so muchfor your time today.
This was really, really awesome.
Thank you for being a guest onthe Digital Marketing Mentor and
thank you, listeners, fortuning into the Digital
Marketing Mentor.
We'll speak with you next time.
Yeah thanks for having.
Thank you for listening to theDigital Marketing Mentor Podcast
.
Be sure to check us out onlineat thedmmentorcom and at
(38:03):
thedmmentor on Instagram, anddon't forget to subscribe on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify orwherever you listen to your
podcasts for more marketingmentor magic.
See you next time.
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Mentor.
I'm your host, danny Gavin, and, together with industry leaders
and marketing experts, we'llexplore the meeting point of
mentorship and marketing.
We'll discover how theseconnections have affected
careers, marketing strategiesand lives.
Now get ready to get human.
Hello everyone, I'm Danny Gavin, founder of Optage marketing
(00:36):
professor and the host of theDigital Marketing Mentor.
Get ready to get humantechnology, seo, generative AI
and even engineering skills tohelp create powerful marketing
campaigns to grow businesseslike SAP, american Express,
nordstrom, etsy and Adidas.
Mike's the author of asoon-to-be-released book, the
Science of SEO, which I can'twait to read, and he's been
recognized by USA Today as oneof the top 10 influencers in
(00:58):
2022, and was named one of thetop marketing influencers to
follow by LinkedIn in 2021.
He's a musician and he's oneheck of a dresser.
How are you today, mike?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I'm fantastic, excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
And we're doing remote location from San Diego,
which is pretty cool.
I know typically you're in NewYork.
How do you like East Coastversus West Coast?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You know what?
I would be completely honestwith you the West Coast is lazy
compared to us.
On the East Coast, you know,everything is totally easy and
chill and you know it seems likeeverything is wellness first,
which is great, because it'sjust like I get out of New York
and, you know, the wave ofstress is just gone, because
everything here is like how canyou feel better?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, I feel like when you're walking down the
street in Manhattan, no one'sreally asking you that.
So let's start off with whereyou went to school and what you
studied.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, I went to Howard University in DC, which
has been getting a lot morevisibility as of late, with
Kamala Harris being an alumnus,and I studied systems and
computer science.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
When you look back at that experience.
I know it's a long time ago,but are there any experiences
specifically inside or outsidethe classroom that were
impactful in directing your path?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So I feel like you just nicely called me old there,
but yeah, I think it was reallymore outside of the classroom,
because for me, you know, I'vebeen coding since I was 12.
And what I learned in class wasa lot of math, which was great,
but as far as like what we werelearning, it was like C++,
(02:26):
which I already knew, and thenJava, which I didn't know but
was really similar to C++, so Ididn't really feel very
challenged by computer science,and so I learned a lot more
about just life, frankly, oncampus and how to connect with
people, and I spent more timelike doing music related stuff
there and I just felt like, okay, this is where I want to take
(02:49):
my life and then, ultimately, mypath through music is what got
me to SEO.
You know, obviously I learnedacademic things, of course, but
the things that, like reallyimpacted my life, that were new,
were more like social,emotional skills that I picked
up.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So in the year 2024, if someone were to come to you
and said you know, should I goto college?
It sounds like there's a lot ofways that I can learn things
outside of it.
What's the advice that yougenerally give?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
College is super valuable, but it's not a
requirement for everyone, right?
Like, if you don't know whatyou want to do or how to do it,
then of course, go to college,because not only will they give
you those skills, but you'llalso build your network in a
variety of ways by going toschool and obviously, depending
on where you go to school, thatnetwork may be more inherently
valuable as well.
(03:35):
So there's definitely a reasonto go to college, but if you're
someone who's self-motivated, aself-starter and autodid like
they can learn themselves orwhatever then you don't
necessarily need it, becauseit's more about, like what you
can actually do than where youlearned it.
You know, I meet a lot ofpeople as we interview folks to
(03:57):
come on board at iPoleRank and,like, you'll have these people
that are very well decorated,they went to these great schools
, they have master's degrees.
When you sit them down to dosomething, they have no idea
what to do, whereas we'll alsohave people who, like you know,
might be college dropouts ornever went to college or just
took some course or whatever,and they know what to do.
(04:19):
So for me, I really just lookfor people that can actually do
things, and sometimes they comein the form of college graduates
.
Sometimes they don't.
I'm not a college graduate, youknow.
So like I went but I didn'tfinish, and so that to me is not
a requirement to be good atsomething, because obviously
I've seen firsthand that you canbe good at things without
(04:40):
graduating college.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So, mike, how would you define a mentor?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
So I think that there are both implicit mentors and
explicit mentors, right?
So the explicit mentor is whatyou think, or what most people
think of when they think mentorslike someone who sits you down
and says like, hey, you're notthinking big enough, or you're
doing this wrong, or you shouldthink about this in this way or
that way, or whatever.
And then there are the implicitmentors, people that you kind
of just like look up to andyou're like, okay, they're doing
(05:06):
this thing this way.
Well, maybe I should thinkabout this thing another way.
And so you're learning bywatching what they do, and you
may or may not have interactionswith them directly, but you are
changing how you areinteracting in the world based
on information that you'regleaning from that person.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
And it sounds like to be a well-rounded individual.
It's important to have both.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I mean it could be.
You know, I've really landed onthat because I have not had a
lot of explicit mentors and sowhen I think about, you know
where my improvements come from.
It's a lot of like reading,self-evaluation, looking at, you
know, the people that I respectand saying like, hey, it looks
like they learned something here.
Perhaps I can reconsider whatI'm doing.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
And so, yeah, I think you can get it either way, like
through a combination, or youcan get it from one or the
others.
So let's talk about one of yourexplicit mentors, tony Effick.
How has he been influential toyour life?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Tony is probably like one of the only people to sit
me down and be like, look, youneed to think bigger about what
you're doing, Right?
So, like my path into SEO andit's probably similar to you
know a lot of people's is thatyou kind of come in, you have no
idea what you're doing, youfigure it out and then you're
like, cool, this is how SEOworks, this is what I'm doing.
(06:22):
You make small adjustments asyou go based on things that you
learn, but I was literally yourtypical technical content
linking SEO, and then I workedat a big ad agency which was in
the Publicis Network andeverything around me is all
about creative and strategy andthese sorts of things that I fit
(06:45):
into and I know enough about,but I wasn't thinking big
picture.
And so Tony was like, nah, nah,here's how search fits into the
big picture of a strategy andhere's how you do big picture
strategic thinking.
And so he helped me reallylevel up and he was one of the
sources of why I started doingall the persona-based stuff,
(07:07):
because it was a good wait, likeI can now see the matrix and I
know where all this stuff fitsinto it and then I could add on
(07:28):
to my skillset in a way thatmade you know bigger picture
sense, and so it really allowedme to figure out like okay,
here's how everything I can doplays together, Cause I've been
building websites since like1995.
But when you're website sincelike 1995.
But when you're an SEO, they'rejust like cool, do the meta
tags.
(07:49):
And then you're having theseconversations with the actual
people who have developer intheir title, who don't want to
listen to you because they'relike you're the meta tag guy.
But then when you come in andyou have a big picture
discussion and you can sayhere's how all these pieces fit
together, not just from astrategic perspective discussion
, and you can say here's how allthese pieces fit together, not
just from a strategicperspective, but you can break
things down from a tacticalperspective.
(08:10):
You quickly get a lot of buy-infrom a lot of people at the
higher levels and then you canactually make your ideas come to
life.
So Tony was really instrumentalin helping me understand that
big picture so I can play in thebigger ocean of strategy than
just like sit at the littlekid's table for SEO.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Do you still keep in touch with Tony?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Tony still lives in Brooklyn.
He's at Google now.
He runs something reallyimportant at YouTube or whatever
, and we'll catch up here andthere.
He has a bunch of kids.
I have a bunch of kids Well, Ihave two kids, not a bunch of
kids and we always talk aboutlike hey, let's get the kids
together.
You know, I was there for hisbirthday a couple of years, so
(08:58):
Tony is like still someonethat's in my orbit and when
things are not going well, I'llsend a text like hey, tony, like
what do you think I should dohere?
You know, so it's been a supervaluable relationship to me and
you know I've learned so muchfrom him both explicitly and
implicitly.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
It's wonderful that you have someone like that, that
when you really really need it,you can send him a text, and
that's important.
So let's talk about some of theimplicit mentors people around
you that you look up to and haveinfluenced you.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Ran Fishkin has done so much for me, both explicitly
and implicitly.
You know, he's always someone Ican reach out to when things
again aren't going well and hecan give me some feedback and
whatever.
You know, I remember one time Iwas going to do a whiteboard
Friday at Moz and I had no ideawhat to talk about and I sat
down with with Rand for like 30seconds and he stares in the
(09:46):
space for a couple of secondsand then he's like you should
talk about this and it was likethe perfect idea, Right.
So it's kind of like indicativeof my experiences with Rand.
You know, a lot of times I'llhave no idea or some idea, and
he'll just help me quicklyrefine things on how to do it.
Or, as another example, withthe Google leak, he came to my
(10:08):
house and I was just like yo,things aren't going well right
now, I don't know what I'm doing, we're hanging on by a thread,
and that's not something I wouldtypically be vulnerable with
people to say like I would just,you know, power through it.
And then a few weeks later he'slike, hey, I got these leaked
documents.
I think you can help me, youknow, parse through them and
(10:29):
it's become like the singlebiggest opportunity in my career
.
It's led to some of the biggestdeals I've ever closed.
So that's what I mean.
Like he's looked out for me inways that he didn't have to do,
Right, and that's just him.
Like I don't think it'sanything specifically special
about me, it's just how he is inthe world.
He's always happy to help.
(10:50):
So Rand has done a lot of stufflike that for me.
Another implicit mentor I wouldsay would be Will Reynolds.
Right, Like when I, you know,went to my first SEO conference,
which was MozCon, I was justlike, looking around, like, wow,
this is so cool.
Like all these like thoughtleaders, they have all these
cool ideas, they're so clever.
But nothing in me crossed mymind that made me think like, oh
(11:12):
, I can do this too, Until I sawWill Reynolds get on stage and
I was like, oh, they let Blackpeople do this, Okay.
And so there's been a lot ofthings that you know I've
watched Will Reynolds do andit's been like, okay, that's the
way you're supposed to do this,right.
Like he's very vocal about youknow kind of his like altruism
(11:33):
and how he runs his companiesand just the way he is in the
world.
And again you look at that andyou're like, okay, this is a
paragon of how this is meant tobe done.
And then you take away the bitsand pieces that resonate with
you and then you create your ownbit.
So you know, I would look athim as someone like that as well
.
And then you know there's justa lot of people in business that
(11:55):
, like you take little tidbitsfrom where you're like, oh, this
guy's doing, or this woman isdoing, something that's really
interesting.
Perhaps I should try that.
So I take a lot of inspirationfrom a lot of places, from
people that I know, I don't know, and then I use that to
determine, like, OK, here's whatI want to do and here's who I
want to be in the world.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
So you mentioned Will being important because he kind
of showed you what was possible.
Do you feel, like you're thatas well, now for young
African-American men to look up?
Oh wow, look at this successfulperson, I can accomplish this
as well.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, a lot of people reach out to me and this is why
representation matters.
I was literally sitting in thisroom watching all these people
being like oh yeah, this is notfor me and that's not something
that I typically do like in lifein general just from all the
experiences that I've had and soon but in that situation I felt
(12:50):
that way.
So many people have reached outto me not just you know Black
people, but also you know peopleof color in general reached out
to me and they say, like hey,you know, I love to see you
doing what you do in theauthentic way that you do it,
because sometimes it's not justabout like you know what you
look like, how you present orwhatever.
It's also just the way you arein the world.
(13:12):
Like I'm not somebody who codeswitches, I'm not somebody who
you know acts differently inthese environments, and for some
people that makes themuncomfortable.
But for me I'm like I'm here,this is who I am, you know like
I'm not changing who I am justbecause you know this is how
everyone else acts.
(13:36):
I get a lot of people that reachout to me for that and they're
like I really appreciate thatyou're not acting differently in
this world.
But yeah, also, you know, blackpeople reach out to me as well
and they're like wow, you know,you're such inspiration or
whatever.
And I appreciate that and Idon't take that for granted at
all.
Like, I understand the gravityof my position and what I do and
I always look to pay thatforward wherever I can.
(13:57):
And so when people reach out tome and they're like, hey, you
know I'm trying to figure thisout, I always try to make time
to be like hey, you know, here'swhat I've done, here's what's
worked for me.
It may not work for you, butlet's talk through it.
I'm happy to do that sort ofstuff because you never know
what impact you're going to haveon that next person and so on
and so forth.
And you know, I just want to domy best to make the spaces I'm
(14:20):
in better for people like me whoalso want to be in those spaces
.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It's so amazing, so powerful.
I know, at Brighton SEO lastyear or, yeah, already last year
one of my employees was with meand I was so excited that I
could introduce him to you,because it's like this is
someone you know has potentiallywalked the same path as you and
someone to look up and look howsuccessful he is, and it was
(14:44):
just nice, right Nice to be ableto create that connection.
It was just very inspiring forme.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, again, like I feel like it's my duty to do
that, because I don't wantanyone to feel the way that I
felt in that room where I waslike this is not for me, because
who's to say it's not for me,it's for whoever can do it.
And you know, I mean I thinkthe things that I've shared with
the SEO community Imagine if Ihadn't had that moment watching
(15:12):
Will Reynolds and I didn't shareany of that watching Will
Reynolds and I didn't share anyof that.
I think that would have been ahuge disservice.
And I'm sure there have beenpeople in the past who were even
better than the things thatI've done, who have felt that
way and not felt like they couldbe included here and we've
missed out on the things thatthey had to contribute.
So, yeah, I think it's reallyimportant for me to keep doing
that work.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
And it's interesting.
You make me think about theconcept of representation.
I know Rand posted somethingabout it recently, but why it's
so important at a conference?
But it's funny, it's just thatpoint.
I've never really thought aboutit.
But just to have a mix ofpeople so that everyone in the
crowd has someone that they canlook up to and say that could be
me.
It's so powerful.
You don't really think aboutthat, right?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, and I think I might actually be underselling
how impactful that was for me tosee Will Like, literally while
he was speaking, I pitched forSMX East and then I got it, and
then that created all of thisfor me.
So, you know, for someone to beable to see themselves on the
stage is so powerful, all right,so now let's talk about your
(16:17):
mentorship style.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So obviously you've spoken now how you mentor
basically anyone who wants tocome to you, right?
But I mean, let's talk aboutemployees and your colleagues at
iPullRank.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
How do you mentor them?
I don't know if I'm the best atthis, to be honest, but here's
my approach.
You know, when we interviewpeople, one of the key outputs
from the interview, once you'vemade it through, is that we
build out a coaching plan.
Here's what we need this roleto do, here's what you want to
accomplish, here's what you wantto go.
Ok, cool, here's our plan toclose those gaps.
And then I effectively manageagainst that plan.
(16:51):
Right, like we come up with aseries of OKRs collectively,
come up with a series of OKRscollectively, and when I say
collectively, they put togetherthe first draft and then we'll
edit it together and say, okay,well, you've got all these
things, but we also need this,and then we have an action plan
based on that.
So what are the things you wantto accomplish?
What are the things you need tolearn?
Where do you need moreexperience and needs to be more
(17:12):
comfortable, confident andeffective?
That's where we're building ourplan off of, and then, from
there, I do bi-weeklyone-on-ones where we're
discussing those items and we'realso discussing how are you
doing, how's your life going,how are you aligning with our
values as a company and ourvalue set is PROUD, which stands
for Proactive, reliable,outstanding, useful and
(17:33):
Dedicated, and we talk throughlike, okay, well, where did you
not exemplify those things aswell, so we can figure out, like
how can we continuously improve?
You know, I'm more like let'sdo the big picture plan and then
let's work on that over time sothat we can get you to where
you need to go and also where Ineed you to go, so that we can
do better work.
So I don't know if that's thebest approach, but you know I
(17:55):
like structured approaches sothat we're all clear on what it
is that we're doing.
It also leaves space forvariance, as required as well,
but that's the way I do it.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I love it and I think one of the unique things which,
just from talking to people,you know, often you have a need
in a company.
You hire someone to fill thathole Right, and it's like, OK,
these are things we need fromyou to fill that hole right.
And it's like, okay, these arethings we need from you.
Go ahead right, but you'reactually saying no, I'm starting
with what you want right, Withwhat you need to accomplish, and
then let's see how that fitsinto what our goals and what our
plans are, and that way youkeep the person motivated but
(18:27):
also fulfill what the companyneeds.
I don't think that everyoneapproaches it that way, K.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I mean, that was just the way that made sense to me.
Here's the thing like perhapsit was a function of me never
staying anywhere long enough,but in the places that I worked
I don't think there was enoughof a like performance and
mentoring culture, even withTony.
Tony was only my manager forlike six months and then he
moved on to another agents, sothere wasn't really enough of a
space for me to see, like what'sthe long-term approach to
(18:55):
performance management andmentorship look like.
So I was just like well, whatwould I want?
And then also, I've read allthe books you know, like work
rules and things like that, likeall the books, and I was like
cool, let me take pieces fromthis and then put together an
approach that makes sense to me.
So that's how I landed on it.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I know that one of my colleagues is going to be
really excited that we mentionedthe word OKR in this episode,
so kudos to you, mike.
Let's transition over to SEO.
My question to you we've gotthe Google leaks from a couple
of months ago and a lot of it tome feels like it's pointing
towards optimizing for thetraditional 10, 11 links on
(19:35):
Google.
Now we also have the AIoverviews that are coming in and
the question is, man, how do Ioptimize for those?
Right, so we'll get into it inmore detail, but do you feel
like these are two like?
Are these competing?
Are they really connected?
And I know it's kind of deep,but I'd love to know your
opinion.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, they're not competing at all, they just
operate differently, right?
So, like when you're trying tooptimize for a standard organic
search or standard web search orwhatever you want to call it,
it's more about how relevant isthe entirety of the page to that
query, and then, of course,you've got you know the
authority metrics.
Do you have the links?
And then another big component,which has been reinforced by
(20:14):
the leak and also the DOJantitrust trial testimony, is
that the user behavior and howthey interact with your page
matters a whole lot.
Are you driving clicks?
Are people staying on your siteafter they've clicked through?
So on and so forth.
But as far as that, as itcompares to AI overviews, ai
(20:38):
overviews are driven by what'scalled retrieval, augmented
generation, which is a paradigmwhere you're combining a large
language model with the searchengine, and so the way that
works is that it breaks yourpages down into chunks and then
it looks for the most relevantchunk to the keyword and also
the prompt that they're using inthe background relevant chunk
(20:59):
to the keyword and also theprompt that they're using in the
background.
So really, what that's about islike where's the most relevant
paragraph or most relevantsentence to what the user is
looking for.
So I think of that as kind oflike a micro optimization,
whereas for web search it's moreof like a macro optimization
for the page.
So they don't necessarilyconflict with each other.
It's just that doing it for AIoverviews is going to be way
(21:22):
more granular than what you'redoing for the standard search.
And then the other thing withAI overviews is that it also
uses the structured data heavily, so not just like the
individual structured data thatyou have on your page, but also
the structured data that Googleis building across the web and
about the world and so on.
There are going to be instanceswhere it's just a fact that
(21:44):
Google has seen across the weband corroborated it and you
can't necessarily change it,because that fact is like all
across the web, you can't justchange it on your site.
But when they're using contentthat is only found on a handful
of sites, then you have thatopportunity to change what that
answer is going to be and appearin those citations to the AI
(22:05):
operators.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Awesome, that's a great explanation, thank you.
Talking about the Google leak,I don't want to spend too much
time, but just a question.
You know, you and I and lots ofother people, we've made a lot
of money, or we've make money.
It's our livelihood is throughthis thing called Google, and so
it's kind of like thislove-hate relationship where
it's like man, if Google were todisappear today, it really
would affect us, right.
But on the other hand, thatdoesn't mean that suddenly
(22:28):
everything they do is correct.
Was there a part of you gettinginvolved in this?
Or just in general, when youmaybe do call out like the big
brothers, like Google Is general, when you maybe do call out
like the big brothers, likeGoogle, is there a part where
it's like I'm kind of likehitting the hand that feeds me?
How do you, how do you dealwith that?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, I mean, there's definitely an aspect of that
and even with the DOJ trial, youknow them deciding that it's
monopoly and there's likeconsiderations that they may
break up Google and so on,everything I see them talk about
.
I'm like, yes, I do want Googleto be held accountable, but I
don't want you to do any of thethings that y'all are
considering.
Like I don't want it to be themgetting rid of Chrome, I don't
want it to be them getting ridof Android, I don't want it to
(23:09):
be them having to give up alltheir data, their query logs and
so on to like other searchengines and so on.
I just want them to make abetter search experience.
Because even during that trial,they talk about how, like, yeah
, google is the best, you knowit is a marvel of human
technology and so, yes, it is alove hate relationship.
(23:29):
Because, you know, as a user,I'm like, wow, I remember what
search engines were like beforethis.
Like AltaVista was trash, lycoswas trash, like you know what I
mean.
Like this is remarkable.
As a computer scientist, thisis remarkable.
But at the same time, you gottarecognize, like, when they make
these changes, what is thatdoing to these small businesses?
(23:51):
It's crushing these businesses.
So, To your point, anythingthat they do to change Google is
going to have dramatic secondorder effects, right?
Like if, if search is no longeras viable, yes, that's going to
send a shockwave across the SEOagency, which is already, or
industry, which is already anunderpaid industry.
(24:14):
Right, we are responsible forthe biggest portion of traffic
from any channels, but we arethe channel that costs the least
.
It's ridiculous, right?
So, yes, it is biting the handthat feeds, because, at the same
time, I am exposing how Googleactually works, which is going
(24:35):
to make the job even moredifficult for Google.
But at the same time, I come atthis not only just as someone
who's trying to make money offof Google, but someone with a
very intense curiosity on howinformation retrieval works and
these advancements that Googlehas made that have changed the
(24:57):
science of how search works.
So, of course, I want to knowhow it works and, by design,
google has to not tell me how itworks, and I'm smart enough to
figure out how it works.
So of course, I'm going toshare that, because it enriches
me, of course, for my business,but it also satisfies this deep
(25:18):
curiosity that I have about thistechnology and you know, allows
me to contribute in ways thatthen I get back even more
information from other people inthis space who are also just
researching this from a, youknow, slightly different angle.
So it's it's biting the handthat feeds, but it's also like I
have to do it.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Another interesting conclusion from the leak and
which is not a direct conclusionin a way was that, like we
should focus on customers andnot the leak.
Do you want to talk more aboutthat?
What pushed you to kind of cometo that conclusion?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
When you think about impacting the things that Google
is measuring at scale, it's notby doing these little hacks,
it's by making something thatpeople actually want and
promoting it right.
Because, when you think aboutit again, I look at this as like
user experience, relevance andauthority.
Well, when we say things likebe a brand, which no one wants
(26:10):
to hear because it's such anambiguous idea, brands are going
to be the ones that are goingto have the better user
experience, because peopleremember these brands and
they're like oh yeah, I searchedfor something.
A brand I know has showed up.
I am, of course, going to clickon that more than a brand I
don't know.
And brands have the money andthe wherewithal to invest in
(26:31):
relevance, making robust,comprehensive pieces of content
and experiences that are beyondjust one piece of content.
And then brands are also goingto be able to capture that
authority because, again, if yousee a brand you recognize, you
have a higher likelihood oflinking to that brand.
So, at the end of the day, whatyou need to do is be a brand in
(26:53):
order to create this stuff atscale.
Sure, you can go buy a bunch oflinks so you have the same
number of links, but you're notgoing to have the same quality
of links, because we've justlearned how quality is measured
it's based on pages that getmore traffic and rank for things
.
Where you're building your linksfrom are not going to be sites
that get a bunch of traffic orrank for things.
(27:13):
So a brand is going to beat youthere.
A brand is going to beat you inuser metrics because, again, a
brand is going to be moreattractive to people.
Sure, you can fake that bygetting a whole bunch of people
to click your things, but it'sgoing to be people from, like
you know, random countries inthe middle of nowhere and it's
not going to have the samesignal as a user logged into
(27:34):
Chrome in the United States orwherever location you're trying
to rank for, so it's going to bea diluted signal anyway.
So, again, the focus needs tobe on like well, how do I do
this stuff at scale?
And it's going to be byactually building a brand that
people remember and want to readcontent from.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
So I used to pitch that SEO was David and Goliath.
It was the leveling field thatallowed the David to win.
So how do we, based on what youjust said, what does a small,
medium-sized business do?
Feels like it's difficult.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Well, I think that part hasn't changed, because
when you're a small business,you start from the long tail.
You use that as the opportunityto drive the traffic.
You build up your branded termso more people are coming to you
that way, and then over time,you're going to have the brand
signals, the authority and therelevance to be more competitive
.
It's just not a situation where, like, you can launch a new
(28:29):
website today and then gocompete with Amazon.
Like that's just not realistic.
That's how things used to workwhen Google was far less
sophisticated, and then alsoGoogle was far less
sophisticated and then also SEOwas far less sophisticated.
But we're at a point whereGoogle is trying to replicate
the real world experience withthese brands and so you have to
(28:50):
build a brand.
That's not saying that youcan't drive traffic and make
revenue from search.
You can.
You just have to be reallystrategic about the keywords
that you're going after and it'sgoing to be just a bigger
collection of those lower searchvolume, longer tail keywords.
And that's also.
The benefit of AI is that youcan expect the long tail traffic
(29:15):
is going to get even biggerbecause Google can handle longer
queries now as a function ofgenerative AI.
Previously the limitation onhow long a query could be was 32
words.
Now I think they can expandfurther than that because of the
fact that they're able tounderstand longer queries and
more in-depth, and so, as aresult of that, the long tail is
(29:37):
going to be a biggeropportunity than it was before,
and it's going to be easier forthese smaller brands to compete
there, because you know, bigbrands may not have content for
those super long tail queries,and so you can build a business
there.
Plenty of businesses have doneit by making really bad content
right, like, if you look atevery e-commerce site, they have
(29:58):
or not every, but a lot ofe-commerce sites.
They have those product listingpages that are every
permutation of every query thatpeople are searching for, based
on internal search.
They throw some content on thebottom and it works really well.
Well, how about you make thegood content for those queries
and then you drive the trafficthat way?
So, yeah, you can still beDavid versus Goliath, just not
(30:19):
on a keyword like TV.
Right, it's got to be likewhat's the best TV for traveling
in a car with three kids?
Like that's the query where youneed to win.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Awesome.
Thank you for giving hope.
How far are we from the SERPchanging and just having like an
AI overview?
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I think Google does want to go there to some degree.
I think how far we are is goingto be a function of well, how
can they monetize that right?
Like there was a demo it didn'tget a ton of views, but it was
a demo when they were launchingall the Gemini stuff, where they
had these like bespoke UIswhere, based on what your search
was, they built a UI in realtime for what those results
(31:00):
would be like and how they wouldpresent them.
And it was all based ongenerative AI and your query.
And I think that's a reallyinteresting way to do things,
because it really limits it to aseries of options, but only the
series of options that alignwith your intent and what you're
ultimately looking to do,options that align with your
intent and what you'reultimately looking to do.
(31:21):
So I think that, yes, googledoes want to get to this space
where you know it's like theStar Trek computer you just get
precisely what you need andnothing else.
But I don't know that that'sgoing to be monetizable in the
way that Google has beenprinting money for the last 25
years.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
And that's the hardest part.
So the question is will therebe a competitor who comes and
figures it out and then Googlegoes away?
But it's difficult to who knows?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, I don't think that's realistic in the short
term, because you know whatGoogle has is 25 years of data
to indicate what we want to see,and I think you know from using
other search engines.
You perform a search and you'relike this is like 70% there.
That other 30% is what makesGoogle so sticky for people, and
(32:03):
I don't think that search GPTis going to be the answer until
they have enough data.
But the reality is that Googlesearch usage to this day is 100x
higher than chat GPT usage, andwhen I last measured this, 40%
of users go from chat GPT backto Google.
Because generative AI isinherently a broken product
(32:26):
where there's a lot ofhallucination, and so a lot of
users still want to verify theirinformation.
So I don't think that search GPTis going to be the answer in
the short term, and I think thatthe other aspect of it is that
Google doesn't have the samecosts that these generative AI
companies have, because Googlemakes their own chips, whereas
everyone else is beholden toNVIDIA, and NVIDIA can't make
(32:49):
enough fast enough.
So people are going to run outof money faster than Google does
, and Google is going to haveplenty of time to look around
and see all these other products, take the best components and
then build a better version.
And then the last component ofit is that Gemini is baked into
several multi-billion userproducts Gmail, docs, so on and
(33:14):
so forth.
So, no matter what you areusing Google's generative AI,
and Google's just going to getbetter.
And then, unless ChatGPT doessomething dramatically better,
which they could, I don't thinkthat they're going to beat
Google at this game.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
So at the end of 2024 , moving into 2025, are there
any traditional SEO tactics orSEO work that you feel people
should stop doing or maybe focusless on?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, the volume game and I say this understanding
that the volume game is a largepart of my monthly recurring
revenue.
But people really need to focuson quality and the content that
they're creating, and thenquality and the links that
they're built.
So when I say quality again, Imentioned it a bit before like
Google is giving more value tolinks that drive traffic, links
(34:04):
from pages that drive trafficand pages that are ranking well,
and so you need to focus moreon getting your links from there
, and you don't necessarily needa thousand of them to perform,
whereas right now, most peopleare like, okay, well, that site
has 100 links from DA40s, I'mgoing to get 105 links from
DA46s or something like that,and you don't have to do that.
(34:30):
The noise on the web thatthat's creating is exactly what
Google doesn't want, right?
And then Google is alsocrawling less, indexing less, so
you need to focus on makingcontent.
That's actually great, that bitinto the world of Mike King,
the musician, the rapper.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Who are your top three musical influencers or
influences, and why?
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Some of your viewers may not have the same context
for rap as me, but I'm going tolist them anyway Ghostface
Killer, who is from Wu-Tang Clan.
Method man, who is also fromthe Wu-Tang Clan, and a rapper
by the name of Pharoah Monch.
So Method man was the personthat made me want to rap.
I heard his first album and Iwas like yo, I want to try that.
And over time you just getbetter at it.
(35:31):
And then Ghostface I mean Ithink his style, not just as a
rapper but just as he likepresents, he's just so cool and
so interesting and, you know, sovisually compelling in how he,
you know, tells his stories inmusic and also just like the way
he dresses and things like that, like those have always had big
(36:10):
influences on me.
And then Pharoah Monge is justthe best rapper there is right
Like.
And then Pharoah Monch is justthe best rapper there is right
Like stylistically, lyricallyand so on.
So many of the people that I Irap is, you know, like a direct
descendant of how he raps.
So yeah, those three guysdefinitely changed my life as it
(36:31):
relates to hip hop.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Lovely and I live in Houston, Texas.
We've got a couple of decentrappers that come from our town.
Any thoughts on H-Town Rap?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Man, I love UGK.
Obviously they're fantastic.
There's this guy named K Renofrom out in Houston, and he was
an incredible lyricist.
I mean, I love rap fromeverywhere, man, and there's
nuances of how people do thingsin every region, even overseas,
and she's like yo, that's dope,like I really like you know the
(37:04):
regional sound or whatever.
So, yeah, those are the twogroups that like come to mind
for me from Houston, butobviously there's, you know,
paul Wall and all those otherguys too that have their own
flavor and stuff.
But yeah, I love rap fromeverywhere.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
So, mike, can you share with our listeners when
and how they can get their handson, or stay in the loop about,
your upcoming book?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, just follow me on all the things at iPullRank
and I post updates here andthere.
I believe it's for pre-order onTarget and Amazon and all that.
But when it comes out, we'regoing to make a lot of noise
with this book, so you'll knowExactly.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Awesome.
Well, mike, thank you so muchfor your time today.
This was really, really awesome.
Thank you for being a guest onthe Digital Marketing Mentor and
thank you, listeners, fortuning into the Digital
Marketing Mentor.
We'll speak with you next time.
Yeah thanks for having.
Thank you for listening to theDigital Marketing Mentor Podcast
.
Be sure to check us out onlineat thedmmentorcom and at
(38:03):
thedmmentor on Instagram, anddon't forget to subscribe on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify orwherever you listen to your
podcasts for more marketingmentor magic.
See you next time.
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