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The Goods From Eric Seropyan
- Visit Eric’s website – thisismysouthbay.com | Enter your website and email address and Eric and his team will provide you with a FREE website SEO analysis!
Top 3 Takeaways From This Value-Packed Conversation
- Strong results from Seach Engine Optimization (SEO) come from patience and consistency. It’s a long game where the rewards are game changing when you do things right
- DO NOT engage in “black hat” practices, like purchasing reviews, traffic, and followers. Google will quickly realize this is not legitimate traffic coming to your website, bury you in the rankings, AND make it difficult to bounce back
- It’s all about the user experience! In order to succeed with SEO, be sure you are doing things that will make Google happy to rank you. Be sure that people who find you via search query are finding what they searched for on your website
Show Notes
1:16 – A moment in Eric’s life when he listened to himself instead of what others told him was right and it led to a major accomplishment
2:03 – What is the difference between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?
– SEO: 10 organic page placements that Google determines would be a good fit for the user’s search query. The act of getting ranked in those spots is how SEO is defined
– SEM: The entire spectrum of search engines – content creation, organic ranks, Google ads
4:43 – How did Eric build his brand on the back of SEO and SEM initiatives?
6:06 – Don’t get lost thinking you need millions of people in your audience to make an impact
– Many entrepreneurs have built their business with a very tightly defined, niche audience versus trying to appeal to the masses
6:48 – Where do businesses fall short when it comes to leveraging SEO and SEM for their practices?
– Not playing the long game. Succeeding with SEO requires patience and consistency
– EXAMPLE: If you’re going to do 50 blog posts, space them out to one per week instead of posting all 50 at once, then doing nothing to follow
– Once you get to a point where organic leads flow in, it can be a game changer. But don’t expect Google to just hand you instant results. You need to earn those rankings and prove to Google that you’re a reputable resource for their users
– And, once you get those rankings and claim that real estate, it’s difficult for a new competitor to come in and steal those spots from you
– In all facets of growth and scaling, quick results are a myth. This methodology applies strongly to enhancing your brand presence with SEO
– There are no magic keywords that trigger Google to send traffic to your website
9:54 – What are some of the common issues business leaders have encountered trying to leverage SEO?
– People feel they’ve been burnt because it’s more difficult to see the tangible results versus a print ad or physical billboard
– You need to understand what your goal is when it comes to SEO
– Frustration rises when SEO doesn’t work, but a lot of that can be attributed to who’s doing the work. If you hire someone inexperienced to handle it or buy traffic for a low price (black hat practices that we’ll be talking about again later in the conversation), do not expect major return on your investment
13:05 – Are there differences with SEO practices for a small businesses versus a large corporation?
– YES! It comes down to expectations and the business model
– If it’s a small, local company, SEO will be more geo-targeted to the local and surrounding communities
– If it’s a larger company with wider reach, SEO will be more globally focused to satisfy that reach
– The audience may be bigger, but obtaining rank can be more difficult because there’s only so much real estate available on search engine pages
16:29 – What do professionals and business owners need to know about where SEO is headed so they don’t get left behind?
– The “secret sauce” for Google is they are VERY user-centric. If they have a lot of users, the advertisers will follow. Search engines that came before Google and failed were more advertiser-centric, thus impacting the user experience in a negative way
– Do not use keywords for a product or service on your website if you don’t offer it. When a user lands on your page and discovers you don’t have what they’re looking for, they’re going to be upset with Google because they referred them to a site where what they were looking for wasn’t offered. This manipulation will impact your results over time.
– Deliver to the user what will make Google happy!
– Anything you do to upset Google will stop any chance of growing your presence on the search engine dead in its track. Fake reviews, manipulating keywords, buying phony traffic…avoid this at all costs!
– In all aspects and facets of digital marketing, IT’S ALL ABOUT THE USER EXPERIENCE!
20:07 – What does “they changed the algorithm” mean when it comes to SEO?
23:05 – When it comes to SEO, what are some of the “black hat” strategies we should avoid at all costs?
– DO NOT buy followers for social media
– DO NOT buy link farms (any group of websites that all hyperlink to other sites in the group for the purpose of improving SEO). Networks are very aware of these “services” and will bury your site if you’re associated with them
– Reputation management is HUGE! Make sure links pointing to your site are legitimate and reputable. Be sure you have a steady stream of reviews coming in to your business….
– DO NOT buy reviews! If a bunch of reviews get dumped all at once, then little to nothing comes in after that, it’s very easy to spot that your reviews are not organic
27:27 – What are steps a new brand/business can take to come out of the gates strong in the SEO department?
– Make sure your website is optimizable and functioning in a way that will make Google happy to rank you. Ensure your site loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, and free of dead links. Make sure your pages are tagged properly. Keep user experience in mind at all times
– Keyword analysis: what keywords do you want to rank for?
– Competitive analysis: what keywords are your direct competitors ranked for?
– Reputation management – maintaining a steady flow of LEGITIMATE reviews. Understand you won’t make 100% of the audience happy, so you may have a few bad reviews mixed in as well. How you respond to those negative reviews will tell the story of how you treat customer service and customer experience. Engage good AND bad reviews
– Find websites that will link to your website. A great way to do this is to execute a podcast guest marketing campaign. Create an offer that points to your website and provide that on the show. The show can then put your link on their site in the show notes. The more interviews you do, the more links you’ll have!
33:17 – Get Google Analytics to track all the metrics that your traffic makes up
– Google watches the analytics very closely. The analytics will tell Google if your website is properly optimized for a keyword. If it is, they’ll boost your ranking. If not, they’ll move your ranking lower.
– Engage the audience! Keep them on your website as long as possible. Embed videos on your website versus sending them to YouTube to increase your average time on site
36:16 – The importance of keyword research and what you should be focused on
– Be sure your keywords are highly relevant and specific. Broader keywords are harder to get ranked for, but specific keywords can deliver a higher conversion rate if you truly offer that product and/or service
