Online Marketing Strategies to Make Your Business Shine in 2017 | Part 2

(Video Transcription. See video below.)

Stephan: By an SEO company. And I looked at it and I said, “You know something? I can do this better.” And so, in 2007 we decided we were going to launch this company and we were actually wholesalers for the first four years. Meaning that we actually work directly with web developers.

Lots of people think that web developers and web designers know SEO, that is not really it. They know how to build websites. It’s like apples and wheelbarrows. It is completely different. And so, what we did is we work with web developers and so when a web developer would sell you SEO services chances are there is a company behind that that actually gets it done. Well we were one of those companies.

And then in 2011 we actually decided you know something we are going to cut out the middle man, we are no longer going to work with web developers we are actually going to work with end users directly. Well what that has done is we have a proprietary system that allows us to reverse engineer and really develop everything that we are going to be talking about today. So, the worksheet you guys have we actually ourselves use on a daily basis just in a digital format.

That is the link, in case you guys don’t have one of the worksheets that is the link where you guys can go ahead and download it, its gettheclicks.com/marketing-plan. By the way, if anybody wants this presentation at the end just let us know. It is not copywrite. Because I already see people taking pictures, you are more than welcome to have that. It’s not a problem whatsoever, we can email it to you and you guys can review it to your hearts content.

On our website, we have three tools. You need these tools to fill this thing out. Because part of the work you are going to be doing and looking at your competition is you have to run scans on their website and it is going to take you days to go and try and find the stuff that we’ve built tools for that you can use for free. So, you can just go online use them and use them and abuse them. I want to go through these tools really quick so you guy’s kind of understand what you have at your fingertips so you know how to fill out the worksheet.

The first thing is keyword research. It’s just a supply and demand analysis online. That is all it is. So, our keyword research tool you can click on that, you can go ahead and you can actually enter any keyword you want. We are going to tell you what the search volume for that particular keyword is and then we are going to make some suggestions for some other keywords that might makes sense to you. And then we have this awesome little scoring system called a keyword difficulty score and it is a percentage from zero to a hundred. And the higher that score the harder it is to rank that keyword.

So, going after the keyword that has the most volume isn’t necessarily the smartest thing. You also may want to look at what kind of a keyword actually drives the most phone calls. And that is we are going to have to get back in to the tracking. So, for you guys I will give you an example. Pool contracting versus pool contractor. Which one do you think drives more leads?

Multiple speakers: Contractor.

Stephan: Why?

Male speaker: Contracting is too vague and it covers too much. Contractor is very complete.
Stephan: If somebody is looking for a solution to their need I am looking for a person right now. Which one of those two terms do you guys think has less search volume?

Female speaker: Contractor.

Stephan: That is right, contractor. But who cares? There are some times when people hire us their search volume goes down, they are like what is going on, well are you leads up, well yes, they are. Okay who cares? You don’t care how much traffic you get to your website, you care how many leads you get.

So, you want to go after the keywords that drive the most leads. That keyword research tool helps you determine that. We have a website review tool, it’s an awesome competitor espionage tool that where you can plug in a competitor’s domain name. It tells you all sorts of information about it. It tells you all sorts of information about how they market themselves. There is a rank finder tool. The rank finder tool is you can punch in your own website and any keyword. Push a button and it will tell you where you are ranking on Google Yahoo and Bing. Why is that important? Well it is important so you know if you are making progress or not.

We have mobile friendly test. Last year mobile was a big buzzword. Google wants everybody to be mobile, makes sense for some industries more than others. But we have a tool that directly interfaces with the Google check tool. Just punch your domain name in there it comes back with a big green checkmark and a big red x and it is going to tell you if you are mobile friendly or not.

Schema markup tool. Again, that is just a fancy little techy term to confuse you guys. Schema markup is pretty much shorthand. It is something that you can add to your website that just explains to Google what you are all about. Because even though Google is on your website every single day they may not look at everything every single day. Schema kind of helps them understand the website a little bit better.

You SEO report that is something you guys can go ahead and use with your existing SEO company if they say, “Well we did all this work for you” great, plug them in the SEO report and compare them. Print their report out every single month, it is a wonderful accountability tool that you guys can use. Because at the end of the day you guys have better things to do than worry about what your digital marketing company is doing. So just plug in your name and run a report and be done with it.

YouTube suggest tool. YouTube is awesome, I love YouTube. YouTube would be great for you guys, don’t worry about getting fancy videos nobody cares about that. What you want to go ahead and do is you just want to make some quick instructional videos, how do I fix this pool pump, how do I this, how do I do that. Position yourself as an expert in your industry. Google will pick up on that. Google now knows what you are saying on the video. They know that and they actually index that.

So, if your video says Hank is great and you are talking about pool pumps Google knows the video is about pool pumps, not about Hank. Page speed tool, that is important. You want your website to load fast, especially for emergency services. Why? Because it is very targeted to mobile devices. And then last but not least Bing. Well they are there. So, we figured we are going to throw a tool up in there, some people love Bing and so we want to make those people happy as well.

Any questions about these tools? No, okay.

What does Google want? I have a seven-year-old daughter, I think Google changes its mind faster than she does. They have got hundreds of these little metrics that they evaluate. Some we know of some we don’t. But it really doesn’t matter. And I’ll tell you right now don’t worry about all the algorithm updates, that is just another way for SEO companies to kind of hide behind their flaws. At the end of the day one thing that Google always has to do is put people on that first page. If they don’t put businesses on that first page what are you going to do? You are going to go to Yahoo and you are going to go to Bing. [inaudible 00:08:08]

So, if you guys agree with that then all we need to do is worry about these guys, let’s say these top three guys, that is it. That is all you need to worry about. Who cares what other algorithms are out there that may have determined other types of search results. Doesn’t matter. These guys right here at the top, if we know what they are doing obviously, that is hitting the Google signals. Obviously, that is pandering to the Google algorithm. Because its working, because they are at the top.

So instead of worrying about all these different things that are out there and having SEO companies tell you guys that it is lots of work and this and that really there is only about a dozen things that you really need to do that will really move your website, especially local businesses. Who has got an arch nemesis in their– Okay, what market are you in?

Female speaker 2: Over in Polk County.

Stephan: Over in Polk County. Who is your arch nemesis?
[crosstalk]

Are they in here?

Female speaker 2: Its Griffin Pools.

Stefan: Griffin Pools. Is Griffin Pools in here? No? Okay.

Here is the thing, the internet didn’t work earlier. But I’ve turned my off, if we can make a connection. If we have a bit of time I will actually go online and I will literally show you guys how to do this. But Griffin Pools is at the top and you want to strangle their digital necks every single day because they are eating your lunch. Well the thing about it is that they just really have figured what makes Google tick. And here are some of the main signals that we’ve identified that really will make almost any website move, especially local sites.

I am not going to go in to big detail on them because we are going to do that a little bit on the worksheet, but we have a content signal. Is your content relevant on your website? HTML signal, which means how is your website coded. Google knows if your code is outdated, if your website is more than three years old you need a new website. I’m not trying to sell you, but you need a new website. You need a new website every three years. Don’t make it any old because if you don’t Google doesn’t think you are on the ball.

Architecture. Architecture just means how is it constructed. Does it make sense the way it flows? Domain. How old is your domain name, what are you doing with your domain name? If you are registered for one year or ten years, if one year it’s a throw away domain if its ten years you are serious about that domain and probably serious about your business. They look at all that. Back link signal, I’m going to get in to back links. There are so many myths out there about back links, you can rank a website now with just a handful of quality back links. You don’t need hundreds of thousands, again that is just an SEO tactic to sell you lots of stuff and quite frankly most clients actually get screwed by that.

Local reputation signal. That goes right back to the maps. If you guys don’t have a program in place to drive reviews you are way behind the eight ball. And if you say to me, “Stephan, I don’t know how to get reviews” I am going to tell you it is very simple. You bribe people, you pay. It is the best investment you ever made.

Finally, social signals. It is one of these things that are a royal pain in the you know what. I am sure some of us love social media more than others, I am actually not on Facebook very much. I probably shouldn’t be admitting this to you guys. But there are certain things you have to do because Google in their infinite wisdom they think it is something important. But you kind of don’t know how much you need to be doing. And so, if you are in a networking event and usually there is a web marketing guy in there and there are so many social media gurus out there they will tell you it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. At the end of the day you just need to see how much your competition is doing and then kind of determine how much that actually is that you need to go ahead and do.

So, let’s dig in to this.

SEO is a supply and demand analysis. You figure out where the demand is, you come up with your top keywords that are going to drive your leads not your volume. And then once you know that you are going to figure out who the suppliers are for that particular keyword. So, I am just going to say pool contractor pool contracting company and then let’s go with pool construction company. Let’s go with those three, just for arguments sake. You are going to plug those in and you are going to figure out what that keyword search volume is and you are going to say, “Yes those are the three that I want to go ahead and go after for now.” And by the way you will notice that if you decided you are going to go after three keywords there are lots of others that just kind of tag along.

Do not buy from an SEO company that sells you SEO per keyword, you are getting screwed. Go find a program where they are going after four or five or maybe six core keywords. They are all kind of categorized together. They are similar and a ton of keywords will follow along. A rising tide rises all ships. Now on the supply side, you are looking at this. You are literally going to the horse mouth or you are going to Google and you are going to punch in pool contractor.

And so now you have got your three. So, for pool contractor let’s just say you have got your three competitors right here and let’s just say its competitor A B and C. And then you are going to go to the next one, you guys can very simply use it on your phone and you are going to notice that up there is pool contractor A again. But now here is a new one so there is D and then there is E. And then for the last term pool contractor company and then we are going to do pool construction company. Then here you are going to do this search term and you are going to say, “Well here’s B Here’s D and here is A showing up”.

Okay who sees a pattern? A shows up here A shows up here A shows up here. Google likes A. A is a great candidate, Griffin Pools, she left she was crying. Griffin Pools is a great example of a company that Google really likes.
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