Ep. 33 Does SEO Actually Work? | Braden Tobler

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Introduction To The Marketing Lyfe Podcast Ep. 33

Episode 33 of the Marketing Life Podcasts. This is Taylor Timothy, your host. And today I brought Braden Tobler back on the show. He’s a little SEO expert and he was back on episode number five. So I brought him back on the show today because I wanted to dive in and let you guys understand more about SEO and how it can benefit your business.

So there’s four questions that I asked him that we discussed on today’s show, and they are: does Seo work for startups? What industry’s not to do SEO? At what point should you actually bring on an SEO expert? and how SEO actually works?

So let’s not waste any more time. here from Braden Tobler, our expert.

SEO For Startup Companies

Taylor: Dude. So what’s up in, so today we’re going to be talking about Seo and some of the questions that a lot of people might have about Seo. So I decided to bring you back on the show because I know you’re an expert in this. So basically starting off in this podcast, Braden, and I want to ask you, does Seo work for startups?

Braden: Thanks for having me. Yeah, I’m stoked to be back in around, I would say, uh, yes, it does work for certain startups, but there’s a few caveats that we can go over.

New Product Should Not Use SEO

Um, I’ve definitely worked at agencies before where we just stayed away from the, you know, startup space. Uh, there’s plenty of ways that it’s not a good step. Um, so, you know, first foremost, if your product is just like unknown or it’s an innovative thing or it’s like a brand new app that’s something that is so unique that people aren’t searching for it, then you know, what’s the likelihood that anyone’s going to search for that on Google and find you through like SEO practices? No, just first and foremost.

Taylor: makes total sense.

SEO Will Benefit Long Term Companies

Braden: But, uh, you know, the next step would be essentially every startup could benefit from it in the long run. Um, but you really do want to test and make sure that you have kind of the data that makes it so that you are confident your company will last long term.

Um, everyone kind of knows if they’ve experienced, you know, SEO work before. It’s a slow moving vehicle. And if your company isn’t going to last long term, if you don’t have good quality funding, you don’t have a strong team or your competition level is just through the roof.

SEO Is A Slow Moving Game

Taylor: You Okay, that makes total sense as well. So I want to ask you a question here. Um, this is definitely going off script, but why is Seo such a slow moving game? You know, you’re saying it’s a very slow moving vehicle. Explain to the audience like why it takes so long and kind of educate us on this.

Braden: Well, it really, I mean SEO optimize, um, specialists aren’t just kind of, you know, doing things that they think are best that are industry best practices, but they have to sit there and wait for, you know, Google and being in Yahoo or any other search engines that, you know, find the time to explore your site and, you know, prove yourself.

Prove Yourself As A Business

So, um, the main thing is, is like with any business in any industry, you do have to prove yourself. And sometimes that doesn’t happen overnight. You know, nothing’s overnight success. And with Seo, you’re waiting on a search engine to decide whether you should show up higher in the search results and to kind of consistently test your stuff.

Local SEO

Um, additionally, it’s just multifaceted. So really it comes down to if you’re in local Seo and you are worried that your restaurant is not showing up as high or customers aren’t as pleased and your, your reviews are going down. If you have lower reviews, that’s uh, an industry assumption that that’s a, you know, a breaking factor that highly impacts local Seo. Um, whereas, you know, if it’s National Co, national company, there’s onsite Seo and all these other factors that come into play. Um, that also applies to local Seo.

But there’s so many different things that get involved. Uh, the anointing factors is pretty much most SEOs put their hands in every section of the business and you know, they bug the sales team, they bugged the development team, they bug, you know, business dev. They have to work with uh, the closers and everyone has to kind of understand, you know, the customer journey and an Seo has to kind of get involved in everything.

So that multifaceted factor is just, it sucks that we have to do that, but it takes long because you put your hands in every section of the business.

The Power of Ranking with SEO

Taylor: Gotcha. So again, I’m going to go off script on, yeah. So explain to the audience like the benefit, like the power of ranking with you know, blog posts? You know, obviously from my understanding a blog the only has, or a website that only has seven pages is going to, it probably isn’t going to outrank a website that has over three to 400 pages. Correct.

Create Content With Value

Yeah. That’s often a, uh, you know, that data is fed back to us on a regular basis. People are doing, you know, tests where it, Kate, if I created, you know, two webpages at the same time, uh, put them in the same industry and one, I write this content and it’s thin and it’s smaller amount of content, but the pages are valuable.

Whereas another page or another website has, you know, far amount more content that explains the industry. Uh, more often than not that website that’s, you know, proving themselves by consistent content creation on a regular basis. With a real focus on the industry, they often do far, far better. So

Taylor: gotcha. So that’s what’s interesting is what you just said obviously is consistency. So it’s not just go get a thousand articles created and post them all at the time. Like that’s technically not going to help you. Correct. You need to be consistent throughout the years.

Make Your Business Look Presentable

Braden: Yeah. What Google wants to see is, you know, factors that make it your business very presentable. You know, if he’d dump all this stuff out there all at once, um, how is Google going to know that you are a kind of a ongoing business and you’re always looking out for your customers. Um, you’re always informing them of new information and you’re being up to date on the newest stuff in your industry.

Taylor: So kind of Gotcha.

Braden: New and innovative blog posts are super valuable in the long run. You need to be consistently improving yourself and putting out new information on your products and the industry total.

What Industries Should NOT Use SEO?

Taylor: Awesome. Thank you for going off script on that. But I think that brought a lot of value. So going onto the next question, you know, what industries do you recommend not even really trying to play the Seo game?

Braden: Yeah, this is a, this is a fun one. When people kind of approached me at like, Hey, what can you do to help me? And, uh, my question is I can give you a pat on the back and a little bit of consulting, but I’m actually not interested or I don’t believe it’s in your best interest to work with me at this point.

Over Saturated And Low Margin Markets

Uh, so an example would be, you know, over saturated markets or low margin markets. Um, if there’s not a good enough cashflow, I mean, it’s not a good idea to be spending money on a strategy like Seo that’s such a longterm play.

Um, an example would be like, you know, real estate agents or brokers or mortgage brokers or dentists that, I mean dentists have enough margins that they should be able to work with it. But think about a, I’m located in Saint George, Utah. Uh, I think there’s like 2,500 real estate agents in the city and only, you know, nine or so. We’ll make it on the first page. So you better be able to cash out a lot of money or play the long game.

Taylor: Gotcha. That’s awesome. So over saturated markets, anything else?

Short Term Projects

Braden: Yeah, I would say that you know, if your project is kind of a short term test, um, if it’s something that you are working with but you don’t know about if this is what you’ll be doing in three to five years, um, or even a year. I mean if it’s a short term project, SEO is again, it could take six months to a year for you to see the results you’d like. Um, so if you’re going to spend the money, uh, short term projects are just not the best place to invest in the SEL.

Longtail Search Methods

Braden: Um, additionally, you know, if it’s unknown services or products, you know, if it’s an unknown, something that people aren’t searching for, it’s going to be harder to find the traffic that you need. Um, we’ve all, I think most people have heard about like the long tail or long tail search. Um, go ahead and look it up if you guys have questions after the episode.

But essentially if we’re talking about a product that is completely unknown to the an area we would, you know, target other long tail search, um, examples such as, you know, if you are a tripod company and you make something that’s versatile for like hiking and you know, wrapping around the tree and taking photos out in the wilderness, um, you kind of would want to search, all right, catch people that are searching for a longer tail strategies rather than a search for tripod. They may be searched for, uh, best lights, tripod for hikes, you know, that’s a long tail search.

So looping back around, really if it’s an unknown service or it’s a product that has high competition, you need to have that budget for long tail strategies or else it’s just not a good player for you.

Hire An SEO Expert Immediately

Taylor: Gotcha. So for you, like what, at what point does, should a company, you know, hire you, you know, hire an Seo company?

Braden: Hmm. Uh, I’d still want to say as soon as possible. Um, you know, but if you’re in a startup area and those other items we talked about, um, apply to your company, then you know, you can pump your brakes for a bit and you know, wait to hire an Seo. But if you were in for the long haul and you want to get ahead of the game, as soon as you can hire an SEO is valuable.

Uh, it’s kind of a king of the hill game. So as soon as you can get ahead of the curve or ahead of people in your market, the better you need to prove yourself over a long period of time to young tell Google or other search engines. Hey, I, I am providing good service. I do have customers that are happy, um, and you need to get ahead of that game.

But like we stated, um, really you should test the market and be confident that you can do this long term, um, that it’s a viable business and it’s worth investing in a good SEO team, a good agency that you know, is using the right tactics and techniques.

Cashflow

Um, and along with that, make sure you have good cashflow.

Running Numbers For SEO

Taylor: Yeah. So I think cashflow is one of the big things, right? So like for example, how much is your service per month?

Braden: Um, it varies depending on the packages we work with, but, uh, most of my clients and my average is around $2,500 a month that’s on a retainer. Um, and that’s at anytime I’m working with someone, I’m highly suggesting that they give it six months to a year for a SEO results.

But, uh, additionally they need to kind of consider the fact that, um, I’m not in a hold them under a contract. So there’s, I could do that. But you know, a contract is only as strong as the person willing to fight it. So, um, yeah, $2,500 a month retainer and I suggest six months.

SEO Takes Time

Taylor: Awesome. So basically let’s just turn and do the math here. 2,500 a month for six months before you even start seeing results. That’s 15 grand. So people need to realize that like it takes time, you know, so if you’re planning on, you know, trying to do, trying to do this for, you know, two years, like we’re talking, you know, 60 grand that you need to be planning on spending to get your SEO up and moving. So that’s one of the big things.

I think a lot of people have a misconception of, you know, it’s like, oh well let’s try out the the Seo game for three months. You know, but they’re never going to see results.

Research Your Best SEO Options For Your Company

Braden: That’s, that’s just kind of, yeah, like you said, it’s, it’s a lot of investment and the industry has people that are offering SEO packages that they, you know, they only focus on one facet of it or they specialize in one area and they can have packages as low as, you know, a hundred to $500 a month and they’re just doing one tiny, tiny aspect of it.

Um, whereas, you know, other agencies, there’s agencies that are charging $50,000 a month to do, you know, this SEO and all the facets that are involved, which is a loose until you know, all kinds of tracking and review gathering and all kinds of aspects. So, um, it varies heavily based on your industry, what kind of cash flow you have and you know, what you’re capable of expecting long term. Yeah.

Bad Things About SEO

Taylor: Gotcha. So let’s talk about some of like the bad practices for Sel. Like what, like what do people need to watch out for with, with SEO firms? Like what are some of the bad things they’re doing out there?

Scamming

Braden: Yeah, so this is kind of one of the biggest pain points. Um, I believe in my sales process is, uh, any business has been around for a long enough period to know what SEO means.

Um, most likely has been scammed or has been hurt by, you know, poor practices or an agency that promises results, uh, and then didn’t deliver. And so there’s all kinds of people in the industry that are scam artists. It’s definitely one of the, probably the most spammy section of marketing out there. Um, so it is a, it’s hard to filter through that information and make sure that you’re getting what you want.

Higher The Price For SEO, The Better

Um, like I said, some companies, you know, work with one facet, it’s super cheap. They’re only helping you work with, you know, gathering your views. Like I believe I podium is, you know, a couple hundred bucks a month and they just only help you gather reviews. That is an [inaudible] one of the facets of Seo. Uh, whereas I suggest that you work with an agency that yes, it’s a higher price point, but they address, you know, all the different array of strategies that you need to, uh, work with.

So essentially they need to be always kind of proven that they’re up to date the industry’s best practices, um, that you should be able to take their proposal, walk it over to any other agency, and that agency should be able to quickly say, okay, what they’re doing is good. Yes, it’s, maybe it’s more expensive or it’s cheaper than we would. And you know, then there can be bidding wars, but, um, you should be able to confidently take any, any strategies your agency’s doing to any other agency and not have, um, it’d be kind of debunked.

Fake Reviews and Business Listings

So, uh, to go down a list of a few things to just really watch out for, um, there’s agencies that are, you know, helping people get fake reviews or building fake Google my business listings. Um, these are strategies that have that do work in the short term. Um, they are, you know, they’re, they’re false, they’re fake, they are not honest and you know, the business practices, but uh, can sometimes give you short term results and leads. I will say right now, Google will find you if you are doing this. So they are smarter than you. I’m so true now.

Right now there’s a huge influx of a lot of fake listings in the legal space. So there’s all kinds of people that, you know, they’re making fake address, address listings all over the city and just making it so that they show up for your own personal injury law, um, and just blasting out fake listings. And that’s just, it’s going to be flagged at some point. So it’s not a good practice and it can get you kind of penalize and all kinds of other issues. If you are an online market are dealing with this. I know for a fact you can flag these listings. So just a little tip and trick look into it.

Link Farms

Um, another thing would be, you know, the good old fashion link farms, anyone that’s been into a the SEO space for a long period of time, they know that back in the day you could pay some dude and, and some obscure country in Europe, 500 bucks and overnight you get 50,000 links from, you know, all these different spammy websites.

But, uh, back in the day it worked. Uh, that was years and years and years ago. Um, I know companies that took those strategies and then once they got caught and once Google recognize their poor techniques, you know, overnight they went from, you know, making $10,000 a day on their online platform to nonexistent traffic. Um, and, and nowadays, I don’t think that you can even get ahead of the industry and ahead of your competitors with link farm.

It’s just not something that your agency you’re hiring should be messing with it all. So, um,

Taylor: Gotcha.

Article Spinning

Additionally, uh, spun or spammy articles. So like you mentioned earlier, um, if you go out and you get a thousand articles written, um, you know, I don’t know what the quality does would be if there were produced on a very fast timeline, um, back in the day people to spin articles. It’s like one article and then they rewrite it and I have a computer pretty much, you know, rebuild that article. Um, and these are just spun quickly and published and you can get short term results. Um, but it’s only a matter of time before that, you know, backfires on you.

And I mean, anyone that can read any human that reads these spammy or spun articles, uh, quickly finds out that there’s no value to this content. It was written by computer and it’s poor, poor Ai. So that’s something to avoid.

Poor Interlinking To Other Networks

Nice thing would be, you know, there’s quite a few agencies that you know, promised that they will get you a interlinked and connected to their network of sites. So, you know, let’s say that they’re in an industry where, uh, there’s a whole bunch of other people doing very similar practices. You know, they can help link to each other and build each other up. Um, if they are, you know, in a, in a space that they can, you know, they’ve had longterm websites and they can help raise up, you know, this new website.

If that’s something that someone’s approaching you with saying, you know, I have, you know, 50 other dentists in the United States, we can get you to link, uh, from all of their websites. And you know, if that’s not done in a natural manner of like quality guest posting, you know, uh, interactions or interviews with the two dentists, you know, talking about a, you know, a topic that’s important in the industry. Uh, if it’s not that kind of value and it’s just link building or just hidden links in the footer or just massive interlinking of spammy sites, that’s just a poor practice and it will get you penalized.

SEO Strategy To Apply To Start Up Companies

Taylor: Okay. Good to know. So one of the things that I, I wanted to ask you to do again, we’re going off script. Um, what does a simple SEO strategy that someone could go implement on their startup right now? Obviously they don’t have time to, or they don’t have the funds or anything to hire an Seo guy. There are a small startup just trying to get things going. What would you recommend them doing?

Create Valuable Content

Braden: long term? It’s a kind of all about content creation right now. Uh, it does need to be valuable. It can be spun, like we said. Um, so as a startup, you know, what you can do is if you feel comfortable in front of a camera, um, you know, do short vlogs, do a little interviews, do any blog posts, you can write up any of those, you know, podcasts or video content that you do. If you get that transcribed and place that on your website, um, that’s some valuable content that you know, it can be viewed and recognized by Google as a industry topics and kind of build the credibility and your business over time.

Uh, so one of my clients I worked with, you know, they had a blog and they had about 160 articles when I came on board. Um, and you know, uniquely enough they had, you know, a few things misaligned and all those articles work Dan decks and not recognized by Google completely. Um, so yeah, I made some changes and got those quickly recognized, but that gave them a good step forward as a startup.

Interlinking and Funnels

Um, they have the content that was valuable. It was already existing and I just went in there and then did you know, onsite SEO? I did proper interlinking. I helped him with link building strategies from there and uh, can I build out the, you know, the levels and funnels are there pages to make it so that Google better understood what they were offering. Um, and that was just great to be able to come on board. And this startup had done the work ahead of time.

So know, create content, get it out there. Um, what’s unique about SEO is it does need to be written content at this time. Um, there’s a few other strategies, but a video work in podcasting is great. Uh, but then you need to take the next step, transcribe it, edit it, format it nicely so that a Google bought or being bought can properly understand the content and, you know, recognize your website sooner than later.

Transcribing Your Content To Build SEO

Taylor: Gotcha. So someone that doesn’t like writing, what you’re telling me is they can shoot video or shoot a podcast and they can just get it transcribed and add the proper headlines.

Braden: Yeah. Use the right, uh, just do a little bit of Seo work. Um, and you know, build an eight, have proper h ones and shoes and each threes, those are heading tags. If you do that and you know, format your transcriptions into good, readable format, uh, it can be very valuable. And that’s, that’s a great way to make content quick and easy.

I oftentimes will dictate my blog posts. Um, so rather than typing it up, I can just, you know, chat into my phone real quick and just ramble off a few things, do some formatting, and then publish a blog post. So plenty of ways around it.

Transcription Versus Written Article

Taylor: So on your gun, on your side of things, have you seen a difference in someone that’s actually written an article versus someone in that has transcribed or have you found the same results across the board?

Braden: Um, I’ve definitely seen, you know, short form blog posts properly format it improperly written, uh, often pull more traffic than transcriptions. Um, but transcriptions are long form content. It’s a different kind of animal and Google looks at it in a different, a different format. Um, oftentimes transcriptions are not, uh, written the best because we speak very differently than we write.

Um, so yes, it’s good, valuable content, but if you can invest, once you can invest in Seo team, you should also invest into a writer that can take those transcriptions and improve them and make them more readable and under understood by your online market. So,

Consider Using SEO

Taylor: awesome. Is there anything else you feel like this audience to know?

Braden: I mean, things are changing over time, so don’t be scared of SEO. Um, if you’re, you know, a longterm business, a person that you’d been around for ages and you’ve seen, uh, you know, you may experience pain or you’ve seen pain from a spamming uses, I mean, go out there and do the research and can reconsider Seo. It might be extremely valuable for you and it might not.

We’ve talked about, um, you know, different aspects that it’s not the best for you, but, uh, you don’t consider the fact that even if you’ve been burned, you know, there’s, there’s a chance to, Seo could be extremely valuable for your business and drive atrocious amounts of traffic in the long term. Just not got to invest. So.

Taylor: Awesome. Well, thank you Braden for being on the show and peace.

Conclusion to Ep. 33 Does SEO Actually Work?

That’s going to wrap up episode 33 of the marketing life podcast. Just to give you guys a recap, basically SEO takes time. I told Brittany I was going to say this at the end of the show, basically with a process of Seo.

First you guys need to be building a killer website that works. It functions, it’s Google friendly. Next, you need to be running paid traffic. Next you need to have your email and your drip sequence set up in place with killer offers, and then you need to start creating content for your business. And then you need to bring on an SEO expert to come in and optimize and get you ranking for where you guys want to. Obviously page one of Google, if you guys have any questions for Brian and reach out to him.

Check Out My New Course

Also, my course is finished. If you guys need to learn the process, want to learn my process from start to finish, how to build a killer website, how to run paid traffic, how to build out your email drip sequences, how to do everything that will get your business up and running online. Go check it out and don’t forget to smile today guys, and peace.