Jon: Welcome to empathy deployed the podcast where you can experience an
example customer interview every week.
You'll discover new perspectives on different software products and improve
your customer interview technique.
As I attempt to do the same
I'm Jonathan Markwell and this week I'll be interviewing Jacob funnel Jacobs.
A customer of SEMrush stem rush describes itself as an online
visibility management platform.
how are we trying to understand why Jacob purchased some rush, how he uses
it and what alternatives he's considered?
Jacob's a freelance digital marketer with a decade of experience helping
SAS and professional service companies.
Hi Jacob,
. Hello?
Okay.
Uh, thank you for taking the time today.
Uh, I'm super excited to hear your thoughts on, um, why, uh, you purchased
a particular software product.
Um, And, um, yeah, the goal of, uh, of, of this podcast and these interviews
is, is, uh, for, for me to practice, uh, customer interviews, but also just
to fill up people to experience other people's experience of, of software.
Um, uh, so, uh, before we get started, if you've got any questions,
Jacob: Uh, no, let's, let's dive in.
Cool.
Jon: Then, uh, the final thing to ask you, if you're comfortable sharing with
me recording this interview, as I've already asked you as we are recording it.
Um, but also, um, that we share it publicly for the, for the benefit.
Um, yeah, that's all cool.
Um, what was it normally a customer interview like this wouldn't be
shared outside of the organization.
Um, but, um, yeah, so this is a, this is a public one.
So if that's all cool, we'll dive into a first question.
Um, and so can you tell me a little bit about how you got
into needing, uh, SEMrush,
Jacob: yeah.
So, um, I used, um, a few STO tools as part of doing SEO.
Uh, just in house.
I was, I was working for a small company and, um, I was, you know, like responsible
for all digital marketing stuff.
Like when you're an exec, any small companies you often end up in.
You know, the everything guy.
Um, and it used to use a SEO Moz.
That was a, that was a tool which was available at the time
even before it's called months.
Yeah.
Um, but I just wanted to get some like, decent information on, uh, keywords
that were available, uh, in the industry that I was working with at the time.
And I just, I tried, uh, trials, a few different products, and I just
found that stem rough was just so much better than everyone else.
They just had a much wider database of keywords.
So it came from that keyboard or such stuff to BMI.
That was like the main motivating thing.
Jon: Makes sense.
Makes sense.
Do you remember when it was, um, that, uh, the staff first started paying for it?
Author used to?
Jacob: Um, I think so.
Uh, as far as I recall, um, I was able to make the case for it pretty easily.
I sustain, you know, I'm using this, can we use this and stuff?
Most, I think most was expiring anyway, at the time.
So it's a little bit easier to make the case when your, your existing
thing's about to expire, because you're not asking really for more
money, you just ask them to spend the same money in a different place.
Jon: Right.
Um, terms of time, uh,
Jacob: uh, um, as in like before present or into my bifocal, um, yikes.
This is going to be ages ago.
Maybe I'm guessing it's like 2017,
Jon: right?
Okay.
Fears, fears, pain.
Um, and so can you walk me through the work that you're
doing when you use, um, SEM rush?
Um, what's the end result that you're trying to get to?
Jacob: Yeah, so generally speaking, um, I use this for pretty much any,
any SEO project I'm involved with.
Um, and I think the reason for that is it's really good at just
use it doing lots of things.
Well, um, so for example, if I have a new site to look up, um, as a full
site audit report, so working on your plan, then you site, and they want
to know what's wrong with a slate.
Is there anything in terms of how it's bill that's wrong?
And that full site audit report is a very good starting point.
You can't like completely trust any crueler.
Um, by itself they will come up with issues that aren't really issues.
Um, and it's, um, it's not as comprehensive as, as doing everything you
could and something like screaming frog, for example, which goes into way more, way
more detail, uh, and requires a lot more.
Um, configuration, but in terms of spotting the, uh,
the, the spotting, the big.
And doing it quickly.
It's really good.
And I think it's like, uh, so yeah, it's really, really, really
useful in that first stage when I was ordered to signify it.
I'm just trying to go like, what's, what's going on here.
I'll say keywords.
Okay.
What are they ranking for?
What's the technical side of things.
How's the site fit together?
Is there anything wrong with that?
Yeah.
Jon: Can you give me some examples that anyone would recognize of
an issue that it might flag it?
Jacob: Yeah.
So often when you're building a site, um, Uh, the focus tends to be on,
okay, let's just get the site live.
We want to make sure that the design is right.
There are things that people can see.
If you feel you're making a psychic, you're always looking at the things that
you can see about the slate and you, anyone can spot if like the navigation
to navigation menus don't function as, as supposed to, you can spot
that, but SEO issues tend to get lost.
And so, for example, um, Errors that you might see things like this as it
relates to your mail tag, which tells the browser, these are the words that should
appear at the top of the browser tap.
So, uh, and so that's the title tag.
And sometimes I work with sites and they've got like seven.
And they're completely invisible.
You won't spot that unless you crawl your site.
Right.
Uh, and then you've got more insidious, more technical things.
So for example, if you've got the same content translated into different
languages, sometimes, um, you won't have set up correctly to tell Google.
This to sustain article, but in different languages.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah, more technical still.
You might have things like you've used structured data and you've
tried to tell Google I have a software product and here's all of
the bits of information about this.
And quite often that's incorrectly assessed.
So basically it's all kinds of things that are hidden.
You won't be able to see them just by going to a page.
It might be perfectly fine, but then behind the scenes,
Jon: Got it.
Correct.
Makes sense.
Um, and so what, what other tools or things have you done manually
to try and solve the same problems that you solve by using SEMrush?
Jacob: I think the big ones in terms of like keyboard except stuff, um,
uh, Back in the day you would use, um, Google ads, keyword planner, um,
it's becomes increasingly tricky.
You need like an actual paid ad account to do that now.
So if you were trying to do it free, uh, you just don't have that option anymore.
You have just going straight to Google.
Um, and also I feel like I just have an easier time using some
Russia's tool than I do with, um, Uh, easing, easing out to planner.
It's just a bit more intuitively laid out.
Um, in terms of site, uh, audit seemed like technical audit.
Um, we've got things like screaming, frog, um, but in the absence of any
other tools, which is often where people start, especially if they're in
house, they don't have anything, then you end up checking stuff manually.
So you might get like a plugin and it becomes, there's so many things where
like, humans shouldn't be doing them.
Like it shouldn't be like manually checking.
Your metadata page by page, you should just, you should just get that crawled
and done in the report in seconds.
Yup.
Um, so yeah, that's another alternative, uh,
Jon: literally clicking B-cells at a page
Jacob: on page at a time.
Yeah.
So that'd be like the most formative way of doing it possible.
And then like the next step step up would be installing like a Chrome extension.
I have a Chrome extension that does that.
So if I'm on a particular page, Uh, and I'm really focusing on that patient.
I have a lot of stuff, but like if you're getting a whole
site, so this whole site stuff.
Yeah.
Anything, anything in any level of quantity?
You just, you, you want the tool to automate this?
Yup.
Jon: Got it.
Okay.
Um, and can you tell me when you first started thinking that you should
use something else to get through?
Done.
Um, so may, I mean, obviously quite awhile, while back in 2017, um, and
you were an employee at the time.
Jacob: Yeah.
So that was I'm obsessed.
I first started using this.
Um, um, yeah, I, I think I just wanted to, um, get more keywords for ads.
I think that was one thing and I also wanted to, um, yeah.
Keep exploring for keywords for, uh, the blog is a bit, I think one
of the pinch points was that it was quite difficult to find keywords.
It felt like particularly.
To the B2B audience that we're trying to reach.
Um, and honestly, like I think part of my initial motivations, like the misguided,
and I feel like I felt that was a big reservoir of like B2B relevant keywords.
That if only I could find it, it would, you know, be there.
But now that I've worked with a lot more company.
Um, I feel like I've got a better understanding of the buying
cycle and that how massively differs from companies company.
So the thought that I was thinking, wow, there's just going to be this like,
like undiscovered land of keywords.
And if I managed to get them, then, then, then I'll be able to
get people on the site and apply.
Whereas now I think a lot more about like, well for companies, a lot of the time.
A person just has the training need.
And then they start Googling things about like, you know, X training course,
and you just got to get them there.
Then you gotta put a lot of effort into making sure you get them there.
And the, the stage before that, while they've got like awareness of
a problem and all the rest of it, I mean, you will get such stands
around there, but like the, the overwhelming, like, wait, is that, that
particular bit where they've just gone.
We needed a training course.
Um, and I, I feel like at the time, I didn't really think that way so much.
I used to, I used to think that like, there'll be a more even level of
interest at all bits of the funnel.
And you're taught that, you know, oh yeah.
There's the awareness about where people are just barely aware that
they've got a problem or something.
Some industry that's true.
Something like dollar shave club is a fantastic example of that, where
absolutely awareness was there.
No one knew you could get subscription raises fate, that there was, there would
have been very little search volume for subscription razor service at that time.
Um, so they needed to get up there and that awareness bit, whereas,
uh, and so, you know, uh, you know, the YouTube stuff and the display
advertising, I'm sure they would have done was absolutely what they need it.
But for that company, it was just getting people at those extremely
high level of intent, you know, they saw training courses.
And so it's like getting them when they're searching for
those sorts of training courses.
Yeah.
So yeah, I thought your mistaken belief grinding.
Jon: Interesting.
I thank you.
Um,
and, um, So before, so you've told me where you were hoping for it to
solve, um, to get you this rich set of, of B2B keywords for the particular
businesses that you're working in.
Um, and, but you indicated that maybe it didn't help them.
Do you expect it to help?
Um, was there anything, um, before you started using the product that you were
unsure of about it, or that was unclear?
Jacob: I think, I mean, there were a lot of capacitor tools pan,
so differentiation between some roughing, other ones, it was khaki.
And I feel like I answered a lot of my questions just by doing the trial.
I think that that, that, that, that helped me out with the loss of them.
As far as I can recall, I was, I felt pretty sure that it was
like, it was just like mole.
So we had this understanding my head there's more SEO, most visible.
Um, and so I had this kind of template in my head like, oh, So I
feel like happens a lot with stopper.
You just, you just go, oh, it's this thing.
So you don't really need that kind of, if I was mistaken, it would
have been mistaken to the extent that it was different from us.
And as far as I recall, like that wasn't a lot that was different from
Jon: yeah.
But going back, was there anything about Mazda at the time that you didn't
like, was there more that were sort of pushing you away from, from most.
Jacob: Yeah.
Like I felt like summer felt about a keyword database.
Um, and, um, yeah, that's, I think that's the main thing I remember possibly.
I got a sense that there was more, there were more sort of features
in SEMrush, but I'm not sure it's a, quite a long time ago now.
Right.
Jon: Um, and you've touched on this briefly already, but, uh, Before
you decided to use, um, the break.
Was there anyone else that you, um, asked, um, about it or, um, places
that you look for information about it?
Jacob: I mean, I was kind of, I just remember being like,
roughly aware of a few of them.
Uh, I was aware of spite, baby.
You know, my boss at the time told me about that.
We used to be subscribed to that, but again, it's called SpyFu.
I don't even know if it's still going, but it's chemo database was just
nowhere near as good a stem rush.
Um, and I think a cool thing is I tried in all of them to do this sort
of keyword search and SEMrush just came up way better than the rest of them.
And that was during the trial was a big thing.
Yeah.
That was during the trial in advance.
Um,
You know, it's so hard.
I'm just, oh, I have this like awareness of it being around.
I feel this happens a lot with, um, a lot of products.
Like your first, you often don't remember your first time you see them.
And then cause it's just like, oh, it's around.
It's people are talking about it and you're barely even clocking at, um,
Jon: The w where would you have sort of been hanging out to have discovered it,
there are like any forums or websites or podcasts that you would have, uh,
or maybe the, the today, if, if, um, you had to come across a new product.
W where, where might you first come across it?
Jacob: Um, yeah, a lot's changed today.
So like, where, what I do now is like way different from even
like a cereal four years ago.
Um, So I would say since about 2018, uh, I joined an absolute ton of, uh,
Facebook groups are actually really good.
Um, handful of them are really good.
You normally get decent information than I have, um, posed questions about, um,
things like learning patient flower or.
Um, I think that was the most recent one yeah.
Landing page stuff.
And I was just going to be like, what are people using for page building?
Because I knew about Unbounce.
Was there anything else people knew about?
So, yeah.
So, um, uh, so the idea is to get a recommendation from someone who has
actively used the tool and who seems credible, like there's someone who's
actually, you know, you, you, you have faith that they, in their ability to
use this as part of a larger process.
So, um, you know, if I'm talking to you, uh, about, uh, something and
you say this tool is just good, it just immediately goes like waste
waste at the top of my consideration.
Let's yeah.
So it's trying to find a recommendation from a peer or
Jon: better.
And so you actively look for it right?
When, when you have a problem and it is that
Jacob: right.
Yeah.
So I, um, I normally am able, as long as I can conceive of that being, uh, uh,
a kind of a tool, which does the thing.
So, um, I'm sure that there are some things which I'm doing some
problems that I'm having, that I don't even realize that there's a
tool which could help me with that.
But with things like landing page builders, like a concept in my brain,
um, But then there are other things where I'm like less, you know, I'm probably
just not aware that this is something which, um, could, uh, could help.
Yeah.
So wherever I bought a sense that, that, that this is, this is a
category of staying that I want.
And, um, then I'll ask for opinions.
And
Jon: can you name any of the specific Facebook groups that you've found useful?
Jacob: Yeah, the, I mean the big one for me, like huge, uh, just generally
in my, my career for like the past three years, the CXL, uh, compassion, but a
group it's just absolutely enormous.
Um, loads of the contacts that I've made, the, um, uh, the recommendations, uh, Uh,
yeah, that's another, I remember asking about full my elastics on there as well.
It's another thing we've got some recommendations that, um, yeah,
that's, that's always been a big one.
Um, I feel like, uh, that there were some other ones, like the Google tag
manager one is, is another one, but it's very specific to help within the tool.
I'm trying to think of, oh yeah.
Some interesting . Um, if I'm asking about tool, you know, if I was asking
tool agnostic, there's also like superstar SEO, which is pretty good.
Um, um, Google ad strategy with Kohl's Soulard has never in a group ever,
but like it's decent Google ads group.
Yeah.
So, yeah, so I'd say that was like my, like one tier.
And then I see above that in terms of quality.
Is the private slack groups.
So, um, let's measure slack, uh, which is excellent.
Um, and.
Uh, there's one or two smaller ones, which I'm members of, which are just
like some individual who I know is like fully scaled and what they do.
And they have their own private slack group in on that.
Um, yeah, but for these slack groups, you need like the quality of the question
that you need to ask to get a response in those groups is extremely IST.
You need, but you need to clearly be asking her question.
That is worth asking people who know this much.
So I go there, when I've got a question where I'd like,
just, just beat my brains out.
I can't figure it out.
I just get pleased, anyone.
Um, yeah.
And, um, uh, I would take a recommendation from inside that extremely seriously.
Yeah.
Jon: That'd be great to have that kind of squirt network around
Jacob: and built it up.
I built up really, really painstakingly any, any opportunity.
I literally added to one at recently as a guy who just posted a lot
on, um, uh, San Mar full styles.
And he's very, he's clearly very good.
And I've learned those from his posts.
And then he just, he just said, oh, I bought this.
He mentioned.
Almost done an offhand about like in his private flat group, someone mentioned X.
Yeah.
I just commented, you know, the bit in fight club where they're
waiting outside the door, trying to get membership to the club.
I just, that that's me right now.
Just waiting outside.
And he gave somebody the invite.
So, um, yeah.
Uh, and, um, private, private mastermind groups.
Who've got other things like that as well.
So some really excellent conversion.
Optimization practitioner and you just see the sheer quality of what he's
posting and I've just, you know, it's just being proactive with these things.
Um, because as a, as a solo freelancer, this is the thing that I'm just, I will
just, I can easily be totally deficient.
Then I can literally just talk to nobody.
And I had exactly the same thing when I was working in house.
Like you just constantly know more than everyone in the room
about like your specialist.
'cause it's just you.
Yeah.
Um, and that's not a good place to be.
You need to constantly be around people who have.
You are, I'm challenging.
You, you have, and then I think also the other side, it's really good if
you've, um, if you're, if you're trying to impart that knowledge as well.
Um, that's the biggest side though.
That's
Jon: really useful.
Interesting stuff though.
I'm conscious of time.
We're already up to 23 minutes.
Um, you're right.
To keep going for a bit.
I've got a couple more questions.
So, uh, well, where are we up to?
Um, was there, um, anyone that you needed to sort of, uh, have
weigh in on your decision to buy?
I think you mentioned this also earlier because you were working in house at the
time, and so you, you have a boss that was going to sign off on the, on the purchase.
Um, yeah.
And is that similar now or how, how do you make.
Jacob: Uh, so it's interesting.
So when I work with, so yeah, at the time it's just, the boss needed the decision
and he was, um, one of the real strengths of that company was that if you wanted
some software, you wouldn't end up in some just tedious debate about, you
know, relatively small amounts of money.
You just get the thing.
Yeah.
Um, that's, that's great.
So, um, Next company I was at, um, I did get some rough, uh, and I think I, that
was with like the initial bit of momentum that I had as a new person coming in.
I was just like, this is the tool of my, I need this.
This is what I use.
Um, and I think it's, that was fine.
Um, when I've, I.
I helped move, uh, an agency I've done some work with, to summarize as well.
And again, they were using muzzle ready and I was really like up for just being
like, oh yeah, no, I just use most, if I can do the stuff I do at SEMrush
and most and fantastic, but I just couldn't quite do it in the same way.
And workflow and process becomes a big.
So a lot of the time, if I'm working with clients to say like, look,
here's the tool, but here's also the workflow and process behind it.
And with, with SEMrush, you can fit it into work flows and processes.
Um, and yeah, and also a, um, it works it's really, really good
for, um, moderately successful and above small and medium businesses.
I think once you start getting increasingly complex website,
And you start getting, um, the investment in SEO becomes
progressively more, um, worthwhile.
Then you need to start expanding your toolkit.
So a lot of people use pH rights, um, because it's just better, but things
like link-building air trust just acknowledged as being a better tool.
Um, but San Francisco very good at doing lots of.
So it's quite a, it's slightly easiest, Alex.
It's like, can we just get this?
And it'll cover lots of bases rather than let's get this kind of ecosystem
of, you know, it's funny how some are actually does do lots of things.
And if you were to go back 10 years, there used to be more like separate,
separate tools doing these things.
And some are just kind of bring us
Jon: into, you mentioned H refs, would that be something that
you use instead of SEMrush?
Sorry.
Jacob: Um, you know, I never used.
Myself.
I just know that loads of people do use that.
And I know that if, uh, um, if I was in a position where I was in
any way responsible for extensive link-building then, um, I would
definitely at least try it.
Right.
Um, I know it does other things as well.
Um, One of the things hair, as well as that light.
Let's just that you've got to look at like where your
bottlenecks are and your processes.
And, um, so often, like there are multiple tools that will do things well enough
for the level that you can execute.
You know, in most small medium-sized businesses, there's just a limit to how
well they can execute any ex STO work.
And so the amount of extra benefit that you'd get from having lots of tools
just doesn't translate into actual.
Real changes.
It's just, oh, I've got lots of fancy tools, but I've got like this
really limited amount of actual work practical changes and what I can do.
And so I felt like SEMrush is quite good.
I could level.
Yeah.
Cause you can just go, right.
Okay.
This covers covers my basis.
Anything that I would want to do, this will give me the adequate support for it.
Jon: Makes sense.
Um, and so if, uh, If SEMrush disappeared, um, tomorrow and you
weren't able to use it, what would those unit you comfortable with the
tools that would fill the gap that,
Jacob: um, I think the main thing, yes.
I think I could definitely do.
Like, there's nothing that like, if they do, which I don't think I, I
could do in some other way, there are all the keyword research tools out.
Um, um, I think I would just have to relearn some of my
privacy practices or alter them.
So, um, like a core part of when I do technical audits, of course part
is just going through the summary report first, um, and pulling out
what looks relevant from that.
And it's a couple of, so many things so quickly.
Um, I would have to look at like, okay, how do I do this manually in
screaming frog, or how do I am, you know, what other tools do the same thing?
Um, yeah.
Jon: And to understand that process.
So SEMrush will give you, um, is that a list of keywords or
issues at that at that point?
Jacob: Yeah.
So, um, you've got like a Crow.
What I call it, like the cruel report.
So basically they, um, it's like a full site audit and that's the technical stuff.
Like how your site is set up, um, things like, you know, your
method descriptions or your.
EMA or your internal linking and stuff like that.
So Ross just let you run a report on all of those issues at once.
And then, um, from that report, then I go through that and I, I, you know, I look
at picture it manually and I go, okay, here's an issue that needs a bit more.
So there's an issue which needs a bit more.
Um, probing that.
Am I going to screaming, frog and then an investigator a bit more
or depending on what the issue is?
Um, so, but it forms my core thing.
It's just gone and it's gone all the checking it's it's it's the,
the, it, it C it means that I won't have had to have done what would
literally take dozens of hours to do.
Depending on the site, it could be crazy amounts of time.
Um, it's just dumb.
Um, and you know, other, other other sites would do this,
but I would need to get that.
It's just that while I was doing research, right, I've got this report and this
provides like a nice backbone for me.
Um, Um,
Jon: yeah.
All right.
That's been super insightful.
Um, I've learned loads, having not used these tools much my myself, but is there
anything else you think I should know about your experience of using SEMrush?
Jacob: I think it's, I think it's, um, it's your experience?
It's going from like user friendliness has gone from being.
Really bad to mediocre.
Um, he used to be so, um, uh, it was so hard to find what you wanted.
It's still not easy.
Um, there are so many options.
There are so, so, so, so many options and it, it definitely feels like.
Uh, an agglomeration of lots of different tools.
Um, and that's taken precedence over its user-friendliness as a tool.
You definitely don't get it.
It's definitely against that kind of, oh, I'm new in the tool.
Let's cut down the number of decisions that I have to make so that
I get in and I get stuff using it.
Start getting value immediately.
Like that is not a sudden rush.
It's like, here are so many things that you can do.
You figure out a way of using them and you figure out your own workflows and stuff.
Like it's, it's something that I've really had to learn to work with
to come up with what flows around.
Jon: Yep.
Struggle.
Jacob: Um, yeah.
Um, and I feel like that's, that's one of the major gaps with it, with
a torch there's so many things is actually having strong workflows because
it's so easy just to get like all of these, like Google analytics, right?
Like a, you have this preponderance of reports I spring as it just
to kind of dive in and get lost.
Um, and so the, the, the really cool thing.
SEMrush is knowing when to use what tools at what stage and what to do
with the outputs of them and happy.
You know, it's very, um, it's a very kind of multi-purpose tool, but it's certainly
not the kind of thing where you're going to get the maximum value out of it easily.
Um, yeah.
Jon: If you had a magic wand and you could change one thing about
SEMrush, what would it, would it be?
Jacob: Um, I think that I would, Hmm.
I feel like it's a more, always more of a.
Conceptual thing where like, it could be nice if it had some way of guiding people
through a particular process, rather than like giving you loads of reports.
I'm working with people who sometimes, um, when a client I'm working with gets
SEMrush, you know, Uh, I often work with people, um, who are, you know,
they're not like asking your specialist or they're early in their career.
I was talking to someone literally this morning talking through some
Russian and different things that he, that he could be doing in it.
And, um, I feel like if there was a way of organizing it so that you could
just go, what are you trying to do?
And then, you know, I'm trying to find technical issues on my site.
All right.
Click.
And then here's like this checklist checklist do this.
I feel like there's some, I like walking people through
the processes through SEMrush.
I feel like it could be more, more useful for newbies, but
it's, you know, it's, it's tricky.
I'm, I'm calling.
All of how onboarding and making tools, user friendly is like its
own its own discipline, same thing.
Um, and I I'm, I'm sure that whoever's worked on it.
It's like really organized over.
But I just, I generally get the sense.
It's just very easy to get lost in the report.
And sometimes it'd be nicer to have some sense of where this fits into
a broader process, particularly for people who aren't familiar with that
Jon: that's really very useful to hear.
Thank you.
Um, so that's the, uh, end of my questions.
Thank you again for taking the time to share that experience.
Um, is there anything, what else do you think I should talk to if I was exploring
more about SEMrush, um, who else would be good people to ask where if you're
not comfortable saying their name on the, on the show, that's, that's fine.
Um, but are there other, other people that use, uh, use it a lot that you
know, that you could introduce me?
Jacob: Um, there's uh, Ooh, Hmm.
There, uh, there are some people who could potentially talk to him.
Um, the reason I hesitate is because of like, um, let us super busy.
Yeah.
So it, uh, it, I mean, you could, you could certainly try, um, I would.
If it's interesting, you asked me like where, where I
find information about that.
Like someone like stupid stuff, SEO.
I do this all the time.
When I'm researching stuff for clients, I will just find the niche Facebook group.
Yeah.
That I remember of that that's relevant to whatever thing I'm working on.
And then I.
Whatever question I want to ask.
I'll just stay, you know?
Yeah.
Like, like for example, if I'm trying to find out, um, I have to find out, uh, I
was writing some ads that were in, uh, fiction writers and I wanted to get a
sense of like, what's what's success.
What, what, in terms of like the, you know, what, what
can I put into this coffee?
That's going to make it compelling to them.
So I just asked them, like, what does success mean to you as a.
What does it picture it?
What does, what does the picture of success look like?
You, I gave you only one of these ideas and it's like, okay, brilliant.
I can try these in ads.
Right.
Um, uh, so yeah, superstar, Theo would be a pretty good one.
Yeah.
Um, there was some are styles, which would obviously be a biased sample.
Um, but then you've got, um, guests you've star SEO.
You'd get a ton of recent.
Got it.
Jon: Thank you.
All right.
Um, and, uh, yeah, that's really good.
I mean, we've probably started to get a picture of some of the work that you
do, but can you tell me what, what, uh, what you do if there's a way for
people that are listening to work with you, um, where we can find out more.
Jacob: Yeah.
So, um, I work with, um, like a variety of businesses.
It's been this really, really wide span of businesses, um, particularly with
like, um, stat and professional services, but actually, um, brought it out a lot.
Um, just multipurpose thing.
And what I was hearing is, you know, if, if you've got the sense of, oh,
we could reach more people or, oh, our website could convert more people.
Um, Then, if he comes to me, then I can help you figure out
where these opportunities lie.
Um, I think, um, one of the major benefits of having someone who's
external to your business have a look at it is I can, you know, I can get
the sense of like that bit where it's talking about like the awareness.
Uh, and why, like you have these different kinds of areas, which
are like particular target places.
Um, because I do your SEO and do a conversion rate optimization.
I'm very good at looking at like, okay, maybe you want to create more
content here, or maybe you want to, um, improve this landing page.
Or maybe you, you know, this bit is conceptually wrong.
It's just about finding places where you could grow.
And improve, identifying them coming up with a plan to, to,
to, to, to grow your business
Jon: excellence.
Where on the web, can we find that,
Jacob: uh, it's funnel marketing.com and follow us?
Actually, my name that's F U double N E double L marketing.com.
So it's, um, I think it's got an acronym for your work, reflect your, um, name.
So, yeah, I was recently told by a business owner that my site is very
easy to understand, but there's a state.
So if you go there, hopefully you'll get the answers that you need.
Jon: I would say the same.
It is.
It's great.
But you know, I'm very fortunate to have worked with.
Both all the way, way back, um, when you had that, uh, in-house role.
And, um, I was, you know, I was impressed, uh, then, um,
about the quality of your work.
And, um, I've been very, uh, glad to be able to hire a few times, um,
to work with a couple of different clients that I've worked with.
Um, and I can, uh, yeah, I will keep hiring you because I'm, we're actually
about to have a conversation about one client that we're working with
after, after this interview, um, Uh, because yet Jacob is someone that, that
knows us, knows his stuff on, on this.
I'm quite a generalist and I really need an expert on SEO.
Um, and I'm in conversion rate optimization.
Jacob's the person that like go to, um, so, uh, yeah, check, check
out his website, funnel marketing.
, so my last leading question, um, we.
Can you, um, and they may be a piece of software that you've already mentioned,
um, earlier, but are there three pieces of software, um, maybe relate to this
conversation or just generally that you've used recently or bought recently that
you would recommend people check out?
Jacob: Um, I am going to be extremely generic on this.
I think that one is a studio.
Obviously people have had.
But the amount of clients I see who do their reporting
right out of Google analytics.
So high, you need to get it.
You need to get it into Google data studio because analytics is not a reporting tool.
It's a data store.
Analytics is not a reporting tool.
It's just a data store.
It was designed with your reporting in mind.
That's why they crazy Google data studio.
If you use Google analytics for your reports.
You're costing yourself time and you're not getting your information
across as well as you can.
Google data studio is free and it takes, you can learn how to use it
well enough to like create a dashboard.
You can learn it in a day.
So there's really, really, really, really no excuse not to use data
studio now, like you should.
Um, but that's my harangue.
Uh, that's the first part.
Um, I think, um, I'm going to, again, this is another one, which I think is
like widely known, uh, lots of people use Hotjar, but I think, uh, lots of people
don't get enough, uh, value as they could out of the surveys, functionality of that.
Just asking if you don't have any surveys to up on your site, then if you're an
e-commerce site, then set up a question, which just does both one thing that's
holding you back from making a purchase.
Yeah.
If, um, you've got a lead gen site as a question, what's one thing that
almost stopped me getting in touch.
Um, if you've got, uh, like, uh, as such, but, and you've just, just after someone
purchased, just ask, but what's one thing that almost prevented you from buying
today and the amount of feedback you get.
And also often the consistency of that.
Um, it's storytelling it's supposed so, so valuable.
Um, so yeah, Hotjar, uh, is it's still remains like, um, the easiest one
stop shop for this sort of thing, even though they've increased their prices.
Um, and for a piece of software, I think it's particularly useful.
I think another one, uh, particularly in GDPR times, uh, is cookie box.
Um, it's just a very easy way.
So if you pass cookie bot with Google tag manager, then all of the stuff
where people ended up getting in, in like tying themselves in knots,
over GDPR and permissions and stuff, it just integrates photography.
It's not expensive and it's way better than trying to
build your own thing in house.
Just like, I think when GDPR first came out, people just instinctively
went to the web developers to try and create something.
And you can give better to that in just install this thing
integrates the tag manager.
So it means that the things that you're using will be compliant.
Um, Yeah, those
Jon: would be my three.
Perfect.
Thank you very much, Jacob.
Again, it's been brilliant to have you on.
Um, and, uh, yeah, I was looking forward to our next conversation about a specific,
um, plant that we're both working with.
Um, but yeah, take a
Jacob: code test.
Jon: That was hopefully a useful example of a customer interview.
You can find notes from this episode, including links to all the products
mentioned at empathy, deployed.com.
If you know anyone who might benefit from hearing this perspective,
please share the episode.
And word of caution.
This interview is a snapshot of just one person's perspective
in an artificial situation.
You should be very careful about drawing any conclusions about
the guest people like them or the product from this single data point.
Customer interviews are most valuable when you see parallels across, many
of them will be in a specific context.
I'd suggest a minimum of five and ideally 12 to 15.
I recommend the book, deploy empathy by Michelle Hanson for a
practical guide on how to do it.
Well, if you'd like to join me as a guest on a future
episode, please send me a note.
I'm jumped on Twitter.
That's J O T.
My DMS are open.
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