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Every day marketers sift through dozens of headlines, posts, and slacks telling us about the latest and greatest trend we should be following.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and like you have to figure it out by yourself. But you don’t have to do it alone. Content Matters with Nicole MacLean (Compose.ly’s CRO) is your digital partner for filtering the trends and focusing on the content that matters most — creating connection that drive results.
For more, head to our site: https://compose.ly/content-matters
Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius: https://shareyourgenius.com/
[00:00:00] Collin Belt: I think people are struggling to keep up with the change of pace of technology. I mean, I think literally like last year I was talking with clients about here's everything that we're gonna do for our SEO strategy. It's set in stone. S e's tried and tested. We know it works and here's what we're gonna do.
[00:00:14] Collin Belt: And SEO traffic is kind of plummeting right now, and we have this whole new channel that is the wild west of what do we do for it?
[00:00:27] Nicole MacLean: I'm Nicole MacLean and this is Content Matters. Created in partnership with Share Your Genius. This show is your digital partner for filtering the trends and focusing on the content that matters most, creating connection that drives results. Let's cut through the marketing chaos together.
[00:00:46] Collin Belt: My name's Collin Belt.
[00:00:47] Collin Belt: I am the founder of Belt Creative, which was just acquired by the Veza Agency Network. So I guess my job title is Founder, Acquired, and then my new title is I'm the Vice President of Growth for the Veza Agency Network.
[00:01:01] Nicole MacLean: That is awesome. Congratulations. I, we always like to, you know, now on your LinkedIn profile you get to say like, successful exit of
[00:01:10] Collin Belt: Yeah.
[00:01:11] Collin Belt: You know, that's it. I could put a little like acquired in parentheses. Exactly. I'm still pretty involved in Belt Creative stuff. I feel like I'm working two jobs right now. 'cause technically at least as of this recording, I have been in my new VP role for less than 30 days.
[00:01:24] Nicole MacLean: Awesome. So you can tell us all about taking on new roles and what to prioritize.
[00:01:29] Nicole MacLean: Oh yeah. So you mentioned founder. Maybe can you give us a little background on kind of how your career led you to founding an agency and kinda what that journey looked like, and then ultimately kinda what led you to the the VP of Growth role?
[00:01:42] Collin Belt: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I always grew up around small businesses.
[00:01:47] Collin Belt: My parents were serial entrepreneurs, is how I like to describe them. They retired from the Air Force and started an el, an alpaca farm, which is a little bit of a career jump. Um, that's, that's how I grew up. We were in Colorado, got to grow up on a farm around animals and then. Due to some droughts that started happening, it started becoming more expensive, became a non-viable business.
[00:02:09] Collin Belt: Um, right around that time, my mom's family was up in Nova Scotia and it just made sense for us to go up there, be able to be close to my mom's family and kind of start a new life. So, packed up all of our stuff from Colorado, went to Nova Scotia, started the process of immigrating from the United States to Canada, and my parents started a.
[00:02:30] Collin Belt: Good intention, but poorly thought out. Business idea, which was a restaurant in a town with 500 people, didn't work out so great. They got up and running. We did that for a few years. Very quickly realized that was not viable. And then from there, my parents had some friends that had just started a brand new business, but they were gonna be leaving the country and they were looking for somebody to take that over.
[00:02:53] Collin Belt: My parents were looking to get outta the restaurant, so they purchased the start of a lavender farm. Um. Yeah, so, uh, uh, military, this is the most
[00:03:02] Nicole MacLean: chaotic and interesting backstory I think we've had on the show today. This is great.
[00:03:08] Collin Belt: I, I feel like it's helpful context. I feel like it, maybe we'll give you a little bit of context into why I'm a little chaotic because, well, I love it that that was my journey
[00:03:15] Nicole MacLean: because no offense to a lot of our guests, they've all been great and I've, I've learned so much, but it shocks me.
[00:03:22] Nicole MacLean: Like 80% of people in marketing come from journalism, which it's not like that, that's a bad background. Um, but this is so interesting. Okay, so Lavender Farm.
[00:03:31] Collin Belt: Lavender farm. So let, let's see. That would've been when I was about 14, 15, somewhere in that range. I was just, you know, in high school starting to think about what I wanted to do next.
[00:03:41] Collin Belt: And so my, my dad came to me and he said, Hey, we can't get in contact with our website guy. He hasn't responded to me for three months. We've got a whole bunch of labels and stuff that we need designed. If I buy you a MacBook and Photoshop, will you like start doing this for us? And I was like, sure, I'll try and learn why not.
[00:03:58] Collin Belt: Yeah.
[00:03:58] Nicole MacLean: And that was, that was your foray into marketing and web development.
[00:04:02] Collin Belt: Yeah, that's it. So learned how to do HTML/CSS, kind of, I all self-taught. I did end up going to university for four years, got a degree in communications, visual arts, but I, I kind of had that bug planted in me 'cause I'd always grown up around starting your own business.
[00:04:18] Collin Belt: It's chaotic, stressful, um, kind of a wild experience. And also not really anything else like it. So I knew that. A, I wanted to start my own business. BI wanted to be a partner to businesses to kinda help them, um, develop their marketing efforts, get off the ground and start building systems so that they could scale from being non-viable to viable.
[00:04:40] Nicole MacLean: You started your own agency, grew up as, you know, Sierra entrepreneur. Now you have a corporate job, you're in the ladder. How, I mean, you're 30 ish days in, but how has that been an adjustment?
[00:04:52] Collin Belt: Oh, absolutely. It's so funny because I ran Belt Creative. I started it off as a solo entrepreneurship, and then I built up a team.
[00:05:00] Collin Belt: Like I went through that whole process and I wasn't really prepared for how much pressure it really is to be a business owner, to be responsible for other people's livelihoods to kind of. Every decision that you make doesn't only affect your own income and kind of your own path, but the livelihoods and wellbeing of the people who work for you.
[00:05:18] Collin Belt: So when I started having discussions with Stefan, who's the CEO of Veza about acquisition, um, I wasn't actually looking to be acquired at the time. I thought, you know, my business isn't like in a place where it's turnkey ready. I don't have like all my systems in place. It's not, you know, making millions of dollars in profits at the moment.
[00:05:37] Collin Belt: But I kind of recognized like I've developed some really valuable skills. My team has valuable skills, we have great clients, and now by kind of joining a larger enterprise, we can do what we're doing really well, but do it at a bigger scale. And I'm not gonna be responsible for everything anymore. I become part of a team and that's honestly been really nice.
[00:05:57] Nicole MacLean: I was gonna say. You know, not to foreshadow your future career. You know, you, you may get tired or may go start, I dunno what's a, like a, like a bee farm and, and create local. If I follow the same battle as
[00:06:09] Collin Belt: my parents, maybe I'll do something completely wild.
[00:06:11] Nicole MacLean: Exactly. I give you five years. Um, but it might also be nice, like there's a grind and respect the heck out of it and, you know, so cool.
[00:06:19] Nicole MacLean: But it also comes at a cost and sometimes it's nice to just have resources and take a step back and be able to kind of really focus on one thing versus. Having to be the support for the entire company.
[00:06:31] Collin Belt: Yeah, exactly. So I, you know, at this stage of the game, I am still kind of the operating founder of Belt Creative.
[00:06:37] Collin Belt: I'm still like involved with client accounts and kind of helping with that transition period. Absolutely. So I kind of feel like I have one foot in my old career and then I have a new foot in my new career, which is gonna be focused on. Content production marketing, getting the word out about the Veza Agency Network, which oversees Belt Creative is one of the brands within the Veza Agency Network.
[00:06:56] Collin Belt: But we have Shadow Digital, Hedrick, um, as a digital, we have like a house of brands. And if things keep going the way that they are, we're gonna be adding more agencies as time goes on. So I've, I've really gotta think about. How do we build a content engine that not only suits where we are today, but actually is going to scale as we continue to grow this out into, I mean, the, the best digital marketing agency there is, is the goal.
[00:07:20] Nicole MacLean: Heck yeah. I love it. What, what do you think about scale? What are some of those big challenges that come to mind for you?
[00:07:27] Collin Belt: Nimbleness, that's, that's the first thing that I've noticed. When you're an operator of one, I could meet with a client, talk to 'em about what they need to do and be like, okay, cool.
[00:07:35] Collin Belt: Let's just do this lab on a call and knock it out. Publish live. When you're doing things with a team, you know, you're, you're meeting with the client, you're getting the information, then you pass it off to the designer. The designer does their thing, then they pass it off to the developer. The developer does their thing, and then it gets sent to the client for approval.
[00:07:50] Collin Belt: You go back and forth with that, and then it goes live like. You know, I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't wanna say things could be, could be slow, but something that could be done in an afternoon before takes two weeks because there's just a lot more people who have to like, look at it and work at it. Um, it's a nice big game
[00:08:07] Nicole MacLean: of telephone.
[00:08:08] Collin Belt: Yeah. It, it, it, it's, it's frustrating at times, to be honest. Like I do, I do miss the ability to like quickly do things, but it's also kind of important, especially when you're dealing with stuff that's not gonna be seen by, you know. 50 people, but maybe by 5 million people.
[00:08:25] Nicole MacLean: Right. And then having specialists in each of those areas and kind of following the process can also help, you know,
[00:08:31] Collin Belt: definitely
[00:08:32] Nicole MacLean: in, in the nimbleness.
[00:08:33] Nicole MacLean: Yeah. That nimbleness is a piece. And I, I feel like right now it's just as quick, as fast as the market is shifting in, in a couple ways. I mean, the way you can produce content now, obviously we're, I'm sure we'll talk about ai, but it also just feels like. Nobody knows what the market is right now, right. Is a recession.
[00:08:53] Nicole MacLean: Wait, no, we're growing. No, this sector's really cool. Wait, this channel is taking off. Oh, just kidding. It's not right. This channel is everything and it just, it does feel a little chaotic. And it's not that this is new. We've been in this situation before, but it, it does just feel like there's every week rapidly different opinions, different thoughts, different performance metrics to, to keep an eye on.
[00:09:17] Collin Belt: Right. I mean, at this point I've been like kind of involved with marketing for like, more than 15 years. 'cause I, I started not, not to about my age, but I started at 15. I'm in my thirties now. We'll leave it at that fair. Um, and I, I do remember like, you know, things, things didn't move that fast. We would.
[00:09:34] Collin Belt: Like the same stuff. Kind of like maybe the technology was getting better. We were doing a few new things, but with the advent, especially of, I think during COVID times when everyone switched to being online to now what we have generative engines that are capable of creating like whole blog posts, videos, like all this stuff.
[00:09:52] Collin Belt: Mm-hmm. It feels like the speed at which change is happening has accelerated pretty rapidly.
[00:09:57] Nicole MacLean: I think that's fair. It was actually going to be one of my questions is. You know, can you, how do you think things would've looked different for you 15 years ago if you had tools like ai, especially as someone self-taught, maybe doesn't have a, a formal background, which honestly, I think that's a most common thing for marketers.
[00:10:16] Nicole MacLean: Most of us don't have formal backgrounds. We just, we learn Canva and now we're designers. And, you know, you learn WordPress and now you're a CSS coder. But how would've that look different for you?
[00:10:29] Collin Belt: Um, I mean, I, I definitely would've been able to run my business while I was still in school 'cause I could have just banged out essays.
[00:10:36] Collin Belt: Yeah. Would've, would've saved me a lot of time. That is true. I mean, at the end of the day, like a lot of the stuff that I did back then is still the stuff that I do now, which is talking with a client, getting to know their business, getting to know their pain points, what are the things that they struggle with, and then developing a content strategy that.
[00:10:56] Collin Belt: Becomes something that they can produce. Maybe the tools that we use are different, but I think the core mechanics of how you create good content have stayed the same.
[00:11:07] Nicole MacLean: What do you think are those things that make good content? It's always very subjective. So for you, what is good content these days?
[00:11:15] Nicole MacLean: Something
[00:11:16] Collin Belt: that's human and something that either drives inspiration. Or help solve a problem.
[00:11:25] Nicole MacLean: I like that. Okay. That's not what I expected to say you to say, but I I love that definition.
[00:11:32] Collin Belt: Yeah. What, what would, I mean, what were you expecting?
[00:11:35] Nicole MacLean: I don't know. I feel, not to, again, downplay, but I feel like there's the, you know, has authority.
[00:11:41] Nicole MacLean: I mean, EEAT subject matter expertise has a perspective, which those are good things too, but I feel like that's a, a different way of looking at it is the outcome. Yeah, good content drives inspiration or solves problem.
[00:11:53] Collin Belt: This is gonna sound strange, but I actually think the rise of chat t and other like AI engines, I think has kind of created a need for better quality content.
[00:12:04] Collin Belt: I, I think ly think the stuff like s se optimization, doing title tags and descriptions, getting all your keywords in there, that's a lot easier. Now, I could write a blog post, put in the chat GPT and say, this is the keyword I wanna rank for. Gimme some suggestions, but. Being able to create like a piece of content that either is inspiring, helps somebody, uh, look at things in a way that they didn't before or helps genuinely solve a problem that still takes work.
[00:12:28] Collin Belt: And that's the stuff that I think people enjoy consuming in terms of content. I think AI slop is a real thing and I think people are very tired of it, myself included.
[00:12:39] Nicole MacLean: Yeah, absolutely. I like this. Okay, I might have to steal this now. Good content inspiration and solves a problem. Okay, so you talked about nimbleness being important from the agency side, but for your clients, are you seeing any sort of consistency in their challenges or is it still very much like based on the, the humans, based on the makeup of their company?
[00:13:03] Nicole MacLean: Or are you seeing a shift of kind of, yeah, a lot of people are now struggling with this thing, and that's really what people are trying to solve.
[00:13:10] Collin Belt: I think people are struggling to keep up with the change of pace of technology. I mean, I think literally like last year I was talking with clients about here's everything that we're gonna do for our SEO strategy.
[00:13:20] Collin Belt: It's set in stone. SEO's tried and tested. We know what works and here's what we're gonna do. And. SEO traffic is kind of plummeting right now, and we have this whole new channel that is the wild west of what do we do for it. And so the, the kinds of questions that I get asked are, are pretty wild. They're like, should, do I even need a website design or should I just literally put like a text file so that like robots can just read what I've got there?
[00:13:45] Collin Belt: Please don't do that. I, I literally was like, don't do that, uh, because cool, you're, you might get some traffic from some chat Botts, but what happens when somebody visits your website? What are, what are they gonna do?
[00:13:56] Nicole MacLean: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:57] Collin Belt: But I, I think the big struggle that I see is people kind of comprehending, like how things are changing and what they need to do in order to be able to keep up.
[00:14:07] Collin Belt: I think the change is just so fast and it, it feels like there's no consistency in the rules. Even, even if there is.
[00:14:14] Nicole MacLean: Well, and there's a lot happening in the market. You know, there are definitely businesses that are growing. There are some whose leadership is saying, you can't work with agencies or you aren't going to have as large of a team going into 2026 and figure out how to use ai.
[00:14:30] Nicole MacLean: Do you have advice or things that you've seen work for people to try to keep up when they probably are also really overwhelmed and maybe don't have the luxury of, I'm gonna take, you know, Friday afternoons to go. Experiment with X, Y, Z tool or go into LinkedIn and find new things that I don't know yet.
[00:14:49] Collin Belt: I, I think this is hard because it does kind of require at least a little bit self of learning some time to go and learn how to do these things. But I do think there's some things that AI is really good at. I think there are good use cases for it. Case in point, I record all my meetings with AI and I, I use a meeting recorder that gives me like a checklist of all of the action items that we went over.
[00:15:10] Collin Belt: It means that I can be a little bit more present in my meetings. I don't have to talk. I love that. Write down some notes and say, sorry, could you repeat that? I was writing and I was not listening to what you were saying. I think you can take like lots of information and kind of dump it into something like ChatGPT and be able to ask questions, kind of explore things.
[00:15:27] Collin Belt: I think it can help with the process of dealing with the large volume of information that we deal with every day. I think the amount of content and information we have to parse has exploded, and I think these AI tools are actually pretty good at giving us a place to just dump all that stuff and extract the information that's actually important and relevant.
[00:15:46] Collin Belt: What I don't think they're good for is, like I said, kind of the, the content creation piece, like making something that is new, unique and valuable. I think it can help in that process, but I still think you, a human person need to put your, your touch on that if you want it to have an impact.
[00:16:01] Nicole MacLean: Yeah. Well, and I, I, sorry for our listeners, 'cause it's gonna be pretty repetitive, but this idea of.
[00:16:09] Nicole MacLean: AI as an operating system versus AI as a, as a generation tool is actually what I think. It's where I think the magic unlocks and I just think that's where ChatGPT, at least ChatGPT wants to go. I don't know about some of the other AI tools and generation generative AI is as I'm sure part of that and how like along the lines of an operating system, you might need some generation in there, but it's.
[00:16:36] Nicole MacLean: Finding that efficiency, like you said, being present in meetings that, that you're using the tool to actually make you more human so you can be present. So you can go back and you know, be like, okay. Especially I feel like in interviews for, yeah, I mean, of course podcasts, but even for hiring interviews most times, that was one of my biggest struggles is trying to like take copious notes for what they're saying, but then also be present and figuring out the right.
[00:17:03] Nicole MacLean: Things that you wanna dig in on. And now if Right, if people are comfortable recording those, great, well, now you can just send that to the, to the hiring manager, to the next person in line, and you can really be locked in on that conversation.
[00:17:14] Collin Belt: Yep. 100%. You can basically like, extract the information that you need and then, you know, like paste it into an email, like update it with the information and kind of your perspective that maybe the machine didn't get, but at least making sure that, that all the key pieces of information were jotted down,
[00:17:28] Nicole MacLean: whether it's ai, it's market.
[00:17:30] Nicole MacLean: Uncertainty. I also think just how people think about resourcing marketing teams in particular is shifting right now. Whether they can or are allowed to hire in-house, whether they go and find fractional or contract roles, or they go and partner with an agency, it does feel like we're at a shift. You obviously are sitting in an interesting position at the center of a multi-network.
[00:17:57] Nicole MacLean: Agency conglomerate. Those are a lot of buzzwords for you. I
[00:18:01] Collin Belt: like that.
[00:18:02] Nicole MacLean: Thank you. Curious, maybe what you are seeing in clients and just kinda like what the market take is, or like what is the benefit of working with an agency and when it's like, actually, you know what, you really should not have an agency or where it is actually, if you're struggling with these things, an agency could be really helpful for you.
[00:18:21] Collin Belt: Yep, absolutely. I do think it's important to. Acknowledge and just be, be real with the fact that marketing teams are being asked to do way more than they used to with way fewer resources. Whether that's like spending budget, personnel time. I think the expectation is that, oh, you've got access to AI tools now so you're gonna be able to be 10 x productive.
[00:18:43] Collin Belt: You have eight
[00:18:43] Nicole MacLean: arms. Congratulations. That's
[00:18:45] Collin Belt: a congratulations. So we can hire, we can fire half the department and you're gonna be just as productive. I kind of hate, that's the perspective, but a lot of. A lot of larger companies are taking that route. So just acknowledging that and being realistic about the fact that we are being asked to do more with less as marketers.
[00:19:04] Collin Belt: But I think that's again, where like using these AI tools can kind of help with that. And I think like. Choosing smart ways to outsource your marketing activities can be very smart. So whether that's partnering with, you know, a freelancer who's really excellent at design, somebody who can take the time to really get to know your brand, um, create those resources and kind of become an extension of your team or working with an agency where.
[00:19:28] Collin Belt: You know, maybe you don't have the budget to have 10 people on your marketing team, but you still need, um, a project manager. You still need an SEO expert. You need somebody who's familiar with a EO. You need a designer. You need a developer. Like you need all of these things. Yeah. And you may not have the budget to hire for five to 10 people in house, but maybe you do have the budget to bring in an agency who can take that time and provide all that expertise, even if it's at a smaller scale.
[00:19:54] Nicole MacLean: Deadlines looming and you're juggling a million projects. Maybe you've tried outsourcing to an agency before, but how can you be sure that they're going to deliver on your specific goals on time and on budget? Well look no further than Clutch, the number one leading marketplace for B2B service providers. Clutch streamlines your search, helping you kick off projects faster so you can focus on what you do best. On Clutch, you can select from over 2000 unique services and specialties to quickly narrow in on a comprehensive list of the agency's best for your project. Then filter down to a short list of qualified providers through filters or use Clutch’s project brief technology to match you to the best fits.
[00:20:32] Nicole MacLean: From there, just compare the providers by reading in-depth the verified client reviews to learn more about the work that these agencies have done for businesses like yours, so you can make a confident hiring decision. Get matched to the best agencies for your business and request quotes at clutch.co/contentmatters.
[00:20:49] Nicole MacLean: You'll be one step closer to having those projects off your never ending to-do list, so you can shift focus back to the big picture. That's clutch.co/contentmatters. I think that's right. I also think it really depends on also your internal skillset. Like, I feel like there are some people who say, I know the vision, I know my ICPI, we have product market fit and I just need executors.
[00:21:15] Nicole MacLean: Well, that could be a really good agency that isn't taking advantage, you know, for margin and, and can execute really efficiently. That could be a series of contractors that you're able to enable really well. 'cause you know that and great. The flip side is I am a great executor. I maybe don't know the strategy or I'm not a jack of all trades.
[00:21:37] Nicole MacLean: Like I was a really good ex marketer and I lost my team, and now I'm doing all these things. Like I need someone who really understands the nuance of this channel or this strategy. I'm gonna go lean in and, and find that. So I think it's also kind of like what is the, the gap that you need to fill.
[00:21:54] Collin Belt: Yeah. I, I do agree with that.
[00:21:56] Collin Belt: It's a little bit weird 'cause I, I'm becoming less involved in the client delivery side of things. Right. But I very recently have been extremely involved in the client delivery side of things and the clients that. We saw the most success with we're the people who knew, okay, here's what I want to accomplish.
[00:22:13] Collin Belt: Here's what the brand is about. Here's what we offer, who's here, what it's for. I just need to like get my vision over to a competent agency that like is excited to work with me and execute on these, on all these deliverables that I need. That's where we saw success the most with Belt Creative. And I think where we oftentimes would see things struggle is somebody who would say, ah, this is what I pay you for.
[00:22:37] Collin Belt: I don't wanna figure it out.
[00:22:38] Nicole MacLean: Yeah. Well, you mentioned competent agency and it surprises me how often I hear clients say, well, I was just really burned by a PPC person. I was really burned by an SEO agency who kind of said it and forget it. I was really burned by. Fill in the blank and it creates a lot of distrust and a lot of trauma, um, in, in going to the next one.
[00:23:05] Nicole MacLean: And so I'm curious if you have maybe some good questions that you would encourage someone to ask when they're trying to evaluate an agency to know if they're the right fit for you.
[00:23:16] Collin Belt: Yep. I mean, there's, there's the obvious ones like, look at the agency's portfolio. Sure. Look at the clients that they've worked with.
[00:23:22] Collin Belt: Those are the things that you can do without having to dig too much deeper. Look at the work that they present. Is it in alignment with what you want? Whether that's in terms of like visual identity, um, tone of voice. If you're working with someone who's producing content, before you even have a conversation with an agency, make sure that, that you would be in alignment with the kind of work that they produce and that they present.
[00:23:42] Collin Belt: But beyond that. Make sure that you know who you're going to be working with. A lot of agencies kind of will be like a, I don't know, just like a big question mark. They'll sell you on a nice package, dump you off on their random team over here that's maybe like a rotating team that's not consistent, and they'll just deliver the stuff for you.
[00:24:00] Collin Belt: Call it a day, do it for as cheaply as possible and move on. I. The best agencies do develop long-term relationships with their clients. They see themselves as an extension of their client's marketing teams rather than a series of boxes to check. That's kind of hard to know upfront, but I think as you have those conversations with agencies and as you like, engage in those initial projects.
[00:24:23] Collin Belt: I think you start to get a sense for whether or not they genuinely care about the quality of the work that they're delivering for you, or whether they're just trying to siphon as much money from you as they can before they move on.
[00:24:34] Nicole MacLean: Well, and it's the same questions too. I feel like fractional has really blown up over the last Yeah.
[00:24:40] Nicole MacLean: 18 ish months and sometimes that can work really well. You get someone who is a rock star who loves what they're doing and either like is just a little burnout of in-house and kinda wants a spice of life. Or you get someone that unfortunately can't find their next full-time role and so they're kind of just filling space and not that those people can't deliver Great work.
[00:25:00] Nicole MacLean: Both personas could be an excellent fit, but I think it's just really finding out like, do you just need, you know, a three to six month help? Do you need someone ongoing? Who's going to really be there? Is it the te you need someone to do the Teach Amanda Fish and then we've got it. So I think it's probably also you just being really clear on what you need.
[00:25:21] Collin Belt: Yes, 100%. And sometimes that's comes in seasons too, like mm-hmm. When you're first starting out, you probably don't need an expensive agency marketing retainer. You just need somebody to build you a solid foundation. And like you said, teach a man to fish, learn how to do the essential stuff yourself while you're growing, and then you reach a certain point where maybe it makes sense to reengage with that agency or an agency that's more suited for the level of scale that you're at.
[00:25:44] Collin Belt: Maybe at that point it makes sense to be able to accelerate what you're doing. I think it is really important to know. What it is that you want to accomplish, what you're capable of, and who the agency that you're working with is a good fit for, and if that good fit is you.
[00:25:59] Nicole MacLean: I think that's right. Okay.
[00:26:02] Nicole MacLean: Pivoting a little bit. So you said you were in, you know, a little bit closer to the client delivery. Now you're taking a bit of a step up to kind of look at big process and, and how that can be scalable. Any really fun AI use cases or just even without ai, good old fashion spreadsheet automation, just things that you were really proud of or you think like, oh, this is my hack and I, and I love it.
[00:26:26] Collin Belt: I am a big fan of chat GT's projects, features. It is my second brain. Like I said, when I, I am dumping a bunch of information. Case in point, I've been recently getting up to speed with WAIO is what it's called, the the Webflow AI framework that Veza has developed. It's like a whole system that we're using to optimize sites for accessibility.
[00:26:47] Collin Belt: SEO and a, EO and like a lot of the foundational stuff that's worked for accessibility, S-E-O-A-E-O, that's all been consistent. But there's kind of this new like. What, what is the stuff that needs to happen to get you to be visible inside of chatbots? A lot of that information is new to me because it's a new channel and I am, I'm dealing with some very technical people who are developing these frameworks 'cause it's a lot of code best practices, semantic, HTML, yada, yada, yada.
[00:27:14] Collin Belt: Which I do understand. I do understand at a basic level, but the process of. In taking that information and being able to transform it into content that is understandable by our clients, the new leads that we have coming in, that was really difficult for me. So I basically took all of the technical documentation, put it into ChatGPT, and I was like, alright, I'm going to start asking some really stupid questions and I want you to help me answer them because I know that, A, these are my stupid questions, and B, right, I'm going to be asked these stupid questions and I need to be able to answer them well.
[00:27:46] Nicole MacLean: Yeah. Because I've also heard that if you give it too much information, it freaks out. Yeah. Have you found a good balance or have you not run into that at all? I.
[00:27:58] Collin Belt: Oh, okay. That's, that's the thing. I, I've, I've, at this point I have tried like all the different tools. I've tried Gemini. Yeah. I've tried ChatGPT. I like dabbled a little bit with Claude. I've tried Perplexity and I found they're all like kind of better at different things. Mm-hmm. And. The same thing Google is doing.
[00:28:16] Nicole MacLean: Same thing. Okay,
[00:28:17] Collin Belt: cool. I cannot get Gemini to work for me no matter what I do. I feel like I literally, like at one time I was arguing with it.
[00:28:24] Collin Belt: I was like, no, this is not what I asked for. Why are you spitting this out? And it just like, it just stopped answering a certain point.
[00:28:32] Nicole MacLean: I have heard the, uh, the GPTs described as, uh, toddlers. It can, it can go into a toddler mode.
[00:28:39] Collin Belt: Right. That's great. So I, I think it's finding the tools and workflows that work for you.
[00:28:43] Collin Belt: For me, that has been ChatGPT, and I've really tried with some of these other tools and I can't quite get them to do what I want. So yes, I do, I do think you can give too much information to a model and then it just kind of freaks out or just starts making stuff up. So it's not experimentation development,
[00:28:59] Nicole MacLean: like Yeah, you have to, yeah, the
[00:29:00] Collin Belt: experimentation and use your brain like, just like read what it's putting out and does it make sense?
[00:29:04] Collin Belt: If it doesn't, you probably went wrong somewhere along the way.
[00:29:08] Nicole MacLean: No, I think that that is helpful. Oh, you mentioned something I'm gonna, that I need Oh, accessibility. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we talk a lot about AEO, SEO optimization, but I think accessibility is something that you don't often think about, especially if you're a smaller team.
[00:29:27] Nicole MacLean: If you're lucky enough to know you have a ui UX designer or someone like that, they, they think about those things, but, yep. Can you maybe just talk a little bit about accessibility or like the importance of it? Does accessibility play into any A-E-O-S-E-O things? Obviously, I would imagine it has the biggest impact on like on-page experience and how they move, but like what is your take on that and like the priority of where accessibility should fall when you're.
[00:29:53] Nicole MacLean: Optimizing your site.
[00:29:55] Collin Belt: I, I think that's a great question and it's something that I get asked a lot. 'cause oftentimes I'll be chatting with clients and they're like, can you make my website look like this razzle dazzle? Like, there's animations flying everywhere, text is doing transformations, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:30:09] Collin Belt: And I think a lot of times people think of accessibility as. A, a total compromise. You cannot have an accessible website unless you literally just make it very boring and something that somebody who's using a screen reader could use. I think that's like a very like black and white way of looking at accessibility.
[00:30:27] Collin Belt: I do kind of see it as more of like a, a slider of you can always find ways to make your website more accessible. And when I think about where I would place its importance, I think of my dad who is. Turning 70, uh, pretty soon. And I, anytime I open up his laptop, I'm horrified because he has the, like the browser zoomed set to like 200%.
[00:30:49] Collin Belt: And so every website looks awful. I open it up and I'm like, how do you even like use this? Then it's because he can't see unless he makes the fonts like sizes larger. Mm-hmm. So. That kind of real world example kind of connects it to me. It's not, it's not just people who are visually impaired who need a screen reader.
[00:31:06] Collin Belt: Everybody to some degree either needs a degree of accessibility or will need it at some point. So I think it's really important. I think you should think through how do you make your website not only a good and fun and visually appealing experience, but make it as accessible as possible to the widest group of people.
[00:31:25] Nicole MacLean: Yeah, well even colors. I mean, I remember the first time I got the chance to work with a UI designer and she ran our color, the colors of our brand through a like colorblind and a contrast checker. And we were terrible. 'cause like mar little over here marketing, trying to build a slide deck for a speaking presentation that then gets used in X, Y, Z things.
[00:31:47] Nicole MacLean: I was like. Never even thought about this. So, you know, I, I do think it's that finding the balance of like, it's too small versus it's what is the contrast of colors. And I think even some of the Core Web Vital tests kind of look at like, there's not enough contrast here and it does kind of play in, do I think it's the most important thing when your Core Web Vitals are being run?
[00:32:08] Nicole MacLean: Probably not, but it definitely does. Make an impact. And it's probably like the last thing that the average small team marketer is unfortunately thinking about.
[00:32:18] Collin Belt: Yeah, and I, I think it's hard to think about it too when you're again strapped for resources, you probably don't have an accessibility expert in-house.
[00:32:26] Collin Belt: I think it also, to a degree, does kind of depend on who you're making your content for. So, you know, like on the website, uh, is, is your audience primarily older? Those may be considerations that. Place a greater emphasis on the importance of accessibility. But I also think there is kind of a virtuous cycle, at least we're seeing in the marketing world, where as you make your content more accessible, it tends to perform better In SEO.
[00:32:49] Collin Belt: Stuff that performs well in SEO tends to be more likely to show up in a EO. So like all of those things are important, but they do kind of start with making your website as accessible as possible. 'cause what's good for humans and making it easier for them to read. Just so happens to make it easier for bots.
[00:33:06] Nicole MacLean: Absolutely. The alt text is one of my personal pet peeves because most 'cause either one, people don't know what alt text is for, which it's, the core of it is for visually impaired. To be able to know what this is and it'll, you know, read it to you. And of course it is an opportunity to work in some thoughtfully intentional keywords on the site.
[00:33:27] Nicole MacLean: But I love the people who are just like, okay, this page is about sneakers and everything just is the keyword, keyword here. It's like, well, it's not real. No, we can't just use all text to like, put as many keywords on the page as you want. You still have to describe what it is. And then if you can be thoughtful about.
[00:33:47] Nicole MacLean: You know, maybe working in your keyword, your primary or related terms, please do, but please don't. Just keyword stuff. Your alt text. I,
[00:33:56] Collin Belt: I have a little like mini horror story and this is, this is a area where like maybe, maybe the dark side of AI is making people dumber. We launched a website and we did like an accessibility checklist.
[00:34:07] Collin Belt: We included like. Again, thoughtful like Yeah, like descriptive alt text on all the images that were on the site of what the stuff actually was, but also tried to make sure we were hitting the important keywords for the client site. We got an email like one week later, and the client said, I sent my website to ChatGPT, and I asked it to improve the SEO.
[00:34:25] Collin Belt: Here's all the recommendations it had. And for alt text, it was literally just like word salad, just like all these random keywords and stuff. And I had to explain to him like, okay, ChatGPT said that. So don't do that. Don't do
[00:34:38] Nicole MacLean: that. Yep. Yep. Well, and I remember, I mean, but even like, not to call people stupid, but I remember working with a client and I wasn't even like doing anything on their site, but I just saw, I was like, oh, well, like all these things, you need alt text.
[00:34:53] Nicole MacLean: And they're like, okay. And they did just put a keyword for like every image I school.
[00:34:56] Collin Belt: Oh, oh no,
[00:34:58] Nicole MacLean: actually, and that was, and it could just be a misunderstanding. Put alt text is, which is why we educate close. So close, so close, so close, but perhaps explain what this weird geometric shape is. And this is not baking software.
[00:35:11] Nicole MacLean: I'll, this is a geometric shape.
[00:35:13] Collin Belt: When in doubt, just say it's a decorative element. That's always an option too.
[00:35:16] Nicole MacLean: Oh, okay. That's good to know. Yeah. Okay. See, very helpful. All right. Well this has been so helpful and great insight. Maybe to wrap us up. It's so easy for us to get in kinda the doom and gloom of AI and and the market.
[00:35:29] Nicole MacLean: But what's something that you're personally really excited to see over the next few months?
[00:35:33] Collin Belt: Hmm. That's a good question. Tying it back to that like virtuous cycle we talked about where the things that are good for accessibility are also the things that are good for SEO are also the things that are good for AI optimization.
[00:35:45] Collin Belt: I think I'm really excited that the general trend, this, this could change, this is just kind of me speaking at this moment in time, seems to be that the prevalence and rise of. LLMs AI assistance. The fact that they really value high quality content and that you are more likely to be cited and get traffic to your site if you are making good quality content that people are sharing.
[00:36:08] Collin Belt: If you're making videos, if you're getting stuff shared out on social media. I think that kind of provides a really positive incentive for people to make good quality content again. 'cause I, I mean, I remember, oh, I, I guess this still happens, but every time I like look for a recipe online and I, your face says
[00:36:26] Nicole MacLean: all the poor, the poor recipe sites, they're the best, worst SEO example.
[00:36:30] Collin Belt: I know, I hate, I hate picking on them, but it's just, it's the easiest example. It's like, I don't need a 10,000 word essay about your Grandma Ethel, just so that you can stuff every single keyword in here. When I was growing up on the
[00:36:41] Nicole MacLean: alpaca farm, I, I would go out and after a hard day's work of shearing, I'd come back in and there'd be this warm cookies and nothing brings me more joy.
[00:36:51] Nicole MacLean: Sorry.
[00:36:51] Collin Belt: No, no. That, but that's, but that's it. Maybe, maybe. I hope this isn't just blind optimism, but I do hope that as people are more incentivized to make better quality content that isn't just stuffed with a bunch of random keywords, that the motivation economy for making good quality content will continue to improve.
[00:37:10] Collin Belt: That's what I hope to see.
[00:37:11] Nicole MacLean: Motivation economy. Nice. I've never heard that, but I like it. Yes, I agree. I think it's going to be you have to actually be good at your job.
[00:37:21] Collin Belt: Yeah.
[00:37:22] Nicole MacLean: And you have to actually have a perspective.
[00:37:24] Collin Belt: Yes.
[00:37:25] Nicole MacLean: And there isn't gonna be those people that just black hat. It's getting harder and harder.
[00:37:30] Nicole MacLean: Like you said, you need a good website with a good experience, with a clear message, with a story to tell, with content that's inspirational or solving a problem. And yeah, um, it sounds basic, but it is actually really hard to do that.
[00:37:45] Collin Belt: It is. Yeah. I especially just considering the sheer volume of content out there, you might be tempted to think like, what do I have to say?
[00:37:52] Collin Belt: That hasn't already been said a million times, but that's the answer right there. You haven't said it yet. You haven't put your own personal perspective, expertise, insight, so find the thing that you can talk about that nobody else can, or the perspective that you bring that nobody else has. Like growing up on an alpaca farm, moving to a restaurant, and then then going on a lader farm and then living in ice and snow before going to Florida.
[00:38:15] Collin Belt: Find, find like whatever that is for you, and that is the content you should be making.
[00:38:20] Nicole MacLean: Oh, that's it. All right. That's the great end of the show. Thanks for listening to this episode of Content Matters Created in partnership with Share Your Genius. If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend.
[00:38:34] Nicole MacLean: Otherwise, you can find all the resources you need to stay connected with us in the show notes Till next time.