January 6, 2021 • 48 mins
COVID hit small businesses hard across America. In states like California businesses were all but shut down by the stay at home and closure orders. All is not lost, especially if you listen to this episode on preparing your business to compete locally.
It's been said to be an expert you need to be able to share knowledge effortlessly. In a world of SEO experts, Steve Wiideman stands apart and this episode he shares simple, quick, and free tips on how small businesses can survive and thrive during the pandemic. His love for food and local shops drives his message as he showcases tricks for getting noticed and to return the phones to ringing.
Steve's expertise helps companies like IBM, Walt Disney, Applebees, IHOP, and others put together SEO and Content strategies to help the most popular pages rank. Even if you're not a small business, you're going to love how simple the strategies are for long term success. Listen into to find out about the future of SEO, voice search, and where content is headed.
About Steve Wiideman
Steve drives the innovation of our company’s service offerings, including our SEO Roadmap solution introduced in early 2015. Steve has consulted for various enterprises and well-known brands for over 10 years, while playing key roles within multiple agencies and solution providers in the inbound marketing industry.
Specializing in SEO Strategy, Steve likes to organize search into specific disciplines broken down by business model. For natural search, Steve believes in only three fundamental requirements: Relevancy, Visibility and User Behavior. For local search, Data, Landing Page, Citation and Reputation are the keys to success.
These requirements are organized into our SEO Roadmap system with training videos and documentation by Steve and the team here at Wiideman Consulting Group, making the job of improving search result visibility simple and intuitive.
While serving as an adjunct professor at UCSD and CSUF, Steve’s also building the Academy of Search, while volunteering time to help improve transparency and industry standards as an agency trainer.
When not at work, Steve enjoys traveling with his family, reading historical fiction, and training his Padawan Jedi here in La Mirada, CA.
About Kyle Hamer
A sales and marketing veteran with a deep understanding of strategy, digital marketing execution, and using technology to enhance brand impact. A hands-on leader with a passion for solving business challenges with process, operations, and technology. When Kyle's not tinkering on businesses, you'll find him spending time with those he loves, learning about incredible people, and making connections.
About Hamer Marketing Group
Market growth for a new product or service is often limited by market distractions, unreliable data, or systems not built to scale. Hamer Marketing Group helps companies build data-driven strategies focused on client acquisition and sales development supported by the technology and operations necessary to create profitable growth.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro (00:00):
Welcome to the summit.
A podcast focused on bringingyou the knowledge and insights
for industry leaders.
I'm your host Kyle Hamer, andI'm on a mission to help you
exceed your potential.
As a sales guy, turned marketer,I am passionate about building
sustainable businesses.
And if there's one thing I'velearned in my 20 year career,
say you won't find an overnightgrowth scheme, a shortcut to
success or way to hack yourselfto the top.
(00:23):
Nope.
Success is the by-product ofhard work, great relationships
and deep understanding done overand over.
We're here to help you unlockthat success with some secrets
from other people.
One conversation at a time.
Kyle Hamer (00:34):
Welcome back to another episode of the summit
podcast.
I'm your host, Kyle Hamer andtoday's guest on our show is
Stephen.
Wiidemann.
I say that right?
Steven.
Steven Wiideman (00:43):
You got it.
Y ou're actually the firstperson to actually get it right.
That was great.
Kyle Hamer (00:46):
Oh man.
You know it, if I think it's,cause I went to high school with
somebody who had the last name,wait a minute.
And once you see it spelled likethat, it's, it's hard to ever
forget that last name.
For those of you who don't know,Stephen, Stephen is an SEO
savant.
Now he's humble about it, butwhen he's not training to be a
Jedi paddle on he's out theresolving the world's SEO
(01:06):
problems, one site in businessat a time he's worked for
companies like Applebee's andIBM and Disney.
So when it comes tounderstanding complex things and
making them simple, it's one ofSteven's gifts.
Stephen is also a professor.
So he's teaching the nextgeneration of SEO experts in
(01:28):
digital marketers, as well as ahusband.
Now I didn't get to know ifyou're a father or not, but I
would imagine that you are, isthat right?
Is it, is it that obvious withthe lines under the eyes that I
have two teenagers teenagegirls?
That's right.
You told me that I, I spacedthat out.
(01:48):
You know what I thought that Iwould have remembered,
especially having two teenagersof my own, welcome to the show,
Steven, what, what what didn'twe cover that people should know
about you shared?
Well, you, you mentioned the, tome the most important thing is
that I've been able to live mydream.
My dream has been to one daytake what I've learned in my
years of doing digital marketingand, and pass it off to the next
(02:11):
generation.
Steven Wiideman (02:12):
And it's a little bit the other direction
for a lot of professors thatwant to, you know, to venture
off and start a business oftheir own and, and run this big
successful entity.
And for me, it's always been theopposite.
I, I enjoy teaching and theagency gives me the leverage to,
you know, to be able to spendmore time with students and to,
you know, to, to be a part ofthat.
(02:32):
And, and with that, you know,with, with that experience I'm
able to, I'm able to communicatewith some folks that are right
out of school and take, takethat engagement and how they
respond a lot of these coursesand exercises and fold them into
training that we're giving tofolks that aren't yet in school
that want to learn how to dosomething, a professional
skillset.
(02:53):
So let's say you're a Baker, or,you know, you're in another you
know, industry that you're notinterested in and you suddenly
have, have an interest indigital marketing.
You're like the whole world'sgoing to go online.
And I'm really interested infascinated with it, but you
can't really afford to go tocollege for taking a lot of
those same courses and puttingthem together in small bite size
(03:14):
chunks for entrepreneurs andfreelancers that you know, are
interested in a new career indigital.
And that's, that's exciting.
It's not just the, you know, thehundreds of students I get to
touch over the year, but it'sthe thousands of, of, you know,
potential future SEOs in theworld that you know, may not
have the time or bandwidth forcollege, but can take a small
course.
(03:35):
And that's pretty amazing.
Kyle Hamer (03:37):
That is pretty amazing if you're listening and
you haven't guessed yet, whattoday's topic is going to be the
future of SEO and contentmarketing 20, 21 and beyond.
But Stephen has been generousenough to actually bring up a
topic that I think is reallyrelevant for today.
And it is what are like, what'sgoing on with the pandemic, like
search supposedly is up.
(03:58):
Is it down?
Is it left?
Is it right?
Google thinks that they need toapply new algorithms.
What, what's something likelet's get right into it.
What's something that smallbusinesses or businesses can do
today to capitalize on whatcommerce is left online and
given the changing demographicsand things that are shifting.
Steven Wiideman (04:16):
Sure, sure.
I think for some businessesonline is the saving grace,
right?
It's the fact that they have anonline presence enabled them to,
to keep staying in business, tokeep operating for other
businesses, you know, they,they, haven't been as fortunate
and personal injury law.
For example, if people are onlockdown, they're not getting in
car accidents, you don't need alawyer.
(04:38):
So I've seen a lot of clientsthat we've worked with in the
legal industry have to do a lotof furloughs and layoffs simply
because there just wasn't any,any clients available in that,
in that particular industry.
However, for a majority of, ofrestaurants you know, I, I see,
especially I would like topatronize our local Cabo taco
(04:59):
restaurant here in Rodan andbronc who runs the restaurant is
just trying so hard, you know,to, to keep this business going.
And what he, when he didn'trealize in the beginning was
that people were stillinterested in this, in his food,
right.
They just look at the site, Oh,it's closed.
And then they were done.
But if he would have left it onis open, but available for
(05:20):
curbside or take out or spentfive minutes, just logging into
Google my business to let theircustomers know, Hey, we're still
open.
We're just not doing any dine-inright now.
The other thing that, that Ithink a lot of businesses need
to think about is how theircustomers are searching for
their product or service.
Now that their actual brick andmortar stores are closed.
(05:41):
Two examples.
I have one example, two brands,I hop an Applebee's, both of
them you know, have severalrestaurants that are closed.
Others have you know, some thatare, that are open, but only for
delivery and takeout.
And the challenge when we'relooking at this drop in and
traffic there's still anaffinity or an interest for
(06:02):
delivery and takeout and peoplewere searching that way,
delivering near me restaurant,delivering your meat, a
restaurant takeout, restaurantcurbside open.
Now they're searching for allthese search terms, but none of
the websites a year ago had anylanguage that would, that would
give Google a clue to help themto appear when someone's
performing one of those queries.
So to address that what we didis we, we rolled out two new
(06:26):
pages across every singlelocation, roughly 3,500
locations between the twobrands, one page to address
delivery.
So when somebody is looking forrestaurant delivery near me,
breakfast delivery near mepancake delivering me, whatever,
whatever query they happened tobe using, whether they're
modifying it with delivery orcarry out or take out or
curbside or card side you know,we've got content that satisfies
(06:48):
that.
So now, you know, if you do oneof those searches, you'll see
all of the delivery services,your Uber eats your Grubhubs,
your Postmates, you know, the,it goes on and on.
And now you'll actually see IOPand Applebee's and the mix of
those delivery services becausethey addressed how people were
searching at a content level.
And granted that, that means,you know, having what about
(07:09):
7,000 new pages across thewebsite, but those pages address
the needs of their customers.
And I think if small businessestake that same approach, maybe
it's something simple, as simpleas patio seating available,
outdoor dining available, right?
And so I would say, I would say,step one is, go into your
Google, my business profile, gointo here, your Yahoo local
(07:30):
profile, go into your Yelpprofile and make sure if you're
open that it States that you'reopen and that you, you offer
these, these difference deliverytakeout and off premises
services.
In fact, Yelp has even upgradedtheir platform to offer several
new fields that you could use tolet consumers know we're not
just open, but here are thethings that we're doing that one
(07:52):
to address the pandemic and tomake sure your safety is
priority, but to the ways thatyou can still get all the
products and the, and the foodand the things that you like you
know, and, and what those hourslook like if you do decide to
come in.
So I think, I think that gettingthose profiles up to date and
then addressing at the contentlevel on their website, that the
(08:12):
different ways that consumersare, are now at the moment,
looking for what they offer.
I think that's paramount.
I think if you could just spendfive minutes as a business
owner, just do those two things,and it doesn't take much time.
And within a few days, you'll,you'll start to see a few phone
calls pick up.
You might start to see a fewmore curb sides.
Your, your curbside pickup areasmight start to fill up, but it
(08:34):
takes, it takes the desire andthe willingness to actually
spend those few minutes, youknow, to make those
modifications.
And unfortunately, allbusinesses are panicked.
They're they're in this mode of,I gotta figure out another angle
and I got to figure out, no, youjust have to adjust what your
customers are looking for now.
And I think that's, that'sprobably the, the end game to
(08:55):
this pandemic for a lot ofbusinesses.
Kyle Hamer (08:58):
It, you know, the thing that's fascinating about
that, it's twofold.
One it's so simple in, in, whenyou think about when you get
panicked, sometimes it's not abig sweeping change or a
cataclysmic, you know, lifealtering thing that happens.
It's just a series of smalllittle choices, the small little
choice of, well, I'm not gonnaallow grub hub or waiter or door
(09:20):
dash or whoever to, to delivermy food.
Like, I'm not gonna let them,I'm not going to let them have
access, but that's where all ofyour customers went or I'm not
going.
I don't understand what Googlemy business is.
I don't even know if I have one.
What do I do?
Like none of this makes sense tome.
So I'm going to stay away fromit.
I know how to cook a greatcheeseburger.
I know how to make a fantasticbowl of pasta, but I don't know
(09:42):
anything when it comes to thewebsite.
Right.
And why would I invest anythingin that?
Because all my customers aregone and it kind of gets back,
but it gets back to marketingone Oh one, right?
It's have something good to say,say it well, and then say it in
the right place, like go whereyour customers are.
So I, I love how simple that isfor for a small business to, to
(10:08):
get after it.
Now, if I'm listening to thisand I don't have a Google my
business account, can you justtouch on what it is, why it's
valuable and then where I shouldlook in order to get the most
out of it, even though I'm notan SEO expert like you
Steven Wiideman (10:25):
Chorus.
I think the easiest thing forbusiness to do is just Google
their business name and in theirbusiness name search, they'll
actually see a lot of resultsthat they could be controlling
and updating and enhancing tohelp drive more traffic.
The first one is, is usually aGoogle maps listing that Google
maps listing is so easy to edit.
All you have to do when you,when you're looking at that
(10:46):
listing is click the editlisting or suggest an edit, and
then walk through the wizardprocess of claiming your
listing.
It'll actually actually ask you,is this your business?
And if it is, it'll walk youthrough how to claim it.
Sometimes they'll do it througha phone number where they just
verify via phone number.
Sometimes you have to wait alittle longer for a postcard to
arrive, to verify that you ownthat listing.
(11:08):
Once you, once you get thatGoogle maps listing, it's
through a service platform thatGoogle provides called Google my
business once you've claimedyour access and you can go in
and edit all the differentinformation, loaded up, loaded
up with as much content andattributes, listen to what your
customers are saying and theirreviews and apply that to some
of the language and yourdescriptions and in your
(11:29):
services.
You know, if they're saying, youknow, the tacos here are
amazing.
Talk about the tacos and, youknow, our customers say our
tacos you know, here at ourllamado location are amazing.
Next time somebody does a searchfor tacos, Marotta, boom, your
listing shows up because thatlanguage is available in the
review and in your descriptionof your business.
(11:50):
I've also noticed that thatpictures and Are, are super
helpful to improving your, yourrankings in that map pack area.
So, you know, if you do a searchon your mobile device, you'll C3
map, listing show up and thensome regular listings below it.
And I've noticed that if you, ifyou add more pictures of the
restaurant of the people, maybeeven now of, of the, the staff
(12:13):
cleaning with their masks on andshowing that the safety measures
you're taking during thepandemic I've noticed that that
users respond to that.
And when you go into youranalytics in that Google my
business account, remember allthis is free.
None of this costs a dime.
Every business can do a searchfor their business, see their
Google profile, as well as theirYelp and other listings, and go
(12:33):
in and do this optimization.
And if you, if you add thosekinds of pictures and look at
the analytics in that profile,you'll notice more customers are
clicking on your listing.
More customers are clicking thecall icon in the listing.
More customers are interactingwith your listing.
If you have a menu and you can,you can offer that menu in the
maps so that the user doesn'thave to worry, Hey, if I click
(12:54):
on this website for this localbusiness, am I going to get a
virus or, you know, or, youknow, excited.
I know it's a small business andthey probably don't have all the
sophisticated security measures.
So I'd rather just trust Googlethat happens.
Unfortunately, they don't givethe website a chance.
They'll just lose that businessdata.
So that's where the opportunityis jump into that profile, fill
out everything you possibly cancontinuously post photos, maybe
(13:18):
even once every couple of daysthrow a new photo in there, a
different angle, different thingthat the group is doing show,
you know, that the culture ofthe, of the organization that,
that brings authenticity, thatthat inspires click-through when
somebody sees your listing, youknow, and it, it plays a huge
role in, in helping the usernote, Hey, this, this business
(13:38):
is open, right?
This is not a listing that saysit's open.
And it's closed with picturesthat I saw six months ago.
It's where the recent picturesand recent information.
So I know they're open.
So I have more confidence andI'm more willing to call or to
take the extra seconds out of mylife, to interact with the
business.
Kyle Hamer (13:57):
So simple.
And, and yet sometimes can feelso intimidated.
Steven Wiideman (14:01):
You just, you just gotta do that search and
start, start clicking.
Right?
Kyle Hamer (14:06):
Well, and, and not that there's not 10,000 other
things for, for business ownersor even people who are trying to
figure out where their customerswent to think about today, but
it is something where if youtake the time to learn about it
over 24 to 48 hours, because Igenuinely believe that between
YouTube or listening to guyslike yourself, teach a 90, 90
(14:28):
minute YouTube video of somebodysetting up their, their Google,
my business account.
And just following kind of thebasic blocking tackling will
play dividends over the next sixto eight weeks.
Especially as you start addingreviews, are there any tricks or
tips you would have for somebodythat's gone through the process
of getting there, getting theirinformation all up to date on
(14:50):
Google, my business and they atit.
And like, but it doesn't feellike it's really ranking is
there as it, you know, is therea magic number of reviews to get
more visibility?
Is there, is it keywords?
What, what is it that helps youreally pop
Steven Wiideman (15:00):
For Google?
Well, we have to remember thatalgorithms are based on
patterns.
There's never a set of forget it.
You can't just go in, do a bunchof things and then throw your
feet up on the desk, right?
These are, these are marketingtactics that need to be nurtured
and cultivated.
And there there's four areas oflocal search.
If you're a local business, ifyou're a brick and mortar and
you have a physical address, thespore areas that you're gonna
(15:21):
need to focus on area, numberone is going to be making sure
your data, your business data isaccurate everywhere.
It needs to be.
And there are services thatprovide that for you so that you
don't have to do it manually.
When we're talking aboutdatabases, we're talking about
like info USA and factual, whichis now owned by Foursquare.
And you know, there's, there'sseveral of these different
databases, the services thatthat are available that can do
(15:44):
all of that kind of grunt workfor you are Moz, local, right?
Local.
there's, there's several ofthese services.
I believe white spark that basedin Canada does that as well.
So you start with those dataaggregators and make sure your
business information is alwaysaccurate since proximity to a
location is still, you know,probably the number one ranking
signal and maps.
(16:04):
I mean, you search and Google'sgoing to try to show you the
most you know, the, the closestlocation to you.
So making sure that informationis correct is going to help with
that.
Number two is going to be theinformation on your page.
So when you go to, if you're, ifyou have a single location, if
you go to your Google, mybusiness and you see all those
different fields, what are yourhours?
What are your holiday hours?
(16:24):
You know, what are, what aresome of the services that you
offer at this location?
What's your phone number?
All, all of that informationshould be available on your
website.
I mean, if it's important to, toGoogle for how they rank their
listings, why shouldn't it beimportant to your customers to
see that same information onyour website?
So, and if you have multiplelocations create a location page
for every single location, youcan see that when you go to
(16:48):
Applebee's and I hop, you cansee how they have individual
location pages that areoptimized for the type of
restaurant they are in the citythat they they're located in.
So I would say that's in asense, it's called a local page,
right?
Making sure that local page isfully optimized.
Number three is going to bearound how visible your business
information is off your website.
(17:09):
As you know, these searchengines use web crawlers, right?
These little robots that crawlthrough the internet and for
organic rankings, they're goingto look at how many other
websites are mentioning andlinking to your website.
But for map rankings, they'regoing to look at how often they
find your business data.
If, if your competitors are in,you know, 22 different local
directories and year end one,maybe that other businesses more
(17:32):
prominent and more popular thanyours is.
So you want to make sure thatyou're in all of those business
directories and industrydirectories, a white spark
doesn't have a tool called thelocal citation finder.
Geo rancor also has a similartool you put in your
competitors, or you put in yourkeyword And they'll show you all
the different business directoryopportunities where you can list
(17:54):
your business.
Most of them are free.
So that's, that's number threeis just growing the number of
times that, that Google isfinding your business
information offline or off yourwebsite.
The last, and you alreadymentioned this.
Kyle is business reviews andratings.
First thing I do to make surebusiness is open is I go to
their reviews.
And instead of starting bylowest to highest, like some
people do have to scrutinize, Isort by most recent, because I
(18:17):
want to know that somebody gohere recently, or am I going to
waste my time going someplacethat's closed.
So so making sure every monthyou're getting you know, good
high quality reviews that you'reproviding a good experience for
your customers, that you're,you're suggesting to those
customers who are happy to sharetheir experience online.
And, and Google will tell youthis.
It's so important to respond toreviews, even if it's a positive
(18:40):
review, just saying, Hey, youknow, we really appreciate your
business.
Thank you so much for coming in.
We can't wait to see you nexttime and especially responding
to negative reviews and notgenerically, you know, you, you
want to try to get them into aprivate conversation.
So you, you respond with, I amso sorry to hear that you had
this experience and we want tomake it right.
(19:01):
Name them by name, don't use aprogram to auto submit, you know
, feedback, but name them byname or by their tagline and say
I'd really like to talk to youpersonally, I'm the manager of
this location.
Please call me.
I promise I'll make it, I'llmake this better.
And in doing that, you invitethem back in.
You make sure they have anamazing experience.
They change their review.
And then over time you continueto see growth.
(19:22):
So if you focus, focus on thosefour tiers of, of, you know,
location-based map rankings,your, your data, accuracy, your
local landing, page information,your business, data visibility,
and business directories andlistings, and those reviews.
If you're doing something forall four of those areas, every
month, within six to 12 months,you should be in the top three.
(19:44):
And on the first page of websearch results, not just in
Google maps, that was like, whydid I ask?
Kyle Hamer (19:52):
No, I did not.
Not at all actually.
Well, I, I, what I was gonna sayis that's actually for, for
people that are listening, thatthe, the way you've broken it
down is, is really it's gold.
And it's gold because you mighthave to go talk to some
whizzbang guru who wants tocharge a 300 bucks a month to,
to put you on a directoryaggregator and to give you some
(20:13):
lip service.
Three reality is, is that in thesituation that we're in with the
financial pressures that wehave, and the way that small
businesses and even medium sizedbusinesses, it doesn't have to
be a restaurant.
It could be, you know, a localHVAC company, or it could be a,
you know, a carpenter the waythat they are being impacted by
the, the regulations and the,and the shifting of everything
that's happening all the time isfolks don't know anymore.
(20:36):
If they can trust as Bob's, youknow, as Bob's burgers is still
open is, is Sally's shoe sign orplace, whatever, like they
don't, they don't know.
So they've got to, they've gotto have things that they've, and
they trust Google followingthese tips are things that are
just, they're really simple andthey're really effective.
And they don't take a lot oftime.
(20:56):
Like it's, you don't have tohire a big agency to do that.
Steven Wiideman (20:59):
That's right.
That's it lock it down everyMonday morning, I'm going to do,
you know, these, these threethings or these four things,
right.
For local, and, and maybe I'lleven use that, that other free
tool that Google offers calledGoogle search console.
And I'm not going to feel like Ihave to do something with it.
Instead, I'm going to take allthat information and I'm going
to delegate it to somebody who'smore tech savvy on the team and
say, Hey, once a week, can yougo in and, and address these
(21:22):
things and then shoot me anemail or, or text me that you
did it so that I know and haveconfidence that at least, at
least we're paying attention,even if it's only 15 minutes a
week, Monday morning at eighto'clock or heighten, whatever it
happens to be, it's just gettingit on the calendar, locking it
in and holding peopleaccountable to it.
That's I think that's where thereal challenge is, is not, not
(21:43):
figuring out what to do.
Anyone like a convention can goto YouTube and figure out a lot
of these things.
It's just, it's just locking itinto a calendar and making it
part of your, your weekly habitof, of growing a business, you
know?
Kyle Hamer (21:56):
Yeah.
It's just like getting up tomake the donuts every day.
If, if you make a part of thehabit, eventually just becomes a
fabric of, of, of your business,right?
It's just another operationalprocedure where your marketing's
not on autopilot, but you're nowleveraging the world's largest
search engine to help peoplefind you.
And you don't have to do a lot,right?
(22:16):
It's not, I have to go flyerparking lots, or I have to buy
big billboard.
It's just every week, every day,every couple of days I'm doing
these things and I'm beingconsistent.
So I just think that that'stremendous.
Steven Wiideman (22:27):
I think local businesses, mom and pops have an
advantage over these biggerbrands.
I know it feels like the bigbrands always outranked because
they've got so much credibilityand they get so much traffic,
but mom and pops really have theadvantage because they can, they
can break out of the corporaterules.
Right.
And, and do some things.
That's that corporate level.
They can't scale.
(22:47):
I can't ask Applebee's to go outand make sure every single
location every month is gettinginto all the local business
directories.
Instead we, we, we put a datafeed together and we give them
to the big websites, the bigdirectories, but the local guys
won't take a feed, right?
They're not going to sortthrough that feed to figure out
which location is nearest tothem.
So there's, there's a little bitof that elbow crease that that
(23:09):
can be used to help a mom andpop, just stay up late, make
sure in every local directory.
The other thing you can do thatthe big guys can't do are local
events.
Local events are amazing.
If you do something as simple asHey today, we're giving away
free pancakes.
We want to help local community.
We know people are hungry.
It's the holidays, it's cold.
You know, we want to dosomething nice.
(23:31):
You do this local event.
Can you tell all yourneighboring businesses about it?
And you ask them, Hey, would youlike to pitch in and help cover
some of the costs of this?
Cause we're doing it for the,you know, for the community.
Most of the time, they're goingto say no, say no problem.
I understand.
Can you donate your time?
No, we're too busy.
Okay.
So you can't donate money ortime, which at least maybe
mentioned it somewhere on thewebsite that we have this event
(23:53):
happening.
Oh, sure.
We'll get you a hold of ourwebmaster and he'll fill out a
LinkedIn link for you and talkabout the event.
And in doing that and in gettingthose links and in getting those
mentions across all those localbusiness websites, Google is
going to find and consume allthat data.
And it's going to move yourlisting up because the giants
don't have that kind offlexibility.
(24:13):
They can't go to neighboringbusinesses and knock on the door
and say, Hey, let's support eachother, right?
Because they're locked into thatcorporate, you know, legal
regulations of what they can andcan't do so local business by
running some periodic advance,maybe once a month and getting
other local businesses.
And maybe even the city go tothe civic center and say, Hey,
we're doing this event to try tohelp the community.
(24:34):
Can you promote it on the citywebsite?
Oh my God, that's, that's gold.
You know, for, for searchengines to see links and
mentions on governments andeducation sites and colleges,
there's a huge trust factorthere.
And that can really boost, youknow, overall keyword rankings
and overall visibility, plus thereferral traffic and the giving
back and what you're doing andcreating those events.
(24:55):
We had an attorney who did ablood drive and then he did a
free CPR class, you know, and,and we generated tons of links
that helped move our rankings upand tons of, of business
information citations, becausethey were saying here's where
the event's going to take place.
So so there's something I thinktoo, that we can add on, not
just to making sure your websitementions patio and outdoor
(25:18):
seating and and all the offpremises delivery, curbside, et
cetera, but also to dosomething, even if it's just
once a month, once a quarter andreally just hit the neighboring
businesses and try to get themto participate.
That's huge.
And that's how the mom and popscan win over the big brands,
especially now.
Kyle Hamer (25:38):
And I think that, I think the beauty of that is, is
one of the things that we'veseen in SEO over the years is
there's your black hat.
And these guys are alwayslooking for ways to trick Google
trick, the trick, the searchengine, and crawl up to the top.
Well, it's always short-livedand what the search engines have
really begun to kind ofunderstand is that for them to
(26:01):
continue to scale up and tomaintain their level of
relevance, they actually have toshrink their perspective, right.
It used to be, I'm looking atthings from a 50,000 foot view,
and these are the best things ata, at a national or a galactic
level, but really what you careabout is the stuff that's
important to you and relevant toyou locally.
And so we're, you know, local towhat you, whether it's your web
(26:24):
traffic or where youspecifically live hyper-local
right.
That's that's well.
Sure.
but when you, when you, when youfocus that the level of scale
there, that's really whereoffline and online blend in a
way that major brands cannot wasthe last time you heard of best
buy doing something at a, at alocal level, my local best buy
(26:45):
doesn't ever do anything.
My local Nordstrom doesn't everdo anything.
Right?
Like the, the local mall barelydoes anything.
You're.
I mean, I think you're just,you're hitting on something
where it's like, if you'regiving back to the community and
you're leveraging folks that arethere in your area, asking for
something as simple as a mentionor a, you know, a you know,
(27:07):
progressing down to where you'regetting some of the backlinks
again, it's marrying that onlineand offline to make you to show
not only from a web presence,but also your your community
presence of the impact thatyou're having.
I just think that's really,really, really powerful.
Steven Wiideman (27:22):
Right?
Absolutely.
And you know, there, there are alot of things that are coming
down the pipeline thatbusinesses have to start
thinking about.
We mentioned the future ofsearch and there's all these,
these great smart devices nowand, and assistance and series
and Alexa is and so forth.
So I think, I think as, as theyear starts to improve as
(27:42):
businesses start to reopenobviously we want to sustain
some of that online traffic.
So we want to make sure thosepages stay up and that we're
continuing to make sure peoplewho still don't necessarily feel
safe about going to a brick andmortar.
You know, as we, as we start to,you know, to, to pivot from
giving all of our emphasis tothat, to what's next, I think, I
(28:02):
think the voice assistants aregoing to be, you know I would
say a priority, especially for2022, as you start getting close
to it.
I don't think it's, it's amandatory thing for 2021 yet,
but I think it's something that,that business owners need to
start experimenting with.
And we mentioned the Google, mybusiness earlier for, for the
voice assistance and you know,for the Google home and so forth
(28:27):
we want to start thinking aboutsomething called the Google
action console.
It's pre just like, you know,Google my business.
And at some point next year, puton the calendar, maybe June or
July, I'm going to sit down, I'mgoing to spend an afternoon
playing with the Google actionconsole and the Alexa skills.
I'm going to spend a day andjust play with it.
It doesn't take programmers.
(28:47):
It feels like it's, it's rocketscience, but when you start
getting into it, they're all alittle walkthrough wizards
that'll help you out.
And you just want to make surethat your business is there and
that you're answering questionsthat people might have about
your business.
So when they're using voicesearch, you know, you can, you
can make sure your businessshows up and that if they have
questions that that voiceassistant can solve them for
(29:08):
you, you just go in ball, thewizard, punching your, your
business information, whatcustomers generally ask your
customer service department andmake sure those questions are
available.
Maybe even talk to a webdeveloper or get on Upwork or
freelancer and say, Hey, I wantto, if I, if I offer
appointments, I want myappointments to be bookable
(29:28):
through one of these assistantprograms and they'll help you
set that up.
And I think that's, that'sreally planning ahead for 2022
is making sure as, as peoplestart to un-tether themselves
from their mobile devices, andthey start to use more
interactions with the, thespeaker in their car and on the
refrigerator, you know, and,and, and within the internet of
things that they're still ableto interact with your business
(29:51):
without staring down at theircell phone, I think that's,
that's going to be sort of the,the paramount or future of, you
know, what, what should I befocusing on as we get closer to
2022?
I would say voice search isgoing to play a really big role
in that.
The other thing I wouldchallenge every business to do
smaller big is to try to, I usedto try to do an interaction on
(30:12):
the website, whether it's makinga purchase or filling out a
form, but try doing it with justone hand, right?
If you can do it just one handand get through the form fields,
using an actual Dialpad, if it'sa number field if, if there's a
way to just click and be done,like on any Shopify website
where it takes you to the shopapp, and then within a few
clicks, without any typingrequired, you can make a
(30:33):
purchase.
If you can get your websites.
So a place where the user can,can interact with a thumb and a
matter of seconds, then you'vesucceeded at handling how users
are interacting with theinternet.
And Google has addressed thismultiple times over the last
couple of years, they keeptalking about mobile first
indexing.
And, you know, we're going torank sites based on our crawl of
(30:55):
the mobile experience, not ofthe desktop anymore, you know,
and other search engines arefollowing their leads.
So really important as we startthinking about what can I do
next year to make sure that I'mstill getting more traffic from
search engines?
I would say, make sure it'slike, it's still a place where
either you can completelyinteract with the business
without fetching the phone, oryou can interact with a thumb
(31:16):
and complete a transaction veryquickly without the need for a
keyboard, maybe just a dial padpush number or a button click
that integrates with yourFacebook or your shop app and be
done.
I think those are, those aresome areas that, that will make
such a huge difference.
There's a hundred things youcould do, you know, that that
will all make an impact to yourtraffic.
But if I had to prioritize two,or it would be voice search and
(31:39):
it would be mobile.
And if you can focus on thosetwo things next year, as, as a
priority and once a month getwith your team, you know,
whether it's your nephew, whodoes your website or whatever,
and say, nephew, what are wedoing right now to address voice
search and, and our mobileexperience, let's go through it
together and see, you know, whatit, what it feels like.
Let's use usertesting.com andsee what you know, a consumer
(32:00):
thinks of the experience of ourwebsite.
And then let's, let's continueevery month to try to improve
that.
So that by 2022, we're availableon all the voice devices and,
you know, our mobile experienceis lightning fast without any
thinking required.
And we're able to convert moreof the visitors who come to our
website.
Kyle Hamer (32:20):
No, that w well, it was in what it leads me to kind
of, I guess it puts me in thisinteresting spot where it feels
like for you, this is all very,very natural, right?
If I'm listening and it's like,Oh, you know, Stephen's just
over here and he's over thereand it's, this is just coming
next.
And it's, it's the mosteffortless in the, in the way
(32:41):
that you're thinking about it.
Right.
And you said that your originalwebsite had something on it that
I think is very poignant, whichis, you know, some people, well,
the statement on your websitewas you think hiring an expert
is expensive, try hiring anamateur, right.
When we start to think about whodo we trust, what are we looking
for?
What are things that peopleshould be asking as it relates
(33:05):
to search?
Because it sounds like search isno longer just SEO search engine
for, for text or for Google.
It's moving into voice and, youknow, mobile and, and who knows
what's next with, with what wehave happening in in the gaming
industry and, and the internetof things.
So where do you turn for, forinsight is to try and stay ahead
(33:29):
of that so that you're, you'reconstantly pushing yourself
forward.
Steven Wiideman (33:33):
Great question.
I, I have a client of ours whoruns a Rolex consignment site.
And one thing I've alwaysadmired about him, even if he
really didn't have the budgetfor it, he would hire
consultants that had a lot ofindustry experience and had
really good reviews andreputation and, and references.
And he'd hire those consultantsto come in to, to lay out a
(33:54):
plan.
Here's, here's how you canmaximize everything based on our
10, 20 years of industryexperience.
And then they step away and theyallow the business owner to take
that action plan and delegate itto a team member, maybe calling
upon the consultant now, andthen just to make sure it's
being done correctly.
But for the most part, at leastthey have, they have a strategy,
(34:14):
they have a blueprint, you know,and it's, it's not a blueprint
of, of, you know, sticks.
And and Hey, it's a blueprint ofbricks, right?
And so I think, I think that'ssomething business owners can do
is just, just, you know, parseout a couple of hundred dollars
to, to talk to some consultants,by the way, most of them, most
of the consultants that I knowanyway in digital are free to
(34:35):
talk to for a strategy call.
If you're a small business, theywant to help they're available
on Quora.
They're available in Facebookgroups, on digital marketing,
they're available on LinkedIngroups.
We help small businesses all thetime for free.
What if they call?
And they say, Hey, I, I reallydon't have a budget, but you
know, I, I need business.
Can you help me?
We'll schedule an hour call,we'll go through, you know, the,
(34:56):
the tech part of what they coulddo to improve their website, the
content opportunity, looking atwhat keywords are, driving
traffic to competitors and theoff page side, where are their
competitors getting links andmentions that they should be
focusing on?
So I think, I think for businessowners, that's, that's where
you, where you, you have todecide, am I going to hire my
nephew?
Who's going to try to figure allthis stuff out or talk to
(35:18):
somebody who's been doing it for10 years and have them give me a
blueprint to give my nephew.
I think, I think that's, that'sthe differentiator between a
site that, that sees a lot ofsuccess in digital marketing.
And one that you spent hundreds,if not thousands of dollars
learning and teaching somebodyto learn as opposed to, you know
, going to somebody who alreadycan give you that blueprint and
(35:40):
then have you, you know,delegate that to different team
members.
I think that's I don't know.
I don't know if that completelyanswers your question, but I
think that's, that's where yousolve the, what do I do?
Where do I start?
We also, if you're a smallbusiness, you know, on our, on
our current website at[inaudible] dot com forward
slash learn, we've got a lot offree guides on how to do things,
including local search.
(36:01):
There's a, there's a whole page.
We talk about local SEO strategyand provide a checklist of all
the things that you need to door to delegate to somebody to
do.
That'll make it a little biteasier.
All those areas we talked aboutearlier that the data, the
landing page, the citations,the, the reviews, you know, it
gives you a lot of free adviceon how to do that.
So that's, that's where I wouldstart is.
And then if they won't do it forfree go to somebody who will
(36:24):
write, go to, like I said,mentioned the, I mentioned the
Facebook groups and the LinkedIngroups, and Quora is plenty of
people that will give you reallygood free advice.
And they like to help at leastthose who really enjoy what they
do.
I know, I know we here at Lehmanlove what we do.
We love to help businesses.
So if there's something we cando, if you want us to just, you
know, take a look at yourwebsite and give you some free
suggestions you know, we're,we're pretty easy to find.
Kyle Hamer (36:47):
I think that's great.
You know, I had a mentor foryears and he had two, two
statements.
His first statement was, andexperience is what you get when
you don't get what you want.
Interesting, true experience isa body of knowledge that can not
be taught.
And so when you're looking forsomebody to help leverage their
(37:10):
experience, you want somebody,who's got a body of knowledge
that cannot be taught, notsomebody who's had an
experience.
And, you know, it came from, youknow, the outcome of not getting
what they actually wanted.
And in, in what you're talkingabout, I think is, is really
important for, for folks,because there are a lot of
folks, a lot of vendors, a lotof people that are out there
(37:32):
that will offer free advice, butthe free advice comes with you
know, we can help you rank onthe first page, or we can help
you do these things.
It's only$149 a month.
And, but, but it it's the 2020version of the, you know you
said snake oil, it's the, youknow, the elixir salesman,
right.
(37:52):
He's standing on the corner andit's like, here, this bottle
will make you grow hair.
And I might've bought a bottleor two, but fool me once, shame
on you fool me twice, shame onme, fool me a third time.
What the hell was I thinking?
So, you know, it's, it's it'simportant to have those filters
in place and to have resourcesthat you can trust.
So you're asking good questions.
Steven Wiideman (38:14):
Yep.
And, and kind of like, I cantell you, we've, we've felt a
lot of businesses that, that arein those same predicaments where
they're paying a monthly fee andthey're not really sure what
they're getting.
And then when they ask, youknow, they, they get throw out a
bunch of big words and technicalterms.
And they're just like, I guessit sounds like they're doing
good stuff, but they don'treally fully understand it.
So we, we put a site called SEOverified and what it does, it's
(38:38):
got a free guide that you candownload.
And it's basically an audit andyou, you use this you, you call
your SEO company or thepotential SEO company you want
to work with.
And you ask these reallyimportant questions, questions,
like, do I own my website?
Or do you, you know, when westart working with you, do I
have administrative access toall my analytics and tools, you
know, that, that we're using arewe using an SSL certificate so
(39:03):
that we're, you know, providinga secure experience, do we offer
up privacy policy?
Are we addressing GDPR?
Are we handling accessibilityfor free people who have
visibility issues?
It's all those sort ofparamount, like, like really
fundamental questions that youcould ask your SEO company
about.
And when you start to get thathesitation, you start to get
(39:23):
that nervousness.
Then you should be concerned.
Maybe the company you're workingwith is maybe not doing
everything that you would hopethey would do to boost your
keyword rankings.
So while it's, it's probably notyou know, an exciting thing to
hear for agencies, I think it'sa very important educational
device that small businessescould use to at least know the,
(39:44):
what, even if they don't havethe time or interest in learning
the, how so having that, whatlist in front of you gives you
something.
So when you are on a call withan SEO company and they say, you
know, we do this, this and this.
Oh, that sounds fantastic.
But you mind if I go through mylist and then you start at the
beginning and you work your waythrough that, that question and
answer sheet that's, that'ssomething we hope will help a
(40:05):
lot of small businesses frombeing taken advantage of by SEO
companies that are, you know,taking advantage of the fact
that these small businessesdon't want to know and don't
have any interest in search.
Kyle Hamer (40:18):
No, but they want the, they want the results.
And I think that that's the, youknow, that's the, that's the rub
for a lot of organizations is,is I want, I want to pay
somebody with experience that Ican trust to deliver deliver an
outcome.
Right.
But because SEO is this weirdmystical box that sits on the
(40:38):
backside of my browser in adatabase, and those words are
all bigger than what my thirdgrade vocabulary is.
Right.
I'll give you 150 bucks or I'llgive you 300 bucks, just, I just
make it work.
But they can, they, I reallyfeel like it's the mean it's
the, it's the swamp thing ofdigital marketing right now,
(41:02):
because it's the hardest, it'sthe hardest part of internet
marketing to quantify for asmall business if done
incorrectly, right?
Steven Wiideman (41:11):
Yeah.
And there, there's a way for youto, to build a forecast
forecast.
If you went to an expert and yousaid, Hey, what's, what's the
total opportunity than I have.
How much traffic can I actuallyget to my website from, you know
, paid advertising and searchnetworks and organic traffic.
You know, those, those forecastsare something that are, are not
difficult to come up with.
So that way you at least knowwhat the threshold and where you
(41:33):
currently Are.
If nothing else, January of2021, create that baseline,
where am I right now, based onthe potential traffic I could be
getting, you know, and then whatare the things I'm going to work
on this year to, you know, tohit some of these goals right
now I'm at, I don't know, 10% ofthe market share and my location
for my service or product, or,you know, restaurant.
(41:56):
So by the end of the year, Iwant to have 20% of that market
space.
So, you know, I'm going to workwith my team to make sure that
we're doing things that fall inline with, you know, hitting
that KPI angle.
I think that's, that's somethingsimple that businesses,
Kyle Hamer (42:09):
So that's, that's actually really valuable, but I
think what's would be even morevaluable.
Stephen is, is tell us what'snext, because sitting down with
your team and saying, okay,well, I want to go from 5%
market share of the traffic to20% of the share.
Like that sounds all great, butwhat am I actually doing?
Like what, what are the elementsthat I need?
Or what are the things that Ineed to be thinking about in
order to get to that next levelof traffic acquisition?
(42:33):
What w what should we befocusing on?
Steven Wiideman (42:35):
Yeah, so, so fundamentally not, not just the
Google maps rankings that we'retalking about, which are super
important because they do comeup before organic listings, but
the organic listings that comeup beneath those three map pack
listings are equally important,and it gives you more of an
opportunity to get moresaturation in the search results
or more real estate of a searchresults for all the different
(42:57):
products and services you offer.
So what, what could businessesbe doing to get more of that
traction, more of that traffic,and actually get some traction
on it is going to be, to createcontent that satisfies what
their customers are looking forand have the best version of
that.
So if you're a personal injuryattorney and you handle car
accident cases, do a search forcar accident, lawyer in the city
(43:19):
that you're in, look at thecompeting pages, look at what
they're using in their titlesand descriptions of what shows
up in the search results.
Look at the headings andsubheadings, look at the images
that the videos, the lists theyoffer, the references they're
making, and then come up with abetter page to solve for that.
I still see a lot of businessesthat have one page listing,
every service they offer, ifthey would just take that one
(43:40):
page and then break it down andsaid, sub pages for each of
those things that they offer,they'll start to see their
website show up for each ofthose different topics or
keywords.
So I would say, take everythingthat you do, everything that you
sell and give it a dedicatedlanding page, unless it's super
similar to another thing with amodification, maybe you sell
(44:02):
burritos.
And one of them's garnia Sada,and one of them's chicken, you
don't need two different pagesfor those.
You just have a burritosavailable, carnitas, Sada, and
chicken, and your page is stillgoing to show up.
In fact, Google recently made achange that allows for passages.
So if, if if you don't have adedicated landing page, you
(44:22):
still have a chance of havingyour broader page with all those
listings appearing in the searchresults.
They're taking passages from thepage and helping to rank that
page and showing the passage andthe results.
So where things are too similarthat feel like, you know, the
user's intent is still the same.
You know, I don't think I needto have a page for every
keyword.
Then keep it as, as one singlepage.
(44:42):
But if the intense different acar accident is different than a
slip and fall accident, createseparate pages.
Talk about why you're bettertalk about why customers come to
you share testimonials, sharecase studies, share awards,
features anything that you cando to address common sales
principles, such as trust,reciprocity, urgency, scarcity
(45:05):
you know, authenticity, allthose things that that users are
going to look for to say, Ireally trust this business.
They took the time to createthis very helpful page.
They gave me some free adviceright out the gate.
Here's some things I need towork on.
They showed their expertise.
So I trust them, you know what?
I'm going to try these things,you know, it's actually really
complicated.
So instead, what I'm going to dois just call them up and see if
(45:28):
I can get them to help me.
And then, you know, you, you getcustomers by giving away enough
helpful information so that theyfeel informed.
You build trust and rapport withthem.
And you know, what, if theydon't convert the first time
they visit, that's what paidadvertising sport.
Now you, since they've visitedyour website, now you can serve
them ads and say, Hey, are youstill looking for this product?
(45:48):
Are you still interested in thisservice?
And, you know, through thatremarketing, they can come back
to the website and hopefullybecome a customer
Kyle Hamer (45:56):
Again, super simple, broken down into bite sized
nuggets, or just, I like, Iliked the way that you, you
know, you pre digest.
What we should be thinking aboutis as small businesses, as, as
owners, as people looking tocapture more of the choppy
traffic and, and then ultimatelyturn them into paying customers.
I really, really appreciate thatfor for our listeners.
(46:20):
You, you mentioned a little bitearlier, if somebody has
questions, how do they get aholdof you?
How do they get ahold of thisverified checklist?
Steven Wiideman (46:29):
Although there's a way to my checklist is
available S E O verified.com andit's, it's free.
There's no cost for it to, toreach us.
You know, our, my, my last nameis Weedman, w I D E M a N.
And we have that on all thedifferent social channels,
whether you're on Instagram,Facebook, wherever just do
forward slash Wiedemann.
(46:49):
And we're there.
If you want to just talk to medirectly, you know, my tag is
just SEO, Steve, that was, youknow, back back when I was
relevant in the two thousandsthat's the tagline I went with
was S E O Steve.
You can find me there on Twitteryou know, Facebook, wherever
wherever you happen to be onlineor you just visit our website,
(47:10):
wait a minute.com.
We have a contact form there.
There's a whole learning libraryat Ford slash learn.
We have some free courses.
You can takecourses.wiedemann.com.
So if you want to get a littlebit more structured training and
the same training courses Iteach at Cal state Fullerton and
UC San Diego, you can get a lotthat same content At courses
(47:31):
that wait a minute, if you justwant to learn a little bit more
about search history and thatmaster class is free.
So please take it and enjoy itas questions.
And hopefully we can help yougrow your business.
Kyle Hamer (47:43):
Great stuff, Steve, thanks so much for being on the
show.
We've, we've just, it's been adelight having you here today,
Steven Wiideman (47:50):
And likewise, it's been fun
Kyle Hamer (47:52):
For those that are still listening and not yet
asleep, make sure you likesubscribe and follow.
You've been listening to thesummit podcast with Kyle Amer
I'm your host and never stoplearning, never stop growing,
never stop striving to beyourself, make 20, 21 and also
mirror
Speaker 5 (48:13):
[Inaudible].
Welcome to the summit.
A podcast focused on bringingyou the knowledge and insights
for industry leaders.
I'm your host Kyle Hamer, andI'm on a mission to help you
exceed your potential.
As a sales guy, turned marketer,I am passionate about building
sustainable businesses.
And if there's one thing I'velearned in my 20 year career,
say you won't find an overnightgrowth scheme, a shortcut to
success or way to hack yourselfto the top.
(00:23):
Nope.
Success is the by-product ofhard work, great relationships
and deep understanding done overand over.
We're here to help you unlockthat success with some secrets
from other people.
One conversation at a time.
Kyle Hamer (00:34):
Welcome back to another episode of the summit
podcast.
I'm your host, Kyle Hamer andtoday's guest on our show is
Stephen.
Wiidemann.
I say that right?
Steven.
Steven Wiideman (00:43):
You got it.
Y ou're actually the firstperson to actually get it right.
That was great.
Kyle Hamer (00:46):
Oh man.
You know it, if I think it's,cause I went to high school with
somebody who had the last name,wait a minute.
And once you see it spelled likethat, it's, it's hard to ever
forget that last name.
For those of you who don't know,Stephen, Stephen is an SEO
savant.
Now he's humble about it, butwhen he's not training to be a
Jedi paddle on he's out theresolving the world's SEO
(01:06):
problems, one site in businessat a time he's worked for
companies like Applebee's andIBM and Disney.
So when it comes tounderstanding complex things and
making them simple, it's one ofSteven's gifts.
Stephen is also a professor.
So he's teaching the nextgeneration of SEO experts in
(01:28):
digital marketers, as well as ahusband.
Now I didn't get to know ifyou're a father or not, but I
would imagine that you are, isthat right?
Is it, is it that obvious withthe lines under the eyes that I
have two teenagers teenagegirls?
That's right.
You told me that I, I spacedthat out.
(01:48):
You know what I thought that Iwould have remembered,
especially having two teenagersof my own, welcome to the show,
Steven, what, what what didn'twe cover that people should know
about you shared?
Well, you, you mentioned the, tome the most important thing is
that I've been able to live mydream.
My dream has been to one daytake what I've learned in my
years of doing digital marketingand, and pass it off to the next
(02:11):
generation.
Steven Wiideman (02:12):
And it's a little bit the other direction
for a lot of professors thatwant to, you know, to venture
off and start a business oftheir own and, and run this big
successful entity.
And for me, it's always been theopposite.
I, I enjoy teaching and theagency gives me the leverage to,
you know, to be able to spendmore time with students and to,
you know, to, to be a part ofthat.
(02:32):
And, and with that, you know,with, with that experience I'm
able to, I'm able to communicatewith some folks that are right
out of school and take, takethat engagement and how they
respond a lot of these coursesand exercises and fold them into
training that we're giving tofolks that aren't yet in school
that want to learn how to dosomething, a professional
skillset.
(02:53):
So let's say you're a Baker, or,you know, you're in another you
know, industry that you're notinterested in and you suddenly
have, have an interest indigital marketing.
You're like the whole world'sgoing to go online.
And I'm really interested infascinated with it, but you
can't really afford to go tocollege for taking a lot of
those same courses and puttingthem together in small bite size
(03:14):
chunks for entrepreneurs andfreelancers that you know, are
interested in a new career indigital.
And that's, that's exciting.
It's not just the, you know, thehundreds of students I get to
touch over the year, but it'sthe thousands of, of, you know,
potential future SEOs in theworld that you know, may not
have the time or bandwidth forcollege, but can take a small
course.
(03:35):
And that's pretty amazing.
Kyle Hamer (03:37):
That is pretty amazing if you're listening and
you haven't guessed yet, whattoday's topic is going to be the
future of SEO and contentmarketing 20, 21 and beyond.
But Stephen has been generousenough to actually bring up a
topic that I think is reallyrelevant for today.
And it is what are like, what'sgoing on with the pandemic, like
search supposedly is up.
(03:58):
Is it down?
Is it left?
Is it right?
Google thinks that they need toapply new algorithms.
What, what's something likelet's get right into it.
What's something that smallbusinesses or businesses can do
today to capitalize on whatcommerce is left online and
given the changing demographicsand things that are shifting.
Steven Wiideman (04:16):
Sure, sure.
I think for some businessesonline is the saving grace,
right?
It's the fact that they have anonline presence enabled them to,
to keep staying in business, tokeep operating for other
businesses, you know, they,they, haven't been as fortunate
and personal injury law.
For example, if people are onlockdown, they're not getting in
car accidents, you don't need alawyer.
(04:38):
So I've seen a lot of clientsthat we've worked with in the
legal industry have to do a lotof furloughs and layoffs simply
because there just wasn't any,any clients available in that,
in that particular industry.
However, for a majority of, ofrestaurants you know, I, I see,
especially I would like topatronize our local Cabo taco
(04:59):
restaurant here in Rodan andbronc who runs the restaurant is
just trying so hard, you know,to, to keep this business going.
And what he, when he didn'trealize in the beginning was
that people were stillinterested in this, in his food,
right.
They just look at the site, Oh,it's closed.
And then they were done.
But if he would have left it onis open, but available for
(05:20):
curbside or take out or spentfive minutes, just logging into
Google my business to let theircustomers know, Hey, we're still
open.
We're just not doing any dine-inright now.
The other thing that, that Ithink a lot of businesses need
to think about is how theircustomers are searching for
their product or service.
Now that their actual brick andmortar stores are closed.
(05:41):
Two examples.
I have one example, two brands,I hop an Applebee's, both of
them you know, have severalrestaurants that are closed.
Others have you know, some thatare, that are open, but only for
delivery and takeout.
And the challenge when we'relooking at this drop in and
traffic there's still anaffinity or an interest for
(06:02):
delivery and takeout and peoplewere searching that way,
delivering near me restaurant,delivering your meat, a
restaurant takeout, restaurantcurbside open.
Now they're searching for allthese search terms, but none of
the websites a year ago had anylanguage that would, that would
give Google a clue to help themto appear when someone's
performing one of those queries.
So to address that what we didis we, we rolled out two new
(06:26):
pages across every singlelocation, roughly 3,500
locations between the twobrands, one page to address
delivery.
So when somebody is looking forrestaurant delivery near me,
breakfast delivery near mepancake delivering me, whatever,
whatever query they happened tobe using, whether they're
modifying it with delivery orcarry out or take out or
curbside or card side you know,we've got content that satisfies
(06:48):
that.
So now, you know, if you do oneof those searches, you'll see
all of the delivery services,your Uber eats your Grubhubs,
your Postmates, you know, the,it goes on and on.
And now you'll actually see IOPand Applebee's and the mix of
those delivery services becausethey addressed how people were
searching at a content level.
And granted that, that means,you know, having what about
(07:09):
7,000 new pages across thewebsite, but those pages address
the needs of their customers.
And I think if small businessestake that same approach, maybe
it's something simple, as simpleas patio seating available,
outdoor dining available, right?
And so I would say, I would say,step one is, go into your
Google, my business profile, gointo here, your Yahoo local
(07:30):
profile, go into your Yelpprofile and make sure if you're
open that it States that you'reopen and that you, you offer
these, these difference deliverytakeout and off premises
services.
In fact, Yelp has even upgradedtheir platform to offer several
new fields that you could use tolet consumers know we're not
just open, but here are thethings that we're doing that one
(07:52):
to address the pandemic and tomake sure your safety is
priority, but to the ways thatyou can still get all the
products and the, and the foodand the things that you like you
know, and, and what those hourslook like if you do decide to
come in.
So I think, I think that gettingthose profiles up to date and
then addressing at the contentlevel on their website, that the
(08:12):
different ways that consumersare, are now at the moment,
looking for what they offer.
I think that's paramount.
I think if you could just spendfive minutes as a business
owner, just do those two things,and it doesn't take much time.
And within a few days, you'll,you'll start to see a few phone
calls pick up.
You might start to see a fewmore curb sides.
Your, your curbside pickup areasmight start to fill up, but it
(08:34):
takes, it takes the desire andthe willingness to actually
spend those few minutes, youknow, to make those
modifications.
And unfortunately, allbusinesses are panicked.
They're they're in this mode of,I gotta figure out another angle
and I got to figure out, no, youjust have to adjust what your
customers are looking for now.
And I think that's, that'sprobably the, the end game to
(08:55):
this pandemic for a lot ofbusinesses.
Kyle Hamer (08:58):
It, you know, the thing that's fascinating about
that, it's twofold.
One it's so simple in, in, whenyou think about when you get
panicked, sometimes it's not abig sweeping change or a
cataclysmic, you know, lifealtering thing that happens.
It's just a series of smalllittle choices, the small little
choice of, well, I'm not gonnaallow grub hub or waiter or door
(09:20):
dash or whoever to, to delivermy food.
Like, I'm not gonna let them,I'm not going to let them have
access, but that's where all ofyour customers went or I'm not
going.
I don't understand what Googlemy business is.
I don't even know if I have one.
What do I do?
Like none of this makes sense tome.
So I'm going to stay away fromit.
I know how to cook a greatcheeseburger.
I know how to make a fantasticbowl of pasta, but I don't know
(09:42):
anything when it comes to thewebsite.
Right.
And why would I invest anythingin that?
Because all my customers aregone and it kind of gets back,
but it gets back to marketingone Oh one, right?
It's have something good to say,say it well, and then say it in
the right place, like go whereyour customers are.
So I, I love how simple that isfor for a small business to, to
(10:08):
get after it.
Now, if I'm listening to thisand I don't have a Google my
business account, can you justtouch on what it is, why it's
valuable and then where I shouldlook in order to get the most
out of it, even though I'm notan SEO expert like you
Steven Wiideman (10:25):
Chorus.
I think the easiest thing forbusiness to do is just Google
their business name and in theirbusiness name search, they'll
actually see a lot of resultsthat they could be controlling
and updating and enhancing tohelp drive more traffic.
The first one is, is usually aGoogle maps listing that Google
maps listing is so easy to edit.
All you have to do when you,when you're looking at that
(10:46):
listing is click the editlisting or suggest an edit, and
then walk through the wizardprocess of claiming your
listing.
It'll actually actually ask you,is this your business?
And if it is, it'll walk youthrough how to claim it.
Sometimes they'll do it througha phone number where they just
verify via phone number.
Sometimes you have to wait alittle longer for a postcard to
arrive, to verify that you ownthat listing.
(11:08):
Once you, once you get thatGoogle maps listing, it's
through a service platform thatGoogle provides called Google my
business once you've claimedyour access and you can go in
and edit all the differentinformation, loaded up, loaded
up with as much content andattributes, listen to what your
customers are saying and theirreviews and apply that to some
of the language and yourdescriptions and in your
(11:29):
services.
You know, if they're saying, youknow, the tacos here are
amazing.
Talk about the tacos and, youknow, our customers say our
tacos you know, here at ourllamado location are amazing.
Next time somebody does a searchfor tacos, Marotta, boom, your
listing shows up because thatlanguage is available in the
review and in your descriptionof your business.
(11:50):
I've also noticed that thatpictures and Are, are super
helpful to improving your, yourrankings in that map pack area.
So, you know, if you do a searchon your mobile device, you'll C3
map, listing show up and thensome regular listings below it.
And I've noticed that if you, ifyou add more pictures of the
restaurant of the people, maybeeven now of, of the, the staff
(12:13):
cleaning with their masks on andshowing that the safety measures
you're taking during thepandemic I've noticed that that
users respond to that.
And when you go into youranalytics in that Google my
business account, remember allthis is free.
None of this costs a dime.
Every business can do a searchfor their business, see their
Google profile, as well as theirYelp and other listings, and go
(12:33):
in and do this optimization.
And if you, if you add thosekinds of pictures and look at
the analytics in that profile,you'll notice more customers are
clicking on your listing.
More customers are clicking thecall icon in the listing.
More customers are interactingwith your listing.
If you have a menu and you can,you can offer that menu in the
maps so that the user doesn'thave to worry, Hey, if I click
(12:54):
on this website for this localbusiness, am I going to get a
virus or, you know, or, youknow, excited.
I know it's a small business andthey probably don't have all the
sophisticated security measures.
So I'd rather just trust Googlethat happens.
Unfortunately, they don't givethe website a chance.
They'll just lose that businessdata.
So that's where the opportunityis jump into that profile, fill
out everything you possibly cancontinuously post photos, maybe
(13:18):
even once every couple of daysthrow a new photo in there, a
different angle, different thingthat the group is doing show,
you know, that the culture ofthe, of the organization that,
that brings authenticity, thatthat inspires click-through when
somebody sees your listing, youknow, and it, it plays a huge
role in, in helping the usernote, Hey, this, this business
(13:38):
is open, right?
This is not a listing that saysit's open.
And it's closed with picturesthat I saw six months ago.
It's where the recent picturesand recent information.
So I know they're open.
So I have more confidence andI'm more willing to call or to
take the extra seconds out of mylife, to interact with the
business.
Kyle Hamer (13:57):
So simple.
And, and yet sometimes can feelso intimidated.
Steven Wiideman (14:01):
You just, you just gotta do that search and
start, start clicking.
Right?
Kyle Hamer (14:06):
Well, and, and not that there's not 10,000 other
things for, for business ownersor even people who are trying to
figure out where their customerswent to think about today, but
it is something where if youtake the time to learn about it
over 24 to 48 hours, because Igenuinely believe that between
YouTube or listening to guyslike yourself, teach a 90, 90
(14:28):
minute YouTube video of somebodysetting up their, their Google,
my business account.
And just following kind of thebasic blocking tackling will
play dividends over the next sixto eight weeks.
Especially as you start addingreviews, are there any tricks or
tips you would have for somebodythat's gone through the process
of getting there, getting theirinformation all up to date on
(14:50):
Google, my business and they atit.
And like, but it doesn't feellike it's really ranking is
there as it, you know, is therea magic number of reviews to get
more visibility?
Is there, is it keywords?
What, what is it that helps youreally pop
Steven Wiideman (15:00):
For Google?
Well, we have to remember thatalgorithms are based on
patterns.
There's never a set of forget it.
You can't just go in, do a bunchof things and then throw your
feet up on the desk, right?
These are, these are marketingtactics that need to be nurtured
and cultivated.
And there there's four areas oflocal search.
If you're a local business, ifyou're a brick and mortar and
you have a physical address, thespore areas that you're gonna
(15:21):
need to focus on area, numberone is going to be making sure
your data, your business data isaccurate everywhere.
It needs to be.
And there are services thatprovide that for you so that you
don't have to do it manually.
When we're talking aboutdatabases, we're talking about
like info USA and factual, whichis now owned by Foursquare.
And you know, there's, there'sseveral of these different
databases, the services thatthat are available that can do
(15:44):
all of that kind of grunt workfor you are Moz, local, right?
Local.
there's, there's several ofthese services.
I believe white spark that basedin Canada does that as well.
So you start with those dataaggregators and make sure your
business information is alwaysaccurate since proximity to a
location is still, you know,probably the number one ranking
signal and maps.
(16:04):
I mean, you search and Google'sgoing to try to show you the
most you know, the, the closestlocation to you.
So making sure that informationis correct is going to help with
that.
Number two is going to be theinformation on your page.
So when you go to, if you're, ifyou have a single location, if
you go to your Google, mybusiness and you see all those
different fields, what are yourhours?
What are your holiday hours?
(16:24):
You know, what are, what aresome of the services that you
offer at this location?
What's your phone number?
All, all of that informationshould be available on your
website.
I mean, if it's important to, toGoogle for how they rank their
listings, why shouldn't it beimportant to your customers to
see that same information onyour website?
So, and if you have multiplelocations create a location page
for every single location, youcan see that when you go to
(16:48):
Applebee's and I hop, you cansee how they have individual
location pages that areoptimized for the type of
restaurant they are in the citythat they they're located in.
So I would say that's in asense, it's called a local page,
right?
Making sure that local page isfully optimized.
Number three is going to bearound how visible your business
information is off your website.
(17:09):
As you know, these searchengines use web crawlers, right?
These little robots that crawlthrough the internet and for
organic rankings, they're goingto look at how many other
websites are mentioning andlinking to your website.
But for map rankings, they'regoing to look at how often they
find your business data.
If, if your competitors are in,you know, 22 different local
directories and year end one,maybe that other businesses more
(17:32):
prominent and more popular thanyours is.
So you want to make sure thatyou're in all of those business
directories and industrydirectories, a white spark
doesn't have a tool called thelocal citation finder.
Geo rancor also has a similartool you put in your
competitors, or you put in yourkeyword And they'll show you all
the different business directoryopportunities where you can list
(17:54):
your business.
Most of them are free.
So that's, that's number threeis just growing the number of
times that, that Google isfinding your business
information offline or off yourwebsite.
The last, and you alreadymentioned this.
Kyle is business reviews andratings.
First thing I do to make surebusiness is open is I go to
their reviews.
And instead of starting bylowest to highest, like some
people do have to scrutinize, Isort by most recent, because I
(18:17):
want to know that somebody gohere recently, or am I going to
waste my time going someplacethat's closed.
So so making sure every monthyou're getting you know, good
high quality reviews that you'reproviding a good experience for
your customers, that you're,you're suggesting to those
customers who are happy to sharetheir experience online.
And, and Google will tell youthis.
It's so important to respond toreviews, even if it's a positive
(18:40):
review, just saying, Hey, youknow, we really appreciate your
business.
Thank you so much for coming in.
We can't wait to see you nexttime and especially responding
to negative reviews and notgenerically, you know, you, you
want to try to get them into aprivate conversation.
So you, you respond with, I amso sorry to hear that you had
this experience and we want tomake it right.
(19:01):
Name them by name, don't use aprogram to auto submit, you know
, feedback, but name them byname or by their tagline and say
I'd really like to talk to youpersonally, I'm the manager of
this location.
Please call me.
I promise I'll make it, I'llmake this better.
And in doing that, you invitethem back in.
You make sure they have anamazing experience.
They change their review.
And then over time you continueto see growth.
(19:22):
So if you focus, focus on thosefour tiers of, of, you know,
location-based map rankings,your, your data, accuracy, your
local landing, page information,your business, data visibility,
and business directories andlistings, and those reviews.
If you're doing something forall four of those areas, every
month, within six to 12 months,you should be in the top three.
(19:44):
And on the first page of websearch results, not just in
Google maps, that was like, whydid I ask?
Kyle Hamer (19:52):
No, I did not.
Not at all actually.
Well, I, I, what I was gonna sayis that's actually for, for
people that are listening, thatthe, the way you've broken it
down is, is really it's gold.
And it's gold because you mighthave to go talk to some
whizzbang guru who wants tocharge a 300 bucks a month to,
to put you on a directoryaggregator and to give you some
(20:13):
lip service.
Three reality is, is that in thesituation that we're in with the
financial pressures that wehave, and the way that small
businesses and even medium sizedbusinesses, it doesn't have to
be a restaurant.
It could be, you know, a localHVAC company, or it could be a,
you know, a carpenter the waythat they are being impacted by
the, the regulations and the,and the shifting of everything
that's happening all the time isfolks don't know anymore.
(20:36):
If they can trust as Bob's, youknow, as Bob's burgers is still
open is, is Sally's shoe sign orplace, whatever, like they
don't, they don't know.
So they've got to, they've gotto have things that they've, and
they trust Google followingthese tips are things that are
just, they're really simple andthey're really effective.
And they don't take a lot oftime.
(20:56):
Like it's, you don't have tohire a big agency to do that.
Steven Wiideman (20:59):
That's right.
That's it lock it down everyMonday morning, I'm going to do,
you know, these, these threethings or these four things,
right.
For local, and, and maybe I'lleven use that, that other free
tool that Google offers calledGoogle search console.
And I'm not going to feel like Ihave to do something with it.
Instead, I'm going to take allthat information and I'm going
to delegate it to somebody who'smore tech savvy on the team and
say, Hey, once a week, can yougo in and, and address these
(21:22):
things and then shoot me anemail or, or text me that you
did it so that I know and haveconfidence that at least, at
least we're paying attention,even if it's only 15 minutes a
week, Monday morning at eighto'clock or heighten, whatever it
happens to be, it's just gettingit on the calendar, locking it
in and holding peopleaccountable to it.
That's I think that's where thereal challenge is, is not, not
(21:43):
figuring out what to do.
Anyone like a convention can goto YouTube and figure out a lot
of these things.
It's just, it's just locking itinto a calendar and making it
part of your, your weekly habitof, of growing a business, you
know?
Kyle Hamer (21:56):
Yeah.
It's just like getting up tomake the donuts every day.
If, if you make a part of thehabit, eventually just becomes a
fabric of, of, of your business,right?
It's just another operationalprocedure where your marketing's
not on autopilot, but you're nowleveraging the world's largest
search engine to help peoplefind you.
And you don't have to do a lot,right?
(22:16):
It's not, I have to go flyerparking lots, or I have to buy
big billboard.
It's just every week, every day,every couple of days I'm doing
these things and I'm beingconsistent.
So I just think that that'stremendous.
Steven Wiideman (22:27):
I think local businesses, mom and pops have an
advantage over these biggerbrands.
I know it feels like the bigbrands always outranked because
they've got so much credibilityand they get so much traffic,
but mom and pops really have theadvantage because they can, they
can break out of the corporaterules.
Right.
And, and do some things.
That's that corporate level.
They can't scale.
(22:47):
I can't ask Applebee's to go outand make sure every single
location every month is gettinginto all the local business
directories.
Instead we, we, we put a datafeed together and we give them
to the big websites, the bigdirectories, but the local guys
won't take a feed, right?
They're not going to sortthrough that feed to figure out
which location is nearest tothem.
So there's, there's a little bitof that elbow crease that that
(23:09):
can be used to help a mom andpop, just stay up late, make
sure in every local directory.
The other thing you can do thatthe big guys can't do are local
events.
Local events are amazing.
If you do something as simple asHey today, we're giving away
free pancakes.
We want to help local community.
We know people are hungry.
It's the holidays, it's cold.
You know, we want to dosomething nice.
(23:31):
You do this local event.
Can you tell all yourneighboring businesses about it?
And you ask them, Hey, would youlike to pitch in and help cover
some of the costs of this?
Cause we're doing it for the,you know, for the community.
Most of the time, they're goingto say no, say no problem.
I understand.
Can you donate your time?
No, we're too busy.
Okay.
So you can't donate money ortime, which at least maybe
mentioned it somewhere on thewebsite that we have this event
(23:53):
happening.
Oh, sure.
We'll get you a hold of ourwebmaster and he'll fill out a
LinkedIn link for you and talkabout the event.
And in doing that and in gettingthose links and in getting those
mentions across all those localbusiness websites, Google is
going to find and consume allthat data.
And it's going to move yourlisting up because the giants
don't have that kind offlexibility.
(24:13):
They can't go to neighboringbusinesses and knock on the door
and say, Hey, let's support eachother, right?
Because they're locked into thatcorporate, you know, legal
regulations of what they can andcan't do so local business by
running some periodic advance,maybe once a month and getting
other local businesses.
And maybe even the city go tothe civic center and say, Hey,
we're doing this event to try tohelp the community.
(24:34):
Can you promote it on the citywebsite?
Oh my God, that's, that's gold.
You know, for, for searchengines to see links and
mentions on governments andeducation sites and colleges,
there's a huge trust factorthere.
And that can really boost, youknow, overall keyword rankings
and overall visibility, plus thereferral traffic and the giving
back and what you're doing andcreating those events.
(24:55):
We had an attorney who did ablood drive and then he did a
free CPR class, you know, and,and we generated tons of links
that helped move our rankings upand tons of, of business
information citations, becausethey were saying here's where
the event's going to take place.
So so there's something I thinktoo, that we can add on, not
just to making sure your websitementions patio and outdoor
(25:18):
seating and and all the offpremises delivery, curbside, et
cetera, but also to dosomething, even if it's just
once a month, once a quarter andreally just hit the neighboring
businesses and try to get themto participate.
That's huge.
And that's how the mom and popscan win over the big brands,
especially now.
Kyle Hamer (25:38):
And I think that, I think the beauty of that is, is
one of the things that we'veseen in SEO over the years is
there's your black hat.
And these guys are alwayslooking for ways to trick Google
trick, the trick, the searchengine, and crawl up to the top.
Well, it's always short-livedand what the search engines have
really begun to kind ofunderstand is that for them to
(26:01):
continue to scale up and tomaintain their level of
relevance, they actually have toshrink their perspective, right.
It used to be, I'm looking atthings from a 50,000 foot view,
and these are the best things ata, at a national or a galactic
level, but really what you careabout is the stuff that's
important to you and relevant toyou locally.
And so we're, you know, local towhat you, whether it's your web
(26:24):
traffic or where youspecifically live hyper-local
right.
That's that's well.
Sure.
but when you, when you, when youfocus that the level of scale
there, that's really whereoffline and online blend in a
way that major brands cannot wasthe last time you heard of best
buy doing something at a, at alocal level, my local best buy
(26:45):
doesn't ever do anything.
My local Nordstrom doesn't everdo anything.
Right?
Like the, the local mall barelydoes anything.
You're.
I mean, I think you're just,you're hitting on something
where it's like, if you'regiving back to the community and
you're leveraging folks that arethere in your area, asking for
something as simple as a mentionor a, you know, a you know,
(27:07):
progressing down to where you'regetting some of the backlinks
again, it's marrying that onlineand offline to make you to show
not only from a web presence,but also your your community
presence of the impact thatyou're having.
I just think that's really,really, really powerful.
Steven Wiideman (27:22):
Right?
Absolutely.
And you know, there, there are alot of things that are coming
down the pipeline thatbusinesses have to start
thinking about.
We mentioned the future ofsearch and there's all these,
these great smart devices nowand, and assistance and series
and Alexa is and so forth.
So I think, I think as, as theyear starts to improve as
(27:42):
businesses start to reopenobviously we want to sustain
some of that online traffic.
So we want to make sure thosepages stay up and that we're
continuing to make sure peoplewho still don't necessarily feel
safe about going to a brick andmortar.
You know, as we, as we start to,you know, to, to pivot from
giving all of our emphasis tothat, to what's next, I think, I
(28:02):
think the voice assistants aregoing to be, you know I would
say a priority, especially for2022, as you start getting close
to it.
I don't think it's, it's amandatory thing for 2021 yet,
but I think it's something that,that business owners need to
start experimenting with.
And we mentioned the Google, mybusiness earlier for, for the
voice assistance and you know,for the Google home and so forth
(28:27):
we want to start thinking aboutsomething called the Google
action console.
It's pre just like, you know,Google my business.
And at some point next year, puton the calendar, maybe June or
July, I'm going to sit down, I'mgoing to spend an afternoon
playing with the Google actionconsole and the Alexa skills.
I'm going to spend a day andjust play with it.
It doesn't take programmers.
(28:47):
It feels like it's, it's rocketscience, but when you start
getting into it, they're all alittle walkthrough wizards
that'll help you out.
And you just want to make surethat your business is there and
that you're answering questionsthat people might have about
your business.
So when they're using voicesearch, you know, you can, you
can make sure your businessshows up and that if they have
questions that that voiceassistant can solve them for
(29:08):
you, you just go in ball, thewizard, punching your, your
business information, whatcustomers generally ask your
customer service department andmake sure those questions are
available.
Maybe even talk to a webdeveloper or get on Upwork or
freelancer and say, Hey, I wantto, if I, if I offer
appointments, I want myappointments to be bookable
(29:28):
through one of these assistantprograms and they'll help you
set that up.
And I think that's, that'sreally planning ahead for 2022
is making sure as, as peoplestart to un-tether themselves
from their mobile devices, andthey start to use more
interactions with the, thespeaker in their car and on the
refrigerator, you know, and,and, and within the internet of
things that they're still ableto interact with your business
(29:51):
without staring down at theircell phone, I think that's,
that's going to be sort of the,the paramount or future of, you
know, what, what should I befocusing on as we get closer to
2022?
I would say voice search isgoing to play a really big role
in that.
The other thing I wouldchallenge every business to do
smaller big is to try to, I usedto try to do an interaction on
(30:12):
the website, whether it's makinga purchase or filling out a
form, but try doing it with justone hand, right?
If you can do it just one handand get through the form fields,
using an actual Dialpad, if it'sa number field if, if there's a
way to just click and be done,like on any Shopify website
where it takes you to the shopapp, and then within a few
clicks, without any typingrequired, you can make a
(30:33):
purchase.
If you can get your websites.
So a place where the user can,can interact with a thumb and a
matter of seconds, then you'vesucceeded at handling how users
are interacting with theinternet.
And Google has addressed thismultiple times over the last
couple of years, they keeptalking about mobile first
indexing.
And, you know, we're going torank sites based on our crawl of
(30:55):
the mobile experience, not ofthe desktop anymore, you know,
and other search engines arefollowing their leads.
So really important as we startthinking about what can I do
next year to make sure that I'mstill getting more traffic from
search engines?
I would say, make sure it'slike, it's still a place where
either you can completelyinteract with the business
without fetching the phone, oryou can interact with a thumb
(31:16):
and complete a transaction veryquickly without the need for a
keyboard, maybe just a dial padpush number or a button click
that integrates with yourFacebook or your shop app and be
done.
I think those are, those aresome areas that, that will make
such a huge difference.
There's a hundred things youcould do, you know, that that
will all make an impact to yourtraffic.
But if I had to prioritize two,or it would be voice search and
(31:39):
it would be mobile.
And if you can focus on thosetwo things next year, as, as a
priority and once a month getwith your team, you know,
whether it's your nephew, whodoes your website or whatever,
and say, nephew, what are wedoing right now to address voice
search and, and our mobileexperience, let's go through it
together and see, you know, whatit, what it feels like.
Let's use usertesting.com andsee what you know, a consumer
(32:00):
thinks of the experience of ourwebsite.
And then let's, let's continueevery month to try to improve
that.
So that by 2022, we're availableon all the voice devices and,
you know, our mobile experienceis lightning fast without any
thinking required.
And we're able to convert moreof the visitors who come to our
website.
Kyle Hamer (32:20):
No, that w well, it was in what it leads me to kind
of, I guess it puts me in thisinteresting spot where it feels
like for you, this is all very,very natural, right?
If I'm listening and it's like,Oh, you know, Stephen's just
over here and he's over thereand it's, this is just coming
next.
And it's, it's the mosteffortless in the, in the way
(32:41):
that you're thinking about it.
Right.
And you said that your originalwebsite had something on it that
I think is very poignant, whichis, you know, some people, well,
the statement on your websitewas you think hiring an expert
is expensive, try hiring anamateur, right.
When we start to think about whodo we trust, what are we looking
for?
What are things that peopleshould be asking as it relates
(33:05):
to search?
Because it sounds like search isno longer just SEO search engine
for, for text or for Google.
It's moving into voice and, youknow, mobile and, and who knows
what's next with, with what wehave happening in in the gaming
industry and, and the internetof things.
So where do you turn for, forinsight is to try and stay ahead
(33:29):
of that so that you're, you'reconstantly pushing yourself
forward.
Steven Wiideman (33:33):
Great question.
I, I have a client of ours whoruns a Rolex consignment site.
And one thing I've alwaysadmired about him, even if he
really didn't have the budgetfor it, he would hire
consultants that had a lot ofindustry experience and had
really good reviews andreputation and, and references.
And he'd hire those consultantsto come in to, to lay out a
(33:54):
plan.
Here's, here's how you canmaximize everything based on our
10, 20 years of industryexperience.
And then they step away and theyallow the business owner to take
that action plan and delegate itto a team member, maybe calling
upon the consultant now, andthen just to make sure it's
being done correctly.
But for the most part, at leastthey have, they have a strategy,
(34:14):
they have a blueprint, you know,and it's, it's not a blueprint
of, of, you know, sticks.
And and Hey, it's a blueprint ofbricks, right?
And so I think, I think that'ssomething business owners can do
is just, just, you know, parseout a couple of hundred dollars
to, to talk to some consultants,by the way, most of them, most
of the consultants that I knowanyway in digital are free to
(34:35):
talk to for a strategy call.
If you're a small business, theywant to help they're available
on Quora.
They're available in Facebookgroups, on digital marketing,
they're available on LinkedIngroups.
We help small businesses all thetime for free.
What if they call?
And they say, Hey, I, I reallydon't have a budget, but you
know, I, I need business.
Can you help me?
We'll schedule an hour call,we'll go through, you know, the,
(34:56):
the tech part of what they coulddo to improve their website, the
content opportunity, looking atwhat keywords are, driving
traffic to competitors and theoff page side, where are their
competitors getting links andmentions that they should be
focusing on?
So I think, I think for businessowners, that's, that's where
you, where you, you have todecide, am I going to hire my
nephew?
Who's going to try to figure allthis stuff out or talk to
(35:18):
somebody who's been doing it for10 years and have them give me a
blueprint to give my nephew.
I think, I think that's, that'sthe differentiator between a
site that, that sees a lot ofsuccess in digital marketing.
And one that you spent hundreds,if not thousands of dollars
learning and teaching somebodyto learn as opposed to, you know
, going to somebody who alreadycan give you that blueprint and
(35:40):
then have you, you know,delegate that to different team
members.
I think that's I don't know.
I don't know if that completelyanswers your question, but I
think that's, that's where yousolve the, what do I do?
Where do I start?
We also, if you're a smallbusiness, you know, on our, on
our current website at[inaudible] dot com forward
slash learn, we've got a lot offree guides on how to do things,
including local search.
(36:01):
There's a, there's a whole page.
We talk about local SEO strategyand provide a checklist of all
the things that you need to door to delegate to somebody to
do.
That'll make it a little biteasier.
All those areas we talked aboutearlier that the data, the
landing page, the citations,the, the reviews, you know, it
gives you a lot of free adviceon how to do that.
So that's, that's where I wouldstart is.
And then if they won't do it forfree go to somebody who will
(36:24):
write, go to, like I said,mentioned the, I mentioned the
Facebook groups and the LinkedIngroups, and Quora is plenty of
people that will give you reallygood free advice.
And they like to help at leastthose who really enjoy what they
do.
I know, I know we here at Lehmanlove what we do.
We love to help businesses.
So if there's something we cando, if you want us to just, you
know, take a look at yourwebsite and give you some free
suggestions you know, we're,we're pretty easy to find.
Kyle Hamer (36:47):
I think that's great.
You know, I had a mentor foryears and he had two, two
statements.
His first statement was, andexperience is what you get when
you don't get what you want.
Interesting, true experience isa body of knowledge that can not
be taught.
And so when you're looking forsomebody to help leverage their
(37:10):
experience, you want somebody,who's got a body of knowledge
that cannot be taught, notsomebody who's had an
experience.
And, you know, it came from, youknow, the outcome of not getting
what they actually wanted.
And in, in what you're talkingabout, I think is, is really
important for, for folks,because there are a lot of
folks, a lot of vendors, a lotof people that are out there
(37:32):
that will offer free advice, butthe free advice comes with you
know, we can help you rank onthe first page, or we can help
you do these things.
It's only$149 a month.
And, but, but it it's the 2020version of the, you know you
said snake oil, it's the, youknow, the elixir salesman,
right.
(37:52):
He's standing on the corner andit's like, here, this bottle
will make you grow hair.
And I might've bought a bottleor two, but fool me once, shame
on you fool me twice, shame onme, fool me a third time.
What the hell was I thinking?
So, you know, it's, it's it'simportant to have those filters
in place and to have resourcesthat you can trust.
So you're asking good questions.
Steven Wiideman (38:14):
Yep.
And, and kind of like, I cantell you, we've, we've felt a
lot of businesses that, that arein those same predicaments where
they're paying a monthly fee andthey're not really sure what
they're getting.
And then when they ask, youknow, they, they get throw out a
bunch of big words and technicalterms.
And they're just like, I guessit sounds like they're doing
good stuff, but they don'treally fully understand it.
So we, we put a site called SEOverified and what it does, it's
(38:38):
got a free guide that you candownload.
And it's basically an audit andyou, you use this you, you call
your SEO company or thepotential SEO company you want
to work with.
And you ask these reallyimportant questions, questions,
like, do I own my website?
Or do you, you know, when westart working with you, do I
have administrative access toall my analytics and tools, you
know, that, that we're using arewe using an SSL certificate so
(39:03):
that we're, you know, providinga secure experience, do we offer
up privacy policy?
Are we addressing GDPR?
Are we handling accessibilityfor free people who have
visibility issues?
It's all those sort ofparamount, like, like really
fundamental questions that youcould ask your SEO company
about.
And when you start to get thathesitation, you start to get
(39:23):
that nervousness.
Then you should be concerned.
Maybe the company you're workingwith is maybe not doing
everything that you would hopethey would do to boost your
keyword rankings.
So while it's, it's probably notyou know, an exciting thing to
hear for agencies, I think it'sa very important educational
device that small businessescould use to at least know the,
(39:44):
what, even if they don't havethe time or interest in learning
the, how so having that, whatlist in front of you gives you
something.
So when you are on a call withan SEO company and they say, you
know, we do this, this and this.
Oh, that sounds fantastic.
But you mind if I go through mylist and then you start at the
beginning and you work your waythrough that, that question and
answer sheet that's, that'ssomething we hope will help a
(40:05):
lot of small businesses frombeing taken advantage of by SEO
companies that are, you know,taking advantage of the fact
that these small businessesdon't want to know and don't
have any interest in search.
Kyle Hamer (40:18):
No, but they want the, they want the results.
And I think that that's the, youknow, that's the, that's the rub
for a lot of organizations is,is I want, I want to pay
somebody with experience that Ican trust to deliver deliver an
outcome.
Right.
But because SEO is this weirdmystical box that sits on the
(40:38):
backside of my browser in adatabase, and those words are
all bigger than what my thirdgrade vocabulary is.
Right.
I'll give you 150 bucks or I'llgive you 300 bucks, just, I just
make it work.
But they can, they, I reallyfeel like it's the mean it's
the, it's the swamp thing ofdigital marketing right now,
(41:02):
because it's the hardest, it'sthe hardest part of internet
marketing to quantify for asmall business if done
incorrectly, right?
Steven Wiideman (41:11):
Yeah.
And there, there's a way for youto, to build a forecast
forecast.
If you went to an expert and yousaid, Hey, what's, what's the
total opportunity than I have.
How much traffic can I actuallyget to my website from, you know
, paid advertising and searchnetworks and organic traffic.
You know, those, those forecastsare something that are, are not
difficult to come up with.
So that way you at least knowwhat the threshold and where you
(41:33):
currently Are.
If nothing else, January of2021, create that baseline,
where am I right now, based onthe potential traffic I could be
getting, you know, and then whatare the things I'm going to work
on this year to, you know, tohit some of these goals right
now I'm at, I don't know, 10% ofthe market share and my location
for my service or product, or,you know, restaurant.
(41:56):
So by the end of the year, Iwant to have 20% of that market
space.
So, you know, I'm going to workwith my team to make sure that
we're doing things that fall inline with, you know, hitting
that KPI angle.
I think that's, that's somethingsimple that businesses,
Kyle Hamer (42:09):
So that's, that's actually really valuable, but I
think what's would be even morevaluable.
Stephen is, is tell us what'snext, because sitting down with
your team and saying, okay,well, I want to go from 5%
market share of the traffic to20% of the share.
Like that sounds all great, butwhat am I actually doing?
Like what, what are the elementsthat I need?
Or what are the things that Ineed to be thinking about in
order to get to that next levelof traffic acquisition?
(42:33):
What w what should we befocusing on?
Steven Wiideman (42:35):
Yeah, so, so fundamentally not, not just the
Google maps rankings that we'retalking about, which are super
important because they do comeup before organic listings, but
the organic listings that comeup beneath those three map pack
listings are equally important,and it gives you more of an
opportunity to get moresaturation in the search results
or more real estate of a searchresults for all the different
(42:57):
products and services you offer.
So what, what could businessesbe doing to get more of that
traction, more of that traffic,and actually get some traction
on it is going to be, to createcontent that satisfies what
their customers are looking forand have the best version of
that.
So if you're a personal injuryattorney and you handle car
accident cases, do a search forcar accident, lawyer in the city
(43:19):
that you're in, look at thecompeting pages, look at what
they're using in their titlesand descriptions of what shows
up in the search results.
Look at the headings andsubheadings, look at the images
that the videos, the lists theyoffer, the references they're
making, and then come up with abetter page to solve for that.
I still see a lot of businessesthat have one page listing,
every service they offer, ifthey would just take that one
(43:40):
page and then break it down andsaid, sub pages for each of
those things that they offer,they'll start to see their
website show up for each ofthose different topics or
keywords.
So I would say, take everythingthat you do, everything that you
sell and give it a dedicatedlanding page, unless it's super
similar to another thing with amodification, maybe you sell
(44:02):
burritos.
And one of them's garnia Sada,and one of them's chicken, you
don't need two different pagesfor those.
You just have a burritosavailable, carnitas, Sada, and
chicken, and your page is stillgoing to show up.
In fact, Google recently made achange that allows for passages.
So if, if if you don't have adedicated landing page, you
(44:22):
still have a chance of havingyour broader page with all those
listings appearing in the searchresults.
They're taking passages from thepage and helping to rank that
page and showing the passage andthe results.
So where things are too similarthat feel like, you know, the
user's intent is still the same.
You know, I don't think I needto have a page for every
keyword.
Then keep it as, as one singlepage.
(44:42):
But if the intense different acar accident is different than a
slip and fall accident, createseparate pages.
Talk about why you're bettertalk about why customers come to
you share testimonials, sharecase studies, share awards,
features anything that you cando to address common sales
principles, such as trust,reciprocity, urgency, scarcity
(45:05):
you know, authenticity, allthose things that that users are
going to look for to say, Ireally trust this business.
They took the time to createthis very helpful page.
They gave me some free adviceright out the gate.
Here's some things I need towork on.
They showed their expertise.
So I trust them, you know what?
I'm going to try these things,you know, it's actually really
complicated.
So instead, what I'm going to dois just call them up and see if
(45:28):
I can get them to help me.
And then, you know, you, you getcustomers by giving away enough
helpful information so that theyfeel informed.
You build trust and rapport withthem.
And you know, what, if theydon't convert the first time
they visit, that's what paidadvertising sport.
Now you, since they've visitedyour website, now you can serve
them ads and say, Hey, are youstill looking for this product?
(45:48):
Are you still interested in thisservice?
And, you know, through thatremarketing, they can come back
to the website and hopefullybecome a customer
Kyle Hamer (45:56):
Again, super simple, broken down into bite sized
nuggets, or just, I like, Iliked the way that you, you
know, you pre digest.
What we should be thinking aboutis as small businesses, as, as
owners, as people looking tocapture more of the choppy
traffic and, and then ultimatelyturn them into paying customers.
I really, really appreciate thatfor for our listeners.
(46:20):
You, you mentioned a little bitearlier, if somebody has
questions, how do they get aholdof you?
How do they get ahold of thisverified checklist?
Steven Wiideman (46:29):
Although there's a way to my checklist is
available S E O verified.com andit's, it's free.
There's no cost for it to, toreach us.
You know, our, my, my last nameis Weedman, w I D E M a N.
And we have that on all thedifferent social channels,
whether you're on Instagram,Facebook, wherever just do
forward slash Wiedemann.
(46:49):
And we're there.
If you want to just talk to medirectly, you know, my tag is
just SEO, Steve, that was, youknow, back back when I was
relevant in the two thousandsthat's the tagline I went with
was S E O Steve.
You can find me there on Twitteryou know, Facebook, wherever
wherever you happen to be onlineor you just visit our website,
(47:10):
wait a minute.com.
We have a contact form there.
There's a whole learning libraryat Ford slash learn.
We have some free courses.
You can takecourses.wiedemann.com.
So if you want to get a littlebit more structured training and
the same training courses Iteach at Cal state Fullerton and
UC San Diego, you can get a lotthat same content At courses
(47:31):
that wait a minute, if you justwant to learn a little bit more
about search history and thatmaster class is free.
So please take it and enjoy itas questions.
And hopefully we can help yougrow your business.
Kyle Hamer (47:43):
Great stuff, Steve, thanks so much for being on the
show.
We've, we've just, it's been adelight having you here today,
Steven Wiideman (47:50):
And likewise, it's been fun
Kyle Hamer (47:52):
For those that are still listening and not yet
asleep, make sure you likesubscribe and follow.
You've been listening to thesummit podcast with Kyle Amer
I'm your host and never stoplearning, never stop growing,
never stop striving to beyourself, make 20, 21 and also
mirror
Speaker 5 (48:13):
[Inaudible].
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