1286: Should You Fire Your SEO Agency? w/ Gary Arnold

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.480 --> 00:00:08.750 Welcome back to be to be growth on Logan lyles with sweet fish media. 2 00:00:08.990 --> 00:00:14.070 I'm joined today by Gary Arnold. He's the marketing manager over at Executech Gary, 3 00:00:14.150 --> 00:00:16.550 welcome to the show. How's it going today, sir, Hey Loogan, 4 00:00:16.629 --> 00:00:19.149 great to be here. Absolutely man. So we're going to be talking 5 00:00:19.149 --> 00:00:23.539 about something you're pretty passionate about today, and that is how brands can actually 6 00:00:23.579 --> 00:00:28.899 take on more of their Seo in house then they probably think that they can. 7 00:00:29.140 --> 00:00:31.820 And so, to tea up this conversation, I'd love to ask tell 8 00:00:31.820 --> 00:00:35.299 us a little bit about your background and what led you to this passionate stance 9 00:00:35.380 --> 00:00:39.090 that you've got today. Yeah, thanks, Logan. I mean so I've 10 00:00:39.130 --> 00:00:42.369 been working in marketing now for about ten years. I guess I'm kind of 11 00:00:42.369 --> 00:00:46.210 on the younger side of some marketing professionals, but you know, in the 12 00:00:46.369 --> 00:00:49.810 companies that I've worked with, the different brands that I've worked with, I've 13 00:00:49.890 --> 00:00:53.920 had sort of an agency partner on SEO, agency partner at all of those 14 00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:59.759 companies and inevitably they end up getting switched, whether you know, an upper 15 00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:02.679 manager says hey, why aren't they doing their job? Let's switch and find 16 00:01:02.679 --> 00:01:06.030 a new provider, or me myself, I make the conclusion, Hey, 17 00:01:06.109 --> 00:01:08.189 this isn't working out, let's find a new provider. And so you know, 18 00:01:08.189 --> 00:01:14.109 I've worked with almost half a dozen different SEO agencies at all these different 19 00:01:14.150 --> 00:01:18.739 brands over my time and my career so far, and so I've kind of 20 00:01:18.739 --> 00:01:21.060 seen some of the good ways they do it, some of the bad ways 21 00:01:21.099 --> 00:01:25.060 they do it. In general, I'm favorable towards you know, my past 22 00:01:25.780 --> 00:01:30.780 partnerships with SEO agencies. I don't have any like horror stories per se, 23 00:01:30.219 --> 00:01:34.930 but it's just over time I'm starting to see a trend of the deliverables in 24 00:01:36.090 --> 00:01:41.049 Seo agencies and what can and maybe should be done in house in terms of 25 00:01:41.170 --> 00:01:44.209 Seo work. Yeah, let's dig in there a little bit. Gary, 26 00:01:44.290 --> 00:01:48.359 talk to us a little bit about some of the deliverables that you're typically seeing. 27 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:51.439 I know most marketers listening to this, you know, they're going to 28 00:01:51.560 --> 00:01:53.719 easily recognize. Okay, we tend to see this report, we tend to 29 00:01:53.799 --> 00:01:57.680 see, you know, tracking this KPI. Let's run through some of those 30 00:01:57.959 --> 00:02:00.870 real quick and also some of the trends that you see, some of the 31 00:02:00.950 --> 00:02:06.750 changes, because I think what we want to get to eventually is looking at 32 00:02:07.189 --> 00:02:12.349 those deliverables, those expectations from the agency side and where maybe those Miss Aligne 33 00:02:12.469 --> 00:02:15.979 with what's most important from the brand side. So let's start with what the 34 00:02:15.060 --> 00:02:20.620 agency is typically giving you right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean you kind 35 00:02:20.659 --> 00:02:23.379 of you kind of started it. There is, you know, reporting is 36 00:02:23.419 --> 00:02:25.860 one of the big ones that we get and and for better for worse, 37 00:02:25.939 --> 00:02:31.650 I think Seo agencies tend to be very generic when it comes to their reporting. 38 00:02:32.729 --> 00:02:37.729 They pull Google analytics data and they throw it into, you know, 39 00:02:37.889 --> 00:02:40.849 Google data studio or whatever it is, some fancy dashboard, even if if 40 00:02:40.889 --> 00:02:45.439 it's proprietary, to spruce it up, and they'll send it to you weekly 41 00:02:45.479 --> 00:02:50.039 or monthly. And you know, if it's an SEO agency that's working with 42 00:02:50.120 --> 00:02:53.439 a business without an inhouse marketer, maybe they're they're working directly with the CEO 43 00:02:53.599 --> 00:02:58.240 or an owner. Maybe that makes sense because the owner doesn't want the nitty 44 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:00.430 gritty. The owner doesn't maybe doesn't know what's you know, what SEO is. 45 00:03:00.590 --> 00:03:04.789 He doesn't really know what he's getting into, and so providing that high 46 00:03:04.789 --> 00:03:07.909 level stuff looks good and makes it feel makes you feel good about what the 47 00:03:08.069 --> 00:03:12.629 agency's doing. But I think, and you know, Logan ways as you've 48 00:03:12.669 --> 00:03:15.419 mentioned. You know this audience. It sounds like there's a lot of marketers 49 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:17.659 and professional marketers out there. Like all of us know how to run a 50 00:03:17.699 --> 00:03:22.939 Google analytics support right, like we know how to go find the data that 51 00:03:23.060 --> 00:03:28.009 we need when it comes to, you know, organic search traffic or time 52 00:03:28.129 --> 00:03:31.210 on site, you know all those basic metrics. I don't need a report 53 00:03:31.289 --> 00:03:36.050 from my Seo Agency on that stuff. I look at that weekly, sometimes 54 00:03:36.090 --> 00:03:38.650 daily anyway. And the other thing that's kind of come around for me in 55 00:03:38.689 --> 00:03:43.599 terms of reporting is I've started using more, and I don't know why I 56 00:03:43.599 --> 00:03:46.120 didn't in the past. It just kind of silly. But like I've started 57 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:50.400 using more seem rush, that tool, which I think a lot of SEO 58 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:53.639 agencies use for good reason. It's a great tool. I highly recommend it. 59 00:03:53.039 --> 00:03:57.949 Everything you could ever need in terms of Seo reporting is within that tool 60 00:03:58.270 --> 00:04:00.949 and I think that's kind of the the one of the catalysts of this conversation 61 00:04:01.229 --> 00:04:08.789 is is if all of the tracking, the benchmarking, the reports around Seo, 62 00:04:09.469 --> 00:04:14.180 I can just get by paying a relatively nominal fee for the subscription to 63 00:04:14.300 --> 00:04:16.660 that tool and I don't even have to put a ton of time into it 64 00:04:16.819 --> 00:04:19.420 per se. I just need to go check it. You know, there 65 00:04:19.579 --> 00:04:25.689 goes, you know, a good chunk, seemingly, of some agencies value 66 00:04:25.769 --> 00:04:30.290 deliverable. They're just forwarding you or repackaging you, seem, rushes reports. 67 00:04:31.009 --> 00:04:35.170 And I know that's not true of every Seo Agency and that's certainly not true 68 00:04:35.209 --> 00:04:38.680 of a lot of the SEO agencies I've worked with. Again, many of 69 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:43.439 them do fantastic work. But on the reporting side, it seems that that 70 00:04:44.079 --> 00:04:46.879 can be taken care of yourself by just getting the right tool in place. 71 00:04:47.399 --> 00:04:49.680 Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. What are some of the other 72 00:04:49.759 --> 00:04:56.389 areas beyond reporting where you see people should be thinking about a my getting in 73 00:04:56.509 --> 00:05:00.589 my really getting value here? What are some of the other typical the deliverables? 74 00:05:00.589 --> 00:05:03.750 Are Trends or new things that you're seeing from Seoa agencies that are either 75 00:05:03.790 --> 00:05:10.300 lagging behind or maybe moving ahead and adding more value, and kind of either 76 00:05:10.339 --> 00:05:12.379 side of the coin. I'll let you take it where you want there. 77 00:05:12.660 --> 00:05:15.819 Yeah, so, I mean I'll start with some of the positives, of 78 00:05:15.019 --> 00:05:19.980 like the where an agency really could add value and and this again depends on 79 00:05:20.220 --> 00:05:26.490 your your experience and your inhouse resources. If use a marketer aren't as familiar 80 00:05:26.569 --> 00:05:30.370 with some tactical SEO tactics. Yeah, you may need to rely on an 81 00:05:30.370 --> 00:05:33.730 agency, which is great. I mean agencies exist for that reason to fill 82 00:05:33.769 --> 00:05:39.959 in the holes of your experience in your time. So one one area that 83 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.560 I've seen be very effective is if you come into you're working at a company 84 00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:46.879 and you you have a website that's maybe a little old, a little outdated, 85 00:05:46.959 --> 00:05:51.149 or it's just hasn't been been given the SEOA tension that it needs, 86 00:05:51.629 --> 00:05:57.110 an agency can come in and perform a site audit, which again they're using 87 00:05:57.189 --> 00:06:00.509 tools that you could get access to, but then they can. They can 88 00:06:00.589 --> 00:06:04.459 start taking the action points on that audit and start making the improvements to your 89 00:06:04.500 --> 00:06:09.220 site. And some of those things may be very easy and quick that you 90 00:06:09.259 --> 00:06:13.060 could have done yourself, you know in workpress just small, little make sure 91 00:06:13.180 --> 00:06:15.860 you you change this to be an h one tag, simple stuff like that. 92 00:06:16.220 --> 00:06:20.410 There may be more complex tag tasks about restructuring, you know, your 93 00:06:20.449 --> 00:06:25.290 url structure, how your database, how you're hosting works, things like that, 94 00:06:26.089 --> 00:06:29.490 and I think that's where Seo agencies today can provide a lot of value. 95 00:06:30.089 --> 00:06:32.879 But and kind of a big butt on that is that that is not, 96 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:39.120 in my opinion, an ongoing task per se. Maybe that takes a 97 00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:42.720 month, maybe it takes three months, but then it's done. Obviously there's 98 00:06:42.759 --> 00:06:46.560 there's continuing tweaks and improvements you want to make to your site, but if 99 00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:49.389 you've got the core of your site optimized in terms of the structure, in 100 00:06:49.430 --> 00:06:54.029 terms of how you upload your images, you know what h ones look like, 101 00:06:54.790 --> 00:06:57.670 all those things, I don't know what else they're going to be doing 102 00:06:57.790 --> 00:07:00.740 on a month to month basis. Right like, once it's done, it's 103 00:07:00.779 --> 00:07:02.939 kind of done and your site it's going to be in a good spot and 104 00:07:03.019 --> 00:07:08.220 then it transitions, and this kind of transitions into my other big thinking on 105 00:07:08.379 --> 00:07:14.620 this of what really drives Seo value and Seo success, and I think we 106 00:07:14.660 --> 00:07:17.610 all know the answer and its content. You know, it's all about fresh, 107 00:07:18.089 --> 00:07:23.410 regular, consistent quality content, and maybe we can talk more about what 108 00:07:23.490 --> 00:07:26.569 that looks like and what that means. But in my opinion, at the 109 00:07:26.610 --> 00:07:30.279 end of the day that that is not going to be delivered by an agency 110 00:07:30.319 --> 00:07:34.959 or or it won't be delivered to its fullest value by an agency. You 111 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:39.040 know, I see a lot of agencies that they all know this. I 112 00:07:39.120 --> 00:07:42.839 mean agency people are smart right there there for a reason. They're not dumb. 113 00:07:42.879 --> 00:07:46.230 They know this. They know that contents, I think, the core 114 00:07:46.350 --> 00:07:48.790 driver of Seo, and so of course they're going to offer it. They're 115 00:07:48.790 --> 00:07:51.949 going to say, yeah, you know x package and will do you know, 116 00:07:53.110 --> 00:07:56.269 to blog posts a month. There may be for blog posts a month, 117 00:07:56.430 --> 00:07:59.420 which, you know, if you're just getting started again, if you're 118 00:07:59.459 --> 00:08:03.420 a business owner and you don't have the resources to blog or whatever it is, 119 00:08:03.819 --> 00:08:07.459 you know not something is better than nothing. So you know, again, 120 00:08:07.459 --> 00:08:13.209 I'm not bashing that, but if you are a marketing manager in house, 121 00:08:13.370 --> 00:08:16.889 if you have a small team or even a large team, you should 122 00:08:16.170 --> 00:08:20.529 be able to start providing, you know, dedicating the resources to creating the 123 00:08:20.649 --> 00:08:26.290 content yourself, because it's going to be vastly superior to any content in an 124 00:08:26.329 --> 00:08:28.480 agency can create, no matter what sort of freelancers they're using, no matter 125 00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:33.320 what industry experience they've had, or they they work in your industry, it 126 00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:37.320 doesn't matter. It's going to be better coming from you in house. Oh 127 00:08:37.399 --> 00:08:41.230 Man, I love that so much. Scary. I I like the approach 128 00:08:41.350 --> 00:08:45.110 that you're taking here. It's a little bit of a controversial stand. Like 129 00:08:45.389 --> 00:08:48.669 you know that you probably don't need your Seo Agency as much as you think, 130 00:08:50.110 --> 00:08:52.429 but at the same time, what you're saying is there's value. Just 131 00:08:52.629 --> 00:08:56.779 don't kind of fool yourself into thinking that you're still getting value when you've grown 132 00:08:56.820 --> 00:09:01.460 past it. If you you know, if you know enough to grab those 133 00:09:01.500 --> 00:09:05.299 reports and analyze them yourself, if some of the structural work has been done 134 00:09:05.539 --> 00:09:09.779 and there's not really a lot of maintenance being done. So it's asking those 135 00:09:09.820 --> 00:09:13.129 questions about where am I still receiving value? That's kind of the common thread 136 00:09:13.169 --> 00:09:18.330 that I'm seeing through what you're talking about, and you can already transition to 137 00:09:18.409 --> 00:09:20.570 the next thing I wanted to ask you about is where do you see the 138 00:09:20.690 --> 00:09:28.200 most important tactics that that brands can execute on to boost their seo and reach 139 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:31.840 the goals that they want? And you're very much in alignment with the thinking 140 00:09:31.960 --> 00:09:35.360 we have here at sweet fish, which is really been informed by our new 141 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:37.750 director of audience growth, Dan Sanchez. If you're not yet following him on 142 00:09:37.830 --> 00:09:41.870 Linkedin, go follow him. He's posting every freaking day like a machine. 143 00:09:41.230 --> 00:09:45.710 But one of the things that you know that started our relationship with Dan and 144 00:09:45.830 --> 00:09:50.909 eventually brought him on to the team was. He focused on Seo for a 145 00:09:50.990 --> 00:09:54.659 missions college out of Minnesota. They ended up tripling enrollment because they saw so 146 00:09:54.700 --> 00:10:00.860 much traffick increase and the Seo work that he did there was not centered around 147 00:10:00.860 --> 00:10:05.500 a backlink strategy, it was not centered around kind of all of the technical 148 00:10:05.580 --> 00:10:09.370 tips and tricks other than the foundational elements like you're talking about. It's centered 149 00:10:09.409 --> 00:10:13.049 around content, and so that's what has led us to our current SEO strategy 150 00:10:13.090 --> 00:10:16.730 here at sweet fish, which is more about looking at the volume of search 151 00:10:16.769 --> 00:10:22.159 terms that you want to hit, looking at competitive analysis. So what's hitting 152 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:24.679 page one for those search terms that you want to rank for, and then 153 00:10:24.840 --> 00:10:30.360 how can you reverse engineer content that outranks that stuff? And so I love 154 00:10:30.440 --> 00:10:33.039 what you're saying. They're about content and you know, we've seen that with 155 00:10:33.159 --> 00:10:39.429 a lot of our customers. Oftentimes the meteor content that they're able to produce 156 00:10:39.710 --> 00:10:43.070 in house because of that expertise is superior. It's part of the reason that 157 00:10:43.230 --> 00:10:46.389 for most of the podcast that we produce for our customers, we're not the 158 00:10:46.509 --> 00:10:50.299 host of that show. Someone internally is the host of that show and we're 159 00:10:50.299 --> 00:10:54.299 letting them talk and capturing it from their expertise, their point of view, 160 00:10:54.620 --> 00:10:58.539 that sort of stuff. Sounds like you guys are heading very much in the 161 00:10:58.580 --> 00:11:03.100 same direction with your thinking. Gary, right, absolutely. I mean yeah, 162 00:11:03.100 --> 00:11:05.409 I think you've know that on the head. And you know again, 163 00:11:05.450 --> 00:11:09.250 I depending on who you are, your audience, your expertise, you may 164 00:11:09.330 --> 00:11:13.929 not know exactly how to go about doing the keyword research, like you said, 165 00:11:13.970 --> 00:11:18.529 out of the competitive analysis, but that stuff's easily learnable, you know. 166 00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:22.159 You know, it's not rocket science, it's not some hidden secret mythical 167 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:26.200 knowledge of marketing. You know it's right there. Just start doing a little 168 00:11:26.200 --> 00:11:30.240 reading, start doing a little bit of experimenting. Again, try out the 169 00:11:30.360 --> 00:11:33.350 free version of SEM rash or some of these other tools. A lot of 170 00:11:33.429 --> 00:11:37.309 them have free trials, and you'll get the basic level stuff and you can 171 00:11:37.350 --> 00:11:39.470 start, like you said, you can start looking at the keyword, you 172 00:11:39.509 --> 00:11:43.789 can start looking at the competitor analysis and and using those things you can start 173 00:11:43.830 --> 00:11:48.500 developing a solid content strategy to arts to start executing on another thing I would 174 00:11:48.500 --> 00:11:54.100 add around content strategy in terms of some of the tactical what you actually target 175 00:11:54.299 --> 00:11:56.740 and, and this is true, I think of ever of any industry, 176 00:11:56.980 --> 00:12:00.379 and some of you may have heard of this book. It's called they ask 177 00:12:00.419 --> 00:12:05.129 you answer, by Marcus Sheridan. I recommend it to everyone. I think 178 00:12:05.169 --> 00:12:09.049 it's helpful to read that book and to look at it into as important as 179 00:12:09.049 --> 00:12:13.769 it is to focus on keywords and do competitor analysis, you also need to 180 00:12:13.850 --> 00:12:18.799 go back and talk with your customers, talk with your clients and talk with 181 00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:24.720 your sales team and find out what are the questions that are being asked in 182 00:12:24.840 --> 00:12:30.029 our industry about our product, about our service, about us, about our 183 00:12:30.070 --> 00:12:37.590 competitors. You know, think about those questions and and answer them. Sounds 184 00:12:37.269 --> 00:12:41.870 Will Duh, obviously right, but sounds like what hub spot has been saying 185 00:12:41.909 --> 00:12:46.139 for ten years. Right, but I'm not saying anything new. The book 186 00:12:46.179 --> 00:12:48.539 doesn't say anything new, but in some ways it was kind of it was 187 00:12:48.580 --> 00:12:52.340 a little bit of a wait a minute. You know, I've lost a 188 00:12:52.379 --> 00:12:56.740 little bit of focus in my content writing because I focused so much on us, 189 00:12:56.820 --> 00:12:58.409 on a niche keyword that I know is a good, valuable keyword. 190 00:12:58.769 --> 00:13:03.769 But let's let's dial back and go back to those basic one hundred and one 191 00:13:03.850 --> 00:13:07.690 questions. And in the book he talks about like the five that pretty much 192 00:13:07.690 --> 00:13:09.409 every business will get and one of them. You know, for example, 193 00:13:09.529 --> 00:13:15.360 is pricing. You need to talk about pricing on your website, you need 194 00:13:15.399 --> 00:13:16.799 to talk about it in your blogs, you need to talk about it in 195 00:13:16.879 --> 00:13:20.080 your messaging. Now the way in which you talk about it is going to 196 00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:24.440 be a little different. There may be pushback when it comes to talking about 197 00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:26.710 pricing, and you know he talks about this like you know, but our 198 00:13:26.870 --> 00:13:31.509 service is so complex, you know, it covers so many facets. There's 199 00:13:31.509 --> 00:13:35.470 no way to just tell somebody what their prices fine, whatever, but at 200 00:13:35.509 --> 00:13:37.990 some point you tell somebody how much it is going to cost, like you 201 00:13:37.110 --> 00:13:43.220 walk them through the bid process. So you obviously know the answer. You 202 00:13:43.379 --> 00:13:45.740 need to do that in your content. You know, walk them through. 203 00:13:45.899 --> 00:13:50.059 Here are the factors that could lead to the cost of your product or service. 204 00:13:50.740 --> 00:13:54.100 You know, honestly address like. Look, when you use said product 205 00:13:54.139 --> 00:14:00.009 or service, this may be a negative consequence or a disadvantage or, you 206 00:14:00.090 --> 00:14:01.529 know, whatever it is. In address it, be up front with it, 207 00:14:03.129 --> 00:14:05.610 talk about obviously the advantages why you would want to pick it. Be 208 00:14:05.730 --> 00:14:09.879 Up Front about look, you may not be a good fit for our product 209 00:14:09.879 --> 00:14:15.480 or service, you know, and your brand voice will vary on how you 210 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:18.399 convey that messaging. But at the end of the day, those questions and 211 00:14:18.559 --> 00:14:22.159 those type of messages need to be conveyed and when you answer those through your 212 00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:28.230 content it's building your Seo. People are coming, they're searching for those questions 213 00:14:28.269 --> 00:14:33.669 anyway, and those are typically lower funnel questions because that they're asking about pricing. 214 00:14:33.710 --> 00:14:37.990 If they're asking about how to compare vendors, those are usually you know, 215 00:14:37.070 --> 00:14:43.100 if you sell crm software, sales engagement software, you know those high 216 00:14:43.100 --> 00:14:48.179 level keywords of B tob sales. You know engagement or sales engagement platform. 217 00:14:48.580 --> 00:14:52.659 Those are very tough to rank organically for, you know, page one, 218 00:14:52.820 --> 00:14:54.929 spot one of Google, and we all know there's not much point and being 219 00:14:56.009 --> 00:14:58.210 on page two of Google, let alone spot sex on page one. Right. 220 00:14:58.370 --> 00:15:05.929 But there are less competitive but very, very crucial, longer tail keywords, 221 00:15:05.970 --> 00:15:09.799 and so I love that you're talking about pricing. Hey, everybody logan 222 00:15:09.879 --> 00:15:13.879 with sweet fish here. You probably already know that we think you should start 223 00:15:13.879 --> 00:15:16.360 a podcast if you haven't already. But what if you have and you're asking 224 00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:20.990 these kinds of questions? How much has our podcast impacted revenue this year? 225 00:15:22.429 --> 00:15:26.070 How is our sales team actually leveraging the PODCAST content? If you can't answer 226 00:15:26.149 --> 00:15:31.389 these questions, you're actually not alone. This is why I cast it created 227 00:15:31.429 --> 00:15:37.100 the very first content marketing platform made specifically for be tob podcasting. Now you 228 00:15:37.259 --> 00:15:43.019 can more easily search and share your audio content while getting greater visibility into the 229 00:15:43.179 --> 00:15:48.779 impact of your podcast. The marketing teams at Drift Terminus and here at sweetfish 230 00:15:48.980 --> 00:15:52.129 have started using casted to get more value out of our podcasts, and you 231 00:15:52.289 --> 00:15:56.730 probably can to. You can check out the product in action and casted dot 232 00:15:56.809 --> 00:16:06.159 US growth. That's sea steed dot US growth. All right, let's get 233 00:16:06.159 --> 00:16:11.759 back to the show. I want to go down a little bit of a 234 00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:17.240 rabbit trail, because what you just said there verbatim. I know for ten 235 00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:22.230 years in selling Bebtech, in the COPYER business, which is not too dissimilar 236 00:16:22.230 --> 00:16:26.509 from it services. You know, I was trained to say that. Well, 237 00:16:26.830 --> 00:16:30.909 there's so many factors I can't really and I always felt like this wrenching 238 00:16:30.230 --> 00:16:33.419 feeling in my gut like, oh, I sound like I'm dodging the question. 239 00:16:33.820 --> 00:16:37.820 And I think you know there's a lesson there for sales people. So 240 00:16:37.980 --> 00:16:40.899 like when I am on sales calls, most people who listen to the show 241 00:16:41.019 --> 00:16:44.980 know I run sales for sweetfish as well as being a cohost on the show. 242 00:16:45.419 --> 00:16:48.529 I will tell folks, Hey, here's typically the range. Here are 243 00:16:48.649 --> 00:16:52.690 the three main variables or the dials to our our podcast production service. It's 244 00:16:52.769 --> 00:16:56.529 frequency. One of the big things is are we booking guests for your podcasts? 245 00:16:56.730 --> 00:17:00.970 You doing it and we're just handling post production. And three, how 246 00:17:00.009 --> 00:17:03.440 much content repurposing are we doing out of each episode? If we can kind 247 00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:07.480 of talk about those three, I can kind of narrow it down within that 248 00:17:07.599 --> 00:17:11.799 range to a narrower range for you even before I give you a proposal. 249 00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:15.109 And we're our customized service. So would you say that in the IT space, 250 00:17:15.430 --> 00:17:19.470 because I know you work with probably sales teams that are used to kind 251 00:17:19.509 --> 00:17:25.630 of that typical sales line of I can't give you a quote and I want 252 00:17:25.670 --> 00:17:29.309 to build so much value before I ever talked about pricing. So there's that 253 00:17:29.470 --> 00:17:32.220 conversation, but there's also how you addressed it in your marketing. So for 254 00:17:32.460 --> 00:17:36.819 marketers out there who are realized that, Hey, talking about pricing is actually 255 00:17:36.859 --> 00:17:40.420 going to do a lot of good from an SEO perspective, but I don't 256 00:17:40.460 --> 00:17:42.180 want to step on sales his toes too much. How do you guys handled 257 00:17:42.220 --> 00:17:47.210 that over there at executech recently? Gary? Yeah, great question. I 258 00:17:47.289 --> 00:17:52.690 mean to to our sales teams credit and to our luck and benefit, they've 259 00:17:52.769 --> 00:17:56.730 been very open to this idea. You know, to just give a little 260 00:17:56.730 --> 00:18:00.519 bit of context, you know, when I read the book, and just 261 00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:03.039 cut this if you want, but like I don't love it when, like 262 00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:06.599 a business leader reads one book and then that becomes like their whole core philosophy 263 00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:08.079 is like we're following this book and this is it and this is our business. 264 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:10.480 Like, look, there are a lot of books out there, a 265 00:18:10.480 --> 00:18:11.759 lot of great ideas out there. So I don't want to be the guy 266 00:18:11.799 --> 00:18:14.950 that's like this is the book you live and die by, but look, 267 00:18:14.990 --> 00:18:18.549 there are there are some great ideas and okay. So that being said, 268 00:18:18.109 --> 00:18:23.349 part of what we did was we sort of kind of relaunched our marketing position 269 00:18:23.549 --> 00:18:26.579 with the sales team. We got we had a big meeting with all the 270 00:18:26.619 --> 00:18:30.140 sales team, the STRS and marketing. We said, look, you know, 271 00:18:30.220 --> 00:18:33.059 we've been doing things. We've been focusing on SEO content, which has 272 00:18:33.099 --> 00:18:37.579 been great. Going forward, we're still doing that, but it's with a 273 00:18:37.619 --> 00:18:41.339 little bit of a different approach. It's this they ask you answer. You 274 00:18:41.420 --> 00:18:47.289 know, we're looking at client questions first and writing content and messaging to those 275 00:18:47.329 --> 00:18:49.849 questions first. And we kind of got there by in and part of the 276 00:18:51.130 --> 00:18:52.569 part of the way we got there by and was saying, look, what 277 00:18:52.769 --> 00:18:57.079 questions are you getting? You know, we had a to our brainstorm session 278 00:18:57.200 --> 00:19:00.279 with the sales team, and that's that's a tip I would throw out all 279 00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:04.480 marketers. Be Friends with the sales team. I know we you hammer on 280 00:19:04.559 --> 00:19:07.279 that over and over and over again, but this was one way that we 281 00:19:07.359 --> 00:19:10.309 did it. We sat down, we said, look, what is the 282 00:19:10.549 --> 00:19:15.109 top five questions you're getting from prospects and we talked about it. We sort 283 00:19:15.150 --> 00:19:18.029 of, you know, split them into their variations. Are there industry specific 284 00:19:18.069 --> 00:19:22.869 questions you're getting in this industry? We hear more of this question and then 285 00:19:22.910 --> 00:19:25.859 we say, okay, how do you answer that? What do you say, 286 00:19:25.900 --> 00:19:27.619 sales guy be and sells guy a, you know, how are you 287 00:19:27.779 --> 00:19:32.140 answering that? And and that's interesting because then you got start to see, 288 00:19:32.180 --> 00:19:36.019 okay, some guys are saying some interesting things that maybe aren't what you thought 289 00:19:36.140 --> 00:19:37.650 the brand was about, and it's like, okay, maybe we need to 290 00:19:38.170 --> 00:19:41.250 realign a little bit, but then they'll say little nuggets that are like that 291 00:19:41.490 --> 00:19:45.769 is that is so good, I need to take that answer and apply it 292 00:19:45.890 --> 00:19:48.250 to how I'm answering the question in my content. So that that was that 293 00:19:48.410 --> 00:19:51.609 was the other that was a big buy in. And the other buy in 294 00:19:52.690 --> 00:19:56.079 is is just discussing the benefits. And it is kind of hard to talk 295 00:19:56.119 --> 00:19:59.920 about the benefits of this approach without testing it or having done at first. 296 00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:03.640 But when a prospect comes in and has you know, because we all know 297 00:20:03.799 --> 00:20:07.589 that the prospect is doing way more online research than ever before, even before 298 00:20:07.589 --> 00:20:10.230 they touch as it the talk to a sales guy, fill out of form, 299 00:20:10.309 --> 00:20:14.349 whatever it is they've been exploring on your website, on your competitor's website, 300 00:20:14.390 --> 00:20:18.630 all across the web, if they have read content on your site that 301 00:20:18.829 --> 00:20:25.099 answers the majority of their questions, they're going to be that much more qualified 302 00:20:25.539 --> 00:20:27.380 when they talk to a rep and the reps going to be happier. He 303 00:20:27.500 --> 00:20:33.740 doesn't have to sit there and get all these qualifications and then find out they're 304 00:20:33.740 --> 00:20:36.930 not actually a good set. You know they're they're budgets way too low or 305 00:20:36.970 --> 00:20:41.650 they're just whatever it may be. They've sort of self qualified through the content 306 00:20:41.809 --> 00:20:44.009 that you've created, and that's one of the beauties, I think, of 307 00:20:44.329 --> 00:20:48.650 this approach. Again, no crazy new approach, just kind of an alternate 308 00:20:48.730 --> 00:20:52.279 approach and I love what you're saying. They're Gary about how to brainstorm, 309 00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:56.759 how to facilitate that with your salespeople. You know, we've done previous episodes 310 00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:02.880 on how marketers can leverage different call recording tools like Corus, dot ai or 311 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:07.589 gone. Go into those, listen to the common questions that are happening. 312 00:21:07.869 --> 00:21:11.670 If you can't do that, they're even if you do do that, there's 313 00:21:11.710 --> 00:21:15.990 probably still benefit in having that brainstorm session with sales right because as you're going 314 00:21:15.990 --> 00:21:18.579 to get there by and you're going to maybe hear things that, hey, 315 00:21:18.700 --> 00:21:22.859 you didn't catch and kind of going down the rabbit hole of your know, 316 00:21:22.980 --> 00:21:27.980 your call recording software. But then also just the way that you're talking about 317 00:21:29.420 --> 00:21:33.690 talking about pricing disqualifies things, which is actually better for sales right, because 318 00:21:33.890 --> 00:21:37.569 that we've seen that. We recently went through a website redesign. We had 319 00:21:37.650 --> 00:21:41.450 no pricing on our previous site which, once we got to thinking about it, 320 00:21:41.529 --> 00:21:44.730 it was like, Oh, when you go to a site and there's 321 00:21:44.730 --> 00:21:48.200 just no there's no ball park, there's not even a starting at, there's 322 00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:52.759 no real frustrating it's very frustrating and you know we talked all the time about, 323 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:56.839 you know, putting ourselves in the seat of our buyers, but then 324 00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:00.640 we go and do stuff like that and just don't talk about pricing and all 325 00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:03.509 that sort of stuff and it does more harm than good, because great sales 326 00:22:03.549 --> 00:22:10.910 people disqualify out the bad opportunities more than they try to qualify everything in. 327 00:22:11.069 --> 00:22:14.750 So if you can help your sales team do that, because I was talking 328 00:22:14.789 --> 00:22:17.940 to Dan Sanchez, or director of Audience Gout, I mentioned the other day. 329 00:22:17.940 --> 00:22:22.019 He's like, there's two complaints I've gotten throughout my marketing career from sales. 330 00:22:22.059 --> 00:22:25.059 Where are my leads? And your lead suck. If you want to 331 00:22:25.140 --> 00:22:30.130 give your sales team leads that don't suck, help disqualify out the people that 332 00:22:30.170 --> 00:22:33.690 are most likely not the fit. Now there's some art to this right, 333 00:22:33.849 --> 00:22:37.529 because you know, we typically work with BTB tech companies of fifty plus employees. 334 00:22:37.809 --> 00:22:41.650 Do we have customers who are smaller than that, but they're more advanced 335 00:22:41.650 --> 00:22:45.839 than their marketing so they you know, they're willing to invest in a podcast. 336 00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:48.440 Sure but you've got to start somewhere and you can tweak as you go. 337 00:22:48.680 --> 00:22:53.200 But I love everything that you're saying, especially going back to Seo being 338 00:22:53.240 --> 00:22:57.279 driven by content, not so much the technical hacks those sorts of things. 339 00:22:57.589 --> 00:23:00.029 If we were going to kind of round it up here, Gary, with 340 00:23:00.190 --> 00:23:04.349 tips for folks on hate, should I bring more of my Seo and house 341 00:23:04.430 --> 00:23:10.029 or should I start focusing on things that maybe I'm not focusing on to gain 342 00:23:10.190 --> 00:23:12.819 some momentum over the next quarter with my seo efforts? What are the top 343 00:23:12.940 --> 00:23:15.940 pieces of advice you want to leave folks with today, Gary, yeah, 344 00:23:17.019 --> 00:23:21.220 great question and I think you know we've hit it a lot and and I'll 345 00:23:21.299 --> 00:23:23.900 just sort of, you know, hit it again in whatever way you can 346 00:23:25.420 --> 00:23:30.369 refocus on content creation. If you need to do that yourself, you know 347 00:23:30.809 --> 00:23:33.289 cut out the time to do it and I know that there are a thousand 348 00:23:33.329 --> 00:23:37.410 other priorities. If you're a soul marketer to company, you know I get 349 00:23:37.450 --> 00:23:38.970 that it's hard. That being said, I think there are ways to get 350 00:23:38.970 --> 00:23:44.799 around that. You Leverage your leadership team to write content. You know, 351 00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:48.359 you guys Logan, you guys there. You guys are the masters of repurposing 352 00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:52.119 content man you can. You can get so much mileage out of one webinar 353 00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:56.549 or one video and spin it into so many different things and that that'll save 354 00:23:56.630 --> 00:24:00.029 you so much time and so much work. Going back to that brainstorm session 355 00:24:00.029 --> 00:24:03.589 that we had with the sales team, we did that back in October of 356 00:24:03.710 --> 00:24:08.309 last year and we still have topics to this day that we can still ride 357 00:24:08.349 --> 00:24:12.980 on. We're still hitting on questions and riding fresh content, and so there 358 00:24:14.019 --> 00:24:17.940 are ways for you to stretch your content resources if you're a solo, if 359 00:24:17.980 --> 00:24:22.019 you're a solo person, if you've got a team and if you've got dedicated 360 00:24:22.180 --> 00:24:26.049 content writer, which which at execute tech it's just myself and I've got a 361 00:24:26.130 --> 00:24:30.049 content writer and man, that's it. Like we're cooking right. That's she 362 00:24:30.170 --> 00:24:33.329 does an awesome job. You know. She knows how to Seo optimize a 363 00:24:33.410 --> 00:24:36.369 blog and if you don't know how to do that, it's easy to learn. 364 00:24:36.690 --> 00:24:40.400 There's just some basic checklist things. Maybe that's a podcast for another day, 365 00:24:41.039 --> 00:24:44.839 but you know, refocus on content now. You know we set it 366 00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:47.200 before and Logan, you said it. That's not to say that the other 367 00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:51.640 aspects of Seo aren't important. That's not to say that there is zero roll 368 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:56.190 for in a SEO agency to supplement your efforts. Again, I think sort 369 00:24:56.230 --> 00:25:00.269 of the the take from all this is that at I think at least, 370 00:25:00.309 --> 00:25:03.869 you know, seventy percent of SEO effort can should be done in house and 371 00:25:04.069 --> 00:25:08.019 maybe another twenty percent, or if not all, depending on what resources you 372 00:25:08.099 --> 00:25:12.339 have available, can also be done in house. Can your content rider or 373 00:25:12.339 --> 00:25:17.460 somebody else, maybe you've got a social media manager, also handle the online 374 00:25:18.339 --> 00:25:22.450 profile optimization, you know, your Google, my business optimization, your yelp 375 00:25:22.529 --> 00:25:25.329 and all that other stuff. Yeah, you know that. That could be 376 00:25:25.369 --> 00:25:27.930 another easy step. That's another step in Seo that they could just handle that. 377 00:25:29.250 --> 00:25:33.769 You know. Do you have some inhouse development resources? So you have 378 00:25:33.849 --> 00:25:36.720 a team of developers? If you're assass company, maybe you do right and 379 00:25:36.839 --> 00:25:40.039 maybe you don't understand. Those guys get really busy, but can you borrow 380 00:25:40.079 --> 00:25:41.839 some of their time to do a couple of those back in, you know, 381 00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:45.839 database or hosting type tweaks to get to the point where you need to? 382 00:25:47.720 --> 00:25:49.349 You know, we won't go into Schema right now, but but can 383 00:25:49.470 --> 00:25:52.269 you you know there are plugins that can help you with Schema and you can 384 00:25:52.509 --> 00:25:56.109 start handling that. What are a few of those just so we can link 385 00:25:56.109 --> 00:25:59.190 to him in the show notes that you come to mind. For you, 386 00:25:59.269 --> 00:26:02.349 Gary, some plugins, Oh man, I can't remember the name of it 387 00:26:02.470 --> 00:26:04.140 off top of my head. We've gotten on our word press. It's just 388 00:26:04.700 --> 00:26:07.900 a Schema plug in and again, Schema that. That's an area I admit 389 00:26:07.980 --> 00:26:11.819 that I'm a little week on and Fart in terms of my understanding and my 390 00:26:11.900 --> 00:26:17.619 execution and I am understandings that may it's beneficial, but it's beneficial more to 391 00:26:17.779 --> 00:26:19.930 others than than to some. I, like you, kind of have to 392 00:26:19.970 --> 00:26:23.130 find the balance there. You know, link building is another area. You 393 00:26:23.450 --> 00:26:26.970 know, maybe that's an area that SEO agencies can help more with, because 394 00:26:26.970 --> 00:26:32.289 that is more of an outbound and outreach thing. But again, seem rush, 395 00:26:32.450 --> 00:26:37.079 for example, has some tools that makes that process extremely simple and really 396 00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:40.079 easy. It's just the question of giving it, you know, half an 397 00:26:40.119 --> 00:26:44.160 hour a day or whatever it may be to do so. Again, Long 398 00:26:44.279 --> 00:26:48.750 Story Short, double down on your content strategy. If Seo is important to 399 00:26:48.869 --> 00:26:53.789 you, double down on your content creation and think about creative ways to repurpose 400 00:26:53.829 --> 00:26:59.509 it, think about creative ways to promote it. And it all goes back 401 00:26:59.549 --> 00:27:03.420 to are you answering your prospects questions. Yeah, absolutely, I could not 402 00:27:03.500 --> 00:27:08.019 agree more to give folks a few next steps if you really enjoyed this episode. 403 00:27:08.299 --> 00:27:12.539 James and I did a behind the curtain episode on the Google Alphabet Soup 404 00:27:12.619 --> 00:27:18.289 strategy that we implement here, it sweet fish and our own Seo efforts. 405 00:27:18.769 --> 00:27:22.130 We also did a customer mastermind call, which is actually available on our youtube 406 00:27:22.130 --> 00:27:26.849 channel. We do monthly calls exclusively with our customers, but you can get 407 00:27:26.890 --> 00:27:30.240 access to that if you check out our youtube channel where we walked through how 408 00:27:30.359 --> 00:27:34.319 we execute on that Google alphabet soup strategy that we talked about briefly in that 409 00:27:34.359 --> 00:27:37.880 episode. So we got a podcast episode, a Youtube video for you to 410 00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:41.920 take another step, and then we did one recently what you just talked about 411 00:27:41.920 --> 00:27:45.309 there Gary in you know, we agree with you. Content is first backlinks 412 00:27:45.349 --> 00:27:48.710 or helpful. Don't put all your eggs that basket at all. If you 413 00:27:48.910 --> 00:27:52.829 do want to kind of try and take that on yourself, I did an 414 00:27:52.910 --> 00:27:57.619 episode with Dmitri Draglov, who had some very practical tips on how you can 415 00:27:57.700 --> 00:28:03.099 do some of that outreach yourself more effectively than a PR or an SEO agency. 416 00:28:03.220 --> 00:28:07.380 So hopefully those three will help you with even more to go from from 417 00:28:07.380 --> 00:28:11.259 here. But, Gary, I really appreciate your perspective today. If people 418 00:28:11.259 --> 00:28:15.049 listening to this one to stay connected with you, with the best way for 419 00:28:15.170 --> 00:28:18.329 them to reach out. Yeah, I'm on Linkedin. I'm just Gary Arnold. 420 00:28:18.369 --> 00:28:21.529 I mean you could, you could check me out on twitter, but 421 00:28:21.569 --> 00:28:23.930 I do a lot of star wars stuff, so if you're in the nerd 422 00:28:23.970 --> 00:28:26.480 stuff, I guess that's where you can find too. I love it. 423 00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:30.039 Man, Gary, thank you so much for being a guest on the show 424 00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:36.880 today. Absolutely thank you, Gary. V says it all the time and 425 00:28:37.079 --> 00:28:41.829 we agree. Every company should think of themselves as a media company first, 426 00:28:41.829 --> 00:28:45.470 then whatever it is they actually do. If you know this is true, 427 00:28:45.549 --> 00:28:49.309 but your team is already maxed out and you can't produce any more content in 428 00:28:49.470 --> 00:28:53.470 house, we can help. We produce podcasts for some of the most innovative 429 00:28:53.470 --> 00:28:57.059 bb brands in the world and we also help them turn the content from the 430 00:28:57.140 --> 00:29:02.940 podcast into blog posts, micro videos and slide decks that work really well on 431 00:29:03.059 --> 00:29:07.099 Linkedin. If you want to learn more, go to sweet phish Mediacom launch 432 00:29:07.579 --> 00:29:10.170 or email logan at sweetish Mediacom.