October 22, 2024 • 37 mins
In this episode of The Wayfinder Show, Luis Hernandez interviews Brandon Leibowitz, owner of SEO Optimizers, to delve into essential SEO strategies for enhancing online visibility. They discuss the diminishing role of organic reach on social media and emphasize the significance of SEO for free Google traffic. Key topics include optimizing website content, building valuable backlinks, and the importance of keyword research. The conversation touches on the evolving trends in digital marketing, the impact of AI on search results, and the importance of adapting to platform-specific strategies for social media. Additional insights cover using tools like Google Analytics and Google Merchant Center, harnessing AI for content creation, and the benefits of podcast appearances for SEO. The discussion concludes with advice on seeking mentorship for personal and professional growth and leveraging SEO to stay competitive in niche markets.
Contact Brandon - https://seooptimizers.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you have a hundred follow orlikes on Facebook and you post
on Facebook, only five out ofthose a hundred people will ever
see what you post organically.
Now you're having to click thatlittle blue button and boost it
up.
Social media is more pay toplay.
So in terms of organicoptimizations, it unfortunately
isn't even worth the time.
It's not really worth spendingmoney and investing a lot of
(00:21):
time on there because reach isjust so low and they just keep
dropping it down.
Welcome to The Wayfinder Showwith Luis Hernandez, where
guests discuss the why and howof making changes that led them
(00:41):
down a more authentic path orallow them to level up in some
area of their life.
Our goal is to dig deep andprovide not only knowledge, but
actionable advice to help youget from where you are to where
you want to be.
Come join us and find the way toyour dream life.
(01:08):
Welcome back to the way findershow.
My name is Louie Hernandez and Iam your host for today.
I'm very lucky because I have agreat guest here today.
His name is Brandon Liebowitz,Brandon has a company called SEO
Optimizers, and SEO today.
A lot of us who have businesses,we know, that, digital marketing
(01:31):
and such is the way of doingbusiness now and getting our
word out here.
You know, he'll share his wisdomso we can all learn.
And we steal all his secrets andthat way we can all go do it
ourselves and not have to spenda whole bunch of money on him.
All right.
So with that introduction,Brandon, welcome to the
Wayfinder show.
Thank you for having me ontoday.
So hopefully I'll help everyonesave some money and show them
(01:53):
how to get that freeze graphicfrom Google and stop spending
money on ads and show you how todo it yourself.
I'll just talk about all thesteps, all the strategies back
today.
Awesome.
I love it.
Thank you so much.
So before we get into that,Brandon, tell us a little bit
about yourself.
My name is Brandon Lebowitz andI've just kind of fallen into
(02:14):
this SEO world.
Got my degree in businessmarketing.
Back in 2007.
And one of the first jobs I gotout of school was helping a
company out with their digitalmarketing.
I don't really know much aboutit.
They don't really teach you thatin school back in 2007, at least
they didn't teach you that toomuch.
And I told the company that, andthey said, don't worry, we're.
I'm a new to this and we'regoing to learn with you taking
(02:36):
the classes and workshops andseminars.
And after working there for afew months, just realized that
this digital thing is probablythe future.
Everyone's probably going tohave a website and SEO is just a
way to get free traffic.
And I thought, who doesn't wantfree traffic?
And that got me sticking withSEO as working at different
(02:56):
advertising agencies as adirector of SEO.
And before work and after workand on my lunch breaks, I'd work
on my own company and eventuallybuilt that up to where I was
able to quit my job and focussolely on this and really been
doing that ever since.
Congrats for that.
That's that's huge.
So, let, let's start at a reallybasic level.
Like what exactly is SEO?
(03:18):
SEO is search engineoptimization.
That means optimizing websitesfor search engines, which Google
really just runs the show.
And when you search on Google,there's ads at the top.
Those are all paid ads, right?
Below those ads are the organic,the free listings.
There's 10 spots on that firstpage of Google.
And what we want to do is getyour website ranked in one of
(03:40):
those 10 positions.
But nowadays it's not justwebsites that appear, images
appear, maps appear, videosappear.
If you're selling products,those products will appear.
And what we want to do isoptimize all that and hope to
try to take up as much free realestate as possible on that first
page of Google without spendingmoney on ads.
(04:00):
Yeah, so, so what you're saying,so yeah, you always have the ads
up top, right?
A couple up there and then theones below there, are you saying
that those are not paid for?
Those are all something you cando to get, get on there versus
paying to be on that page.
Is that right?
You have to invest your time,time is money, or pay someone
(04:20):
like myself to do it for you.
But essentially you're going tosave a lot of money because if
you're spending money on Googleads to get to the top, you pay
for each click.
A couple cents per click couldbe a couple of dollars per click
could be a hundred dollars forone visitor.
It's quite expensive and youdon't want to be paying for
every single click in the longrun.
(04:43):
You would rather do SEO in theshort run.
You might run run paid ads justto get that needed traction and
build your company up.
But in the long run, you don'twant to have to rely on those
because once you stop spendingmoney, you're You know, before
we dive more into the free, I'mkind of curious, how do
companies determine what toplace on an ad on a value per
(05:03):
click?
Right?
Like what makes one worth acouple cents versus one a couple
hundred dollars.
It really comes down to thelifetime value of a customer and
they try to figure out like outof a in the past I worked at
helped out a insurance agencyfor cars and there each clip was
like 100 for car insurancebecause they knew the lifetime
(05:26):
value of a customer is Tens ofthousands of dollars because if
you sign up our insurance, youhopefully sign up for at least
one year And then you recommendit to your friends and family,
and hopefully you stay on formore than one year.
And they knew that each click isa hundred dollars of every
hundred visitors you get mightget like one or two or three
leads on average.
And they were willing to spendthat money knowing that.
(05:48):
Each lead is costing thousandsof dollars, but the lifetime
value made it worthwhile.
And that's where you just got tolook at how much each click is
going to cost you, how much eachlead or sale, and how much is it
is a value of a customer in thelifetime, because some of them
might buy a product one time offyour website, but they might
need to buy it again in thefuture.
And if you try to really look atthat.
(06:09):
Lifetime value, not just thatone time purchase, because you
could try to cross promote otherproducts.
If you're selling, let's sayyour e commerce website, selling
dog food, you could try to sellthem on dog leashes or something
else after they buy that foodthat's similar.
And just try to get thoseupsells and increase that value
of a customer.
(06:30):
Yeah, that that's brilliant.
You know, I study, these hightech growth companies a lot,
cause I'm fascinated by them.
I've never really been in thetech industry, but that is
something I've realized thatthey think so longterm and so
much about relationships versustransactions, right?
over your lifetime that I thinkthat's what makes them
successful, right?
(06:51):
And you look at like an Amazon,they talk about just getting you
on their ecosystem, right?
So then it's no longer justbuying stuff, but then you're
also looking at them for ads.
TV shows for where to host yourinternet.
I mean, everything, right.
So they really think.
Really relationally and inlongterm like that, which is
(07:12):
pretty cool.
Thanks for clarifying.
I hadn't really put the two ofthem together though.
So with SEO going back to it,what is it that we do to get at
the top of Google, get on thatfirst page?
You know, one of those 10, whatcan we do?
There's a lot that needs to bedone and it's not really a one
size fits all, but there aresome things that every website
should have.
(07:32):
And that would be like text.
Google feeds off text.
The more text you have on everysingle page on your website, the
easier it is for the searchengines to read, understand, and
really know what keywords you'retargeting.
If your website's like an ecommerce website with just a
bunch of product pictures, it'sgoing to be tough to Google.
I mean, Google's getting betterat reading images, but they
(07:54):
can't really read images.
All they could read is a filename.
So whatever you name that filebefore you upload it to your
website is very, very important.
If it's a product, like ifyou're a mechanic and you're
fixing a car, you could name itlike fixing a Toyota Prius dot
JPEG.
Upload that to your website.
Google reads that file name andcan better understand it.
(08:15):
But the more text you havearound all that stuff, the
easier it is for a search engineto read and really know what
your website is all about.
That's pretty much it.
One of the most important thingsthat if everybody does that and
nothing else I talk about, I canalmost guarantee they'll get
more traffic, but Google doesn'treally believe all the stuff
that you put on the website.
So just by putting all that textthere, it's a great starting
(08:38):
point, but Google just looks atit saying, are you really who
you say you are?
Because we don't trust you.
Too many people will put.
Words on their website that havenothing to do with their
business.
And we want you to prove thatyou really are who you say you
are.
And that's done by getting otherwebsites to talk about you.
It's called building backlinks.
And what is a backlink?
A backlink is a clickable linkfrom another website that points
(09:01):
to yours.
Let's say for example, we're ona website like entrepreneur.
com or reading it.
And that article, it saysBrandon Leibovitz and you click
on that and it goes to mywebsite.
I'd be getting a backlink fromentrepreneur.
com and the more backlinks youhave from sites that are related
to what you're doing, the morepopular, the more trust Google
(09:23):
is going to give to you and thehigher they're going to rank
you.
Those two are kind of the moreimportant things is content,
good quality content on yourwebsite with your keywords and
then building trust throughthose backlinks.
Interesting.
Yeah, you know, it's interestingnow with the Wayfinder show, um,
we've been at it for about ayear and a half and I think
(09:43):
we're getting our systems andall that.
We're getting good, great guestsand everything.
Obviously we're getting greatguests.
I always thought when I startedthe podcast that the way to grow
was to, you know, the guests yougot, we're going to, Make it,
you know, if you got somebodyreally big, it was going to make
your podcast, really popular andreally big.
What I learned over time is thatdoesn't make a difference at
(10:04):
all.
Some of my most popular guests,you know, we had a gentleman on
from, another podcast that getsover 60, 000 downloads an
episode and he hardly got anyclicks or mentioned, you know,
but then some random personthat, you know, it was her first
podcast, got like thousands of.
Of visits right away, very earlyon and we're like, wow, it was
(10:24):
amazing.
Because of the backlinks.
When I started talking tocoaches about growing a podcast
and it's the same thing they'resaying, you want to grow your
show, you got to get on otherpodcasts and mention you, or you
got to get other podcasts tomention you, I get on the show
and mention a podcast or theygot to mention me, organically.
And that'll do it.
So I think that creates a socialproof, it definitely builds that
(10:46):
trust up because these podcastwebsite or platforms are kind of
doing the same thing.
They're looking for likekeywords.
So if somebody really popularhas a podcast and then they
mentioned your name in one ofthe titles, they're going to
read that, see that you'rementioned there, it's not really
a backlink, but it's a mentionthe citation of your name on
someone else's podcast.
(11:08):
High performing podcast.
And if it gets a lot ofdownloads, that probably is
going to help that platform.
Like Spotify might say, Oh, wow.
We see that your name wasmentioned on this episode.
It's gone 60, 000 downloads.
Maybe we should look at othercontent that has your name on it
and maybe lift it up a littlebit and push it up.
But definitely the more younetwork with other people,
(11:30):
hopefully they would also giveyou back links.
If you have your own website.
I always do.
Or podcast hosts to make surethey have their own website.
A lot of them post their podcaston Spotify or YouTube or iTunes,
but they don't have their ownwebsite.
And if you want drive trafficand rank higher, having your own
website is great, but puttingevery episode of your podcast on
(11:50):
its own page, on your website,and then sharing it with your
guests, because now if youcreate a page about me and share
it with me, instead of mesharing a YouTube link, I'm
going to share that link to yourwebsite where.
My audio, the videos there,everything's all in one place.
That's going to help you getbacklinks.
And I might share that on socialmedia.
And if I have like my Twitterhas like about 40, 000, 50, 000
(12:12):
followers, I think.
And if I share it on my Twitterand tweet it, you might get some
traffic, get some Twitterfollowers.
So it's just going to help methat snowball effect of it, just
growing and growing and justspreading the word as much as
possible.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Thank you.
So, so it sounds to me likeafter, once we release your
episode, we're, we're going tobe the biggest podcast in the
world is what it sounds like.
(12:32):
I'll give you a backlink, but Iget you more backlinks.
Can I get more backlinks in thecompetition?
One backlink is great.
And my website is a goodbacklink, but the more you have,
the higher you're going to rank.
And if that's one thing I alwaystell podcasters is like, it's
kind of low hanging fruit foryou to get back.
It's not as hard as most peoplebecause most people need a.
(12:54):
Offer something of value, like Iwould usually write for other
people's blogs as a way to getback links.
That takes time, but if you'vealready spent the time recording
an episode of the podcast andyou give it to your guest, that
link, they're probably going toshare it and hopefully give you
that back link, write a blogabout you.
And that's just going to helpyou help both of you rank higher
on Google.
Awesome.
(13:15):
So, Brandon, what about, thecontent that you write on your
website, how can you make sureyou are using the right language
to get yourself, you know,higher up in the rankings as
well, so that Google recognizesyou more?
Is are there certain words youshould be trying to include
depending on your industry?
And if so, how do you find outwhat that is?
You definitely wanna do keywordresearch and not just guess.
(13:38):
There's tools like the GoogleKeyword Planner that will show
you how many people actuallysearch for your keyword every
single month that way you're notjust guessing and thinking this
is the right keyword when theremight be a synonym or a plural
or a singular version or someother word that's completely off
topic but Gets more searchvolume and you don't want to
just guess at it.
(13:58):
So keyword planner from Googleis free and it's from Google.
There's paid tools if you wantto buy a tool, but Google's
giving you a free tool.
And I use that one.
If you want to pay for a tool,popular ones, it'd be like mods
or Ahrefs or SEMrush, those aremore popular paid tools, but
really you don't need to bespending money on those paid
(14:19):
tools with the Google keywordplanner.
Um, And like some of my clientsor one of my clients recently,
they are.
Well, even for myself, like oneof my keywords was SEO classes.
I found out the word SEOtraining actually got double
amount of searches.
I see classes, I think got 2,500 searches.
SEO training got 5, 000searches.
(14:40):
Okay.
I've thought SEO classes wouldget more searches, but now I'm
like, all right, maybe I shouldtarget.
SEO training, or to take it evenone step further, now I'm going
to target SEO training classes.
So I get all three words in onekeyword and Google is able to
pick up on the order and thevariations, but I know SEO
training gets the most searches.
So I put that at the beginningand then classes I'd put at the
(15:01):
end because it gets lesssearches and you really want to
do the keyword research and notjust guess at it because you
might guess right, but then youmight also guess wrong and lose
out on doubling your trafficpotentially just by changing a
couple words.
Yeah.
And, is there any, evidence outthere showing how much more,
traffic goes to a paid ad versusan SEO link?
(15:25):
Google kind of keeps that topsecret, but I'm not sure it was
the exact numbers anymore.
But I know most people try toskip over the ads because they
know it's an ad.
They don't trust it.
They'd rather see the organic,but the ads do get a lot of
accidental clicks, or if it's areally good ad, that's really
targeted, you might click on itas well.
But in general, Organic is moretrusted by people.
(15:48):
So those tend to get moreclicks, but Google is sneaky.
Google only cares about makingmoney and they want you to click
on those ads.
So they try to change them,blend them in more so you do
hopefully click on itaccidentally.
Gotcha.
Okay.
What are, you know, so you saidyou started in 2007 doing this,
that seems like an eternity inthe world of digital marketing
(16:12):
and computers, even, you know,like 2007, I'm not sure how much
I was even, well, Google's, Iknow they were out, but I don't
know how much I was using acomputer compared to today,
right?
So to find things, I think I wasstill probably using the yellow
pages or 411, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So I'm curious to know how thishas all evolved over your
(16:35):
lifetime in this and, and what,where do you see it going?
What are the trends?
I mean, Google's just alwaysbeen trying to provide the best
results and Google's changingall the time because they're
trying to stop spammers becausepeople find loopholes and ways
to gain the system.
And Google says, hold on, wedon't want you to gain the
(16:55):
system and just rank.
We want you to work for the SEOand work for that traffic or
spend money on those paid ads.
But Google really for the mostpart, Hasn't changed too much of
what they're looking for, whichis really good quality content,
good quality backlinks.
But with AI, that's reallyshifted everything where now is
Google going to only be AI inthe search results?
(17:18):
Are they going to mix AI withthe organic or what's going to
happen?
Or are people going to stopusing Google and go to chat GPT,
but you can't really dotransactional?
Product or purchases yet on AIor chat GPD, but we'll have to
see what happens because thereis no constant.
It's just evolving and changingso quickly that let's have to
(17:39):
stay, see what happens and tryto stay up to date with all
those changes and just, but seewhat's going to stick around
because there's a lot ofchanges, and people realize AI
search results are kind of thesame as Google search results.
Not much of a difference becausehow are they making AI versus
organic searches?
They're probably looking at thesame thing, content, keywords on
the website and backlinks toprove that you have trustworthy,
(18:01):
reliable, accurate content, andthose backlinks help that out.
Okay.
What about, Social media.
How does that, I feel like, youknow, I'll, I'll look for
recommendations for things onFacebook, just as much, if not
more than Google.
Now, social media, it doesn'treally help out SEO too much.
(18:26):
Google's kind of can't reallysee what happens on social
media.
Google's blocked from a lot ofsocial media sites, but they can
see is that you have a profile.
So if you have a Facebook andInstagram, a Twitter, LinkedIn,
a YouTube, all that looks great.
Like a natural business shouldhave all those, but in terms of
helping with SEO, it's not goingto help out too much with SEO,
but social media is great as away to get business, get leads,
(18:48):
get your name out there.
You don't have to wait the sixmonths.
Or longer that SEO takes, youcould just pretty much build a
following right away and jump inon there.
So social media is great ifthat's where your audience is.
And it's all about testing andseeing what works and what
doesn't work and test outsocial, test out email, test out
paid ads, test out SEO andwhatever's working, I would
(19:09):
spend more time and push moretime and effort into those
social media will work for a lotof people, but it doesn't work
for everybody.
A dentist isn't the mostentertaining on Facebook or
Instagram.
It kind of works, but it mightnot work for everybody.
That's where you just got toknow who your audience is and
where are they and how can I getin front of them at the right
moments?
Sure.
(19:30):
I guess I was wondering if wecan use the same principles of
SEO In social media, right?
So is the SEO game happening onsocial media as well?
Anywhere where you could search,there's ways to.
Pretty much optimized for it.
So SEO is not just only forGoogle, it could be for Amazon.
(19:51):
You're searching on Amazon orYelp or anywhere where there's
search, Facebook, Instagram, allthose platforms, anywhere where
you search, there's ways to dokeyword research, figure out
what keywords are going to bethe best.
Each platform is going to bedifferent.
What works on Google probablywould work on social media, but
it might be slightly differentbecause the way people search
and use hashtags and things likethat are going to be a little
(20:12):
different.
Even from Google to YouTube,it's gonna be a little different
the way people search andkeywords that people use.
Okay.
Do you do that though?
Do you optimize for thedifferent social medias, like
say, Hey, Brandon, I want you, Ihave such and such a business,
you know, I want to do it onFacebook.
Do you create campaigns on thereas well?
(20:33):
Or do you stick to Google?
It's tough to do organic socialmedia anymore because reach is
so low.
If you have a hundred followerlikes on Facebook and you post
on Facebook, only five out ofthose hundred people will ever
see what you post organicallythat you having to click that
little blue button and boost itup.
Social media is more pay toplay.
(20:54):
So in terms of organicoptimizations, it unfortunately
isn't even worth the time.
It's not really worth spendingmoney and investing a lot of
time on there because reach isjust so low and they just keep
dropping it down on Facebook,Instagram.
It's maybe like 30 percentreach.
So it's not like Facebook, buteventually it's going to just
keep dropping down.
And all social media is kind ofpay to play.
(21:16):
Organic is really tough to donowadays on social media,
unfortunately.
But still you want to puthashtags and research those
keywords.
It's just not worth pushing itlike you would on Google or
something else like that.
Do you think, I mean, clearlythey must be eaten into Google's
social, market though, right?
I mean, I would imagine their,market penetration has gone down
(21:38):
as other social media becomesmore effective, don't you think?
Or am I wrong?
I think people search a lot onTikTok, but who knows?
I mean, I've heard like TikTokgets more searches on Google,
but not really sure if that'strue or not, maybe just general
searches, like dances and thingslike that, but more
transactional, I don't reallysee that happening on social.
(22:01):
It's more like informational ortrends or sports and news and
entertainment and connectingwith friends versus, Hey, I need
a.
Change the locks on my house, orI need a stuff like that, where
you're just going to go onGoogle or Yelp or something like
that.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Okay.
Well, what else, what elseshould our listeners know about
(22:21):
this?
And you know, at what level, ifthey're starting a business of
some sort or have a business or,or, or whatnot, how, what should
they know?
Just be patient with it all.
It takes time.
It's not immediate.
Unfortunately, SEO is a morelong term play where it could
take six months or longer.
(22:42):
Or shorter, but usually it takesabout six months or more
depending on the competition,how competitive those keywords
are and just don't getdiscouraged.
Keep working and building it upand you'll see slowly over time,
your traffic's going toincrease, but it's not going to
have that.
I mean, sometimes you go viralto get that giant spike, but.
In general, you have to build itup and build it up and invest
(23:02):
that time.
And that is where you just haveto be patient and Google really
just doesn't trust anybody.
That's the part that takes time.
Google just looks at yourwebsite and says, Alright, we
see that you put these keywordson your website, but are you
really who you say you are?
Because we don't trust you.
Hundreds, thousands of otherwebsites that are really
legitimate and we trust them, wejust don't trust you.
And building that trust comesthrough those backlinks, which
(23:24):
takes time to build, you know,I'm wondering if there's a way
of like, what is considered agood return on investment for
SEO?
If we're getting a hundredclicks per dollar, is that, is
that considered good?
Like, do you have a basemeasurement to know that you're
successful?
SEO is kind of tough to trackkeywords to revenue, but you
(23:49):
could track traffic.
So Google analytics is a freetool from Google.
I'll show you how much trafficyou're getting.
And they took away about like 15years ago, the keywords that
we're making.
So in the past, you could seelike, Oh, somebody searched on
Google, clicked on this keyword.
This keyword brought me athousand dollars.
Now it just lumps them alltogether.
And you can't really see whatkeywords are working or not
(24:10):
working, but you could see howmany leads, how many phone
calls, how many sales you gotfrom Google organic, from paid
ads, from social media, fromemail, all in Google analytics,
which I would recommendeverybody.
Use a tool to track Googleanalytics is free and it's going
to be a lot better than likeShopify analytics or any other
(24:30):
platforms that are giving youthe free ones, I would use
Google, but it's really tough.
And then also you look at likehow much search volume is for
each keyword.
Like some keywords might not geta bunch of searches, but you
know, that one visitor is goingto bring you a lot of revenue
versus other keywords might gettens of thousands of searches,
but they're all for somethingthat's not going to bring too
(24:51):
big of a spend.
And that's where you just cutup.
Overall look at how much you're,how much time you're investing
in SEO and how much are yougetting out of it?
Okay.
Interesting.
So, how about you, like in yourbusiness, do you, do you have a
special niche that you workwith?
Like what, what type of clientsdo you take on?
Mostly focusing on local and ecommerce.
(25:14):
So if you have a local business,getting you up on Google, but
then also getting you up onMaps, which is a Google business
profile and making sure that yourank higher on Google Maps,
getting your website to rankthere organically and for your e
commerce, then just helping.
You make sure that you rank onGoogle for your website, but
also your products.
And that's through GoogleMerchant Center.
(25:34):
So you create a feed, you submitit to Google, and then Google
will start showing your productsin the search results.
If you've ever searched andyou've seen the products in the
search results, they have imagesthere, they have reviews, they
have prices.
So it's, it really draws youreye in.
If the products are like at themiddle or the bottom of the
page, it's going to draw youreyes in much more than just the
organic, the websites.
(25:55):
You really want to take up asmuch free real estate as
possible on that first page ofGoogle and try to optimize for
everything.
But in terms of any specificniches or industries, I work
with pretty much everything oralmost everything, as long as
it's not just you're selling tshirts, because then it's going
to be hyper competitive How areyou going to compete against
Amazon and Target and Walmart?
So finding something niche thathelps differentiate yourself.
(26:18):
And then I can really help movethe needle and get you ranked
higher.
So like a local plumber, rooferor something like that would
probably be the kind of clientyou're working with.
Yep.
For the local could be adentist, a lawyer, mechanic,
restaurant, any localbusinesses, our move a little
bit faster because you're notdealing with national
(26:40):
competition versus someoneselling widgets across the
country, hyper competitive, andit's gonna take a lot more time
to build you up.
Yeah, understood.
I think I got a good idea and wegot some good advice.
I think I also realized thatit's probably more than I want
to do myself.
So I think I'd hire you to comeand do it.
So it's a lot of work, but Imean, people could do the
(27:04):
content.
So like writing more content onyour website.
Yeah, that's something thateveryone could just start right
away building backlinks thattakes a lot of time and effort
getting backlinks, but that'salso very important, even if you
got like one or two backlinks amonth, that's still a huge win,
so I don't think that you haveto build hundreds or thousands
of these backlinks really needto build more than your
(27:25):
competition.
And most websites usually havearound, I'd say like maybe a
hundred backlinks, give or take.
So that's where you just have toslowly build it up over time.
And just work on it.
Don't get discouraged.
It is a long term play, but.
SEO is like a puzzle and you gotto put all those pieces
together.
And if you just do one thing,but you're not putting all the
(27:46):
pieces together, it's not goingto fully work.
So some pieces are bigger thanothers, like the content and
those backlinks are really,really big pieces of that puzzle
that they're not being done.
It's going to be really, reallytough to rank on Google.
So I'd recommend to everyonelater on, if they have time
working on adding more texts totheir homepage, all their
product pages, service pages.
And if you have a lot of pageson your website, just try to do
(28:08):
one a week or one every coupleof days.
And just once it's done, youdon't really have to do it ever
again.
It's just get it done, check offthe bucket list, and then move
on to the next thing that youhave to do.
Yeah, is that true?
Like never having to do itagain?
I feel like technology changesso quickly like, you know with
computers the way they do theiralgorithms and I have a I'm a
(28:30):
real estate broker and I used toadvertise a lot on Facebook for
houses and then Facebook wouldgo and change it the way they do
it Like every few months and Ijust couldn't keep up.
Right.
And so, which is one of the bigreasons why I see value in what
you do.
Keeping up is, is have tobattle, but wouldn't you agree
that it would, it's not a set ofthem, forget it kind of thing.
(28:51):
You do have to go back andadjust at time.
Yep.
So I was talking more about likeputting keywords on your
website, but the back links is apart that you know, that you're
always going to be building morebacklinks, but add more text to
your website.
Don't really need to do it thatoften.
Like if you're a plumber andyou're doing like toilet repairs
or leaky toilet, you write thatpage about how you've helped
(29:13):
with leaky toilets, and youdon't really need to change that
too much unless things change.
Like I started doing digitalmarketing in 2007.
It was called internetmarketing.
I put that keyword everywhere onmy website.
Now it's called digitalmarketing.
And that's where I have to go inand update that.
Generally, you're not going tohave that like too often, maybe
is it like if you're a dentist,people are going to be searching
(29:35):
for like teeth cleaning orcavities or root canals.
So keywords don't really changetoo much, but every once in a
while, things change.
That's where you have to go inand update those.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's a great example too.
All right.
Well, Brandon, thanks again forall this information.
At this point, I'd like toSwitch gears and go over to our
(29:56):
world famous Wayfinder 4.
You ready for it?
Sounds good.
All right.
So give us a hack that you use.
Just something you use every dayto just kind of cheat life with.
I mean, now I would say AI issomething that I've used a
little bit more, chat GPT,because with SEO, a lot of it is
(30:20):
content creation and almost allthe writers I use Had been using
AI and charging me full price.
So I'm like, why am I payingthese writers when I should play
around with it.
But AI does help out with a lotof other stuff, like coming up
with topics for blog posts orgiving you ideas.
Like if you're going on avacation and traveling around
somewhere, you could say, giveme a seven day itinerary to
(30:42):
Greece and I'll tell you what todo for breakfast, lunch, dinner,
we'll give you recommendationsand pretty good at a lot of
stuff.
So that one is.
Pretty fun.
And I tell people play aroundwith it and it's kind of
interesting to see.
Chad, GPT, you preferred a AI.
Yeah, pretty much for nowbecause it just seems like it's
(31:02):
better one or the gives out thebest better results, but still
not perfect and still got totake everything with a grain of
salt because it's not a hundredpercent accurate.
Okay.
How about a favorite?
This could be a book, movie,show, a hobby activity.
Yeah.
I like going down to the beach.
(31:22):
I live in Los Angeles or inVenice Beach, so the beach is
not that far from me and try togo down there and get that work
life balance and really justescape from the computer because
I am on the computer a lot doingwhat I do and it's nice to get
away, let your eyes rest for awhile.
The beach is a nice spot to be.
How about a piece of advice foryou, younger self?
(31:43):
I'd say getting a mentor, maybesomething I had and still have
mentors, but getting one soonerthan later, because they could
kind of pretty much guide youalong and tell you what works,
what doesn't work.
And you could learn from theirmistakes and hopefully avoid
them and just help youaccelerate and grow much faster.
(32:05):
I love that.
That's the first time I've heardsomebody say that, but that's
such a good one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mentors are invaluable.
If you don't know where to finda mentor, I teach classes at the
Small Business Association andthey're partnered with SCORE.
So if you go to SCORE.
org, they'll match you up with amentor anywhere in the country
or world, especially nowadayswith Zoom and everything.
(32:26):
So if you can't find a mentorand like, I don't know where to
go, where to find one, SCORE.
org.
Is a great resource that willlink you up with someone in
person or online or virtual.
And you could find people thathave done that or that work in
the industry, similar to you,and they're just retired and
willing to share their knowledgeand help you learn from them.
That is an excellent resource.
(32:48):
Thank you for sharing.
I forgot about score.
I, I had a score mentor in myearly twenties.
Ended up being a big impact inmy life and yeah, that's great.
How about a big opportunity?
I am working on finishing abook.
Well, finish the book.
Just working on publishing itand editing it and just working
(33:12):
on that.
So that is my big opportunitythat will hopefully be done in
the next month or so.
It's all about how to be a gueston other people's podcasts and
the value of it.
And because I'm being a guest onother people's podcasts to get
my name out there, get exposurevisibility, but also for SEO
purposes to get backlinks, themore websites I'm published on.
(33:35):
The higher I'm going to rank onGoogle and being a guest on
other people's podcasts usuallyresults in them giving me a
backlink to my website.
And that helps my website rankhigher and me get more traffic
pretty much indefinitely, butpodcasts are great to get your
name out there and get exposureon other audiences, other
platforms.
But the backlinks are really themain thing that I'm doing it
(33:57):
for.
So that I break that down inthat book and hopefully we'll
have that out there very soonfor everybody.
I love that.
Yeah.
And that'll be something I'llprobably read.
Cause I'm just starting to tryand become a guest on another
podcast for the same reasonsyou're saying to grow
essentially, to create backlinksfor the Wayfinder show.
And I'm finding it to be veryeffective because we are growing
(34:19):
now.
For the first time I'm seeing,you know, the numbers go up like
all the time.
It's kind of fun to look at thescorecard, you know, there, how
many downloads and visits andall that per week.
But yeah, So that's pretty neat.
So I look forward to that bookfor sure.
Oh, Brandon, if people don'twant to do it themselves and
they realize like I do that thiscan be pretty overwhelming.
(34:42):
We really need an SEO expert tohelp us with our businesses.
How can you go about doing that?
I created a special gift foreverybody.
If you go to my website at SEOoptimizers.
com that's S E O O P T I M I Z ER S.
com forward slash gift.
(35:02):
They can find that gift there.
Along with my contactinformation and a bunch of
classes I've done over theyears, I've done it for free so
they can see step by step how todo the last step that we talked
about and want a free websiteanalysis.
I'm happy to check out theirwebsite from an SEO point of
view, and they could book sometime on my calendar there for
free as well.
(35:22):
Amazing.
Thank you so much for that.
It's very generous.
Brandon, this has been a lot offun.
Thank you.
And, and again, forgive me forthe initial sarcasm getting
started and thanks for puttingup with me for that.
it's been great and I hope ourlisteners will, you know, if
you've got a business orsomething out there that you
need SEO work for, I hope yougive Brandon a shout.
(35:43):
Look them up on SEO optimizers.
com.
Thank you, Brandon.
We hope you've enjoyed TheWayfinder Show.
If you got value from thisepisode, please take a few
seconds to leave us a 5 starrating and review.
This will allow us to help morepeople find their way to live
more authentic and excitinglives.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
If you have a hundred follow orlikes on Facebook and you post
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Social media is more pay toplay.
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It's not really worth spendingmoney and investing a lot of
(00:21):
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Welcome to The Wayfinder Showwith Luis Hernandez, where
guests discuss the why and howof making changes that led them
(00:41):
down a more authentic path orallow them to level up in some
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Come join us and find the way toyour dream life.
(01:08):
Welcome back to the way findershow.
My name is Louie Hernandez and Iam your host for today.
I'm very lucky because I have agreat guest here today.
His name is Brandon Liebowitz,Brandon has a company called SEO
Optimizers, and SEO today.
A lot of us who have businesses,we know, that, digital marketing
(01:31):
and such is the way of doingbusiness now and getting our
word out here.
You know, he'll share his wisdomso we can all learn.
And we steal all his secrets andthat way we can all go do it
ourselves and not have to spenda whole bunch of money on him.
All right.
So with that introduction,Brandon, welcome to the
Wayfinder show.
Thank you for having me ontoday.
So hopefully I'll help everyonesave some money and show them
(01:53):
how to get that freeze graphicfrom Google and stop spending
money on ads and show you how todo it yourself.
I'll just talk about all thesteps, all the strategies back
today.
Awesome.
I love it.
Thank you so much.
So before we get into that,Brandon, tell us a little bit
about yourself.
My name is Brandon Lebowitz andI've just kind of fallen into
(02:14):
this SEO world.
Got my degree in businessmarketing.
Back in 2007.
And one of the first jobs I gotout of school was helping a
company out with their digitalmarketing.
I don't really know much aboutit.
They don't really teach you thatin school back in 2007, at least
they didn't teach you that toomuch.
And I told the company that, andthey said, don't worry, we're.
I'm a new to this and we'regoing to learn with you taking
(02:36):
the classes and workshops andseminars.
And after working there for afew months, just realized that
this digital thing is probablythe future.
Everyone's probably going tohave a website and SEO is just a
way to get free traffic.
And I thought, who doesn't wantfree traffic?
And that got me sticking withSEO as working at different
(02:56):
advertising agencies as adirector of SEO.
And before work and after workand on my lunch breaks, I'd work
on my own company and eventuallybuilt that up to where I was
able to quit my job and focussolely on this and really been
doing that ever since.
Congrats for that.
That's that's huge.
So, let, let's start at a reallybasic level.
Like what exactly is SEO?
(03:18):
SEO is search engineoptimization.
That means optimizing websitesfor search engines, which Google
really just runs the show.
And when you search on Google,there's ads at the top.
Those are all paid ads, right?
Below those ads are the organic,the free listings.
There's 10 spots on that firstpage of Google.
And what we want to do is getyour website ranked in one of
(03:40):
those 10 positions.
But nowadays it's not justwebsites that appear, images
appear, maps appear, videosappear.
If you're selling products,those products will appear.
And what we want to do isoptimize all that and hope to
try to take up as much free realestate as possible on that first
page of Google without spendingmoney on ads.
(04:00):
Yeah, so, so what you're saying,so yeah, you always have the ads
up top, right?
A couple up there and then theones below there, are you saying
that those are not paid for?
Those are all something you cando to get, get on there versus
paying to be on that page.
Is that right?
You have to invest your time,time is money, or pay someone
(04:20):
like myself to do it for you.
But essentially you're going tosave a lot of money because if
you're spending money on Googleads to get to the top, you pay
for each click.
A couple cents per click couldbe a couple of dollars per click
could be a hundred dollars forone visitor.
It's quite expensive and youdon't want to be paying for
every single click in the longrun.
(04:43):
You would rather do SEO in theshort run.
You might run run paid ads justto get that needed traction and
build your company up.
But in the long run, you don'twant to have to rely on those
because once you stop spendingmoney, you're You know, before
we dive more into the free, I'mkind of curious, how do
companies determine what toplace on an ad on a value per
(05:03):
click?
Right?
Like what makes one worth acouple cents versus one a couple
hundred dollars.
It really comes down to thelifetime value of a customer and
they try to figure out like outof a in the past I worked at
helped out a insurance agencyfor cars and there each clip was
like 100 for car insurancebecause they knew the lifetime
(05:26):
value of a customer is Tens ofthousands of dollars because if
you sign up our insurance, youhopefully sign up for at least
one year And then you recommendit to your friends and family,
and hopefully you stay on formore than one year.
And they knew that each click isa hundred dollars of every
hundred visitors you get mightget like one or two or three
leads on average.
And they were willing to spendthat money knowing that.
(05:48):
Each lead is costing thousandsof dollars, but the lifetime
value made it worthwhile.
And that's where you just got tolook at how much each click is
going to cost you, how much eachlead or sale, and how much is it
is a value of a customer in thelifetime, because some of them
might buy a product one time offyour website, but they might
need to buy it again in thefuture.
And if you try to really look atthat.
(06:09):
Lifetime value, not just thatone time purchase, because you
could try to cross promote otherproducts.
If you're selling, let's sayyour e commerce website, selling
dog food, you could try to sellthem on dog leashes or something
else after they buy that foodthat's similar.
And just try to get thoseupsells and increase that value
of a customer.
(06:30):
Yeah, that that's brilliant.
You know, I study, these hightech growth companies a lot,
cause I'm fascinated by them.
I've never really been in thetech industry, but that is
something I've realized thatthey think so longterm and so
much about relationships versustransactions, right?
over your lifetime that I thinkthat's what makes them
successful, right?
(06:51):
And you look at like an Amazon,they talk about just getting you
on their ecosystem, right?
So then it's no longer justbuying stuff, but then you're
also looking at them for ads.
TV shows for where to host yourinternet.
I mean, everything, right.
So they really think.
Really relationally and inlongterm like that, which is
(07:12):
pretty cool.
Thanks for clarifying.
I hadn't really put the two ofthem together though.
So with SEO going back to it,what is it that we do to get at
the top of Google, get on thatfirst page?
You know, one of those 10, whatcan we do?
There's a lot that needs to bedone and it's not really a one
size fits all, but there aresome things that every website
should have.
(07:32):
And that would be like text.
Google feeds off text.
The more text you have on everysingle page on your website, the
easier it is for the searchengines to read, understand, and
really know what keywords you'retargeting.
If your website's like an ecommerce website with just a
bunch of product pictures, it'sgoing to be tough to Google.
I mean, Google's getting betterat reading images, but they
(07:54):
can't really read images.
All they could read is a filename.
So whatever you name that filebefore you upload it to your
website is very, very important.
If it's a product, like ifyou're a mechanic and you're
fixing a car, you could name itlike fixing a Toyota Prius dot
JPEG.
Upload that to your website.
Google reads that file name andcan better understand it.
(08:15):
But the more text you havearound all that stuff, the
easier it is for a search engineto read and really know what
your website is all about.
That's pretty much it.
One of the most important thingsthat if everybody does that and
nothing else I talk about, I canalmost guarantee they'll get
more traffic, but Google doesn'treally believe all the stuff
that you put on the website.
So just by putting all that textthere, it's a great starting
(08:38):
point, but Google just looks atit saying, are you really who
you say you are?
Because we don't trust you.
Too many people will put.
Words on their website that havenothing to do with their
business.
And we want you to prove thatyou really are who you say you
are.
And that's done by getting otherwebsites to talk about you.
It's called building backlinks.
And what is a backlink?
A backlink is a clickable linkfrom another website that points
(09:01):
to yours.
Let's say for example, we're ona website like entrepreneur.
com or reading it.
And that article, it saysBrandon Leibovitz and you click
on that and it goes to mywebsite.
I'd be getting a backlink fromentrepreneur.
com and the more backlinks youhave from sites that are related
to what you're doing, the morepopular, the more trust Google
(09:23):
is going to give to you and thehigher they're going to rank
you.
Those two are kind of the moreimportant things is content,
good quality content on yourwebsite with your keywords and
then building trust throughthose backlinks.
Interesting.
Yeah, you know, it's interestingnow with the Wayfinder show, um,
we've been at it for about ayear and a half and I think
(09:43):
we're getting our systems andall that.
We're getting good, great guestsand everything.
Obviously we're getting greatguests.
I always thought when I startedthe podcast that the way to grow
was to, you know, the guests yougot, we're going to, Make it,
you know, if you got somebodyreally big, it was going to make
your podcast, really popular andreally big.
What I learned over time is thatdoesn't make a difference at
(10:04):
all.
Some of my most popular guests,you know, we had a gentleman on
from, another podcast that getsover 60, 000 downloads an
episode and he hardly got anyclicks or mentioned, you know,
but then some random personthat, you know, it was her first
podcast, got like thousands of.
Of visits right away, very earlyon and we're like, wow, it was
(10:24):
amazing.
Because of the backlinks.
When I started talking tocoaches about growing a podcast
and it's the same thing they'resaying, you want to grow your
show, you got to get on otherpodcasts and mention you, or you
got to get other podcasts tomention you, I get on the show
and mention a podcast or theygot to mention me, organically.
And that'll do it.
So I think that creates a socialproof, it definitely builds that
(10:46):
trust up because these podcastwebsite or platforms are kind of
doing the same thing.
They're looking for likekeywords.
So if somebody really popularhas a podcast and then they
mentioned your name in one ofthe titles, they're going to
read that, see that you'rementioned there, it's not really
a backlink, but it's a mentionthe citation of your name on
someone else's podcast.
(11:08):
High performing podcast.
And if it gets a lot ofdownloads, that probably is
going to help that platform.
Like Spotify might say, Oh, wow.
We see that your name wasmentioned on this episode.
It's gone 60, 000 downloads.
Maybe we should look at othercontent that has your name on it
and maybe lift it up a littlebit and push it up.
But definitely the more younetwork with other people,
(11:30):
hopefully they would also giveyou back links.
If you have your own website.
I always do.
Or podcast hosts to make surethey have their own website.
A lot of them post their podcaston Spotify or YouTube or iTunes,
but they don't have their ownwebsite.
And if you want drive trafficand rank higher, having your own
website is great, but puttingevery episode of your podcast on
(11:50):
its own page, on your website,and then sharing it with your
guests, because now if youcreate a page about me and share
it with me, instead of mesharing a YouTube link, I'm
going to share that link to yourwebsite where.
My audio, the videos there,everything's all in one place.
That's going to help you getbacklinks.
And I might share that on socialmedia.
And if I have like my Twitterhas like about 40, 000, 50, 000
(12:12):
followers, I think.
And if I share it on my Twitterand tweet it, you might get some
traffic, get some Twitterfollowers.
So it's just going to help methat snowball effect of it, just
growing and growing and justspreading the word as much as
possible.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Thank you.
So, so it sounds to me likeafter, once we release your
episode, we're, we're going tobe the biggest podcast in the
world is what it sounds like.
(12:32):
I'll give you a backlink, but Iget you more backlinks.
Can I get more backlinks in thecompetition?
One backlink is great.
And my website is a goodbacklink, but the more you have,
the higher you're going to rank.
And if that's one thing I alwaystell podcasters is like, it's
kind of low hanging fruit foryou to get back.
It's not as hard as most peoplebecause most people need a.
(12:54):
Offer something of value, like Iwould usually write for other
people's blogs as a way to getback links.
That takes time, but if you'vealready spent the time recording
an episode of the podcast andyou give it to your guest, that
link, they're probably going toshare it and hopefully give you
that back link, write a blogabout you.
And that's just going to helpyou help both of you rank higher
on Google.
Awesome.
(13:15):
So, Brandon, what about, thecontent that you write on your
website, how can you make sureyou are using the right language
to get yourself, you know,higher up in the rankings as
well, so that Google recognizesyou more?
Is are there certain words youshould be trying to include
depending on your industry?
And if so, how do you find outwhat that is?
You definitely wanna do keywordresearch and not just guess.
(13:38):
There's tools like the GoogleKeyword Planner that will show
you how many people actuallysearch for your keyword every
single month that way you're notjust guessing and thinking this
is the right keyword when theremight be a synonym or a plural
or a singular version or someother word that's completely off
topic but Gets more searchvolume and you don't want to
just guess at it.
(13:58):
So keyword planner from Googleis free and it's from Google.
There's paid tools if you wantto buy a tool, but Google's
giving you a free tool.
And I use that one.
If you want to pay for a tool,popular ones, it'd be like mods
or Ahrefs or SEMrush, those aremore popular paid tools, but
really you don't need to bespending money on those paid
(14:19):
tools with the Google keywordplanner.
Um, And like some of my clientsor one of my clients recently,
they are.
Well, even for myself, like oneof my keywords was SEO classes.
I found out the word SEOtraining actually got double
amount of searches.
I see classes, I think got 2,500 searches.
SEO training got 5, 000searches.
(14:40):
Okay.
I've thought SEO classes wouldget more searches, but now I'm
like, all right, maybe I shouldtarget.
SEO training, or to take it evenone step further, now I'm going
to target SEO training classes.
So I get all three words in onekeyword and Google is able to
pick up on the order and thevariations, but I know SEO
training gets the most searches.
So I put that at the beginningand then classes I'd put at the
(15:01):
end because it gets lesssearches and you really want to
do the keyword research and notjust guess at it because you
might guess right, but then youmight also guess wrong and lose
out on doubling your trafficpotentially just by changing a
couple words.
Yeah.
And, is there any, evidence outthere showing how much more,
traffic goes to a paid ad versusan SEO link?
(15:25):
Google kind of keeps that topsecret, but I'm not sure it was
the exact numbers anymore.
But I know most people try toskip over the ads because they
know it's an ad.
They don't trust it.
They'd rather see the organic,but the ads do get a lot of
accidental clicks, or if it's areally good ad, that's really
targeted, you might click on itas well.
But in general, Organic is moretrusted by people.
(15:48):
So those tend to get moreclicks, but Google is sneaky.
Google only cares about makingmoney and they want you to click
on those ads.
So they try to change them,blend them in more so you do
hopefully click on itaccidentally.
Gotcha.
Okay.
What are, you know, so you saidyou started in 2007 doing this,
that seems like an eternity inthe world of digital marketing
(16:12):
and computers, even, you know,like 2007, I'm not sure how much
I was even, well, Google's, Iknow they were out, but I don't
know how much I was using acomputer compared to today,
right?
So to find things, I think I wasstill probably using the yellow
pages or 411, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So I'm curious to know how thishas all evolved over your
(16:35):
lifetime in this and, and what,where do you see it going?
What are the trends?
I mean, Google's just alwaysbeen trying to provide the best
results and Google's changingall the time because they're
trying to stop spammers becausepeople find loopholes and ways
to gain the system.
And Google says, hold on, wedon't want you to gain the
(16:55):
system and just rank.
We want you to work for the SEOand work for that traffic or
spend money on those paid ads.
But Google really for the mostpart, Hasn't changed too much of
what they're looking for, whichis really good quality content,
good quality backlinks.
But with AI, that's reallyshifted everything where now is
Google going to only be AI inthe search results?
(17:18):
Are they going to mix AI withthe organic or what's going to
happen?
Or are people going to stopusing Google and go to chat GPT,
but you can't really dotransactional?
Product or purchases yet on AIor chat GPD, but we'll have to
see what happens because thereis no constant.
It's just evolving and changingso quickly that let's have to
(17:39):
stay, see what happens and tryto stay up to date with all
those changes and just, but seewhat's going to stick around
because there's a lot ofchanges, and people realize AI
search results are kind of thesame as Google search results.
Not much of a difference becausehow are they making AI versus
organic searches?
They're probably looking at thesame thing, content, keywords on
the website and backlinks toprove that you have trustworthy,
(18:01):
reliable, accurate content, andthose backlinks help that out.
Okay.
What about, Social media.
How does that, I feel like, youknow, I'll, I'll look for
recommendations for things onFacebook, just as much, if not
more than Google.
Now, social media, it doesn'treally help out SEO too much.
(18:26):
Google's kind of can't reallysee what happens on social
media.
Google's blocked from a lot ofsocial media sites, but they can
see is that you have a profile.
So if you have a Facebook andInstagram, a Twitter, LinkedIn,
a YouTube, all that looks great.
Like a natural business shouldhave all those, but in terms of
helping with SEO, it's not goingto help out too much with SEO,
but social media is great as away to get business, get leads,
(18:48):
get your name out there.
You don't have to wait the sixmonths.
Or longer that SEO takes, youcould just pretty much build a
following right away and jump inon there.
So social media is great ifthat's where your audience is.
And it's all about testing andseeing what works and what
doesn't work and test outsocial, test out email, test out
paid ads, test out SEO andwhatever's working, I would
(19:09):
spend more time and push moretime and effort into those
social media will work for a lotof people, but it doesn't work
for everybody.
A dentist isn't the mostentertaining on Facebook or
Instagram.
It kind of works, but it mightnot work for everybody.
That's where you just got toknow who your audience is and
where are they and how can I getin front of them at the right
moments?
Sure.
(19:30):
I guess I was wondering if wecan use the same principles of
SEO In social media, right?
So is the SEO game happening onsocial media as well?
Anywhere where you could search,there's ways to.
Pretty much optimized for it.
So SEO is not just only forGoogle, it could be for Amazon.
(19:51):
You're searching on Amazon orYelp or anywhere where there's
search, Facebook, Instagram, allthose platforms, anywhere where
you search, there's ways to dokeyword research, figure out
what keywords are going to bethe best.
Each platform is going to bedifferent.
What works on Google probablywould work on social media, but
it might be slightly differentbecause the way people search
and use hashtags and things likethat are going to be a little
(20:12):
different.
Even from Google to YouTube,it's gonna be a little different
the way people search andkeywords that people use.
Okay.
Do you do that though?
Do you optimize for thedifferent social medias, like
say, Hey, Brandon, I want you, Ihave such and such a business,
you know, I want to do it onFacebook.
Do you create campaigns on thereas well?
(20:33):
Or do you stick to Google?
It's tough to do organic socialmedia anymore because reach is
so low.
If you have a hundred followerlikes on Facebook and you post
on Facebook, only five out ofthose hundred people will ever
see what you post organicallythat you having to click that
little blue button and boost itup.
Social media is more pay toplay.
(20:54):
So in terms of organicoptimizations, it unfortunately
isn't even worth the time.
It's not really worth spendingmoney and investing a lot of
time on there because reach isjust so low and they just keep
dropping it down on Facebook,Instagram.
It's maybe like 30 percentreach.
So it's not like Facebook, buteventually it's going to just
keep dropping down.
And all social media is kind ofpay to play.
(21:16):
Organic is really tough to donowadays on social media,
unfortunately.
But still you want to puthashtags and research those
keywords.
It's just not worth pushing itlike you would on Google or
something else like that.
Do you think, I mean, clearlythey must be eaten into Google's
social, market though, right?
I mean, I would imagine their,market penetration has gone down
(21:38):
as other social media becomesmore effective, don't you think?
Or am I wrong?
I think people search a lot onTikTok, but who knows?
I mean, I've heard like TikTokgets more searches on Google,
but not really sure if that'strue or not, maybe just general
searches, like dances and thingslike that, but more
transactional, I don't reallysee that happening on social.
(22:01):
It's more like informational ortrends or sports and news and
entertainment and connectingwith friends versus, Hey, I need
a.
Change the locks on my house, orI need a stuff like that, where
you're just going to go onGoogle or Yelp or something like
that.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Okay.
Well, what else, what elseshould our listeners know about
(22:21):
this?
And you know, at what level, ifthey're starting a business of
some sort or have a business or,or, or whatnot, how, what should
they know?
Just be patient with it all.
It takes time.
It's not immediate.
Unfortunately, SEO is a morelong term play where it could
take six months or longer.
(22:42):
Or shorter, but usually it takesabout six months or more
depending on the competition,how competitive those keywords
are and just don't getdiscouraged.
Keep working and building it upand you'll see slowly over time,
your traffic's going toincrease, but it's not going to
have that.
I mean, sometimes you go viralto get that giant spike, but.
In general, you have to build itup and build it up and invest
(23:02):
that time.
And that is where you just haveto be patient and Google really
just doesn't trust anybody.
That's the part that takes time.
Google just looks at yourwebsite and says, Alright, we
see that you put these keywordson your website, but are you
really who you say you are?
Because we don't trust you.
Hundreds, thousands of otherwebsites that are really
legitimate and we trust them, wejust don't trust you.
And building that trust comesthrough those backlinks, which
(23:24):
takes time to build, you know,I'm wondering if there's a way
of like, what is considered agood return on investment for
SEO?
If we're getting a hundredclicks per dollar, is that, is
that considered good?
Like, do you have a basemeasurement to know that you're
successful?
SEO is kind of tough to trackkeywords to revenue, but you
(23:49):
could track traffic.
So Google analytics is a freetool from Google.
I'll show you how much trafficyou're getting.
And they took away about like 15years ago, the keywords that
we're making.
So in the past, you could seelike, Oh, somebody searched on
Google, clicked on this keyword.
This keyword brought me athousand dollars.
Now it just lumps them alltogether.
And you can't really see whatkeywords are working or not
(24:10):
working, but you could see howmany leads, how many phone
calls, how many sales you gotfrom Google organic, from paid
ads, from social media, fromemail, all in Google analytics,
which I would recommendeverybody.
Use a tool to track Googleanalytics is free and it's going
to be a lot better than likeShopify analytics or any other
(24:30):
platforms that are giving youthe free ones, I would use
Google, but it's really tough.
And then also you look at likehow much search volume is for
each keyword.
Like some keywords might not geta bunch of searches, but you
know, that one visitor is goingto bring you a lot of revenue
versus other keywords might gettens of thousands of searches,
but they're all for somethingthat's not going to bring too
(24:51):
big of a spend.
And that's where you just cutup.
Overall look at how much you're,how much time you're investing
in SEO and how much are yougetting out of it?
Okay.
Interesting.
So, how about you, like in yourbusiness, do you, do you have a
special niche that you workwith?
Like what, what type of clientsdo you take on?
Mostly focusing on local and ecommerce.
(25:14):
So if you have a local business,getting you up on Google, but
then also getting you up onMaps, which is a Google business
profile and making sure that yourank higher on Google Maps,
getting your website to rankthere organically and for your e
commerce, then just helping.
You make sure that you rank onGoogle for your website, but
also your products.
And that's through GoogleMerchant Center.
(25:34):
So you create a feed, you submitit to Google, and then Google
will start showing your productsin the search results.
If you've ever searched andyou've seen the products in the
search results, they have imagesthere, they have reviews, they
have prices.
So it's, it really draws youreye in.
If the products are like at themiddle or the bottom of the
page, it's going to draw youreyes in much more than just the
organic, the websites.
(25:55):
You really want to take up asmuch free real estate as
possible on that first page ofGoogle and try to optimize for
everything.
But in terms of any specificniches or industries, I work
with pretty much everything oralmost everything, as long as
it's not just you're selling tshirts, because then it's going
to be hyper competitive How areyou going to compete against
Amazon and Target and Walmart?
So finding something niche thathelps differentiate yourself.
(26:18):
And then I can really help movethe needle and get you ranked
higher.
So like a local plumber, rooferor something like that would
probably be the kind of clientyou're working with.
Yep.
For the local could be adentist, a lawyer, mechanic,
restaurant, any localbusinesses, our move a little
bit faster because you're notdealing with national
(26:40):
competition versus someoneselling widgets across the
country, hyper competitive, andit's gonna take a lot more time
to build you up.
Yeah, understood.
I think I got a good idea and wegot some good advice.
I think I also realized thatit's probably more than I want
to do myself.
So I think I'd hire you to comeand do it.
So it's a lot of work, but Imean, people could do the
(27:04):
content.
So like writing more content onyour website.
Yeah, that's something thateveryone could just start right
away building backlinks thattakes a lot of time and effort
getting backlinks, but that'salso very important, even if you
got like one or two backlinks amonth, that's still a huge win,
so I don't think that you haveto build hundreds or thousands
of these backlinks really needto build more than your
(27:25):
competition.
And most websites usually havearound, I'd say like maybe a
hundred backlinks, give or take.
So that's where you just have toslowly build it up over time.
And just work on it.
Don't get discouraged.
It is a long term play, but.
SEO is like a puzzle and you gotto put all those pieces
together.
And if you just do one thing,but you're not putting all the
(27:46):
pieces together, it's not goingto fully work.
So some pieces are bigger thanothers, like the content and
those backlinks are really,really big pieces of that puzzle
that they're not being done.
It's going to be really, reallytough to rank on Google.
So I'd recommend to everyonelater on, if they have time
working on adding more texts totheir homepage, all their
product pages, service pages.
And if you have a lot of pageson your website, just try to do
(28:08):
one a week or one every coupleof days.
And just once it's done, youdon't really have to do it ever
again.
It's just get it done, check offthe bucket list, and then move
on to the next thing that youhave to do.
Yeah, is that true?
Like never having to do itagain?
I feel like technology changesso quickly like, you know with
computers the way they do theiralgorithms and I have a I'm a
(28:30):
real estate broker and I used toadvertise a lot on Facebook for
houses and then Facebook wouldgo and change it the way they do
it Like every few months and Ijust couldn't keep up.
Right.
And so, which is one of the bigreasons why I see value in what
you do.
Keeping up is, is have tobattle, but wouldn't you agree
that it would, it's not a set ofthem, forget it kind of thing.
(28:51):
You do have to go back andadjust at time.
Yep.
So I was talking more about likeputting keywords on your
website, but the back links is apart that you know, that you're
always going to be building morebacklinks, but add more text to
your website.
Don't really need to do it thatoften.
Like if you're a plumber andyou're doing like toilet repairs
or leaky toilet, you write thatpage about how you've helped
(29:13):
with leaky toilets, and youdon't really need to change that
too much unless things change.
Like I started doing digitalmarketing in 2007.
It was called internetmarketing.
I put that keyword everywhere onmy website.
Now it's called digitalmarketing.
And that's where I have to go inand update that.
Generally, you're not going tohave that like too often, maybe
is it like if you're a dentist,people are going to be searching
(29:35):
for like teeth cleaning orcavities or root canals.
So keywords don't really changetoo much, but every once in a
while, things change.
That's where you have to go inand update those.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's a great example too.
All right.
Well, Brandon, thanks again forall this information.
At this point, I'd like toSwitch gears and go over to our
(29:56):
world famous Wayfinder 4.
You ready for it?
Sounds good.
All right.
So give us a hack that you use.
Just something you use every dayto just kind of cheat life with.
I mean, now I would say AI issomething that I've used a
little bit more, chat GPT,because with SEO, a lot of it is
(30:20):
content creation and almost allthe writers I use Had been using
AI and charging me full price.
So I'm like, why am I payingthese writers when I should play
around with it.
But AI does help out with a lotof other stuff, like coming up
with topics for blog posts orgiving you ideas.
Like if you're going on avacation and traveling around
somewhere, you could say, giveme a seven day itinerary to
(30:42):
Greece and I'll tell you what todo for breakfast, lunch, dinner,
we'll give you recommendationsand pretty good at a lot of
stuff.
So that one is.
Pretty fun.
And I tell people play aroundwith it and it's kind of
interesting to see.
Chad, GPT, you preferred a AI.
Yeah, pretty much for nowbecause it just seems like it's
(31:02):
better one or the gives out thebest better results, but still
not perfect and still got totake everything with a grain of
salt because it's not a hundredpercent accurate.
Okay.
How about a favorite?
This could be a book, movie,show, a hobby activity.
Yeah.
I like going down to the beach.
(31:22):
I live in Los Angeles or inVenice Beach, so the beach is
not that far from me and try togo down there and get that work
life balance and really justescape from the computer because
I am on the computer a lot doingwhat I do and it's nice to get
away, let your eyes rest for awhile.
The beach is a nice spot to be.
How about a piece of advice foryou, younger self?
(31:43):
I'd say getting a mentor, maybesomething I had and still have
mentors, but getting one soonerthan later, because they could
kind of pretty much guide youalong and tell you what works,
what doesn't work.
And you could learn from theirmistakes and hopefully avoid
them and just help youaccelerate and grow much faster.
(32:05):
I love that.
That's the first time I've heardsomebody say that, but that's
such a good one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mentors are invaluable.
If you don't know where to finda mentor, I teach classes at the
Small Business Association andthey're partnered with SCORE.
So if you go to SCORE.
org, they'll match you up with amentor anywhere in the country
or world, especially nowadayswith Zoom and everything.
(32:26):
So if you can't find a mentorand like, I don't know where to
go, where to find one, SCORE.
org.
Is a great resource that willlink you up with someone in
person or online or virtual.
And you could find people thathave done that or that work in
the industry, similar to you,and they're just retired and
willing to share their knowledgeand help you learn from them.
That is an excellent resource.
(32:48):
Thank you for sharing.
I forgot about score.
I, I had a score mentor in myearly twenties.
Ended up being a big impact inmy life and yeah, that's great.
How about a big opportunity?
I am working on finishing abook.
Well, finish the book.
Just working on publishing itand editing it and just working
(33:12):
on that.
So that is my big opportunitythat will hopefully be done in
the next month or so.
It's all about how to be a gueston other people's podcasts and
the value of it.
And because I'm being a guest onother people's podcasts to get
my name out there, get exposurevisibility, but also for SEO
purposes to get backlinks, themore websites I'm published on.
(33:35):
The higher I'm going to rank onGoogle and being a guest on
other people's podcasts usuallyresults in them giving me a
backlink to my website.
And that helps my website rankhigher and me get more traffic
pretty much indefinitely, butpodcasts are great to get your
name out there and get exposureon other audiences, other
platforms.
But the backlinks are really themain thing that I'm doing it
(33:57):
for.
So that I break that down inthat book and hopefully we'll
have that out there very soonfor everybody.
I love that.
Yeah.
And that'll be something I'llprobably read.
Cause I'm just starting to tryand become a guest on another
podcast for the same reasonsyou're saying to grow
essentially, to create backlinksfor the Wayfinder show.
And I'm finding it to be veryeffective because we are growing
(34:19):
now.
For the first time I'm seeing,you know, the numbers go up like
all the time.
It's kind of fun to look at thescorecard, you know, there, how
many downloads and visits andall that per week.
But yeah, So that's pretty neat.
So I look forward to that bookfor sure.
Oh, Brandon, if people don'twant to do it themselves and
they realize like I do that thiscan be pretty overwhelming.
(34:42):
We really need an SEO expert tohelp us with our businesses.
How can you go about doing that?
I created a special gift foreverybody.
If you go to my website at SEOoptimizers.
com that's S E O O P T I M I Z ER S.
com forward slash gift.
(35:02):
They can find that gift there.
Along with my contactinformation and a bunch of
classes I've done over theyears, I've done it for free so
they can see step by step how todo the last step that we talked
about and want a free websiteanalysis.
I'm happy to check out theirwebsite from an SEO point of
view, and they could book sometime on my calendar there for
free as well.
(35:22):
Amazing.
Thank you so much for that.
It's very generous.
Brandon, this has been a lot offun.
Thank you.
And, and again, forgive me forthe initial sarcasm getting
started and thanks for puttingup with me for that.
it's been great and I hope ourlisteners will, you know, if
you've got a business orsomething out there that you
need SEO work for, I hope yougive Brandon a shout.
(35:43):
Look them up on SEO optimizers.
com.
Thank you, Brandon.
We hope you've enjoyed TheWayfinder Show.
If you got value from thisepisode, please take a few
seconds to leave us a 5 starrating and review.
This will allow us to help morepeople find their way to live
more authentic and excitinglives.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
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