June 12, 2024 • 22 mins
Ever wondered how to drastically increase your online visibility and generate more leads for your home business? This episode promises to transform your understanding of search engine optimization (SEO) with expert insights from Scott Humphries of Right Path Marketing. Scott emphasizes that an effective website is more than just good looks—it's about building robust online brand assets and maintaining consistent, authoritative content across multiple platforms. Drawing a vivid analogy to a librarian meticulously organizing books, Scott illustrates how properly labeled and categorized web pages can help Google efficiently retrieve and rank your content.
We also demystify the concept of structured data schema code and its pivotal role in enhancing search engine visibility. Think of schema code as a detailed user's manual for search engines; it provides them with crucial information about your business to boost your online presence. Scott shares practical tips on generating and refining schema code using accessible tools like ChatGPT and online validators. Additionally, we discuss the significance of Google My Business in contributing to the Google Knowledge Graph and why hiring professionals for complex SEO tasks can be a game-changer. Packed with actionable advice, this episode will equip you with the knowledge needed to master SEO and elevate your home business.
Website: https://therightpathmarketing.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RightPathMA
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therightpathmarketing/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottahumphries/
Be sure to visit BizRadio.US to discover hundreds more engaging conversations, local events and more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hank (00:06):
Welcome to the Home Business Success Show.
Join us as we speak to homebusiness entrepreneurs for tips,
tricks, do's and even don'tsfor running a successful home
business.
Welcome everyone, I'm Hank Eder, also known as Hank the PR Guy,
host of the Home BusinessSuccess Show, and you're
(00:28):
listening to bizradious allentrepreneurs all the time.
Today's show is part of mytwo-part interview with marketer
Scott Humphreys.
Scott owns the Right PathMarketing, a strategic digital
marketing agency located in thegreater Boston area.
The agency assists trade andservice providers in increasing
(00:52):
sales by focusing on effectivemessaging and other strategies.
After observing that companieswho focus their marketing
strategy purely on aesthetics,like logos and design, often
struggle to meet their salesgoals, scott founded the Right
Path Marketing in 2022 and nowsteers brands towards sales
(01:16):
success through amessaging-first strategy in
digital marketing services.
In the first show, we discussedbrand consistency and messaging.
Today, we're talking about thechanging face of search engine
optimization, also known as SEO.
Welcome back to the show, scott.
(01:36):
Thank you, hank.
Great to be with you again.
Always a pleasure.
Hey, these days, everyone andtheir pets have websites, and
I'm not even exaggerating.
I see websites, I see socialmedia pages for people's pets.
Scott (01:50):
My pets don't have one.
Hank (01:52):
Should I get them?
Maybe you should if you want toget with the program.
But basically some of thesesites are just, you know,
digital business cards sittingaround looking pretty and not
doing anything else, and somereally bring in leads that
convert into customers.
What's the difference?
(02:12):
What are some of the tools thatthe more effective ones use for
online visibility?
Scott (02:18):
Oh, how much time do we have?
No, I mean, I don't mean tomake it sound daunting, but the
reality is you simply can't, youknow, build a website, put it
out there and expect it to be amagnet for researchers, right?
So what I can tell you, hank,is a lot has changed in search
just over the last couple ofyears, really more than at any
(02:40):
other time in the history of it,right?
So I'm going to focus on someof the more prominent tools and
think of it this way Searchengines are out there looking
for answers to what the questionthe searcher is looking for,
but they're not just going tosend people to any old place
(03:02):
that has that answer.
They want to verify that thesource of the information brings
expertise, authority andtrustworthiness.
So you need your content tohave those qualities on your
website.
But you need more than that.
(03:22):
And what Google and I talk aboutGoogle a lot, because 90% of
the search traffic at thismoment still goes through Google
they're going to actually tryto verify your company in as
many ways possible.
So that includes what I like tocall, and what's becoming a
(03:44):
common term, is your onlinebrand assets, right?
So your Facebook profile, yourLinkedIn profile your Google
business page, your listing onYelp, your listing in.
I'm mentioning a lot oflocation-specific sources but
platforms, but there's alsotopical and industry specific
(04:06):
platforms, member organizationsthat are relevant for your
industry or on the topics thatyou are covering with your
content.
And the more of those entitiesthat have your information and
then the more they sort of matchup with one another, the
(04:27):
stronger the signal that sendsto the search engines and it
really gets very detailed, likeif you have one logo in one
place and a totally differentone in another.
It's not.
You know, google actually has away to, you know, determine the
likeness of these things.
So the descriptions, the terms,the product names, everything,
(04:52):
the city and town, the exactaddress.
If you change your address, yougot to make sure it changes
everywhere, otherwise you'regoing to confuse people.
So Google doesn't like to beconfused On your website.
You want to think of it as adirectory, right?
So what Google is?
I like to say that it's adocument retrieval system with
(05:14):
x-ray vision, so people tend tothink of it as a website finder.
Really, it is a page finder,okay, and it's going to take a
quick look through the entireInternet, but if you don't have
your pages labeled in a certainway.
You know you think of it aslike this big file folder.
If you don't have like tabsover each section.
(05:35):
If you pull out a document, thedocument doesn't have no clear
sections on it.
It's going to be very hard forsomeone to quickly scan it and
understand what it's all about.
But that's what you want to dowith Google.
So there's a whole bunch ofdifferent things, technical
terms like title tags, headlinetags, h1 tags, as they're
(05:55):
commonly called.
You want to have those on everypage and you don't want to have
duplicates because that's goingto confuse Google, right?
Good God.
Structured data, also known asSchema Co.
It's like a user manual for thesearch engine, right?
It's further help what's yourwebsite all about?
And you say where are youlisted, what organizations are
(06:20):
you a member of?
And it's really puttingtogether this amazing jigsaw
puzzle on your company, and sothe more signals you can send,
the better, but it's one beinglisted in as many reputable
places as possible that areeither social media can be broad
(06:43):
, but industry specific sitesand location-specific
directories are important.
You'll get full credit forthose links and I told you
there's a lot to it.
I'm starting to get off tracktrying to give you the
explanation because I could takeit in a lot of different
directions.
But the key is making it easy.
Like a librarian going througha library putting away books,
(07:04):
you want that document retrieverto have an easier time finding
stuff.
Hank (07:07):
I like what you said about having tabs on top of your
folders.
And if Google is looking forpages and each page has its own
unique name, like folks who arelike us, who are digital
marketing agencies, we havedifferent pages.
We might have a page calleddesign or logo design.
We might have a page calledwebsite design.
(07:27):
So then on those pages, youwould want the content on those
pages to match the headline ofthe page Right, so that when you
look and if you were looking atphysical file folders, that's
what you would find in that filefolder Exactly, and you have
sub headlines and you know likethere'slines and there's
hierarchy on each page too.
Scott (07:46):
So if you're covering sort of a bunch of subtopics,
having like an H2 for asecondary headline and then, if
that further breaks down, an H3for that and really it's
organization, if you're websiteis organized, search engine will
have an easier time crawling it.
Now you bring up a good pointabout tabs right, which I, you
(08:11):
know we use that as an analogyfor title tags.
You don't want toovercomplicate the title tags
for your main pages.
What we see is a lot of likekeyword stuffing and putting
into like a lot of stuff.
That makes it very complicatedfor search engines to determine
what that page is all about.
Most of the time, all you needto tell you have on there,
(08:32):
especially the main pages, theblogs.
You can get a little bit moredetailed on blog pages, but for
main pages, home you know aboutservices, products, have the
brand name you know.
Tell them who you are, tellthem you know what you do, like
your product or service category, maybe a call to action kind of
thing there, but not too manywords.
(08:53):
And then if you're a location,specific type business, a third
part of that is where you do itNorth.
Carolina region and just keepthat simple, because that's
going to help build your brandfootprint.
If you're if you'reover-focused on the keywords,
it's going to come back to backbackfire on you.
Hank (09:14):
You know there's a lot of things that go into algorithms
and you know there's people thatI've run into that claim to
know everything there is to knowabout algorithms, but those
people are usually run screaminginto the night when they tell
me that.
And the people who say I canget you on search, you know on
page one of the search enginesin a week.
I tell them that you know alarmbells go off.
(09:34):
But one thing I hear a lot andyou mentioned it earlier is the
industry-driven links,authoritative links to your site
from related web sources, andif we could touch on that just a
little bit and why that's soimportant.
Scott (09:52):
So an important part of search, as I mentioned, is
backlinks links to your website,because that further validates
your credibility and authorityin an area whether it's a
geographic area or a topicalarea to the search engines.
It's common for people in ourindustry to say we'll help you
(10:12):
find high authority links, andhigh authority means that a lot
of people subscribe to it, a lotof people visit it, and that
helps your authority.
When a high authority link, butif it lacks that relevance to
your offer and to what yourwebsite's all about, you won't
get the credit for that link andit's not going to help you as
(10:37):
much as you can.
So it's an extra layer ofdetail that might be getting
overlooked, especially as searchcontinues to change.
It's evolved so much, but it'sprobably changed more in the
last year, year and a half, thanat any other point in search's
history.
Hank (10:57):
One example I can give to that for our listening audience
is that if you were a digitalrecording studio, you would not
benefit from having a link froma hair salon, that kind of thing
, so it should be related toyour industry.
If you were a digital recordingstudio and you had a link from,
say, a manufacturer of high-endrecording gear, that would be
(11:21):
an authoritative link.
Scott (11:23):
It'd be authoritative and relevant.
That would be an authoritativelink.
It'd be authoritative andrelevant and that's the relevant
part I think is as important asanything.
Right, because you know there'ssomething called black hat
tactics.
That was, you know.
We've seen it used from time totime.
It might help in the short term, but in the long term, google
tends to catch on to it.
(11:44):
But I'd even go further justmake sure your white hat
approach is 100% on point orclose to it.
Right, because it really isabout nowadays making sure all
the information checks out andit doesn't make anything like oh
, that seems like an oddconnection there.
The search engines are just sosmart now that they can see
(12:06):
through that horse hockey.
Hank (12:09):
Right Black hat and white hat practices.
Think of the old cowboy movies,where the bad guy always wore
the black hat and the good guyalways wore the white hat.
Scott (12:18):
Those are in black and white right.
Yeah, yeah, that's where theyget the oh, black and white,
yeah, color, yeah, yeah, black.
And white.
Hank (12:24):
But yeah, they were in black and white, but they had
the black hat and the white hat.
You know, in our prep for thisshow, you mentioned to me that
SEO has become more entity-basedthan keyword-based.
What does that mean for themere mortals like myself even
though I'm in SEO to a largedegree and to our audience, what
(12:44):
does that really mean?
They're entity-based ratherthan keyword-based.
Scott (12:48):
So keywords are more common words, right, cake,
birthday cake.
Right, you know, nut-freebirthday cake near me is
something you might type intothe search.
But that was before AI became abig part of the answer, and so
now the questions that are beingasked are you know, where can I
(13:09):
find a birthday cake made in anut free facility in the XYZ
town region?
And people are having moreconversations now with the
search engine than before.
Ai became a big piece of theQ&A part.
So what has happened is thekeywords part of it have become
(13:34):
less of a factor, and when I sayentities, those are proper,
more proper nouns, right?
So your product name, yourcompany name, your founder's
name and then some of theassociations that you have,
maybe you're tied to a certainindustry organization and you
(13:57):
have a link to it from that site, and so these entities are
starting to piece together areal picture about your company.
It's building what's called theGoogle knowledge graph.
You really need now thatfoundation in place and it's
going to help businessestremendously, I think, because
the little business that mighthave a hard time moving up in a
(14:21):
search ranking, but if theyoffer something very unique and
they have the right listings incertain places and they're on
the right websites and theentities are various places.
It's on the back end of theirwebsite as well.
It's going to draw a reallynice picture for Google to make
sure that that company gets theattention it deserves when
(14:46):
someone search for somethingthat's exactly suited for that
company to service.
Does that make sense, hank?
It does, it does I'm trying toexplain.
Hank (14:57):
But now having these entities on the back end of your
own website, that's sendingtraffic in another direction.
But I guess, if the algorithmssee two-way traffic, then that's
sending traffic in anotherdirection.
But I guess, uh, if thealgorithm see two-way traffic,
then that's a good thing if it'son the back end of your site.
Scott (15:11):
So let me, uh, you're familiar with structured data
schema code, as it's also known.
I know it's like not the team,you walk into a cocktail party
talking about right, but um,it's like a user's manual for
search engines.
Okay, and it's always beenvaluable because it kind of
helps even make that directoryeven more organized.
(15:33):
If you put in, like some ofthese like uh things in there
that says yes, I'm a member ofthe local chamber of commerce,
I'm a member of the digitalrecording artists industry of
America.
We offer, you know this,certain type of service in
recording and it has theseexplanations that's going to
(15:55):
tell the search engines moreabout your company, educate the
knowledge graph further, andthen also, you know if it sees
those entities right right there, and then it sees those
entities in other places whereyour company's of schema code.
That's all housed on your siteand very few websites really
(16:31):
have advanced schema code in it.
That's very detailed andhelping the search engines.
Hank (16:36):
I guess that's the difference between taking care
of some basic SEO on your site,you know, like the H1 tags, the
H2 tags, relevant content, thosekind of things and actually
then hiring a really heavy dutySEO expert to write all the
schema codes and make sureeverything is like you know ship
(16:58):
shape.
Scott (16:58):
I got a secret for you, hank.
I mean heavy duty.
Yeah, it's.
It's a little bit more difficultthan filling in the H1 tags on
a website builder, but you canask ChatGBT to write up the code
.
Then you could put it into yourweb builder in the right place
and if you need help with that,chatgbt can tell you where that
(17:20):
goes.
And then you can run tests onthat code and things like
schemaorg and rich results, acouple of online tools that are
free.
And then it might say, yeah,you got a couple of errors or
issues.
So then you tell chat dbt, yeah, uh, that these issues were
found, so it refines the codefurther.
And then you plug it in, youtest it again, the errors
(17:42):
whittled down, they whittleddown.
You ask chat gbt you know howcan we add more uh, relevant,
advanced uh schema code to it?
It'll help you and before youknow it, you have a really well
written script that you can copyand paste into the back end of
the website.
So, yeah, it's not easy, butyou don't necessarily have to
(18:07):
know coding language thoroughlyto be able to get it right.
Hank (18:13):
Right.
So you just tell ChatGPT thename of your website and say
write a schema code for thiswebsite.
Scott (18:19):
Yeah, and it gives you a start.
So it starts, you know, itgives you a bit of a template.
You got to kind of correct itwith the right terms and things
like that.
So you know, it's stillsomething that I think most
people don't want to touch.
So hiring, you know, someone todo it is a good move, but I
don't think it's quite at thelevel of complication that it
once was.
Hank (18:40):
Right, right.
Well, seo used to almost be abad word to a lot of people.
Whoa SEO?
How do I do that?
I'm not getting involved inthat, but yeah, that being said,
there's other aspects Like youmentioned Google, my Business,
and there are other tools likeYelp and things like that.
They think they play a prettystrong role in that.
(19:02):
What did you call it?
The Google Knowledge graph?
Scott (19:08):
Yeah, the Google knowledge graph, yeah, so those
listings certainly help piecetogether a puzzle right.
And if agencies like mine theyhave agency subscriptions to
tools like Yext or SEMrush thatcan automate getting you listed
in about 70 plus differentplaces.
The Google Business Profile isan extremely useful tool for
(19:31):
businesses that deal in a regionor a geographic area area, and
when you hear people talk aboutI'm going to get you to page one
or at the top of the list inGoogle they're probably
referring to the local stack,which is that section of local
(19:52):
businesses.
When you you know, just belowyou should usually see like a
couple of sponsored ads and thenmaybe one organic search result
, and then you have the stackbox, which I think a lot of
people focus on more, and it is,I don't say, in week one or one
month I don't give a timeframenecessarily but it is achievable
(20:13):
to get in there in a number ofmonths, depending on your
competition, of course, and whatthey're doing.
But it is, you know, instead ofcompeting against everyone in
the world, you're competingagainst people in your region,
so it's a little bit moreachievable.
You get quicker results frombeing higher in the local stack
(20:35):
and getting in the top three isreally the goal that we work to
help our clients with.
Hank (20:43):
Very cool, you know, I think in this short time that
we've had, and, believe it ornot, the time has flown by, but
I think we've gone far for a lotof people in at least taking a
little bit of the mystery out ofSEO.
Whether it's something thatbusinesses should or would want
to tackle themselves is anotherstory and, like so many things,
(21:04):
even for business owners, evenif you feel that maybe you can,
you're still better off puttingit in the hands of a
professional, because then thatleaves you free to do the things
that you do best.
Scott (21:16):
So, yeah, Could I build a shed in my backyard?
Yeah, I probably could, butit'll take me much longer than
someone that does it much moreregularly and understands how
the joints should line up andwhat size nails to use and which
tools to use and all that stuff.
So right, exactly, it's likeit's like today.
Hank (21:34):
I have a guy laying drainage pipe in my driveway.
Can I dig the holes and lay thepipe?
I probably can't Do.
I want to, no way.
Anyway, that being said, howcan our listeners what's the
best way they can get in touchwith you?
Scott (21:49):
Go to therightpathmarketingcom.
That's the, and then rightR-I-G-H-T pathmarketingcom.
We have a contact page and ourtelephone number and
information's there, so check usout.
Hank (22:05):
Very cool.
Thanks for being here with ustoday, scott, and to our
listeners, join us nextWednesday on the Home Business
Success Show right here onbizradious.
Remember, you can achievesuccess, freedom and
independence in your own homebusiness.
I've done it, scott has done it, and you can do it too.
See you again next week.
(22:26):
This is Hank Eder, wishing allof you a fabulous day of home
business success.
Welcome to the Home Business Success Show.
Join us as we speak to homebusiness entrepreneurs for tips,
tricks, do's and even don'tsfor running a successful home
business.
Welcome everyone, I'm Hank Eder, also known as Hank the PR Guy,
host of the Home BusinessSuccess Show, and you're
(00:28):
listening to bizradious allentrepreneurs all the time.
Today's show is part of mytwo-part interview with marketer
Scott Humphreys.
Scott owns the Right PathMarketing, a strategic digital
marketing agency located in thegreater Boston area.
The agency assists trade andservice providers in increasing
(00:52):
sales by focusing on effectivemessaging and other strategies.
After observing that companieswho focus their marketing
strategy purely on aesthetics,like logos and design, often
struggle to meet their salesgoals, scott founded the Right
Path Marketing in 2022 and nowsteers brands towards sales
(01:16):
success through amessaging-first strategy in
digital marketing services.
In the first show, we discussedbrand consistency and messaging.
Today, we're talking about thechanging face of search engine
optimization, also known as SEO.
Welcome back to the show, scott.
(01:36):
Thank you, hank.
Great to be with you again.
Always a pleasure.
Hey, these days, everyone andtheir pets have websites, and
I'm not even exaggerating.
I see websites, I see socialmedia pages for people's pets.
Scott (01:50):
My pets don't have one.
Hank (01:52):
Should I get them?
Maybe you should if you want toget with the program.
But basically some of thesesites are just, you know,
digital business cards sittingaround looking pretty and not
doing anything else, and somereally bring in leads that
convert into customers.
What's the difference?
(02:12):
What are some of the tools thatthe more effective ones use for
online visibility?
Scott (02:18):
Oh, how much time do we have?
No, I mean, I don't mean tomake it sound daunting, but the
reality is you simply can't, youknow, build a website, put it
out there and expect it to be amagnet for researchers, right?
So what I can tell you, hank,is a lot has changed in search
just over the last couple ofyears, really more than at any
(02:40):
other time in the history of it,right?
So I'm going to focus on someof the more prominent tools and
think of it this way Searchengines are out there looking
for answers to what the questionthe searcher is looking for,
but they're not just going tosend people to any old place
(03:02):
that has that answer.
They want to verify that thesource of the information brings
expertise, authority andtrustworthiness.
So you need your content tohave those qualities on your
website.
But you need more than that.
(03:22):
And what Google and I talk aboutGoogle a lot, because 90% of
the search traffic at thismoment still goes through Google
they're going to actually tryto verify your company in as
many ways possible.
So that includes what I like tocall, and what's becoming a
(03:44):
common term, is your onlinebrand assets, right?
So your Facebook profile, yourLinkedIn profile your Google
business page, your listing onYelp, your listing in.
I'm mentioning a lot oflocation-specific sources but
platforms, but there's alsotopical and industry specific
(04:06):
platforms, member organizationsthat are relevant for your
industry or on the topics thatyou are covering with your
content.
And the more of those entitiesthat have your information and
then the more they sort of matchup with one another, the
(04:27):
stronger the signal that sendsto the search engines and it
really gets very detailed, likeif you have one logo in one
place and a totally differentone in another.
It's not.
You know, google actually has away to, you know, determine the
likeness of these things.
So the descriptions, the terms,the product names, everything,
(04:52):
the city and town, the exactaddress.
If you change your address, yougot to make sure it changes
everywhere, otherwise you'regoing to confuse people.
So Google doesn't like to beconfused On your website.
You want to think of it as adirectory, right?
So what Google is?
I like to say that it's adocument retrieval system with
(05:14):
x-ray vision, so people tend tothink of it as a website finder.
Really, it is a page finder,okay, and it's going to take a
quick look through the entireInternet, but if you don't have
your pages labeled in a certainway.
You know you think of it aslike this big file folder.
If you don't have like tabsover each section.
(05:35):
If you pull out a document, thedocument doesn't have no clear
sections on it.
It's going to be very hard forsomeone to quickly scan it and
understand what it's all about.
But that's what you want to dowith Google.
So there's a whole bunch ofdifferent things, technical
terms like title tags, headlinetags, h1 tags, as they're
(05:55):
commonly called.
You want to have those on everypage and you don't want to have
duplicates because that's goingto confuse Google, right?
Good God.
Structured data, also known asSchema Co.
It's like a user manual for thesearch engine, right?
It's further help what's yourwebsite all about?
And you say where are youlisted, what organizations are
(06:20):
you a member of?
And it's really puttingtogether this amazing jigsaw
puzzle on your company, and sothe more signals you can send,
the better, but it's one beinglisted in as many reputable
places as possible that areeither social media can be broad
(06:43):
, but industry specific sitesand location-specific
directories are important.
You'll get full credit forthose links and I told you
there's a lot to it.
I'm starting to get off tracktrying to give you the
explanation because I could takeit in a lot of different
directions.
But the key is making it easy.
Like a librarian going througha library putting away books,
(07:04):
you want that document retrieverto have an easier time finding
stuff.
Hank (07:07):
I like what you said about having tabs on top of your
folders.
And if Google is looking forpages and each page has its own
unique name, like folks who arelike us, who are digital
marketing agencies, we havedifferent pages.
We might have a page calleddesign or logo design.
We might have a page calledwebsite design.
(07:27):
So then on those pages, youwould want the content on those
pages to match the headline ofthe page Right, so that when you
look and if you were looking atphysical file folders, that's
what you would find in that filefolder Exactly, and you have
sub headlines and you know likethere'slines and there's
hierarchy on each page too.
Scott (07:46):
So if you're covering sort of a bunch of subtopics,
having like an H2 for asecondary headline and then, if
that further breaks down, an H3for that and really it's
organization, if you're websiteis organized, search engine will
have an easier time crawling it.
Now you bring up a good pointabout tabs right, which I, you
(08:11):
know we use that as an analogyfor title tags.
You don't want toovercomplicate the title tags
for your main pages.
What we see is a lot of likekeyword stuffing and putting
into like a lot of stuff.
That makes it very complicatedfor search engines to determine
what that page is all about.
Most of the time, all you needto tell you have on there,
(08:32):
especially the main pages, theblogs.
You can get a little bit moredetailed on blog pages, but for
main pages, home you know aboutservices, products, have the
brand name you know.
Tell them who you are, tellthem you know what you do, like
your product or service category, maybe a call to action kind of
thing there, but not too manywords.
(08:53):
And then if you're a location,specific type business, a third
part of that is where you do itNorth.
Carolina region and just keepthat simple, because that's
going to help build your brandfootprint.
If you're if you'reover-focused on the keywords,
it's going to come back to backbackfire on you.
Hank (09:14):
You know there's a lot of things that go into algorithms
and you know there's people thatI've run into that claim to
know everything there is to knowabout algorithms, but those
people are usually run screaminginto the night when they tell
me that.
And the people who say I canget you on search, you know on
page one of the search enginesin a week.
I tell them that you know alarmbells go off.
(09:34):
But one thing I hear a lot andyou mentioned it earlier is the
industry-driven links,authoritative links to your site
from related web sources, andif we could touch on that just a
little bit and why that's soimportant.
Scott (09:52):
So an important part of search, as I mentioned, is
backlinks links to your website,because that further validates
your credibility and authorityin an area whether it's a
geographic area or a topicalarea to the search engines.
It's common for people in ourindustry to say we'll help you
(10:12):
find high authority links, andhigh authority means that a lot
of people subscribe to it, a lotof people visit it, and that
helps your authority.
When a high authority link, butif it lacks that relevance to
your offer and to what yourwebsite's all about, you won't
get the credit for that link andit's not going to help you as
(10:37):
much as you can.
So it's an extra layer ofdetail that might be getting
overlooked, especially as searchcontinues to change.
It's evolved so much, but it'sprobably changed more in the
last year, year and a half, thanat any other point in search's
history.
Hank (10:57):
One example I can give to that for our listening audience
is that if you were a digitalrecording studio, you would not
benefit from having a link froma hair salon, that kind of thing
, so it should be related toyour industry.
If you were a digital recordingstudio and you had a link from,
say, a manufacturer of high-endrecording gear, that would be
(11:21):
an authoritative link.
Scott (11:23):
It'd be authoritative and relevant.
That would be an authoritativelink.
It'd be authoritative andrelevant and that's the relevant
part I think is as important asanything.
Right, because you know there'ssomething called black hat
tactics.
That was, you know.
We've seen it used from time totime.
It might help in the short term, but in the long term, google
tends to catch on to it.
(11:44):
But I'd even go further justmake sure your white hat
approach is 100% on point orclose to it.
Right, because it really isabout nowadays making sure all
the information checks out andit doesn't make anything like oh
, that seems like an oddconnection there.
The search engines are just sosmart now that they can see
(12:06):
through that horse hockey.
Hank (12:09):
Right Black hat and white hat practices.
Think of the old cowboy movies,where the bad guy always wore
the black hat and the good guyalways wore the white hat.
Scott (12:18):
Those are in black and white right.
Yeah, yeah, that's where theyget the oh, black and white,
yeah, color, yeah, yeah, black.
And white.
Hank (12:24):
But yeah, they were in black and white, but they had
the black hat and the white hat.
You know, in our prep for thisshow, you mentioned to me that
SEO has become more entity-basedthan keyword-based.
What does that mean for themere mortals like myself even
though I'm in SEO to a largedegree and to our audience, what
(12:44):
does that really mean?
They're entity-based ratherthan keyword-based.
Scott (12:48):
So keywords are more common words, right, cake,
birthday cake.
Right, you know, nut-freebirthday cake near me is
something you might type intothe search.
But that was before AI became abig part of the answer, and so
now the questions that are beingasked are you know, where can I
(13:09):
find a birthday cake made in anut free facility in the XYZ
town region?
And people are having moreconversations now with the
search engine than before.
Ai became a big piece of theQ&A part.
So what has happened is thekeywords part of it have become
(13:34):
less of a factor, and when I sayentities, those are proper,
more proper nouns, right?
So your product name, yourcompany name, your founder's
name and then some of theassociations that you have,
maybe you're tied to a certainindustry organization and you
(13:57):
have a link to it from that site, and so these entities are
starting to piece together areal picture about your company.
It's building what's called theGoogle knowledge graph.
You really need now thatfoundation in place and it's
going to help businessestremendously, I think, because
the little business that mighthave a hard time moving up in a
(14:21):
search ranking, but if theyoffer something very unique and
they have the right listings incertain places and they're on
the right websites and theentities are various places.
It's on the back end of theirwebsite as well.
It's going to draw a reallynice picture for Google to make
sure that that company gets theattention it deserves when
(14:46):
someone search for somethingthat's exactly suited for that
company to service.
Does that make sense, hank?
It does, it does I'm trying toexplain.
Hank (14:57):
But now having these entities on the back end of your
own website, that's sendingtraffic in another direction.
But I guess, if the algorithmssee two-way traffic, then that's
sending traffic in anotherdirection.
But I guess, uh, if thealgorithm see two-way traffic,
then that's a good thing if it'son the back end of your site.
Scott (15:11):
So let me, uh, you're familiar with structured data
schema code, as it's also known.
I know it's like not the team,you walk into a cocktail party
talking about right, but um,it's like a user's manual for
search engines.
Okay, and it's always beenvaluable because it kind of
helps even make that directoryeven more organized.
(15:33):
If you put in, like some ofthese like uh things in there
that says yes, I'm a member ofthe local chamber of commerce,
I'm a member of the digitalrecording artists industry of
America.
We offer, you know this,certain type of service in
recording and it has theseexplanations that's going to
(15:55):
tell the search engines moreabout your company, educate the
knowledge graph further, andthen also, you know if it sees
those entities right right there, and then it sees those
entities in other places whereyour company's of schema code.
That's all housed on your siteand very few websites really
(16:31):
have advanced schema code in it.
That's very detailed andhelping the search engines.
Hank (16:36):
I guess that's the difference between taking care
of some basic SEO on your site,you know, like the H1 tags, the
H2 tags, relevant content, thosekind of things and actually
then hiring a really heavy dutySEO expert to write all the
schema codes and make sureeverything is like you know ship
(16:58):
shape.
Scott (16:58):
I got a secret for you, hank.
I mean heavy duty.
Yeah, it's.
It's a little bit more difficultthan filling in the H1 tags on
a website builder, but you canask ChatGBT to write up the code
.
Then you could put it into yourweb builder in the right place
and if you need help with that,chatgbt can tell you where that
(17:20):
goes.
And then you can run tests onthat code and things like
schemaorg and rich results, acouple of online tools that are
free.
And then it might say, yeah,you got a couple of errors or
issues.
So then you tell chat dbt, yeah, uh, that these issues were
found, so it refines the codefurther.
And then you plug it in, youtest it again, the errors
(17:42):
whittled down, they whittleddown.
You ask chat gbt you know howcan we add more uh, relevant,
advanced uh schema code to it?
It'll help you and before youknow it, you have a really well
written script that you can copyand paste into the back end of
the website.
So, yeah, it's not easy, butyou don't necessarily have to
(18:07):
know coding language thoroughlyto be able to get it right.
Hank (18:13):
Right.
So you just tell ChatGPT thename of your website and say
write a schema code for thiswebsite.
Scott (18:19):
Yeah, and it gives you a start.
So it starts, you know, itgives you a bit of a template.
You got to kind of correct itwith the right terms and things
like that.
So you know, it's stillsomething that I think most
people don't want to touch.
So hiring, you know, someone todo it is a good move, but I
don't think it's quite at thelevel of complication that it
once was.
Hank (18:40):
Right, right.
Well, seo used to almost be abad word to a lot of people.
Whoa SEO?
How do I do that?
I'm not getting involved inthat, but yeah, that being said,
there's other aspects Like youmentioned Google, my Business,
and there are other tools likeYelp and things like that.
They think they play a prettystrong role in that.
(19:02):
What did you call it?
The Google Knowledge graph?
Scott (19:08):
Yeah, the Google knowledge graph, yeah, so those
listings certainly help piecetogether a puzzle right.
And if agencies like mine theyhave agency subscriptions to
tools like Yext or SEMrush thatcan automate getting you listed
in about 70 plus differentplaces.
The Google Business Profile isan extremely useful tool for
(19:31):
businesses that deal in a regionor a geographic area area, and
when you hear people talk aboutI'm going to get you to page one
or at the top of the list inGoogle they're probably
referring to the local stack,which is that section of local
(19:52):
businesses.
When you you know, just belowyou should usually see like a
couple of sponsored ads and thenmaybe one organic search result
, and then you have the stackbox, which I think a lot of
people focus on more, and it is,I don't say, in week one or one
month I don't give a timeframenecessarily but it is achievable
(20:13):
to get in there in a number ofmonths, depending on your
competition, of course, and whatthey're doing.
But it is, you know, instead ofcompeting against everyone in
the world, you're competingagainst people in your region,
so it's a little bit moreachievable.
You get quicker results frombeing higher in the local stack
(20:35):
and getting in the top three isreally the goal that we work to
help our clients with.
Hank (20:43):
Very cool, you know, I think in this short time that
we've had, and, believe it ornot, the time has flown by, but
I think we've gone far for a lotof people in at least taking a
little bit of the mystery out ofSEO.
Whether it's something thatbusinesses should or would want
to tackle themselves is anotherstory and, like so many things,
(21:04):
even for business owners, evenif you feel that maybe you can,
you're still better off puttingit in the hands of a
professional, because then thatleaves you free to do the things
that you do best.
Scott (21:16):
So, yeah, Could I build a shed in my backyard?
Yeah, I probably could, butit'll take me much longer than
someone that does it much moreregularly and understands how
the joints should line up andwhat size nails to use and which
tools to use and all that stuff.
So right, exactly, it's likeit's like today.
Hank (21:34):
I have a guy laying drainage pipe in my driveway.
Can I dig the holes and lay thepipe?
I probably can't Do.
I want to, no way.
Anyway, that being said, howcan our listeners what's the
best way they can get in touchwith you?
Scott (21:49):
Go to therightpathmarketingcom.
That's the, and then rightR-I-G-H-T pathmarketingcom.
We have a contact page and ourtelephone number and
information's there, so check usout.
Hank (22:05):
Very cool.
Thanks for being here with ustoday, scott, and to our
listeners, join us nextWednesday on the Home Business
Success Show right here onbizradious.
Remember, you can achievesuccess, freedom and
independence in your own homebusiness.
I've done it, scott has done it, and you can do it too.
See you again next week.
(22:26):
This is Hank Eder, wishing allof you a fabulous day of home
business success.
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