The fatal mistake in SEO (and content) that nobody talks about

In this episode, we dive deep with Damon Burton to uncover the biggest SEO mistake no one talks about—treating content as a volume game instead of a value game. We explore why mass-producing AI-generated posts can tank your rankings, the psychology behind organic traffic, and how buyer intent drives real results. Damon shares how he outranked billion-dollar brands using timeless SEO principles that actually work in today’s AI-driven landscape. If you want evergreen traffic and sustainable authority, this is the SEO conversation you’ve been waiting for.

What is Rare Things?

Rare Things is a podcast for those who refuse to settle for ordinary and crave perspectives that challenge the status quo. Each episode dives into conversations where rare perspectives create extraordinary lives. We talk to people who have done RARE things, defying the odds, challenging the status quo, and turning their wildest dreams into reality.

[SPEAKER_03]: How are you learning this stuff?

[SPEAKER_03]: Especially out-mranking massive company.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think what something is really toxic about the world of marketers is throwing rocks.

[SPEAKER_03]: When you say it's probably the largest mistake, you see people making from funneling.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's something that people make are... Licy.

[SPEAKER_03]: How's Shouse?

[SPEAKER_02]: How are you?

[SPEAKER_02]: What's funny, please?

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so long.

[SPEAKER_02]: Something are shouting.

[SPEAKER_03]: What is that?

[SPEAKER_03]: I agree.

[SPEAKER_03]: It looks like saying A and M and spiritual speak.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, shush.

[SPEAKER_03]: They say that in like Ayahuasca ceremonies a lot.

[SPEAKER_05]: Who have you seen that Aaron Rogers documentary?

[SPEAKER_02]: Not yet.

[SPEAKER_05]: So good.

[SPEAKER_05]: I didn't know anything about the guy other than your Facebook.

[SPEAKER_02]: What can I do?

[SPEAKER_05]: That looks like it's good.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he was so slammed for being against the vaccine.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, hang on.

[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like you, I, you know, I got to open with this.

[SPEAKER_02]: You used to be in radio, but you're also so soft spoken.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm like, I need to hear the radio voice.

[SPEAKER_05]: But we need to go, Laura Mipsa.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're a study of where we started rolling on.

[SPEAKER_02]: Mike checks her cell awkward.

[SPEAKER_02]: We need to create a Mike check movement and have something that people specifically say is a protocol.

[SPEAKER_05]: We need a protocol.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the Laura Mipsa.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what it is after that.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Delson blue.

[SPEAKER_02]: What's Delson blue?

[SPEAKER_02]: Is that a detergent?

[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, he just went for my Alaska to detergent ten seconds.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'm going to be good one.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'm glad to be here.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, seriously, you know, super glad a media that you're like one of the top people on our list is like people want to interview.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Selson Blue is an anti-danger of shampoo.

[SPEAKER_05]: Was that in Laura moose?

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I made that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, so the radio voice.

[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know what do I say.

[SPEAKER_02]: What was your after the commercial break?

[SPEAKER_02]: You come back and you go to a hip-hop song?

[SPEAKER_02]: What would you be?

[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, this was like, twenty-five years ago, yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it would be like, so Damon Kelly was the name.

[SPEAKER_05]: And because in radio, you have to have two first names.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally.

[SPEAKER_02]: I had a Jake Ryan that I worked with.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it'd be like, uh, uh, welcome back.

[SPEAKER_05]: You ninety two.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's Utah's beat.

[SPEAKER_05]: What's up, everybody?

[SPEAKER_05]: It's Damon Kelly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Good boys.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_02]: I like it.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's funny.

[SPEAKER_03]: I managed.

[SPEAKER_03]: When did you do it?

[SPEAKER_03]: Because I feel like I just twenty five years ago.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I quit.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, so I did it for about ten years.

[SPEAKER_05]: There's a whole story.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm trying to decide how much of this we go into.

[SPEAKER_05]: I left in two thousand five because I asked to take a year off to prepare for my wedding.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I just never went back.

[SPEAKER_02]: What did you need to, I mean, we just got engaged and you just said you needed a year after?

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, it wasn't the whole year, but it wasn't the whole year for just the wedding, but it was like, okay, I'm gonna need time for the wedding that's in a year.

[SPEAKER_05]: Gotcha.

[SPEAKER_05]: That was also the time when I, the, what in retrospect was now the time frame when I birthed my agency.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it was between the wedding and, you know, Internet things started working well.

[SPEAKER_02]: See, after you got engaged, you feel like I was just a total

[SPEAKER_02]: kind of identity switch like you went from being in radio to now, having this agency.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a drastic change.

[SPEAKER_05]: Um, no, not at the time.

[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, there was certainly identity changes in that period, but I wouldn't say it was that.

[SPEAKER_05]: Radio is cool because, you know, we were talking a little bit about this about our childhood and stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_05]: I was super insecure as a kid because I had like really jacked up teeth.

[SPEAKER_05]: My parents couldn't afford braces.

[SPEAKER_05]: They finally got like some sort of, um,

[SPEAKER_05]: Not, not.

[SPEAKER_05]: They got some sort of financial assistance to put the down payment on it, and then like, no payment was made after that.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I had to, as a kid, I had to pay for my own braces.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I got sorts of things like that.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I was really insecure, and then going into radio, now you have a platform and you're kind of famous, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so there was, but you're also really private, because nobody knows what you look like, especially because this is before the internet, at least the internet, in the sense that we know today.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so it was a nice balance for me because we've talked about how I'm,

[SPEAKER_05]: I like being forward facing a public, but I'm actually hyper private.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so radio afforded me that balance.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so it was cool to come out of my shell a little bit.

[SPEAKER_05]: There's just whole dating phase because now I have access to nightclubs and attractive women and other things like this.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so there was definitely an evolution of Damon over those years.

[SPEAKER_05]: But I wouldn't quite say it was like at this big identity swing within a short time period.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that's interesting you say about because I feel like okay someone goes from being insecure as a kid to being in radio.

[SPEAKER_02]: having a microphone, a platform.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right, that doesn't seem like an insecure person's move, so there must be, I mean, what could it do you win that job?

[SPEAKER_05]: So it's very fascinating.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's an interesting story, and it's actually, I'll tell you the whole thing, because it's actually applicable to a lot of things we'll probably talk about.

[SPEAKER_05]: So when I went to, let's go way back.

[SPEAKER_05]: So when my parents divorced when I was to grew up or middle class, my mom ended up marrying an alcoholic, and so I gave you that context because going into elementary and junior high,

[SPEAKER_05]: I knew that I would never own a computer.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so this is where little things started to come into play that now looking back, influenced the move in a radio and influenced the moves into a starting agency.

[SPEAKER_05]: So when I was in elementary and junior high, it was like, okay, take advantage of those computers because I won't ever have one at home.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I would start with little things like learning typing.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I love typing class.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so when I was gosh, it would probably have been like ten, I was doing sixty-seven words a minute.

[SPEAKER_05]: Right, and things that sound nerdy now, but wow.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then going into high school, it's like, hundred, twenty hundred, three words a minute.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so then I took that, and then I went into word processing class.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that stuff is a given nowadays, but back then it was just starting to become a thing.

[SPEAKER_05]: So because I took word processing class and it came a fishman out at then my senior year in high school, they said, hey, we're doing this HTML class.

[SPEAKER_05]: So believe it or not, click funnels of wordpress and all these things didn't use to exist.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so you had to learn everything by hand.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I learned all those things manually and started building websites.

[SPEAKER_05]: Now, going into college, I didn't know if I wanted to do college and if I did, what I wanted to do within it.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I ended up going and taking generals to just try and figure out what might look attractive within your generals.

[SPEAKER_05]: I took a communications class.

[SPEAKER_05]: And in the communications class, the guy goes, the teacher says, hey, we're going to, you know, fifty percent of your grade or some big chunk of your grade is going to be building a website.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I said, OK, well, this is cool because I've learned that a while ago.

[SPEAKER_05]: But then I realized I'm going to spend all this time and there's going to delete it at the end of the semester.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I thought, what if I build something to keep?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I went to the professor and I said, can I buy a domain, build it towards whatever checklist you got for the curriculum, but can I keep it?

[SPEAKER_05]: And he says, yeah, as long as we can look at it.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I build a website called EliteRide.com.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so it was my first website.

[SPEAKER_05]: It was a car enthusiast website because in your twenties, of course, you're in a car's.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I start this website.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so we can talk about that website later, but back to radio, in this kind of generals, I could go take an internship as one of the elective credits.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I went and applied at UNIT, too.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I go to school for radio.

[SPEAKER_05]: No, my story is like unicorn story for getting on radio because usually, you know, one thing that I've learned after when I did it for a long time was you never try to work at the radio station you like, because you end up hating it.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I went and not only applied at the station that I listened to, but I got on air within three months.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's impressive.

[SPEAKER_02]: I worked in radio, so I know that that's highly competitive and unheard of especially that you didn't like go to school.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and in a big market too, so if you don't think about markets, Salt Lake, I don't know what it is now, but back then it was like a market, thirty station, which is huge.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I ended up in turning it.

[SPEAKER_05]: So the day job I had,

[SPEAKER_05]: So at the time it was, I worked within a, not at a bank, but in the offices of a bank.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I would do the next shift.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so in the morning, I'd go to college and then I'd go straight around noon, one o'clock, I'd go to work until eight p.m.

[SPEAKER_05]: So you know how around like seven, eight p.m.

[SPEAKER_05]: and I had to do like the countdown shows on radio.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I was listening to Unity too.

[SPEAKER_05]: And this guy named Scott St.

[SPEAKER_05]: John, who ended up becoming my boss later, is doing a giveaway.

[SPEAKER_05]: You guys remember a little bow-out?

[SPEAKER_02]: No, yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: So they're giving away tickets a little bow.

[SPEAKER_05]: I was playing the classic skating in Salt Lake.

[SPEAKER_05]: So they're giving away these tickets and it's like, you know, color number nine, whatever, and you know, tell me what song I just played something.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I call it and we talked about how quiet I talk and how monotone I am, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so he I end up winning these tickets and

[SPEAKER_05]: If you don't think about radio, they cut the audio up and, you know, they'll arrange it to sound nice.

[SPEAKER_05]: And he, I do buy little thing and he's like, you know, your car number nine, whatever.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then he goes, hang on one sec and then you, you know, put you on hold and then he plays the clip.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm listening to him play what I just said, thirty seconds prior.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then after I say my little thing, he goes, man, if I were that boring, I'd kill myself.

[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, on air, on air.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I hear it.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so then he comes back and I'm like, what are you saying?

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, I'm like, twenty, so I just don't say anything.

[SPEAKER_05]: That can't end up becoming my boss.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I go, hey,

[SPEAKER_02]: Does he remember, does he know?

[SPEAKER_05]: He knows this.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we're friends.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so he runs now.

[SPEAKER_05]: He goes, when he comes back, I go, hey, you know, I've been curious about an internship and he goes, well, instead of you getting the tickets, why don't you just show up an hour early and we'll give it a shot.

[SPEAKER_05]: So that was my first internship was little bow, wow.

[SPEAKER_05]: That class excating.

[SPEAKER_05]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: You just asked instead of tickets, literally just for an internship.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he just gave your shot.

[SPEAKER_02]: Even though he, you had the most boring boys in the world, according to him.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I get this.

[SPEAKER_05]: So that's the first, this is the common remote.

[SPEAKER_05]: So when you go do a little gigs.

[SPEAKER_05]: So that was first from out.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then I just, he goes, well, show a mix Saturday for the next thing.

[SPEAKER_05]: Show up, you know, and then just one by one by one.

[SPEAKER_05]: So then it was just his perfect storm or I got in at the right time at the station I liked.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then because he was the promotions director, then the program director who runs, you know, the on air talent, you know, they're obviously friends.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so then he finds out about the new intern and then they needed a night shift covered.

[SPEAKER_05]: Hey, you know, you've seen how they do the boards think you can do a night.

[SPEAKER_05]: In my head like now, but you know.

[SPEAKER_02]: Figures.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to like go hold to be like you want brought into our press here.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I did an overnight, and then I picked up nights, and I picked up weekends, and then I ended up getting the perfect position in radio, because I worked full time, but I never had full time obligations.

[SPEAKER_05]: Because my perspective really early on was I never want to career a full time career in radio, because how transient it is.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like if you lose your job, you are not going to the radio station across the street, like you are migrating to the other side of the country.

[SPEAKER_05]: And back to the childhood, you know, I used to move two, three times a year when I was a kid and I'm like, I will never do that to my kids.

[SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so before I met my wife, before I had kids, I just already put the no snap on that.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, I'm not going to set myself up for that top situation later.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's a long move.

[SPEAKER_05]: There's my radio story.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's amazing to me.

[SPEAKER_05]: How long were you at that radio before you seven years?

[SPEAKER_05]: Seven years.

[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's also a long time, like, in radio years.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a one station.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, they, they own multiple stations.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I got to do the hip-hop station.

[SPEAKER_05]: They had a top forty station.

[SPEAKER_05]: They had a hard rock station.

[SPEAKER_05]: So yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be so cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: I used to work in radio.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I really told you about this season of my life.

[SPEAKER_02]: I worked in radio in Edmonton in Canada where I grew up and then I went to school in Toronto, big market and they kind of had a sister station that because I worked at the one in Edmonton and the one that worked at Edmonton, I had a similar just kind of fell into it.

[SPEAKER_02]: from like right out of high school again kind of people unheard of that people go to school to get these positions.

[SPEAKER_02]: When I was in high school I was the student body president and I would keep inviting the radio show hosts from the morning show because they're like local celebrities to our high school events and just kind of built a relationship with them and then when I graduated, grade twelve, twelve grade as you say in America.

[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

[SPEAKER_02]: From the time I was in high school to now, they still have that morning show spot, which is, I mean, their legends.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then I went to, so my actually job, I would like wake up early.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'd work at the radio station.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes I'd be there early.

[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't always there when they started at like five a.m.

[SPEAKER_02]: but then I worked till like ten eleven.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then one of the hosts would drive me to college.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now go to university is what we call it in Canada.

[SPEAKER_02]: Go to university.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know if I've ever seen it.

[SPEAKER_05]: But we don't think that there's a difference.

[SPEAKER_05]: There's a difference between college and actually.

[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, he would drive into university and then I would also work at a restaurant at night.

[SPEAKER_02]: But then when I went to school in Toronto, they kind of just, you know, hey, we know this girl.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to hire her there?

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I was doing remotes and I was doing promo and that station had one of those kiss ninety two.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it was like,

[SPEAKER_02]: pop CHFI, which is kind of like easy listening, then there was fan, fan five ninety, which is a sports station, and then some kind of a new station.

[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I was like circling around me all those two.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's so cool that we can, that we have that in common at no idea.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Is it a funny though?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like what our treasure all grown up in right now?

[SPEAKER_02]: Because what's a radio?

[SPEAKER_03]: I know.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was literally thinking to myself all the stations that I would listen to.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I want to succeed in color that it rocks to rocky.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it was like the hard rock.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the ninety three three was the punk rock station and Littleton Colorado, you know, our girl.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, they don't know any of the stations.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like I don't even know what to look up now.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would have I would have my radio and like a cassette tape recorder to record my favorite song and if I missed it I have to call in and request it but like they can't just play it's not in the programming so like they can't play it back to back so I have to wait an hour or two and then try to get it so I could record it now we just have Spotify and Netflix and stuff like telling the kids that it's it's not like it's appointment viewing like friends is on Thursday at seven

[SPEAKER_02]: The TV got you can watch any episode any season any time a day.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's like they can't fathom.

[SPEAKER_05]: We were watching back to the future last night because my my daughters doing she's in dance and she's got this Johnny be good dance.

[SPEAKER_05]: It took some

[SPEAKER_05]: And I go, that's the time from back to the future.

[SPEAKER_05]: And she goes, she's like, it is.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I played it for, she's like, yeah, that's it.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then we're watching just a couple minutes of it.

[SPEAKER_05]: And in back to the future, he's talking about, you know, what do they call them?

[SPEAKER_05]: Calvin Klein.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then I think I was, oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: He says something about a, Marty McFlyce is something about a rerun on there.

[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, what's a rerun?

[SPEAKER_05]: Just a rerun.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's so funny, the words that just are unheard of now.

[SPEAKER_02]: create, you know, you guide, like not a channel.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's an actual book that you had a subscription to.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Make as he crazy.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: See the phone book.

[SPEAKER_03]: See what I mean, you're doing ready for seven years.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's back to back to back to very busy lifestyle.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then you left for to get married, but then also for your business, like, were you building a business on a side, then, or how did you get into your agency enough to feel confident to leave your job over it?

[SPEAKER_05]: So at the time I was working for a gentleman that when I started those websites on the side that elite rides, it was a car enthusiast website.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then I didn't know, you know, nobody knew, a year later, fast and furious came out.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that was the audience.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so then that took off.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so the way that I kind of got the skill set is I'm entirely self-taught.

[SPEAKER_05]: So for the listeners that are familiar with background, I do SEO.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so this was all from, it started from there because it was, okay, I have this big website or this website, how do I make it better?

[SPEAKER_05]: So then I got into design and then, okay, how do I monetize this?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so that's how I started to learn about marketing.

[SPEAKER_05]: So then I was working for this gentleman and he was the first one where I saw what true financial success looked like.

[SPEAKER_05]: or the potential.

[SPEAKER_05]: So he was doing a million or two a month and I was his only full-time employee.

[SPEAKER_05]: He had a part-time secretary in me.

[SPEAKER_05]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[SPEAKER_05]: But he was hyper-toxic.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so, you know, she done his life like doing lines of cocaine at Christmas party.

[SPEAKER_05]: There's countless other stories right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's got to be with just you and their reception.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, it had grown to like four or five people, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: But then he invites us out to the snipe club and then we get there and really, really, it was because you want to hang out with friends.

[SPEAKER_05]: So we get there and he ditched us.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so there's so many stories from just that night, but I'll save for another day.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I was working for this guy, but I could see like he did everything online and made a ton of money.

[SPEAKER_05]: But I wanted nothing to do with that approach.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I left him.

[SPEAKER_05]: And what I was doing for him was I was doing landing patients.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I'd built up a reputation as the guy that did the landing pages for John Doe.

[SPEAKER_05]: And when I left, God, I didn't know, I realized time I had a reputation.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so it got around.

[SPEAKER_05]: And somebody followed me like a week later.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I was, hey, I heard you left someone.

[SPEAKER_05]: So do you want to basically do what you want to do in the same thing?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I go, oh, yeah, let me think about it because he's on the other line right now.

[SPEAKER_05]: Can I bridge him through?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I get the three way call and I had just taken any job because I was living in, I was living like thirty minutes south of my wife, so at the time we were just dating.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I just wanted to be closer.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I just took any random regular job.

[SPEAKER_05]: That was a little bit closer.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I don't even in this place right two weeks, you know, week or two in between this transition.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then I get off at this job to pick up doing landing page to sign again.

[SPEAKER_05]: And he goes, you can work at home.

[SPEAKER_05]: He goes eventually, we want you to come to Vegas though.

[SPEAKER_05]: And remember me talking about radio and being transient.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I immediately, in my head, I'm like, that's a mirror.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I said, I have no interest in moving to Vegas.

[SPEAKER_05]: He goes, all right, that's fine.

[SPEAKER_05]: You can work from home.

[SPEAKER_05]: We'll talk about it maybe in a year.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I end up working at home for this guy doing a hunting page design and total opposite of the other guy.

[SPEAKER_05]: Really faithful to his wife, married a high school sweetheart.

[SPEAKER_05]: He's captain of baseball team.

[SPEAKER_05]: She was a head cheerleader, like this little story book kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_05]: And he follows all the rules.

[SPEAKER_05]: gets legal counsel, send stuff to the FTC in advance, and he ends up despite, you know, so the first guy does all the opposite, and he just gets away with everything.

[SPEAKER_05]: The other guy is trying to play by the rules, and he ends up at age thirty to get sentenced to thirty nine and a half years of federal prison.

[SPEAKER_05]: So he ends up getting this lawsuit where some guy, some, I can't remember the hierarchy of like district attorneys versus this versus that, but there's like, you know, a hierarchy to the court systems.

[SPEAKER_05]: And there was some internal beef with this guy.

[SPEAKER_05]: And he shouldn't have been on the case because there was a personal connection somehow.

[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, wow.

[SPEAKER_05]: and he ends up having it out for my employer, and it gets thrown out at the first court, so there's six district courts or spare courts or whatever, and it gets thrown out of five out of six, and this guy is just digging at him, gets it to the sixth one and then they take it in Chicago.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so he ends up getting like a case or two of wire fraud or something and they just threw the book at him.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I give you that context because you asked about how I had the confidence to start my agency.

[SPEAKER_05]: So along the way of working at home for this guy, my wife worked at a hospital, and so she could have a three-four AM, and so I would be like, well, well, why don't I get up a three-four AM, and then I will use that time to work on my side clients, and then by the time Vegas opens up at nine AM or whatever, then a doctor had a bunch of work, or what I ended up doing a lot of the time was just doing their work first, so then I had all day to work on my side clients.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I ended up building up these clients on the side, and then when all that lawsuit stuff happened before Slack, we'd use AOL, Instamester, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I'm trying to get a hold of my team, and nobody's answering AOL, I call the office, nobody's answering the phone, and then I'll send a get a private message back from one of the other designers and goes, hey, did you hear what happened?

[SPEAKER_05]: Like, no, what's going on?

[SPEAKER_05]: I can't go home anybody.

[SPEAKER_05]: There he goes.

[SPEAKER_05]: They got rated by the ATF and the FTC and, you know, guns drawn, kicked down the doors, everything and shot down.

[SPEAKER_05]: So, back to your question, I had three choices, right, right at that moment.

[SPEAKER_05]: One was, see if I still had a job, two was go find a new job, or three was better myself.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so, in your still in the middle of radio.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, I was gone by that.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: So so this all happened in that year after you left and we're in root to getting married.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, because I got married within not the same calendar year, but within a year when I started the agency.

[SPEAKER_05]: So what I did was, you know, I like to share the story because of how I thought process ahead, because I think a lot of us, early, when we're in our infancy in entrepreneurship, we're overthinking.

[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, everything right and so it's like what I did was I just did I just did math and so my wife had a job at the time and I said okay if I lose but by that point my side hustle was like forty percent of my income so it picked up but that's relative like when I mean relative like I was making like thirty grand a year

[SPEAKER_05]: and so at the day job and so my side hustle is like twenty grand a year and then I did the math and so okay if I lose that thirty grand and I only have twenty grand but my wife works that can we still afford to live so so we don't have kids yet but we we knew it beyond horizon we only had a mortgage and a car payment we didn't have any other debt

[SPEAKER_05]: And so to me, it was like, this is probably as safe as a bat as I'll ever have.

[SPEAKER_05]: True.

[SPEAKER_05]: Does it mean that there's no risk?

[SPEAKER_05]: But the longer the scows, the more risk I will have.

[SPEAKER_05]: Eventually, the kids, eventually have debt, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And so I just went on a perfect timing with those in.

[SPEAKER_03]: Really?

[SPEAKER_03]: I was trying to tell some of that through the day.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, because they were, you know, that age, that very specific age where you were able to go take on all those risks.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's not as risk, not that there's not risk, but it's less risky.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like a perfect storm.

[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, I feel like we all get a little tip on the show a little bit like, hey, this is it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like that then, I'm sure in retrospect.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and retrospect that was, you know, obviously it worked out.

[SPEAKER_05]: It was the right decision.

[SPEAKER_05]: But I think your point, you have a period where even if stuff goes bad, it's more recoverable.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I felt like

[SPEAKER_05]: I never felt like, I knew it was a chance it couldn't work out, but I never felt overwhelmed that it was like the most probable chance.

[SPEAKER_05]: And even if it were, I knew I had enough runway to figure something out.

[SPEAKER_02]: Does your wife work with you and your business?

[SPEAKER_05]: She, yes or no, she does what she can, but her and I are largely opposites in that world.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, she's not the entrepreneurial spirit.

[SPEAKER_02]: But she's still working on us with all of us.

[SPEAKER_05]: She's amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's always fun to talk to entrepreneurs and like here.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's the most common question that we get of like, how do you work together?

[SPEAKER_02]: And I always love to hear from other entrepreneurs what their dynamic is with their spouse, whether they are not on the playing field together, whether it's like the quarterback cheerleader kind of situation.

[SPEAKER_02]: And like there's no there's no right or wrong answer.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's just cool to hear how other people do it.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, she's a, she, by her own words was largely born to be a mom, like she loves that at all.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: So in an workshop, well, because, you know, you can have that cheerleader dynamic in a non-business way, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I can be like, you're the best mom, and she's like, you're the best for fighter.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so encouraging to both.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not to be weird, but we do talk about you and your wife because we always think it's amazing how much you just, like, you love her so loudly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's so sweet.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's very obvious.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes, you know, not just another couple, but it's not as obvious.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we're very loud, but yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like everyone knows that you call your wife, Hottie.

[SPEAKER_02]: Cause that's like how you address her on social media or in person.

[SPEAKER_02]: And like we see her at events and she walks in the room and you're like, you light up.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's just very visible.

[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you know, it's funny is there are sometimes we'll meet people and I'll be like, I don't even know your wife's name.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like it's just hotty.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's Alia.

[SPEAKER_05]: Alia, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my gosh, I'm so glad you got that right.

[SPEAKER_05]: I just do this, Alia.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: No, I mean, you're kind of joking, but I'll get people that will either rely for any comments or be like, do I?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I?

[SPEAKER_05]: I would do hi very far do I?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well and I I would love to hear more of your dynamic and like talk about this because you are very public about your love for your family you I and it's also interesting to hear that you are you said like hyper private because you tell amazing stories on social media that I feel like we do get an amazing glimpse of your personal life which I think is so important in branding and we actually just host a brand workshop and

[SPEAKER_02]: a common question there is like well am I branding myself or am I branding the business but people do business with people they know and you know there can be a SEO agency down the street but I know Damon and I like him as a person and I like how he hit his family values and therefore because we're aligned I would want to do business with you instead of just like SEO Joe down the street and something that you've talked about in your social media

[SPEAKER_02]: is how you do, there's two directions I want to go with this.

[SPEAKER_02]: You do just like date trips with your kids, which is so cool because I think on one hand, it's amazing for parents to say, I am doing one on one dates with each individual child, but you go on trips, not just take them out for donuts, one at a time.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you also do these day trips just for you to go work in other locations.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right now, that's what we've got to be at.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, you talk about that.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so we talked about the trips and we talked about the work trips that you said something first though that I was going to come back to about how to help me remember what it was as social media, social media, personal branding yes, they'll you nail that so

[SPEAKER_05]: I like this topic because of exactly how you said it.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like, I am hyper-private, but you would never know that based on how I present things on social media.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so when what happened was a couple of years ago, at the time I would only use Facebook.

[SPEAKER_05]: And were you guys ever on LinkedIn or familiar with LinkedIn like way back in the day when it was just a resume site?

[SPEAKER_05]: So you still not be a social media platform.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I had Facebook and then like this old dusty resume on LinkedIn and I was with Facebook I was I drew a line in the sand and I was like Facebook is for friends and family And so when people would message me questions or like a lead or a client I would just ignore them.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm like I don't I just don't want that bandwidth over here

[SPEAKER_05]: And so then one day, and I was really good about filtering my wall.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I, you know, mute people that I wanted to say in touch with, but I want to see on the drama.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so one day I turned it off, not because it was dramatic, because I filtered that.

[SPEAKER_05]: I just realized how unproductive it was, because I didn't have an intention.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I just shut it down.

[SPEAKER_05]: And you know that if you shut down Facebook, I could, it doesn't really go away.

[SPEAKER_05]: You can just log back on the next day.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I can't delete it.

[SPEAKER_05]: So what I did was I went through and I deleted every post I'd ever made and then I started deleting every comment and made on everybody else's wall and then realizing how freaking long was gonna take I went and asked my wife I said can you help me out and delete so much stuff on me and so it took my wife three weeks to delete everything and I always joke but it's kind of it's kind of true I said you know if you want to in a true testament to the strength of a relationship I gave her access to my pride I mess

[SPEAKER_05]: So she went through and deleted all my private messages and then I hit delete on Facebook.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I just wiped everything out.

[SPEAKER_05]: No, what had happened after that was I had, you know, one friend, like, let's say it was you, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: So you and I would chat and but we weren't clients, but then you became a client.

[SPEAKER_05]: So you kind of got through that filter.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so then I delete Facebook and like, oh crap, and I can't talk to Steven anymore.

[SPEAKER_05]: What do I do?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so then, I was like, well, I can turn it on just for one engagement.

[SPEAKER_05]: So if I'm going to turn the sun, can I be intentional about this?

[SPEAKER_05]: So then I went through kind of back to what you're talking about is when you did this branding thing and people are asking like, what am I branding or how is the approach?

[SPEAKER_05]: We always have these, this internal struggle of, do I talk about personal stuff or do I talk about business stuff?

[SPEAKER_05]: And then it's like, okay, if I want to talk about personal stuff, how do I do that without boring a business audience?

[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, well, then I want to talk about business too.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, then how do I do that without boring my friends and family?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so eventually I was like, I don't care.

[SPEAKER_05]: Those are things I want to talk about, those are things that are me.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm just going to talk about it.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that's what I was actually working on in the presentation out there is about personal branding, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I just started talking about my appreciation for my wife and kids, and then I started talking about SEO and marketing.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then what happens is people start to follow you for your expertise, but when they convert, is when they relate to as a human.

[SPEAKER_05]: So then when I started to realize, okay, I like helping people, so I just give away all the answers.

[SPEAKER_05]: But then it also attracts people.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, this is great, because when I feel personally rewarding, and then I can get the business reward of it, and so why don't we be more intentional about that?

[SPEAKER_05]: So I started to be more intentional about how do I invite more people into my world?

[SPEAKER_05]: But then, because of the privacy thing, I'm very aware that the internet is forever.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so one thing that a lot of people, the follow me,

[SPEAKER_05]: wouldn't notice until I say this right now is I never identify my kids.

[SPEAKER_05]: I never post an identifiable picture of them.

[SPEAKER_05]: Very sensitive to that myself.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I never even mention their names.

[SPEAKER_05]: But you would never know that.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like if you were to look at my feed, you would assume that I just talked ultimately about my family, which I do with a very clear boundary.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I think those boundaries are, I'm not saying that's the right for everybody, but that's the boundary I chose.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so,

[SPEAKER_05]: There's this great opportunity where you can invite people into your world.

[SPEAKER_05]: They relate to you as a human.

[SPEAKER_05]: You grow your expertise.

[SPEAKER_05]: You grow your reach to attract business.

[SPEAKER_05]: For me, it's personally rewarding.

[SPEAKER_05]: A lot of people send messages.

[SPEAKER_05]: As I just about business either.

[SPEAKER_05]: I've had a lot of messages where

[SPEAKER_05]: I'll tell you the most extreme example.

[SPEAKER_05]: There was one guy that wrote me this long novel of a private message and said something along the lines of, I saved his life because he's got all these, he said eating disorders and I've never had eating disorders and I've never had anything close to what he was saying.

[SPEAKER_05]: But something in what I said he was able to translate into his world and realize that there could be a positive outcome from it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so there's all these little opportunities and that's what started the whole thing was just the personal rewards.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like it felt good to help other people or show them that there's opportunity in the world and then it just turned into business opportunity to write it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's been fun to watch what you do on social media, you know, with all that.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like fourteen places I'm going to go with this right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, being drawn lines are the same intentionally.

[SPEAKER_03]: You said the worst several times now.

[SPEAKER_03]: These are the word intentional.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, had to be intentional to leave the radio, you know, business, and then intentional to learn and intentional.

[SPEAKER_03]: How do you give it, give a process for what you choose that you're going to come and bring in your life?

[SPEAKER_03]: Because intentionality, I mean, I think, you know, people all here in the wake up in the morning say, well, I'm going to be intentional.

[SPEAKER_03]: My intention today is this or that, but it seems more like a

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like a personal promise covenant the way you're using that word, which I think is really cool.

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have some kind of, I don't know, ritual that you do with that, or it seems like you're very specific with how you create your intentions.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're intentional with your intentions.

[SPEAKER_05]: No, I think it's probably just because of the way that I grew up, it made it really easy for me to identify the importance of not repeating all that.

[SPEAKER_05]: How do I not have a dramatic household as a father figure?

[SPEAKER_05]: How do I not be broke as a father figure?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so it's like I don't do those things, which, by process of elimination, means be really intentional in your family.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I don't think I have a lot of, I don't think I'm intentional about really anything other than prioritizing family, and then I really like entrepreneurship.

[SPEAKER_05]: So how far can I take entrepreneurship at the top of the priority list, second only to family?

[SPEAKER_05]: And my lens is really that simple.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so being intentional

[SPEAKER_05]: because a lot easier when you eliminate all the other options.

[SPEAKER_03]: So when you say that, because it's nice to explain to some of the other days, like boundary is actually freedom.

[SPEAKER_03]: The lack of boundary is not freedom, it's chaos.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's actually easier to live by, I'm doing carnivore right now, and it's super awesome.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I did it last year, and I'm doing it again right now because of the elimination part.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is less choice, it's actually easier to live like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that's the cheer you bring up that way.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right, so I do want to ask about your SDL stuff because it's funny.

[SPEAKER_03]: Is that what you were doing when you let's podcasting?

[SPEAKER_03]: Raise your radio.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I guess.

[SPEAKER_02]: A new generation.

[SPEAKER_05]: No, I was I was doing I was doing mostly design.

[SPEAKER_05]: So there was there was a client still a client today, ten years later.

[SPEAKER_05]: They got me and I want to come back to date.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I can't get a message.

[SPEAKER_05]: So when I had, when I was starting to do, so my background was designed, and then the SEO was something I was picking up on aside.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I'll tell you another funny story.

[SPEAKER_05]: So in two thousand six, my wife was watching the Bachelor.

[SPEAKER_05]: And she goes, hey, come watch the season finale.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I go and watch the season finale and you know how at the end of a season they leave a cliffhanger and then I come back in three months to see the new whatever.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well this time when I come back after the commercial break to see the new bathroom was

[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm like, I doesn't sound right.

[SPEAKER_05]: Usually it's an extended period of time, but they're going to tell us in like five minutes, through the next batch noise.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so this is when I was just starting an entrepreneurship, then it clicked enough with me to go, that was on purpose, but I don't know why.

[SPEAKER_05]: So now I'm interested in watching this batch, because I'm like, I want to know who this guy is.

[SPEAKER_05]: And it ends up being this guy named Andy Baldwin.

[SPEAKER_05]: I always wonder how many times he hears me say his name because I've said his name on podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's not guy that owns the SEO agents.

[SPEAKER_05]: He probably hates me because of what happened was.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I start looking up this guy's name and I can't find anything very little and I'm like if I understand search engines, at least slightly better than average user.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm not a die-hard fan and I'm this frustrated, imagine how frustrated the people that don't know how to use search engines and our die-hard fans.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it's like why don't I solve that problem?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I went and collected all the informational pitchers I code about them.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I made an easy-to-nab, a gate, and a ball-down fence height.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it doesn't know this.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm sure he's heard it now.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, because I've talked about this a lot.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is so funny.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's like this random guy who was watching the bachelor with his wife made a fan site for me.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we actually brought for you.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, my God, I was about to never think.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I do.

[SPEAKER_02]: Will you accept this for us as a cop here?

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, what happened was I took the SEO stuff that I had learned and applied it.

[SPEAKER_05]: That was probably the first time I was like, OK, now I'm like, do I say the word intention?

[SPEAKER_05]: Because so that was probably the first time I was intentional about SEO, like, purely as a project, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: This is going to be an SEO project.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I started Andy Baldwin on that.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I outranked a billion-dollar company ABC in about ten days.

[SPEAKER_05]: Wow, and so I put on ads on it made thousands of dollars at some point.

[SPEAKER_02]: How did you monetize this?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we're good.

[SPEAKER_05]: AdSense, there's throwing, oh yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: And the traffic on that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he's gonna cut it out.

[SPEAKER_05]: Cut it out.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, well, somebody representing him emailed me and they're like, hey, we saw you got the domain, that's kind of not cool, you let us have it.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I don't remember when I wrote back, but I was pretty, you go to a sickle.

[SPEAKER_05]: I remember which wasn't me, but I was filling myself.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I wrote him back, probably to take a hike, somehow, never heard from me.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I took that idea, did it again the next year, a guy named Brad Walmeck.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then after that ABC cut on, because then they would have websites ready by the time they announced the Bachelor and would drop them.

[SPEAKER_05]: So then I'll give you one of the related story, but not with the Bachelor.

[SPEAKER_05]: Because I was in a car, there's this huge car convention in Vegas called Seema.

[SPEAKER_05]: So Seema Show takes up a million square feet of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

[SPEAKER_05]: And the first year I went, it's like, you have to be in the car industry.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's not open to the public.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I used delete rights to get in.

[SPEAKER_05]: And you go in and it's just eye candy everywhere.

[SPEAKER_05]: There's like new cars, concept cars, old cars, beautiful booth models.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so when you leave, you just want to look at more pictures.

[SPEAKER_05]: And there was nothing.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I only taken like thirty or forty pictures because this was before smartphones.

[SPEAKER_05]: I had to actually bring a camera.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then taking the bachelor experience, why don't I solve that problem?

[SPEAKER_05]: So then the next year I took hundreds of pictures, build a website, and outranked multi-million-hundred-million-dollar convention show.

[SPEAKER_05]: That next year, and seam is very seasonal, it's the first week of November.

[SPEAKER_05]: So October to December, my traffic and rad revenue, which goes through the roof,

[SPEAKER_05]: I got a seasoned assist from him and I looked up the attorney who called me.

[SPEAKER_05]: He was very polite and I look back now and I think he must have just been laughing at me because I was like, oh yeah, that's not my sight.

[SPEAKER_05]: That's one of my clients.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'll talk to him and he's very like, okay kid.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I look up his name on LinkedIn.

[SPEAKER_05]: He's like a former FTC attorney.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, yeah, I'll shut that down.

[SPEAKER_05]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we just studying books or something or roaming, you know, it's not a, I thought a normal route.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's not a lot out there.

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like in that and maybe I'm wrong on that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was laughing earlier when you said, like, oh, yeah, if you people don't know a way in mind it, you know, my name's Damon.

[SPEAKER_03]: I do SEO calling through all the biggest names.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's what I think is funny.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like saying Michael Jordan plays basketball.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're like, it's yoga.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're like, I'm really excited to hear more about how you don't know.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I'm like, how do we have him do stuff for?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like I almost reach out to you a million times because I know I'll be one of your clients.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's literally on my like I know if it'll take me but I You're you're you're like one of the best in the world at this you know, and you probably would never drop that on your own You know on it's Damon one of the best of does you on the planet, but it's true though So what how would you learning this stuff especially out ranking?

[SPEAKER_03]: massive company.

[SPEAKER_03]: You see, that's great.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's fun.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's fun.

[SPEAKER_05]: It was started as a passion with the car enthusiast website and it was fun.

[SPEAKER_05]: I probably have a better answer because a couple years ago, it's definitely doing for eighteen years though.

[SPEAKER_05]: So a couple of years ago, I was like, do I really like this?

[SPEAKER_05]: Why am I doing this though?

[SPEAKER_05]: Is it just comfortable?

[SPEAKER_05]: Is it routine?

[SPEAKER_05]: And I was scared to think about it because I was like, crap, what if I now realize that I don't like this?

[SPEAKER_05]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I thought about it.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I was like, no, I do so like this.

[SPEAKER_05]: And probably what the answer, what I'll answer your question is what I realize is it's consistent enough that I know what I'm walking into every day.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so there's a predictability and a comfort to it.

[SPEAKER_05]: But it's also constantly changing.

[SPEAKER_05]: So then it's always sexy and attractive.

[SPEAKER_05]: And there's always a challenge associated with it.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I think that's why I still like it.

[SPEAKER_05]: That's probably why I got into it.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's so cool to hear that the come-up story as this, like, I think the best entrepreneurs stories of the ones where you kind of accidentally fall into it, like you didn't go to school thinking you're gonna, or you can get.

[SPEAKER_02]: Graduating, you're gonna create this SEO agency, or I didn't think I was ever gonna be in America.

[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't even thought I would have a business, never thought I'd be a son of a builder, you know.

[SPEAKER_02]: Funny, it's used to you sometimes like the things that you were trying so hard for.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's more resistance to, and then the things that kind of fall on your lap for the ones that, I don't know, they just go so, they'll blindly give it.

[SPEAKER_03]: This industry changes so fast.

[SPEAKER_03]: Also, it's not like when we were teenagers or kids, you could say, like, I'm going to be an SEO, like, that wasn't a thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, it would be a fall.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, that was different.

[SPEAKER_02]: I grew less with the computer.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: I think part of, um,

[SPEAKER_05]: I think looking back perspective I had, which is probably valuable to newer entrepreneurs, is we mentioned earlier that entrepreneurs overthink everything, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: And we've probably kind of how your, do I, do I force myself to follow this path?

[SPEAKER_05]: And one thing that I never did was force myself to pursue success.

[SPEAKER_05]: I always wanted it, and I always felt confident I would find it in some path.

[SPEAKER_05]: I would have never said it was in websites in SEO, but I think that's part of how I was able to find it was giving myself the freedom to go.

[SPEAKER_05]: I like this, and the way that I mentioned it before is dating the phases, so dating the phases of your career.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I'll go back to, you know, on your, you know, my first job, I was sixteen, I was a janitor, a junior high.

[SPEAKER_05]: And you take away like little tiny things I still use today like whole one silly thing that I do is You know when you put the plastic bag in your garbage can it fills up with air and then you throw a crap in there and it like moves up, you know, you just like poke a hole in it

[SPEAKER_05]: And I learned that as a janitor because it lets the error out and so like there's things that I use that are silly but like this many decades later I still use for a first shot and so then my second job was I worked in retail just a regular hobby store but then from there I had an opportunity to learn framing like picture frames because I had this manager that saw something and me and gave me a job really early

[SPEAKER_05]: She offered me to go open up another store in another town and so when I was seventeen I got to go be a frame shop manager.

[SPEAKER_05]: I mean nothing about framing and because I said yes and they knew I you know had some sort of ethic to figure it out and I remember one time at Christmas

[SPEAKER_05]: I was looking at her hand and you know Christmas is a peak season for retail and I'm like I'm in charge of all these people all these customers and there was like two hundred fifty grand that I was putting in the safe and like seventeen years old and so I remember taking like little learning things from that and obviously I knew that you know retail wouldn't be my career forever

[SPEAKER_05]: But I never hated it.

[SPEAKER_05]: I was like, what do I like about this?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so the reason why I say dating the phases is like when you're in relationships, you can make this an analogy to like your career is when you're in a relationship, you go, okay, you know, this relationships comfortable might not be forever, but here's what I like and here's what I don't like.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so then eventually like if it doesn't work out, then you go, I remember the things that I liked and you avoid the things you don't like.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's the same in your career, and so I gave myself that freedom to not corner myself into a path, and I would take what I liked from the previous job, however insignificant it was, and then apply it and go, okay, on the next line I'll screen out the things that I don't like.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's not my forever career next, but it has the things that I like, and doesn't have the things that I like, and then just iterate on that, and I think it's really a part of Project Norse to give yourself a little bit of break.

[SPEAKER_02]: You just said forever career and from earlier it sounds like you kind of like this predictability so you feel like SEO is the thing that's the forever the rest of your life.

[SPEAKER_05]: More or less I think probably what will happen is AI has it in a completely different context than everybody's thinking right now just because I said the word AI is AI

[SPEAKER_05]: has.

[SPEAKER_05]: made SEO now live on even further.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I don't think search engines will ever go away because people always need answers.

[SPEAKER_05]: People always don't search things.

[SPEAKER_05]: You might just evolve, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: So AI is just another version of SEO.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's still an engine that still serves content.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's still based on credibility.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it's all the same factors that influence SEO.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I think that I think it'll become a fifty-fifty where it's like traditional search engines and then AI engines is how people use things like I don't think Google's going away.

[SPEAKER_05]: It might lose some market share though.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so now I just have another thing that's fortified the necessity of SEO for decades longer.

[SPEAKER_05]: Now, well, my team does most of the film hit.

[SPEAKER_05]: I built the process as they fulfill it.

[SPEAKER_05]: So at some point I'll probably be even less in the day to day, but I'll still be involved because I like it.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'll probably move to more of a consulting role.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on.

[SPEAKER_03]: the, I don't believe that you should get big by bashing others.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm gonna preface this with that question, but you're very smart, very process oriented, you know, should get back up all your decisions in some way by citing some use case or whatever, but what is it that without giving any secret sauce or whatever, but can you give some, like some kind of insight as to why your SEO and what you do for everybody

[SPEAKER_03]: really is better than, I mean, I would never go to anybody else for SEO stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why, why, why, why, why, why do you want to go to the JOSEO?

[SPEAKER_03]: That's what you call this, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: JOSEO?

[SPEAKER_02]: JOSEO?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Damon versus JOSEO down the street.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's just like, I got something on Google one time.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what is it about, what you guys have done that has made it so unique compared to JOSEO down the street?

[SPEAKER_05]: Probably two things.

[SPEAKER_05]: One is we actually have processes.

[SPEAKER_05]: SEO and then I think business in general a lot of entrepreneurs don't perfect the process and so there's there's some deviation in every deliverable right so it's almost like like the Starbucks McDonald's thing like you know exactly what you're getting no matter which one you're going to

[SPEAKER_05]: And so no matter which client comes to us, we know exactly how we're going to deliver, because we have these processes that we built up.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then probably the second part is we don't get distracted by shiny objects.

[SPEAKER_05]: The majority of SEOs are out there, like, oh, how can I cut corners faster?

[SPEAKER_05]: Or an algorithm came out, so how can I manipulate the loophole?

[SPEAKER_05]: Where's the loophole?

[SPEAKER_05]: Right?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so we let it just play in the game.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: So there's probably people that could get short term results, recognize the way quicker than I could, but it's not sustainable.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so when we deliver it, there's hundreds or thousands of things that go on SEO, but you just distill it down to just three scopes.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so scope number one is how good or bad the website's built.

[SPEAKER_05]: scope number two is how good or bad is your content strategy.

[SPEAKER_05]: And scope number three is how good or bad is your external credibility and publicity.

[SPEAKER_05]: So every single thing that you do with an SEO, every single algorithm that's ever come out to date, falls in one or multiple of those three categories.

[SPEAKER_05]: And it's that simple.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're definitely going to be talking off camera.

[SPEAKER_03]: No one else is low to higher.

[SPEAKER_03]: If he's only taking him on my client.

[SPEAKER_03]: Get trips?

[SPEAKER_02]: I was going to say, can we use this to other groups?

[SPEAKER_02]: If you're going to get a couple of way back.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: We've got to trip so.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, trips.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go down this lane.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I do, I do, I calm day trips because I used to be in and out same day.

[SPEAKER_05]: And it started because I started going on my own.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like, you said you thought I lived in California because I go to San Diego.

[SPEAKER_05]: And the reason I go to San Diego is because in the, so I'm in Utah and in the winter, I get the winter blues.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so it's like, how do I, how do I just get out?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so it's like, okay, you know, you got this proximity and how, what places you can fly that are within like an hour, maybe two.

[SPEAKER_05]: So you can go somewhere and back in the same day, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: If it's more than two hours, then it's just kind of not worth it.

[SPEAKER_05]: So San Diego's in that proximity.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I'd go to San Diego and I'd just bring my laptop.

[SPEAKER_05]: There's a place I always go to called Woody's that's on the boardwalk and they just have an outdoor patio, grab a coffee and so I'd six a.m.

[SPEAKER_05]: flight out, land at seven thirty with the time zone difference and then I'd just go sit on the boardwalk for six or seven hours.

[SPEAKER_05]: But then I want to get back home.

[SPEAKER_05]: I don't want to be away from my wife and kids so I'd got to six p.m.

[SPEAKER_05]: flight back.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I started doing that and then after doing that enough I was like well why don't I go try somewhere else and you know I might do a day trip to Vegas or something?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so that after doing that a few times, maybe just a year, two years later, I'm like, why don't I do this with my kids?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so then I start to take my kids to the San Diego, to Vegas.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then it's evolved now to where we still got them day trips, but now it's evolved into up to two or three days.

[SPEAKER_05]: Um, so that's how it started and we've done some really cool stuff.

[SPEAKER_05]: Probably one of my favorites was New York.

[SPEAKER_05]: My kid kept asking about New York.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm like, he goes, Dad, we go to New York and like, yeah, sure, sometime.

[SPEAKER_05]: And in my head, I'm going, that is way farther than on two wits.

[SPEAKER_05]: But he kept asking.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then finally, it clicked on like, he's got to be asking for a reason.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I was like, hey, hey buddy.

[SPEAKER_05]: Do you want to go to New York because Kevin and Homer were on to it to New York?

[SPEAKER_02]: You want the Kevin McAllister experience?

[SPEAKER_05]: Because he loves Homer alone and he's like, yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I was like, oh crap.

[SPEAKER_05]: Now we're going to New York.

[SPEAKER_05]: All right.

[SPEAKER_05]: She all accounts on your base movies.

[SPEAKER_05]: So we end up, we end up looking this.

[SPEAKER_05]: So the way that I told him was really fun.

[SPEAKER_05]: You know those talk boys that Kevin had, the little playback cassette players.

[SPEAKER_05]: Should those are

[SPEAKER_05]: I was like a hundred and fifty bucks on eBay, like for because they don't make new ones so you can only buy all's ones.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I bought a talk boy and then I recorded on it and I'm like, you're going to New York, you know, and so I was like, hey buddy, he's surprised.

[SPEAKER_05]: So he was excited about just that and then he played it and he just started ball and he's my softy and so he's just like crying.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so we took him to New York and then when we were going, so we stayed at the Plaza where Kevin said, and then I was like, I wonder if they do like home on tour.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Coming to find out like two years before we went, Plaza started doing a home on tour.

[SPEAKER_05]: So you get a limo, they give you a cheese pizza, they bring the thirty-two scoops of ice cream or whatever, they take you to the Empire State Building.

[SPEAKER_05]: At the time, he was seven when we did this.

[SPEAKER_02]: On for God will experience them.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: How often do you guys take those scatter trips then?

[SPEAKER_05]: So three kids, I take one of them about every two months.

[SPEAKER_05]: So we'll do four, five, six, six.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's great.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's some impressive memories.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_02]: With the day trips for yourself,

[SPEAKER_02]: What's the, for me, and it might also just be the season that I'm in that I'm like, oh, you know, this, stop and start of being at the airport and going to security and then getting a, I'm like, maybe maybe not, but at the same time, maybe it's like a, we like to go on, we call a visionary trips where we'll go to LA and we'll go to a movie studio tour and just be in a completely new environment.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so we're not really working all the time though.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I'm kind of like, what's the benefit?

[SPEAKER_02]: Is it just being in a new environment, even though there is like being on a plane?

[SPEAKER_02]: I guess people think a lot on planes, and it's good to be disconnectual place.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we tell me like, why what's the huge benefit of it?

[SPEAKER_05]: It started just to get out of the gray skies in the cold, which is still a big factor.

[SPEAKER_05]: But it's just a change of scenery.

[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I've been self-employed for eighteen years, and then those eighteen years have been working the home for eighteen years.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it's like getting out.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like, do you guys get excited?

[SPEAKER_05]: Go check the mailbox, do you?

[SPEAKER_05]: I love checking the mailbox.

[SPEAKER_05]: Sometimes I put my outing and that's what I find myself like I am.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's why I ordered so much on Amazon.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's for you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Go to this store.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, it's for you.

[SPEAKER_05]: Sometimes I'll go to open the door and my son will be like, I already checked the mailbox.

[SPEAKER_05]: I have this little band that I keep in the if you ever see any photos I posted in my office or like interviews or so I might have a if you look in the very back

[SPEAKER_05]: It'll be over my right shoulder.

[SPEAKER_05]: I have a bin on the wall that you'll see and that bin is I you guys are probably in there I print people's Facebook profiles and then I highlight where they live.

[SPEAKER_05]: Let's sit here and so then anytime I go somewhere I'm like who can I meet right and I'll go I'll go fly through that so every time I go somewhere me someone Wow, that's really cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think I like this idea

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we have to go.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where do we have direct flights?

[SPEAKER_04]: We're sure.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, you were asking about doing the Kagan, Kagan, the oxygen bath.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I actually, so I was asking you about these oxygen baths because I did the same oxygen baths in a different location actually in San Diego.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I did it for four days.

[SPEAKER_02]: And for anyone listening, it's like, what are you talking about?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's the center where you, and I don't know if it's the same because it was a different location, but I did three different baths in the same day.

[SPEAKER_02]: Two of them were the cocoon water.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, cocoon water.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's called K-A-Q-U-N, and it's just like hyperoxygenated water.

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like an hour each bath also.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and then I also took a bath in an aleema water.

[SPEAKER_02]: Have you heard of this one?

[SPEAKER_02]: No, that's probably why I didn't you asked if I like I did it once Okay, so this place that I went to they do like full retreats where the full protocol is like fourteen days or maybe even more and you're basically taking three to four baths a day Yeah, which for a day or two sounds nice, but after two days I was like I'm bored Yeah, and wrinkly

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I got to say, because, you know, I'm tracking my cancer markers and they still, they're like in the yellow.

[SPEAKER_02]: My doctor kind of describes those like the last five pounds that they're not fully in the clear yet.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're kind of fluctuating in this little range.

[SPEAKER_02]: And when I did those four days of oxygen baths, like they, my numbers were the best they've ever been and it was the most drastic spike or

[SPEAKER_03]: decrease.

[SPEAKER_02]: Decrechange in my numbers and then shortly after they went right back up to where they were before.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm like, huh, that was the major change in that time was I did the four days of oxygen baths.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I wonder what would have happened if I would have stayed for a week or two weeks.

[SPEAKER_02]: because there were other people that were in there at the same and it was interesting, like being in this place was almost like a mastermind because the other people that were coming in were all entrepreneurs, one of them had a reality TV show and you know we're just sitting in the waiting room between our baths and our robes and kind of and eating organic food and talking to each other.

[SPEAKER_02]: But there were some people that were did the full four-teen days and like cancer gone or a woman that was trying to have a baby like now she's pregnant with twins and

[SPEAKER_02]: There's something to it.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I think that wildcard of the trips is important too.

[SPEAKER_05]: You know, yeah, like sometimes I'll get burned out sometimes or you're talking about going and going through security and getting on the plane and I'll have to take a break.

[SPEAKER_05]: But then I don't need to break that long to go.

[SPEAKER_05]: I miss getting out of the house.

[SPEAKER_05]: Or like you said, you know, it's like a little mini mastermind.

[SPEAKER_05]: There's always like if you go to the lounges, you can run into people.

[SPEAKER_02]: I bring you a good airline points with that.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'll do it.

[SPEAKER_05]: I give it away.

[SPEAKER_05]: We talk about helping people on social media and stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_05]: I think in general, I just selfishly enjoy helping people like it feels good.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I have a one by five million points or something like that and I just want to be a million times.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's nice.

[SPEAKER_03]: We get a point to come up.

[SPEAKER_02]: And when you play the points game, it's fun and easy to rack them up.

[SPEAKER_02]: When you do, like, oh, by your groceries on this card, by your, yeah, I'm playing games every time.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I used to do Southwest forever.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'll tell you something.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I almost always play Southwest in Delta.

[SPEAKER_05]: and South West, their companions' status is different than everybody else's.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's like a delta, if you get companions' status, where you get a certain amount of points, and it's like, hey, Marley, you know, you can bring one friend with you, one time.

[SPEAKER_05]: South West is a person of your choice, changeable up to three times per year on every flight for that year.

[SPEAKER_05]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_05]: So we talk about taking my wife and kids everywhere.

[SPEAKER_05]: So okay, well me and my wife we pay for and then if it's if it's business and then points for the kids for free if it's not business me and my wife use points But then I have companion status and she has companion status so two of our kids are free and then we use points on just one kid Wow

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we're learning that one.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's cool.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let me get in the point thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm like our honeymoon is just going to be totally hate.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let me see.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, now this makes me think of like, because we've talked about doing a day trip to Disney.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, we were going to go for Christmas and then we were like, oh, gosh, it's really so crazy at Christmas.

[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, we could fly in morning, get there at like seven a.m.

[SPEAKER_02]: fly out same day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's important for entrepreneurs to get like get away, but also exposure to stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's some book I came around what it was.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was like explaining

[SPEAKER_03]: That absolute like as as essential as breathing it is it is just as essential for entrepreneurs to play So what's the creativity just like also plummets now and Taxing to create you know

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a concept I heard too for for marriage.

[SPEAKER_02]: Did have the seven seven seven rule that every seven days you go on a date every seven weeks you do like an extended whether it's a day or a weekend kind of date or a staycation, which we just had our first vacation here are so fun.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then every seven months you do a week.

[SPEAKER_02]: Love you.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: One of the things is, you know, when we've gone to the three of us have met like Mexico and stuff like that, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: So anytime you go to those places like it breaks, I don't know about you alone, but yes, when you come back from those things, you have such clarity.

[SPEAKER_05]: You're like all that other stuff doesn't even matter.

[SPEAKER_05]: I can adjust the limited.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I've realized that four days is my sweet spot for trips.

[SPEAKER_05]: I need like two days to unwind.

[SPEAKER_05]: Because if it's, if it's, if the whole trip is two days, I'm going to be high starting the whole time and I'm going to come back high starting.

[SPEAKER_05]: I need like to hit that third day to actually enjoy it a day, but then the fourth day I'm like, oh man, I got a lot of stuff to do, not like, not like stressed out, but like, I miss an opportunity.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Got some cool stuff to do.

[SPEAKER_03]: Get your drag around and then you're like, you're like, ready to go versus, uh, you come out up from a place of excitement set of things.

[SPEAKER_03]: I hate you, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: The pattern interrupture.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think we should try this.

[SPEAKER_02]: We should put something on the calendar and do a day.

[SPEAKER_03]: What's the idea in it?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, Damon.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: You started, you started day trip mastermind.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, that was never from, you know, I'm, I'm sorry to be a guy to pull back to us.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's a question.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's free on this.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you probably mind a lot, and I don't know what's weird to say, but you do.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so weird.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was a slightly sexual.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can even make eye contact.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna look up at the window.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, Dan, as you.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I just, I'm always fascinated with SEO stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I got started in that era where SEO meant the number of backlinks you had mixed with the number of times you could say a keyword on a page.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so everyone was like,

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, keywords, stuff, getting all kinds of, and I didn't know what I was doing, and so I was doing that, you know, and I was helping rank people and get traffic and, you know, this is in college, and my path took me elsewhere, but I'm always in a fastening about what you do with it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I've always been fascinated by like, I love the stats you'll post under.

[SPEAKER_03]: Everyone should go follow things.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm safe, Rick, carry this.

[SPEAKER_03]: Basically, it's so funny because, you know, we're over here going like, oh, I'm dumping tons of content out and lots of ads and I'm doing an event and all this stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you show, like, that stuff is good, but then you'll just come in to be like, why don't we just rank you on the biggest search engines on the planet?

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's more traffic than the person.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a comparable, but also it's just it moves at a different speed.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like stepping into the center of the Mississippi River, wondering if you're going to get wet versus, you know, a shovel on the other side, like digging around.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'll get my own wherever any sort of digging.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'll read your stuff in a moment.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, it's funny because of who's in the conversation.

[SPEAKER_05]: But you know, so we have this overlapping ties in the inner circle, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: And there's another lead that I was talking to from inner circle just last week.

[SPEAKER_05]: And what I've learned to tell inner circle clients is you are the worst clients.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's telling me more.

[SPEAKER_05]: But I say it lovingly to set expectations, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so what's interesting is because, you know, basically the same thing about you already illustrated is such a different world because, and this has nothing to do with intellectuals.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's just the concept of paid-outs, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: And it's all about instant gratification, like how quickly can I put my dollar in to get a dollar for you to get out?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so SEO is like, there's just great little graphic I put in my in my proposals and it shows like, you know, paid ads and it's like, you know, on social media.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so there's like a predictable trajectory.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then there's like, there's, you know, so paid ads ends over here and then there's like SEO and it's like,

[SPEAKER_05]: Then there's the Marquis.

[SPEAKER_05]: So with all these other forms of advertising, it's to your point.

[SPEAKER_05]: I think what something is really toxic about the world of marketers is throwing rocks.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it's not the one's better worse.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's just do you have where's your patience in your cash flow, which one can you tolerate?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so it paid ads and is nice because it's more predictable, but it's also capped.

[SPEAKER_05]: Because you put a dollar in, you get your doctorate out, but then it's scale, you put a dollar in, you get a dollar ten out, and then gets diluted over time.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then also the ad could change, compliance could change, Facebook, anything could change, and then also understanding over.

[SPEAKER_05]: with SEO, it's like a dollar and nothing else.

[SPEAKER_05]: But then you put a dollar and it's like ten thousand dollars out, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: It's just way higher.

[SPEAKER_05]: And whatever, what I've realized where a big misunderstanding is, and where other SEO's fell, the communicate is, okay, you probably know the SEO takes time, but you know why, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: And so it's progress versus monetization.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so the difference is in progress, I can show you moving from page ten on Google to page eight.

[SPEAKER_05]: to page five.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I can show you progress quick, but all the traffic is on page one.

[SPEAKER_05]: So you're not monetizing it.

[SPEAKER_05]: So that's the difference is I have to set expectations with clients that come from this paid out world to go, you have a muscle memory thinking this is the only way and it's not.

[SPEAKER_05]: That way is fine.

[SPEAKER_05]: You need to forget absolutely everything in that world when you talk to me though, because everything's a total opposite.

[SPEAKER_05]: The pros and cons are the total opposite.

[SPEAKER_05]: Payed ads as fast as you slow.

[SPEAKER_05]: But then the pros and cons the other way around is

[SPEAKER_05]: SEO is really hard to screw up if you do it right like once you get to page one you're going to step you're going to you're going to hold your ground for quite a while and so it's like do you have the cash flow and the patience to invest in for the compounding interest in compounding benefit of SEO or do you need an immediate return with a smaller profit margin that then do pay that's right and so there's advantages disadvantage about but I don't know if that answers

[SPEAKER_03]: It really doesn't, you know, you're background in building landing pages or successful people.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's successfully, you know, at the beginning of your career.

[SPEAKER_03]: I imagine that that skill set directly related to ranking as well because I imagine, I remember there was a, there was a post I made years ago.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's back when I stole a little bit of a hothead.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, in kind of the wrong way, but I went out and I made a post that was like, you comments it on it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I was like, you can absolutely rank funnels.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, to RSEO stuff, you absolutely can, because everyone was fighting about it, but it's hard because all these funnel softwares

[SPEAKER_03]: The back end is so much code fat, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: There's so much excess code and there's a lot of stuff to dig through and I remember you commented on it and said you absolutely can rake it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, see even David said this right now is a little fired up and not headed back then all that, but if you had

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the most cliche funnel building stereotypical worst, you know, whatever client from the paid advertising world, like, what would be that thing that you would say to them in taking, you know, that first step as long as you go and do this one thing SEO over time can start to be your friend because it's such a different mentality, you know?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the so if my question made sense, you know, you just have such complimenting skills that I can see how you are you trying to actually rank the funnel pages now or you trying to just will the separate ones I know is a lot of code fat like so it's such a fascinating problem to solve.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so it's a variable answer, so it depends, because it's like, you know, like, Russell's a client.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so with secrets of success, that's obviously built on ClickFunnels.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so we want to optimize that top-level domain.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so the biggest variable is where is the funnel on the domain?

[SPEAKER_05]: So an example would be is it, um, Damon Burton dot com slash funnel or is it funnel dot Damon Burton dot com, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: So it's a sub domain or sub folder because SEO needs the domain.

[SPEAKER_05]: Funnels you can put wherever you want.

[SPEAKER_05]: But where it's branded like wrestles, it's like, okay, there's always decisions outside of SEO to be made and I'm very aware of that.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so I never force SEO to be the absolute answer.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so it depends on what their ecosystem is.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so sometimes we have to go, okay, well, you have established, there's one person we're chatting with right now who just crushes it on funnels.

[SPEAKER_05]: But they all go to the top level domain.

[SPEAKER_05]: SEO needs that funnels don't need it.

[SPEAKER_05]: But he is so integrated that it's going to be really hard to undo all of his funnel URLs.

[SPEAKER_05]: All of his ads that point to the funnel URLs that sometimes we have to go, OK, well, we're going to do a separate domain.

[SPEAKER_05]: or in some cases, there's basically three-ish options.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's like, okay, put everything on the top of those, I mean, like wrestles, we can do the funnel, and we can do the content there.

[SPEAKER_05]: Or it's like, okay, we're gonna move every the funnels to a sub-page SEO gets the top domain.

[SPEAKER_05]: or they're so integrated that I could create a bigger mess.

[SPEAKER_05]: It would help SEO, but it would hurt other stuff so substantially, so that it would affect their business model.

[SPEAKER_05]: So then in that case, SEO takes the second position and might be on a sub domain or separate domain.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it really depends on the scenario.

[SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, you're right where it's like, how do you set those expectations really?

[SPEAKER_05]: The biggest difference is the avatar for somebody who buys off paid ads is different than somebody that buys from SEO.

[SPEAKER_05]: So with like paid ads, you're stereotyping my persona.

[SPEAKER_05]: You're going there generally this age.

[SPEAKER_05]: They're generally male or female.

[SPEAKER_05]: They're generally this interest.

[SPEAKER_05]: But with SEO, it's like nostic to that.

[SPEAKER_05]: SEO, you're targeting the pain point.

[SPEAKER_05]: So you don't need to target the age and the demographic usually.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so when you think about that, that's why funnels work really well for paid ads is because when you run paid ads, you generally interrupt somebody.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so you want to get them in and out.

[SPEAKER_05]: That's why any pages are sold for that.

[SPEAKER_05]: With organic, they're trying to solve a problem.

[SPEAKER_05]: They sought out.

[SPEAKER_05]: They were not interrupted.

[SPEAKER_05]: They initiated the engagement.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so they want to find an answer.

[SPEAKER_05]: They want to trust a theme or feel more comfortable.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so they want information.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so when you think about that, it really changes how you frame the landing page.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that's my content as well.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that's one of the biggest differentiating factors is you can only rank for what Google can read.

[SPEAKER_05]: That's why traditional websites work so well for SEO because you have to build a content machine.

[SPEAKER_03]: That makes sense for the website itself.

[SPEAKER_03]: So your preference would be that SEO is going to the root where funnel is not going to a folder is going to be subdomained.

[SPEAKER_03]: It can go in, the ads can go anywhere.

[SPEAKER_05]: SEO just needs the top domain, the top of the room.

[SPEAKER_05]: So you can run ads to a sub domain or a sub folder or gang just needs the top.

[SPEAKER_05]: You see, it's probably like the largest mistake.

[SPEAKER_03]: You see people making from funneling.

[SPEAKER_05]: No, the biggest mistake that people from funnel in make are to your point.

[SPEAKER_05]: They don't understand that there's blow behind it.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so that blow serves a purpose, but that purpose is outside of SEO.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so there's a convenience factor building landing pages easily with funnels.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so the reason why the code makes a difference is because user experience and page speed is a big factor.

[SPEAKER_05]: And it's also a big factor in your ad performance too.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so if you understand, that's why I probably commented on your thing.

[SPEAKER_05]: Most people don't understand, you know, funnels are built to serve a really unique purpose.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that doesn't mean it doesn't work in other things.

[SPEAKER_05]: You just have to understand how to pivot.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's original intention to also be multi-purpose.

[SPEAKER_05]: So people don't realize that so they don't know to go, oh, I need to tweak that thing that serves different purpose but isn't applicable to SEO.

[SPEAKER_05]: So understanding the technology helps.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it's two things.

[SPEAKER_05]: Understanding the technology and how to pivot and bridge the gap and then to is understanding the importance of the different content strategy.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know I'm asking a lot of the questions over the podcast.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's all right with them all.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I do I love this part of it because you know it's

[SPEAKER_03]: You're the only person ever that I've also heard and say, the avatar is different for funneling versus SEO, the pain point thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I've heard a lot of the scribal like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's really interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: Once fueled by pain, once fueled by instant gratification in the moment.

[SPEAKER_03]: So what type of business or businesses are industry even if there's a pattern there?

[SPEAKER_03]: is kind of like a best fit and easiest to see it for you as an SEO agency to blow up versus like the worst hardest one, the longest distance to crown of cross with them.

[SPEAKER_05]: The two biggest things would be, for me, all that's not two different ways.

[SPEAKER_05]: All that's that for me specifically, and then all that's not for the industry in general.

[SPEAKER_05]: For me specifically, you can't be a dick.

[SPEAKER_05]: That's number one.

[SPEAKER_05]: Remember when?

[SPEAKER_03]: I've been in my country.

[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for inviting me.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's kind of a privilege to not take on any more mental bandwidth than anything is appropriate for the compensation.

[SPEAKER_05]: But I think in general, it's patience and cash flow.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so a big part of that could be the profit margin on the product.

[SPEAKER_05]: So if you sell a widget for a dollar, then you're assuming that you probably, your cost of goods is like thirty cents.

[SPEAKER_05]: That's a crap load of widgets you got to sell to pay three, four thousand dollars a month in SEO, just to break even, and then double that again to make profit on it.

[SPEAKER_05]: So price points are huge factor.

[SPEAKER_05]: The other thing is also the patients of the client and so do they have the literal patients and then also the run financial runway to not get an ROI for at least a year.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it's much more about the psychology of the client than it is.

[SPEAKER_05]: Other than the price point, it's more about the psychology of the client than the product.

[SPEAKER_03]: Interesting amount of expected.

[SPEAKER_03]: That is the end-of-the-alancer.

[SPEAKER_05]: Because our clients are all up at the board.

[SPEAKER_05]: We got the big ones.

[SPEAKER_05]: We got Russell and Tony in professional sports teams.

[SPEAKER_05]: But then we got mom and pops that we've taken from a kitchen tables and a little

[SPEAKER_05]: backyard garages into fifty thousand square foot warehouses.

[SPEAKER_05]: So there's retail products, there's travel, there's consulting, there's software.

[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it's all over the place.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's amazing.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's amazing.

[SPEAKER_03]: Is any said three, four thousand a month is kind of where you could be started and make sure it goes up from there.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that's probably the biggest percentage average or charge of her.

[SPEAKER_03]: Man, that's partial.

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like, you know, with all of the AI stuff that the SEO is plays and even larger role that's already has, you know, moving forward, ranking all the stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there's going to be this amazing, you know, almost like, all right, on Instagram, where are different places where you're creating content that's in the moment, you know,

[SPEAKER_03]: was kind of kept a little bit separate somewhat from like SEO stuff but now there's like you can search things easier even on short form like you can even on Google this things that pop up when you're searching now on YouTube and out to everyone for a little while but there's going to be this merging is what it seems like is happening between you know

[SPEAKER_03]: content creators worried funnel world SEO world and a lot of his AI kind of start and bring it all together, but this you know, that each has its own role.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think Google's going to go anywhere like again, lose a little market share, but where do you see where do you see a content as a whole going?

[SPEAKER_05]: I think authenticity is going to increase in importance.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's been going that way for a while, just in general, even before AI, because people influence or work really well for a while, because it was attractive.

[SPEAKER_05]: You know, that guy or that girl's, you know, a supermodel and he's buff and he's got a Lamborghini in the back and then after a while, it's like, you know, kind of tired of seeing that over and over and over and over.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so, but then AI comes in and it makes it really easy for fake people to fake more stuff.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so what you're starting to see is people's internal, you know, radar is starting to look for authenticity or even subconsciously start to go, you know, I relate to that or even back to what we're talking about, you know, Joe SEO, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: It's because

[SPEAKER_05]: Because there's now no icon trust factor, we said earlier as people might follow you for your expertise, but they convert when they relate to you as a human.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so there's an increasing importance because AI is making mass, making the ability to mass produce content easier.

[SPEAKER_05]: But with mass-produced content, you lose the ability to manually add the human touch on each of those.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so where I thought you were going to go when you were talking about Facebook post you made was it was about AI.

[SPEAKER_05]: And there's all these actually just posted one of my Facebook group yesterday or today about studies that were starting to come out.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I've been on this, like, oh man, this is going to open up a whole other thing.

[SPEAKER_05]: So when Chatchee BT first came out, I started going on the record going, hey, you know, this is cool on everything, like use a personal community and everything, but on SEO, here's some things to think about.

[SPEAKER_05]: But I say and don't use it, I'm just saying,

[SPEAKER_05]: be aware.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then all these other SEOs are like, ah, you're wrong.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then Google came out with a thing that says, basically, don't produce mass.

[SPEAKER_05]: Don't create mass produced content, purely for the sake of search engines.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so for two plus years now, since Judge UZ came out, I've been like holding this little

[SPEAKER_05]: This was staking the ground, going like you guys are all wrong and then slowly but surely I'm being proven right.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so Google came out the algorithm update last spring that affective.

[SPEAKER_05]: They didn't use the word AI or artificial intelligence, but the entire verbages don't mass produce content.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it was very clear to us by AI.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well then all the people that come back in there

[SPEAKER_05]: They say, and I'm what I'll see Google said, it's not AI.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's like as long as it's value at it.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, I don't care.

[SPEAKER_05]: Because one thing that I've learned doing this for so long is pretty much always do the opposite of what Google says.

[SPEAKER_05]: So they come out with a policy.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's it's really not because they don't want you to do it.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's because they're not what's working.

[SPEAKER_05]: How do we get them to stop putting that?

[SPEAKER_05]: So then what I would have just posted in the last day or two was other major players in SEO that dig deep in it data.

[SPEAKER_05]: They're starting to make posts that are going we did a thousand posts on these sites that were fully automated and then we did a thousand posts on this side that were manually touched and it'll show like literal

[SPEAKER_05]: statistics on the performance of readership, time on page, conversion, click through rate.

[SPEAKER_05]: And it's like five to one.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's like five x the performance on the manual stuff.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I think it's because you relate to it, even if it's subconsciously.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then we also a lot of these.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's like, I mean, all of us have read some crap online where you're like, something's off in the flow of how I'm reading this.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so I think authenticity, AI, I'm not saying.usai, I'm saying that be realistic that there are potential disadvantages to it.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I think because so many people are mass producing, you know, taken easy button, that they're overlooking the opportunity on the other side of authenticity, which is increasing.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so if you think about, you know, the, what was the analogy you gave, like, going into the, the Nile versus digging your own?

[SPEAKER_05]: Like, there's so many people in our world that,

[SPEAKER_05]: spend so much time and money on ads.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I don't do anything.

[SPEAKER_05]: I have no email lists, I don't run any ads.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I have more people have spikes of higher revenue than I do.

[SPEAKER_05]: But I don't know very many people that have as high sustainable consistent monthly reoccurring revenue.

[SPEAKER_05]: And it's just because I share stories.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the first, but you said it's because you share stories and you're, you're rankin' that and you get tons of traffic people.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you ever listen to the guy?

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, Pat fun.

[SPEAKER_03]: That sounds familiar.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was the first guy that ever like really opened up the door for me into your worlds, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: It was he was the first guy I listened to back in college.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was a joke and I started and he just all affiliate marketing with SEO strategies and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, Oh my gosh.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's the world that pushes tons and tons of launches, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And they make these windfalls of cash and it's a ton of work and it's pumping, you know, kind of pumping them a little bit or it can feel that way.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then there's the other world like the one that you're, I feel like you're just perfectly represented where it's consistent, it's steady, it's more dependable.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I, you know, this is going to be me trying to make a tie into the trips and SEO on the safe.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's interesting that the launch world based entrepreneurs

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's hard to go justify spending a day or two on trips because you are building for the next launch.

[SPEAKER_03]: The consistency piece is less frequent.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, thought is often.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, you think about even models like things like Linchpan or continuity based things which try to make up for the lack of consistent revenue.

[SPEAKER_03]: where it's already natively built into what you do as long as you get the patience of the time and the cash flow to support it long-term.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just a fascinating thing to compare back and forth.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're like, I think you feel like a light standing on the side of this world that is really good at pumping really hard.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were crazy hard, but it's almost to a fault on a model that is not going to feed them in their year.

[SPEAKER_05]: You know, yeah, when I first got into this ecosystem of our network, it was, you know, you talk about, it looks foreign from your perspective.

[SPEAKER_05]: It was wildly foreign from my perspective.

[SPEAKER_05]: I think I largely, I don't want to say a lucky, but I was fortunate in many ways.

[SPEAKER_05]: I didn't realize how important recurring revenue was until I had already had it for a decade.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm only known recurring revenue.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so when we go into our world of funnel builders and paid ads, I'm like, you guys are all insane.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like, it was so weird to me for the first year.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, nobody, like, everybody, like, feast or famine, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: Feast or famine.

[SPEAKER_05]: And it was really interesting to think about that.

[SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, I mean, the reoccurring revenue is awesome.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm probably not the best person to give a perspective on it, because they don't know any different, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: But by being exposed to other business models, I've now realized how valuable valuable it is.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want blasting with questions.

[SPEAKER_03]: And what's your favorite form of content to produce for the SEO's sake?

[SPEAKER_05]: I give an answer to a similar question.

[SPEAKER_05]: And if I may ask, what's the best way to optimize piece of content?

[SPEAKER_05]: The best way to optimize piece of content is to not SEO it.

[SPEAKER_05]: Because when you start to try an SEO, you over-engineer it.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then you start to undo that authenticity.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then, you know, we talk about this authenticity as like a conceptual thing, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: But there's also literal statistics associated with it.

[SPEAKER_05]: What I mean is when you start to over-engineer a piece of content, and it becomes less authentic, people don't stay on page as long, so you start to get into time and readership.

[SPEAKER_05]: You start to get in the content depth, like how far they scroll.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like, if it doesn't resonate in the first paragraph, you're not getting the second, let's read your .get third, which means you're not getting the fourth.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so there's like very literal metrics that come along with the for the benefit of authentic content.

[SPEAKER_05]: So the way that we do content strategies is we try to go, okay, here's a better answer.

[SPEAKER_05]: So the first thing we focus on is getting a front of buyer intent.

[SPEAKER_05]: Too many SEOs focus on writing for the sake of writing because you hear it's important.

[SPEAKER_05]: You know, do a bunch of content.

[SPEAKER_05]: You can only rank for a Google can read.

[SPEAKER_05]: So people just start making stuff just for the sake of making stuff.

[SPEAKER_05]: But what we do is you first go through and we go, okay, who's that avatar?

[SPEAKER_05]: Who's the ideal buyer?

[SPEAKER_05]: What are their pain points?

[SPEAKER_05]: What are signals of pre-qualified buyer intent?

[SPEAKER_05]: I'll give you an example here in a minute.

[SPEAKER_05]: But there's these tools that we go through and we go, how do we get in front of?

[SPEAKER_05]: Instead of making up content, people are already asking to go something.

[SPEAKER_05]: What is it?

[SPEAKER_05]: Let's get in front of where the demand already is.

[SPEAKER_05]: So that's the first thing is buyer intent.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I can exactly give in a lot of these presentations is let's say you're a life coach.

[SPEAKER_05]: And you go type in life coach to these tools.

[SPEAKER_05]: So I'll give two free tools that one's called answer the public and the other's called also asked.

[SPEAKER_05]: And you type in like life coach.

[SPEAKER_05]: And it's going to give you the who what when where and why of what people are already asking search engines, social media and the topics that are out there and just aggregates all of them.

[SPEAKER_05]: And it gives it to you like an easy display format.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so you can click on it, drill down, click on it, topic and drill down.

[SPEAKER_05]: So you can follow this buyer into it.

[SPEAKER_05]: So the example on life coach would be how much does it cost to hire a life coach?

[SPEAKER_05]: You know, that pops up on this wheel of topics.

[SPEAKER_05]: They're asking about commitments, either a time commitment or financial commitment.

[SPEAKER_05]: That's somebody on the buying journey.

[SPEAKER_05]: So write about stuff to get in front of your ideal buyer instead of just writing for the sake of writing.

[SPEAKER_05]: Because when you just write to write, you're wasting time, you're wasting energy, you know, you have a compounding loss of opportunity cost.

[SPEAKER_05]: writing content sucks.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'll just say it.

[SPEAKER_05]: So if you're going to do it, be intentional about it.

[SPEAKER_05]: Come over to the game plan, map out of content calendar.

[SPEAKER_05]: So that's the first thing we do is we map out of content calendar based on environment intent.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then from there, it's like, OK, now that we know what matters to the lead, then let's write something that helps the lead.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so that's where the authenticity comes in is we don't get our content, we don't get the answer.

[SPEAKER_05]: So very similar to like, when I talk about social media, here's an SEO question, here's the answer.

[SPEAKER_05]: We take that same concept for our clients industry and goes, what's the pain point?

[SPEAKER_05]: What's the answer?

[SPEAKER_05]: And then you build that thought leadership in that trust.

[SPEAKER_05]: So sure, you might give away the load ticket answer, but now they trust you, and so they're going to come for you for the high ticket answer.

[SPEAKER_03]: Last the last fault question with that then are you suggesting people have their own blogs or is it a meeting dot com or I mean I'm assuming you're not trying to rank a Facebook post and write content there, you know, is it is it is there a type of content itself that you're liking the most, you know, you got cast blog is it those kind of those three the staple.

[SPEAKER_05]: So a good question.

[SPEAKER_05]: You want to position the content where you can control the funnel, the flow of the lead, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, your own website is at the medium.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: So because if you put content on medium, you're increasing the value of medium and you don't own medium.

[SPEAKER_05]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_05]: So you want to put your content on your website.

[SPEAKER_05]: Now, that's not to say there's no value of medium.

[SPEAKER_05]: The nice thing about medium is they already have an audience.

[SPEAKER_05]: So if you're trying to get in front of eyeballs, there's a different value there.

[SPEAKER_05]: But if you want to build up the credibility and create an asset that you own and control, then it goes on your website.

[SPEAKER_05]: But there's also a great path to explore about like YouTube, because YouTube has its own value.

[SPEAKER_05]: And YouTube is technically the second largest search engine, second to Google.

[SPEAKER_05]: But Google also owns it.

[SPEAKER_05]: So there's some favoritism there.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so what you can often do is you can dual-purpose some of your content.

[SPEAKER_05]: So you have a well-optimized video on YouTube.

[SPEAKER_05]: You get all the value of YouTube.

[SPEAKER_05]: But then write a blog about the same topic.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then here's what you do.

[SPEAKER_05]: You have your blog with your text and embed the YouTube video at the bottom of that blog.

[SPEAKER_05]: Because the reason why you do that is now you've diversified your content.

[SPEAKER_05]: So Google goes, well, Steve's really an expert because not only does he write about things, but he records and his images and videos.

[SPEAKER_05]: And the other nice thing is Google goes, because you're more of an authority, let's position you higher.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then because you kind of connected the video in your blog, where do you think you have better control of the funnel path, your website or YouTube?

[SPEAKER_05]: So now you create this opportunity where Google goes, we'll see've made that video, instead of sending them down the YouTube rabbit hole, which you can't control, and they're gonna get lost.

[SPEAKER_05]: They might now show the, you know, a such other video thumbnail, but instead of clicking through to YouTube, it'll click through to your blog.

[SPEAKER_05]: And now you can control the funnel.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, it's so funny to hear all this.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's a whole world I have really not dive very far into at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: And but I've produced so much content that has been on other people's platforms.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right, not ranking my own stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: Just it is.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's really like telling back.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe use to do blocks.

[SPEAKER_02]: I did it on week.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, for long.

[SPEAKER_03]: I had four different blogs.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it worked.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I stopped it.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, something's working.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just kind of this.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, let's an entrepreneur have it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Men the air of my way is half.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, uh, you've been listening to a masterclass about Damon Burton.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe, uh, share where people can find you if they're like, okay, we clearly need this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where can they go to check you?

[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, Damon Burton.com will have everything on there.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then on there, there's also a free download to my SEO book.

[SPEAKER_02]: Perfect.

[SPEAKER_05]: Awesome.

[SPEAKER_05]: Which I haven't lived by the way.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: We should brought a copy of it here.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, thanks for listening to Rare Things.

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