Welcome to today’s episode of Influence By Design. I’m your host, Samantha Riley. And today I’ve introduced I have, oh my goodness, my brain has absolutely stopped. Alright, let’s start. And today, I have our, we are welcoming Stephan Spencer to the show. He’s the author of The Art of SEO, and two podcasts Marketing Speak and Get Yourself Optimized. We’re going to break down as simply as possible, I am hoping the topic of SEO because this is a topic that I do know not very much about at all. So Stephan, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Samantha. It’s great to be here. And I do want to preface this conversation by saying you don’t have to be a techno-geek in order to get massive value out of this conversation; I’m going to make this as accessible as possible for our listener.

I love that. I said to Stephan before we started recording, this needs to be like SEO for Dummies, with me being the dummy. Hopefully, this works out just perfectly. I know it will from your end. I’m just hoping that I get this right. So I want to start off by asking, because I’ve actually heard this, Is SEO even a thing anymore?

Yes, well, as long as people are searching on Google, which they are, it’s the most popular website on the planet. And as long as people are still clicking on the search results in Google, then SEO is a thing. As far as I hear and see, and, you know, my anecdotal evidence, people are not just relying 100% on AI overviews. And, in fact, that’s kind of a dumpster fire. A lot of misinformation and wrong, completely wrong, made-up facts are showing up in those AI overviews.

And that’s not giving Google users a lot of comfort that they can rely on that. One of the most popular searches that have come out in the recent few weeks has been how to turn off AI overviews. How do I turn off the AI overviews? Because it’s garbage. Like if it’s telling you medical advice that is absolutely wrong, then, and financial advice that’s absolutely wrong, and you can’t tell the difference as a consumer, as a Google searcher. That’s very dangerous. Yeah, so we cannot rely as users of Google on AI overviews for factual accuracy. Thus, the regular Google search results are going to be the place where people are still gonna go even if AI overviews interfere with that because we have to scroll past it. 

Have you noticed or do you know if there was sort of a dip in Google clicks or people searching on Google when AI first came out? And maybe it’s gone back? Like, is there any research, or not research, is there any sort of evidence to that?

Well, there have been studies done to see if rankings have taken a hit overall, and traffic, organic traffic and so forth. And again, I’ll say anecdotally, for my clients, I’m not seeing that. In fact, we’re, we’re getting growth happening, even while Google is releasing all these AI advances and different tools and so forth. And there are winners and losers. So there are these winner and loser reports that come out that the different SEO tools will publish. And they’ll say these are the top sites that have won new Google traffic, organic traffic. And these are the ones who have lost. And what we’re finding or they’re finding and correlating with are things that are not really great, accepted, best practices from an SEO standpoint, such as creating a lot of duplicate content or not unique, valuable content. So the sites that get pummelled in these updates are sites like lyric sites. I can get the lyrics of a song from any site, and it’s always the same because the lyrics are the lyrics for a particular song than all the lyric sites on the internet now that AI overviews are available above, to answer that query directly about what the lyrics are for a particular song, there’s absolutely no need for 15 other lyric sites directly underneath providing the exact same answer. So those sites have gotten decimated.

That’s just an example. Another would be like dictionary sites, you know, here’s the dictionary definition of the word pummelled. I don’t need to see that 15 times, I don’t need 15 search results. So those sites have also gotten decimated, you know. If you’re providing coupons that every other site is also replicating. You know, there are all these different coupon discount code websites that are just replicating each other. Like, here’s a code that was shared on this site, and then this other site, and then five other sites. That’s not unique, valuable content that’s over and above what all the other sites are doing.

So if that’s your business model, you’re in big trouble. But for most people, that’s not their business model. If you’re providing real expertise and experience, see, this is the thing that an AI cannot provide, is real-world experience. If you want to teach basket weaving, or scuba diving, or how to represent a plaintiff in a jury trial. What experience does an AI have? Zero, it’s never shown up in a courtroom. It’s never put scuba gear on. It’s never weaved anything with crochet needles or whatever it doesn’t have experience. So it will steal from other sites and try to kind of assimilate and accumulate all that information and spit it out. But that’s not real. 

That’s, that’s an approximation. That’s a cheap facsimile. Or what many folks would even say is theft, right? Copyright theft, stealing other people’s IP, and then amalgamating it so you can’t trace it back to the original source. And then saying, Hey, here’s, here’s the definitive answer, without any caveats, and it just says, Here’s a statistic that, you know, proves the point, and it made it up. That’s called an AI hallucination. That’s very dangerous. And it’s inherent in the AI. 

Right? Generative AI is like an autocomplete. You know, like when you go onto Google, and you type in a search query, and you type in, let’s say, past life, and then it’ll autocomplete or give you a suggestion, regression, or near-death experience, right? It’ll give you the next word. And it’s like, if that’s the right next word, then you just click it, you don’t have to type it all in. Well, that’s nice and handy. That’s a very simple autocomplete. Well, what is an LLM or Large Language Model? In other words, generative AI. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini from Google. What they do is just a more advanced and longer version of that autocomplete.

So it’ll make, you say, make up a bedtime story. And it’ll probably start with the word once. Because many bedtime stories start with the word once. And what’s the next word after once? Upon perhaps, you know, that’s a very likely next word, and so it autocompletes that one. That’s why you see when you’re querying or prompting Chat GPT, it’s like slowly going along as if it’s typing a word at a time, because it’s inventing the next word. Not inventing, it’s more like stealing it from the most likely word database, right?

So it’s pulling the word upon after the word once and what’s after upon, a and then time, and then there and then was or were, and it just keeps making up a story one word at a time. That’s why it doesn’t just spit out the entire encyclopedia entry of whatever that you tell it to make up all at once. It’s like filling it out a word at a time, but pretty darn fast. So when you have an autocomplete like that, it requires, by the very nature of the algorithm, for it to make up the next word, because otherwise it’s gonna be, it’s like being on stage and you had stage fright and you suddenly freeze.

Well, eventually, even if you’re, like feeling like you’re gonna throw up or pass out, you’re gonna say something eventually, you know, maybe a minute goes by, and the whole audience is staring at you. And then you’re like uh, a wolf, there was a wolf. So it’s got to make something up. And if it’s a stat like, you know, according to and that’s making uh, Forrester Research. Yeah, that’s it. And you remember this Saturday Night Live where there was the liar guy. He makes stuff up. I forget his name. But he was a liar like this decades ago on Saturday Night Live.

That’s it. Yeah. That’s it. And he’s just making stuff up on the fly. And it’s so outrageous, and it makes your eyes roll back when you hear these outrageous lies. That’s Claude or chat GPT, or Gemini or any other generative AI, it’s just making the stuff up. So if that is the basis of Google’s secret weapon, generative AI, AI overviews, we’re in big trouble as consumers, we cannot rely on that, it will just make up the statistic, it will make up the source, it will make up a medical diagnosis, it will make up a financial recommendation for some investment opportunity.

And then we lose everything, we lose our savings, we lose our health, because we took a supplement that had contraindications, and it made up the recommendations. So will SEO still be a thing? You know, later this year, next year? Even the year after that? Heck, yes, absolutely. We can, hallucinations, those made up nonsensical. I need a word here, let’s make up a source like Forrester Research or PubMed or, the National Institutes of Health or whatever, like, it’ll make it up. And I can’t rely on that. And that’s baked into the whole system. You can’t take that out. It’ll be years before they figure out another model to replace it. And in the meantime, we need SEO, because people are going to, they’re going to click on those search results. And we better be there. 

Yeah, totally. Before we get into how to really create that authority on Google, I want to step backward and set a foundation. What needs to be in place on our website before we even start thinking about the content that we’re creating and this keyword and all of that kind of stuff? Because there are certain things that we need to make sure that are in place on our website, right?

Yeah, yeah. So the way I think about it is that you are creating a destination with your website, this is a destination. And if you are going to invest time in content creation, and all you’re doing is you’re publishing it on LinkedIn, or on Facebook, or Instagram, or wherever else, what you’re doing is you’re building a house on rented land. That’s a dangerous idea. That’s a terrible idea. Right? Not to say don’t do social media marketing, of course.

But you’re going to create a piece of content that has to have a home that you control, that you own, that you’re not just renting the land. Because Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube, can change their policies, they can turn off your channel. And then what, you’re at zero. So your website is your home on the internet. You have to have a proper home. That means it needs to be reflective of your brand, and the quality that you offer, it needs to have the kinds of elements of social proof that would convince or sway a potential buyer to sign up with you or at least to inquire.

So things like, if you have a press or media page with whatever, appearances, podcasts, TV appearances, etc, that needs to be put on your site in a way that looks really legit. And also any kind of media mentions and print publications or blogs and so forth. So if you’ve been cited or quoted in mainstream media, in newspapers and magazines, or popular blogs, you got to put all that in a place that is very clear, concise, well positioned, and well laid out. So it looks legit, like, wow, this guy or this gal has been on TV, and on all these amazing podcasts and mentioned as a source or even had feature stories about them in magazines.

I don’t have to do all the due diligence to see if they’re legit. That’s already been done for me. So that’s really good because that means that it eases and facilitates the buying process. You’re making it easier for them to say yes, and move down the funnel. So that’s just a press page. Well, what about real-world client results? What have you done for the clients that have hired you? So it’s not just a fluffy testimonial, saying, Hey, I love this guy, or this gal, they’ve really made a difference in my life and my business. That’s pretty fluffy or, you know, vague. And what do you guys say in Australia? Well, it’s waffle. You know, it’s, yeah.

That’s exactly what we say. It’s a waffle.

Yeah, we eat waffles over here. But you guys say waffle. Yeah. So that’s, that’s an important aspect of that home on the internet to that website that you’re gonna have or already have. So I actually recommend having a page called Results. Not testimonials, not praise. But results, because people want to see results. They don’t want to see flowery testimonials that talk about vague, you know, kind of ideas about hiring this person or company.

So, if you look at my site, stephanspencer.com, or my agency site, netconcepts.com, you will see a results page on both. And it’s not just testimonial quotes, there are some testimonial quotes. But there are also case study podcast episodes. So we go in-depth for an hour, I have a marketing show called Marketing Speak. Some of those episodes are case study episodes where I interviewed the clients, and they share lots of details of this kind of secret sauce, what made their SEO successful.

And then I feature those on the results page. I also have case studies, you know, the format of a case study is the background or problem, the solution, and then the results. So that includes real tangible stuff like screenshots of Google Analytics up into the right graphs, and charts and tables, and all that sort of stuff that really makes this look substantial and tangible, not just vague.

And then, of course, in the results section, we’ll incorporate things like testimonial quotes as well. But we try to get to the meat of it like, client, can you please share some specifics? Because if it’s, let’s say a law firm, a law firm is really going to be most interested in the number of signed cases per month, right? Or per time period, they don’t care so much about the organic traffic. If they 10x their organic traffic from Google, and their number of signed cases stays the same, and they’ve spent, you know, 10, $20,000 a month 12, 16 months, they’re being like, what the heck did we just do? We had 10x traffic and we got no real value out of it. We care about signed cases. So what is that one number that you care about? When I say you, I’m not just saying you, Samantha.

The audience, the people that are listening? Yeah.

Yeah. Because it varies depending on the kind of consultant or coach or speaker or whatever. Like if you make most of your money off of professional speaking. Then it’s probably going to be inquiries for speaking gigs from legit conference organisers and association executive directors and stuff, managing directors, not just regular inquiries. Yeah, so what’s that major needle-moving metric for your business, and then measure a baseline time period. And then you hire an SEO agency or consultant or whatever to help you.

And then you hopefully see and up into the right graph. So that sort of success needs to be published on the website, your website. Ideally, if it’s not just a testimonial quote, but it’s a full-blown case study, where a whole page is dedicated to that case example, that’s going to be really good. So a results page is really going to help move that prospect down the funnel or the buyer journey. Another aspect of you know, the kind of quality, and social proof that you need to convey on your website, is in the form of some sort of authoritative or authority-building, positioning.

For me, I do speaking gigs. So I have a lot of keynotes and workshops, and so forth that were recorded. And that’s all available in my learning center. So if you want to call it a learning center, you want to call it resources, you want to call it a media library, or you want to put it on your speaking page. The problem with putting it on your speaking page, if you’re also offering to speak, is if I’m not a conference organizer, the likelihood of me clicking on the word speaking in your nav top is pretty low. So they won’t discover all that thought leadership unless they happen to click in there. So I put it there. And I put it in my learning center, it’s in two places. 

What I‘m really hearing from, what I’m really hearing from all of these pieces, and sorry, I just wanted to jump in and say this is, you really need to know or understand your ideal client or your ideal customer, so that you can start to map out where you think or predict that they’re going to go. Because if you don’t know what it is that they’re looking for, then it’s going to be very easy to create the wrong path, as you just said.

Yes, absolutely. So if your prospect is so early in the buyer journey, typically when they come to your website, that they’re not going to be interested in a request, a free consult, or set up a free strategy call. Because that’s like, Whoa, I don’t want to be sold for an hour. I don’t even know if this guy or gal is legit. That’s not going to be a compelling next action to feature above the fold before, you know, scrolling. So, what is the most compelling thing that you can offer before they start scrolling? Because if you haven’t thought through that, you’ve already lost them. Right. So, I make sure to go above the fold before scrolling on my homepage, the most important page on my site. I want lots of social proof. I want to have seen on logos of TV networks and, Harvard Business Review, Founder magazine and, all these major outlets that have featured me.

So that’s just a bunch of logos, as seen on, and then those logos are above the fold. What else is above the fold arson impact metrics? So, millions of dollars made nine figures in additional revenue generated from SEO for my clients. So that number nine is featured and how many years I’ve been doing SEO as a company founder, 26 years, 27 years. So 27 is one of those impact metrics, right? So, those impact metrics will be different for each company, consultant, coach, speaker, or whatever.

Again, they need to think, like you said, about the audience they’re trying to reach and what they’re going to care about, but that needs to be above the fold. What is above the fold is the obvious next action for the visitor to take. If I’m a first-time visitor and I don’t know you from Adam or Eve, I don’t know that you’re legit, other than those logos and the impact metrics, and maybe a little tiny testimonial quote, if you can fit that in there, you know, so that needs to kind of grease the wheel.

So they feel like okay, this person seems legit. But what’s the low barrier to entry, an irresistible offer that you can dangle in front of them like a carrot? And they’re just like, Wow, that’s amazing. Give me that thing. So, I have some different things that I’ve tried over the years. Like I have an SEO hiring blueprint, which has a seven-step process for hiring an SEO agency, a consultant, or an employee. Right. And it’s got some really ninja ideas in there about how to make sure that you only get a really good SEO because if you don’t know SEO, you can end up making a really bad hire, and then they’re stringing you along for months, telling you like it takes time.

SEO takes time. Give me another year, you’ll see, you’ll see. And you keep spending money, and then it never turns out. Well. You got snookered. So, what sort of process do I need to go through as somebody who’s not skilled in SEO? I’m saying the listener, right? How do I make sure I don’t get snookered? And that’s the seven-step SEO hiring blueprint that I have. So that’s one example of an irresistible offer. Like, who would want, who would say no to that?

Exactly. Who wants to be cheated by someone? No one I know, right?

And even more, I think irresistible of an offer that’s an adjunct to, that is, my SEO BS Detector. BS like, you know, I’m not gonna say the word. But they get sold down the river, they get snookered, they get misled by somebody who talks a good game, but they’re making stuff up. And how do I know without knowing SEO that this person is for real? Besides all the other steps in the seven-step process, where you do things like you make them jump through hoops just to apply or to be considered. There’s also the step of the interview process, and how do I pull out of them the real answers? Right, when I don’t know what to ask, well, let me give you a cheat sheet of the questions to ask that are trick questions. And they won’t realize they’re trick questions.

They think that you don’t know anything about SEO, but you have this little cheat sheet that I gave you. You downloaded it by going to my homepage, right? And it’s the SEO BS detector. An example of a question that might be on a document like this is, you know, let’s say that you might have heard of meta keywords. That’s not a thing that, but they don’t know that you don’t know anything. Or they think you don’t know anything about SEO. So you could ask that question about, hey, you know, how do you do, how do you come up with meta keywords?

What’s your process for that? I love that the answer is anything, but are you serious? Those never counted in Google, never, literally never counted. Yeah. So if that’s not their answer, you just got them. Right. Yes. And some nonsense about, well, they don’t matter as much as they used to. But here’s how we do it. And, there’s the door. Yeah. Thanks for coming. Yeah. And not having a document like that really puts you at a disadvantage because you could just be sold down the river.

They’re telling you about all these tools they use, their process, and how Google is changing the algorithms all the time. And they’re on top of everything. And they’re watching Google IO talks, and of, you know, the CEO at Google, and so forth. And like, Hey, we’re keeping up with all the algorithm updates, and this and that. And the other thing is, you don’t know, you don’t know that. Yeah. How do you verify?

Exactly.

So this is an essential document, I think, for anybody who looks to outsource SEO. And that would be a great feature for me as an SEO consultant and agency owner to provide above the fold on the homepage as an irresistible offer. So, what is your irresistible offer or offers? Then, you can test them and slot each one separately. Or do an A-B split test to see which ones perform the best. It’s like, oh, BS detector does way better than the hiring blueprint or vice versa. And that’s an essential, essential component. Because if you don’t have a next action for the person to take, that isn’t like a big leap of trust, like, Ah, I’ve got to commit an hour to this person, I don’t even know I don’t, I’m out. And then you don’t have any information about them. You don’t know their email address, you don’t know their first name, nothing. They’re not coming back.

Totally. Now, you mentioned the media page before, and this is a great way to build authority. And you also mentioned that that’s really like building authority is what Google is looking for. It wants to put the best results in front of people because that’s what has people coming back to Google. How do you use your media citations or the podcasts that you’ve been on without creating duplicate content? So how do you get them onto the immediate page and, you know, and be able to use them in a way where you’re not using duplicate content from those sites?

Yep. So, first of all, I want to differentiate for our listeners that authority from a visitor standpoint is different than authority from Google’s algorithmic standpoint. If I, as a prospect, come to your site for the first time, and I see all those social proof points, like the impact metrics, and as seen on logos and the client logos and testimonial quotes, I’m sold, I’m like, really impressed. I sign up for the strategy call, right? Google doesn’t think that way. Google’s algorithm is looking for other elements of social proof in the form of links. So, when I get a link from cnn.com, or from, like, Good Morning America, or you have, like, Good Day Australia or something like that, I think.

Yeah, it’s something I’m not a TV watcher. But yeah, there’s some sort of good morning show. The Today Show, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Today Show. That’s right. Yeah. So I don’t watch TV, either. So good for you for not watching TV. So, whatever major media outlets you can get coverage from will definitely show authority. Especially if you get a link. I mean, you might get some credit from Google for just having a mention without a link, but it really makes a difference. It really adds value if you get a link from that site.

So, when you say, when you say get a link, I just remember, this is like .01 dummy for Sam, SEO, do you mean just using the link that links back to their site? Or is there a different sort of link?

Well, let’s say that I went to the Today Show’s website because you had an appearance. If I can’t click somewhere that takes me to your Samantha’s website, then there’s no link.

So, it’s a link from their end to my site. Yeah, got it.

Yeah. Cuz that is showing legitimacy. Like, they’re not going to link to anybody. You’re only going to link to legit websites. And you were a guest on their show. You passed all the sniff tests. They had you on TV, and they also linked to your website and maybe to your social media from their website. That’s what we’re looking for. And I don’t care so much as an SEO expert whether I get links or whether my client gets links to their social platforms, like their LinkedIn and their Instagram and so forth.

It’s a cherry on top. But I really want the link to the client’s website. And if I can work into whether it’s a TV appearance, or a podcast appearance, or an interview with a journalist if I can work in mentions of things that are irresistible offers that the reader, the listener, the viewer, their audience is going to be like, “Hey, where do I get that thing? If I’m talking about this amazing hiring blueprint,” your listeners’ gonna say where do I get that thing from, Stephan? Yeah. And that’s like, you know, there were five things that he mentioned that I want all five of them, like, oh, that’s all on my show notes for this episode, right?

Now, I got five links from you, not just one. So I’m seeding into the interview all this amazing stuff where the listeners like, or the viewer if we’re talking about TV appearances, Give me that thing that was on that appearance on, that segment I want, I want that thing he promised. So that means, Oh, okay, we got to put another link to stuff on our website. I got five instead of one, which works really well. So you’re seeding into the interview, or the whatever, you know, the interaction you’re having with the blogger, the journalist, the host, all that amazing stuff that they’re gonna want to include. And so when we get a link that conveys to Google, to its algorithm, that this is an authoritative and trustworthy website.

If I, as a business owner, as a consultant, or a coach, do not have any links pointing to my website, I don’t look very legit. I might have a beautiful website, and I might have spent a fortune on the design, content creation, and functionality. It’s amazing, it looks incredible. But nobody’s coming to my site from Google. That’s a big problem. I can solve it by just throwing a bunch of money at Google and saying, “Hey, I’m gonna buy ads. Give me some ad placement.” All right, that’s Google Ads, or to Facebook, you know, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. I could just throw a bunch of money at the problem and get some advertising on there.

But that is a problem in that if you do get business from it, you have to keep spending the money. Because if you’re having a slow month and need to stop spending the money, your leads go to zero. That was all just trading dollars for leads. That’s not like SEO. SEO is an asset, an asset that pays you over time, regardless of whether you continue to invest on a monthly basis. Right. So I invest in creating, you know, a hiring blueprint and BS detector, making a great website, and optimizing it. 

And doing keyword research and all the SEO things, getting links to the website from not just mainstream media but industry publications, and, you know, being a columnist and a contributor on various industry websites I got all these links. I invest all that time and effort over a period of time. And for me, it’s been many years. Well, I could take a big vacation and a sabbatical from SEO for 2, 3, 4 or five years, maybe. All that authority, all that trust, all the keyword research, and the content creation will continue to pay dividends in terms of traffic from Google over the years.

That doesn’t mean that I should do that. That’s a kind of a risky thing. Because there is a lot of change happening with Google and AI and just technological advances. I wouldn’t want to take two years off of doing SEO for my website. But I could certainly take six or eight months off. I could, I’m not going to, but I could. Yeah, you can’t take even a week off of Google Ads if that’s where all your leads come in. You won’t have the phone ringing for an entire week, and you’ll be panicking.

So I equate advertising, you know, pay per click and all that and paid social as trading dollars for leads, that’s gonna get you income. But what I’m talking about with SEO and why I love focusing on SEO is because it builds an asset, an asset that goes on the balance sheet, not just as goodwill, but like this is an actual measurable asset in terms of I can tell you the authority score, according to different SEO tools like Majestic and Semrush and Ahrefs, and so forth.

You don’t need to know about these tools. You don’t have to be an SEO expert but know that this stuff is measurable. I have a certain amount of authority over my website because of all these links, and I can measure it and I can give you the number. And anybody else can get the same number for my website by using the same tool. So it’s verifiable. That means I can sell my website if I choose. And one of the things that the potential buyer is going to do is they’re going to check the SEO tools to see how authoritative the website is. No, like, oh, wow, this is really authoritative. This is a good buy; this is a good value for what he wants to be paid for it. It’s an asset.

Totally. If people are listening, and they’re totally sold, and they’re like, I actually need to pay attention to this. I need to do something about this. What are the two to three things that you would focus on very first?

Yeah, well, I would first decide if you’re going to try and do it yourself. Or if you’re going to outsource it, and outsourcing isn’t really the right word. Because that word gets a bad rap. It’s like, oh, outsource it to, I don’t know, some third-world country, get it for $3 an hour, and you get what you pay for. That’s pretty risky. So, let’s not say outsource. Let’s say you engage or hire a firm or an expert to do this for you. So Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach, is co-author of a book called Who Not How. 

I love that book. It’s such a good book. 

Yeah. So I want to know the who. I don’t want to know the how. If it’s an area that’s not part of my core expertise, you could focus on the how; if you are passionate about it, you could read my 707-page book. 

Oh, my goodness, look at big it is. I had no idea you had that much in it. Yeah.  Let’s go with what the experts say.

It used to be a lot bigger. This was a few months ago. Look at this. This is a thousand pages.

That is like an encyclopedia. Holy moly.

So my publisher, O’Reilly, warned us with the third edition. This was literally a thousand 994 pages. They said, “Don’t you dare.” I and my co-authors warned us not to go over 1000 pages. In fact, please, please, please reduce the number of pages. This is not helping your book sales. Yes, it’s the definitive book on SEO. But who wants to buy a 1000-page book and read it?

I get the second part. Anyone can buy it, but who wants to read it? Holy moly. We’re too busy for that.

If that’s your thing, and you want to learn SEO, by all means, you know, here’s the book. This is the definitive Bible on SEO. But for most of our listeners, I’m guessing that it’s the WHO that they need and not the HOW. To get the who, who knows the how. And then they don’t have to know the how themselves, but they do need to be a savvy buyer to get the right who. And that’s where the Hiring Blueprint and SEO BS detector come in to help them make that right hiring decision.

So they don’t even need steps two or three. It’s either get the blueprint and hire someone or read the 994-page guide and spend the rest of your life trying to make it happen.

Yeah, but you know, one of the things that I think would be the next action for everybody, whether or not you are going to hire somebody or a company, or you’re going to try and do it yourself, is to understand what you actually want out of this. What’s my number? What’s the metric that I care about the most? So decide on that, start measuring it now, come up with a baseline, and see if you’re actually heading north or south with it and come up with some desired outcomes.

What would the number need to be in order for this to be successful as an engagement or as a project? What would be nice to have? What would be an outstanding result? You know, maybe come up with three numbers. They’re all the same metric. Let’s say it’s the number of sign cases per month. Well, if I’m going to spend this amount of money, resources, time and effort on SEO, I must get this amount back in the number of signed cases. It would be ideal, or let’s just be really great, if I got this number of sign cases, you know, so I got my must.

And I got my nice to have. And then this would be like pie in the sky, like amazing, like, Wow, I can’t even imagine what I’m going to do with all the money if I hit this number, snag, yeah, three numbers. Another thing that I would do is I would come up with some big milestone, and I don’t know, tangible results or outcomes that you would like to see happen in addition to those numbers. For example, let’s say that it’s somebody who is a professional speaker. And they don’t like the fact that Google doesn’t have a knowledge panel over on the right hand side, you know, when you Google people’s names.

If it’s a famous person, then there’ll be a whole thing on the side with pictures and maybe a little snippet from their Wikipedia entry. And then the books that they’ve authored and social media chiclets, you know, the little icons of their social media presence. That’s called a Google knowledge panel. And they’re, like, bummed they don’t have one. That’s one of the outcomes I want to write down. I want that, I want to have that, you know, or let’s say that they want to have a number one position for a certain keyword.

So, car accident lawyer, Indianapolis, I really want that keyword. Okay, I want to be number one for that keyword, or at least in the top three positions for that could be an example of an outcome. So maybe come up with 1, 2, 3, or four of these big outcomes, tangible things, goals that you would like to have happened, you know, when you envision it, and then you, you really kind of crystallize what that looks like, it starts to materialize. You haven’t even hired somebody yet. You haven’t even bought my book yet. And it starts to materialize because that’s how the universe works.

The universe conspires to make your dreams happen. But you have to be willing to really put the effort, focus, and attention into it. I need to know what I want; I need to be specific about what I want. You know, that’s why vision boards work. That’s why, you know, 30-day plans and year-long plans, and, and all that work, because you’ve actually started to turn thoughts into things, you’ve taken that first step. So that’s my suggestion. That’s not going to get people down into the weeds of revising their title tag on their homepage to get keywords in there and stuff. They could do that. But that’s very tactical, and I want our listeners to be much more strategic. My favorite quote from The Art of War by Sun Tzu is, “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

What a beautiful way to finish this up. Stephan, it’s been an absolute pleasure to chat with you. You’ve dropped so many valuable bombs. Now, you spoke about your Hiring Blueprint and your No BS Cheat Sheet. Can you just let people know where they can go to get a copy of that?

Right. I mean, it is all available at stephanspencer.com and my agency website, netconcepts.com. But rather than digging around for it, I have a special page already set up for our listeners to go to with those two lead magnets’ free downloads on it. So that’s at netconcepts.com/learning-center.

Love it. And, of course, those links will be on the show notes page right below where you’re listening right now. So you can get a copy of that. As you can tell, it would be highly advantageous to go and grab those after this conversation. Stephan, thanks so much for sharing so much value and spending so much time with us today. It’s been fabulous.

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure, and I am looking forward to your listener actually moving the needle with their business because of what they learned today. 

Love it.