Podcasts about Netconcepts

Send us a textFree Ultimate SEO Guide https://fireusmarketing.com/the-ultimate-seo-guide/Are you ready to take your online presence to the next level?In this episode of The Digital Revolution Podcast, Eli is joined by Stephan Spencer, an SEO expert, founder of NetConcepts, and author of several bestsellers including The Art of SEO. They explore Stephan's journey from his early career to becoming a pioneer in the field of SEO. You'll learn about essential tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Yoast, strategies for keyword research, and the role of AI and personal agents in the future of SEO. Stephan also shares tips on leveraging free tools effectively. This is a must-listen for anyone looking to master SEO!00:00 Intro00:42 Meet the SEO Expert02:16 Stephen's Early Life and Career Beginnings05:40 Transition to the Digital World07:13 Founding NetConcepts and Early SEO Days13:26 Current Passion Project15:49 SEO Tools and Techniques19:34 Underrated SEO Tool23:45 The Evolution of Keyword Tracking Tools26:18 The Importance of Themes and Topics in SEO27:44 Laying Out Blog Posts and Landing Pages28:51 Using Viral Hooks for Content Creation30:59 Optimizing WordPress with Plugins33:10 Technical SEO Analysis Tools46:54 The Future of SEO and Personal Agents50:30 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsDon't forget to help us grow by subscribing and liking us on YouTube!Go to TheDigitalRevolutionPodcast.com to learn more!Leave Some Feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect With Us:Fire Us Marketing Instagram LinkedIn YouTube The Digital Revolution Podcast Instagram LinkedIn YouTube Eli Adams Personal LinkedIn TikTok

In today's rerun episode of Let's Talk Business, we are thrilled to revisit an enlightening discussion on the interconnected realms of SEO, spirituality, and personal development. Join your host, Meny Hoffman, as he sits down with Stephan Spencer, a renowned SEO expert, author, and podcaster who integrates his profound spiritual beliefs into his professional life. Stephan Spencer's journey transcends traditional business success. As the founder of Netconcepts and author of multiple books on SEO, Stephan has worked with some of the world's largest brands including Volvo and Sony, optimizing their online presence. In this episode, He discusses the importance of aligning personal values with professional goals, and how maintaining a mindset open to miracles can influence business growth and success. The conversation also delves deep into practical SEO strategies. Stephan emphasizes the necessity of integrating SEO from the planning stages of website development and using tools like Moz, Ahrefs, and Semrush for competitive keyword research. Stephan elaborates on the risks of depending solely on third-party platforms and the benefits of maintaining content on personal blogs or resource centers. He offers advice on developing linkable assets and ensuring proper setup of Google Search Console and Analytics to track performance.   00:04:24 - Balancing SEO expertise with spiritual purpose pursuits. 00:07:51 - SEO builds enduring assets; PPC has limitations. 00:10:04 - Research keywords, plan content, build linkable assets. 00:13:26 - Combine text with visuals for engaging content. 00:18:48 - Own your content; don't rely on platforms. 00:22:03 - Ensure Google accounts and tools are set up. 00:25:42 - Substantiated SEO case studies with detailed results. 00:27:15 - Free SEO hiring guide and interview tools available. 00:32:55 - Synchronicities increase with benevolence, creating cycles. 00:35:15 - Personal growth starts within, influences others. 00:38:01 - Optimize SEO: Research keywords, prioritize user-friendly content.     When you plan to redesign your website and you want to make sure that you're optimizing your SEO, research keywords in advance using tools such as Semrush or Moz Keyword Explorer, in order to identify keywords that your competitors are ranking in, and you're not. Too many companies work so hard at search engine optimization that they make their sites keyword-rich, but also extremely boring and unhelpful. What should you do? Use those keywords, have rich and valuable content, but avoid a long wall of text. Instead, use short sentences and short paragraphs, while adding lots of imagery, screen shots, pull quotes, and YouTube embeds. That's the way you can have the best of both worlds. If you hire a professional firm to help you with SEO, don't just look for a referrals page; look for a results page, with actual numbers that you can analyze. Ideally, this should include case studies explaining the background information, the solution, and results that substantiate the claims that the company makes. You should also be able to take the firm's clients' URLs and use various tools to verify that the results are to your satisfaction. Social media presents two obvious problems: first, you're subject to the rules and whims of the social media companies, and second, no one looks at posts from last month. So turn your social media posts into blog entries on your website- but call them something else, like a research center, academy, or university. Make sure to organize them by subject rather than by date, so that it won't matter how long they've been up.  

Your business can grow with SEO - but only if you do it right. On this episode of Let's Talk Business, SEO expert and Netconcepts Founder Stephan Spencer joins Meny for a deep dive into Search Engine Optimization. Learn how to maximize SEO, what mistakes to avoid, and the ways to make your website SEO-friendly as well as beautiful and useful. Meny and Stephan also discuss the best ways to discover the keywords you need, the reasons that blogs (under a different name) are not going out of style, the importance of turning your audio and video clips into written transcripts, how to determine which firm is most fit to help you with SEO, and much more.   Stephan Spencer is an SEO expert, founder of interactive agency Netconcepts, bestselling author, serial entrepreneur, life hacker, podcaster, and contributor to Harvard Business Review and AdWeek. He's helped optimize the websites of some of the biggest brands in the world, including Chanel, Volvo, Sony, and Zappos. Stephan hosts two podcast shows: Get Yourself Optimized and Marketing Speak.  [00:01 - 08:05] The Essence of SEO and Business Growth SEO as a long-term asset Differences between SEO and pay-per-click The importance of SEO in building sustainable business growth   [08:06 - 16:28] Optimizing Web Presence Strategies for effective web design and SEO integration Balancing user experience with SEO requirements The role of content in enhancing web visibility   [16:29 - 24:16] Evolution of Digital Marketing Shifts in digital marketing strategies Integration of SEO with social media and content marketing The changing landscape of online business presence   [24:17 - 32:56] Selecting the Right SEO Partner Criteria for choosing an SEO agency The pitfalls of poor SEO strategies The importance of results-driven SEO partnerships   [32:57 - 39:49] Closing Segment Stephan's spiritual awakening and its impact on his business approach The intersection of personal development and professional success Leveraging spirituality for better decision-making in business       Want to connect with Stephan? Follow him on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Head to StephanSpencer and netconcepts to amplify your mission and message!       Key Quotes:     "SEO is building an asset that continues to pay dividends, unlike pay-per-click where you trade dollars for leads." - Stephan Spencer   "Balancing the user experience with SEO requirements is not just an art; it's a strategic necessity." - Stephan Spencer       Connect with Ptex Group: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn   LEAVE A REVIEW + and SHARE this episode with someone who wants to achieve in business. Listen to previous episodes on  Spotify,  Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts! 

This week Dr. Porter sits down with SEO Expert Stephan Spencer to discuss how using SEO, AI and Online Marketing can help grow your practice. Mr. Spencer is a bestselling author, and founder of the digital marketing agency Netconcepts. He has 3 books published by O'Reilly: The Art of SEO, Social eCommerce, & Google Power Search. Stephan is also a serial entrepreneur with a successful exit in 2010. His clients have included Chanel, Volvo, Sony, and Zappos. Stephan hosts the wellness and spirituality podcast Get Yourself Optimized and the online marketing podcast Marketing Speak. What You'll Learn:  What's broken about website and online marketing  It's about who, not how  How to get excited about AI, not fearful  What does skate to where the puck is going to be mean?  Why bad SEO is worse than no SEO Links: https://www.stephanspencer.com https://www.facebook.com/stephanspencer https://twitter.com/sspencer https://www.instagram.com/stephanspencer/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanspencer/

Stephan Spencer is an SEO expert, founder of the agency Netconcepts, and bestselling author. He has 3 books published by O'Reilly: The Art of SEO, Social eCommerce, & Google Power Search. He's optimized the websites of some of the biggest brands in the world, including Chanel, Volvo, Sony, and Zappos. Stephan hosts the podcasts Get Yourself Optimized and Marketing Speak.Where to find Stephan SpencerWebsite: www.stephanspencer.comInstagram: @stephanspencerFacebook: Stephan SpencerYoutube: Stephan SpencerTwitter: @sspencerLinkedIn: Stephan SpencerPinteretst: @stephanspencerSPONSORThis episode is sponsored by Entire Productions- Creating events (both in-person and virtual) that don't suck! and Entire Productions Marketing- carefully curated premium gifting and branded promo items. PLEASE RATE, REVIEW, & SUBSCRIBE on APPLE PODCASTS“I love Natasha and the Fascinating Entrepreneurs Podcast!”

Seasoned business leader Mark Scrimenti is the Fractional COO and leadership coach at Vivid Path Consulting. Vivid Path Consulting is a firm committed to growing purpose-driven businesses for sustainable profitability and maximum impact. Mark has over 20 years of experience in business and has worked in e-commerce business operations, software product development, digital marketing, content strategy, and customer service. Additionally, Mark spends his time as the COO at Netconcepts, a cutting-edge digital marketing agency dedicated to achieving results for its clients. In this episode… Many companies in the infant stage need business coaching. The popular saying “what got you here won't get you there” is usually the mentality to take an organization to its next level of growth. The person that usually helps a company reach higher stages of success, including profitability, is an operations professional.  So why does a company need an operations professional? Veteran business leader Mark Scrimenti explains that the role of an operations leader helps a company define its vision and purpose. Additionally, an organization needs to commit to a framework to manage the business. But why is using a framework so critical to a company's success?  In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, host Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with the Fractional COO of Vivid Path Consulting, Mark Scrimenti. Together, the two of them “geek out” over frameworks and processes, sharing why a company's foundation should be built on purpose and framework. Additionally, Mark shares mistakes to avoid in the hiring process, why companies should avoid onboarding talent that doesn't align with company culture, and three types of framework software.

Stephan Spencer is an SEO expert, bestselling author, and founder of the SEO agency Netconcepts. He has 3 books published by O'Reilly: The Art of SEO, Social eCommerce, & Google Power Search. Stephan's also a serial entrepreneur with a successful exit in 2010. He's optimized the websites of some of the biggest brands in the world, including Chanel, Volvo, Sony, and Zappos. Stephan hosts two popular podcast shows: Get Yourself Optimized & Marketing Speak.Mentioned in this episode:ADHD CourseJoin us for the first run of the Successful ADHD Entrepreneur Course starting April 20th. Learn about mindset, systems, processes, and tools that Michael Whitehouse uses to make people think he's really organized. First session limited to 20 students, so apply now.ADHD CourseADHD CourseJoin us for the first run of the Successful ADHD Entrepreneur Course starting April 20th. Learn about mindset, systems, processes, and tools that Michael Whitehouse uses to make people think he's really organized. First session limited to 20 students, so apply now.ADHD Course

SEO is the talk of the town.You can see how there is a sudden demand for SEO in the last few years.And everyone is just fighting to rank FIRST in their own niche.SEO techniques are also being introduced here and there, but what works exactly?On this episode of the Garlic Marketing Show, Stephan Spencer, the CEO of NetConcepts, revealed UNSPOKEN SEO TRUTHS that you may not even know about.What You'll Learn:One thing that older websites need to doThe content strategy that WILL STAY RELEVANT almost foreverQuantity or Quality: What works?How to write comprehensive content that RANKSTips to hire INCREDIBLE SEO TalentsConnect with Stephan:Stephan Spencer's LinkedInStephan Spencer on TwitterStephan Spencer on InstagramBook a Call with StephanWork with Stephan's TeamLearn more SEO with Stephan's PodcastLearn more about Self Growth with Stephan's PodcastResources:Connect with IanSupercharge your marketing and grow your business with video case stories today!Book a Discovery Call Today with Our ExpertsSubscribe to the YouTube Channel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For Episode 79 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast, Rennie is joined by Stephan Spencer. Stephan is an SEO expert, founder of the agency Netconcepts, and bestselling author. He has three books published by O'Reilly: The Art of SEO, Social eCommerce, & Google Power Search. Stephan has optimized the websites of some of the biggest brands in the world, including Chanel, Volvo, Sony, and Zappos. He hosts the podcasts Get Yourself Optimized and Marketing Speak. Let me say it this way, when I say he wrote the book on SEO, I mean he wrote the book that folks like Jay Abraham rely on.In this episode Rennie and Stephan cover:01:52 Stephan's journey to creating the manual for SEO – ‘The Art of SEO'03:12 How his SEO work helps others have a greater impact.04:21 One of Stephan's favorite charities the Impact Network (https://www.impactnetwork.org/) and how he supports them.06:54 Stephan tells a vulnerable story about how his target market has changed.09:06 His biggest “failure” and what he learned from that.12:51 Some of the most common mistakes Stephan's sees relating to SEO.15:38 Stephan's advice about what to do when you get that solicitation stating that a company can get you to rank #1 on google.17:11 The SEO BS Detector and how to get it.18:13 How to get Stephan's SEO Hiring blueprint to help you hire a good, qualified SEO expert.18:53 The self-help book that Stephan is currently working on – Living in a Friendly Universe.Get The SEO BS Detector and the SEO Hiring Blueprint at https://www.stephanspencer.com/resources/#GUIDESMore About StephanStephan Spencer is an internationally recognized SEO expert, internet entrepreneur, consultant, and professional speaker. He has keynoted and spoken at hundreds of conferences including American Marketing Association (AMA), Shop.org, Internet Retailer, IRCE, and PubCon. He contributes to a number of marketing journals and blogs, including Search Engine Land, CNET, and more. He currently hosts the Marketing Speak and Get Yourself Optimized podcasts, both of which have appeared in the iTunes New and Noteworthy. To learn more visit https://www.stephanspencer.comIf you'd like to know how books, movies, and society programs you to be poor, and what the cure is visit wealthonanyincome.com/tedx. You'll hear Rennie's TEDx talk and can request a free 27-page Roadmap to Complete Financial Choice® and receive a weekly email with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business or money. Rennie's Books and Programshttps://wealthonanyincome.com/books/Rennie's 9 Days to Financial Freedom program:https://wealthonanyincome.com/programsConnect with Rennie Websites:WealthOnAnyIncome.comRennieGabriel.comEmail: Rennie@WealthOnAnyIncome.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renniegabriel/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WealthOnAnyIncome/Twitter: https://twitter.com/RennieGabrielYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdIkYMOuvzHQqVXe4e_L8PgInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wealthonanyincome/

With Stephan Spencer, an internationally recognized SEO expert, bestselling author, and sought-after keynote speaker. Join us for this insightful conversation where Stephan shares a bit about his journey from bio-chemistry to SEO, building a game-changing SaaS tool to support his clients, selling his business, and then taking a deep dive into personal development and spirituality. Stephan shares with us the importance of paying attention to serendipity and synchronicity in our lives (and businesses), how painful lessons can be our biggest teachers, and shares examples of turning points that resulted because of major challenges. You will Stephan share about his spiritual awakening, his introduction to personal development, and some of the insights he's gained along the way which has led to all kinds of transformation in his life. We discuss manifestation, the willing suspension of disbelief, how he has aged backwards in recent years (!!), and more. This is such an enjoyable and insightful conversation. You won't want to miss Stephan's thought on intuition, "without a doubt" signs, and how we can learn our life lessons with less struggle and more ease. Stephan drops gems throughout this conversation on business, personal growth, and spirituality. My favorite kind of conversation! His clients have included Zappos, Chanel, Quiksilver, Bed Bath & Beyond, Volvo, Sony, and many others. He is the co-author of The Art of SEO, author of Google Power Search, and co-author of Social eCommerce, all published by O'Reilly. Stephan founded Netconcepts in 1995 and grew it into a multi-national SEO agency before selling it to Covario. Stephan is a frequent TV guest, appearing on various ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and the CW affiliates. He's a contributor to Harvard Business Review, AdWeek, Foundr magazine, and Search Engine Land. He hosts two popular podcasts, Get Yourself Optimized and Marketing Speak. Join us for this conversation, connect with Stephan and get access to the shownotes at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast

Stephan Spencer made himself too essential in his agency, resulting in working to exhaustion. After a much-needed break, he was able to gain clarity on the best way to scale his agency. In the 1990s he founded the SEO agency Netconcepts and in 2010 it was acquired by Covario. Stephan invented an automated pay-for-performance SEO technology called GravityStream. He is co-author of "The Art of SEO", co-author of "Social eCommerce", and author of "Google Power Search." Today, he joins us to talk about how he scaled his agency to the point he could take a sabbatical. Learn how he intentionally worked himself out of a job by building a leadership team that could take over the thought leadership role. 3 Golden Nuggets Figure out what can be automated. We've talked about the importance of getting rid of the more tedious tasks to focus on what you really want to do. One way you could do that is by figuring out what can be automated or scaled with some artificial intelligence technology. For example, GPT-3 is a game-changer that you can incorporate into your product to have a real competitive edge. Don't work yourself to exhaustion. It's important to work yourself out of a job. By being indispensable, you become the biggest roadblock to the growth of the agency. Stephan wanted to be the visionary, not the integrator or the implementer, so he brought on a COO, VPs, CFO, CEO, and built his team to make sure he no longer was the company's only thought leader. Establish authority in a powerful way. You can make a huge impact and put yourself on the map if you can find a niche where you can author a book. Another thing that can make a big impact and get you your first big clients is find a big company and offer your services in exchange for testimonials and the use of their logo on your website. It communicates to other clients that you are preapproved by this larger company and more clients are sure to follow. Sponsors and Resources SweetProcess: Today's episode is sponsored by SweetProcess. If you're looking for a way to speed up processes in your agency, SweetProcess will provide the systemization you need to scale and grow your business. Check out sweetprocess.com/smartagency and get your productivity up. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Avoid Becoming Indispensable and Working Yourself to Death Jason: [00:00:00] What's up everybody? I have an amazing show coming your way. If you want to know how one agency owner built an SEO agency over $6 million and sold it. And even before that got to a point where they could actually go on a sabbatical and the agency keep running without them. Which is total freedom. And, and to come back. This is the episode for you. So let's go ahead and get into it. Are you frustrated with how long it takes you to get stuff done in your agency? Or tired of your team missing steps or falling through the cracks? You know, you may be looking for an easy way to capture SOPs to scale your agency faster and easier. Now, our partners that Sweet Process have created an amazing tool to help you overcome all these frustrations. Sweet Process really lets you create a step-by-step instruction from every task in your agency. From writing proposals to executing client work and responding to client requests. So everything gets done more easily. No more mistakes or missed steps. Plus, I have a central place where everyone, employees, contractors, or even VAs can access your procedures anytime from anywhere. The best way to learn about how Sweet Process really can streamline your agency is to start using it. So exclusively for the Smart Agency masterclass listeners, you can try it out for 28 days free of charge. No strings attached. Just go to sweetprocess.com/smartagency to start your free 28-day free trial today. That's sweetprocess.com/smartagency to get your SOPs down and your productivity up. All right, welcome to the show, Stefan. How's it going? Stephan: [00:01:52] It's going great. Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:01:54] Yeah, man. So, uh, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. Stephan: [00:01:58] Yeah, well, I've been doing SEO since, uh, the nineties. If you can believe it. Even before Google existed, I dropped out of a PhD. Jason: [00:02:07] Yeah. That was probably back when we could, uh, put all the keywords in the background and put it the same color. Stephan: [00:02:15] Yeah. You know, I never did that. I always thought that was a little sketchy, but yeah. That did work kind of for a little while, uh, back in those days. But the idea of having eight or 10 different search engines that you had to optimize for was a little nerve-wracking back then, if you recall, there is Infoseek and… Jason: [00:02:35] Lycos. Stephan: [00:02:36] Lycos, AltaVista Dogpile, MetaCrawler, Web Crawler, Excite. Yeah. It was just… Jason: [00:02:43] I remember all of them. Yeah, it was crazy. Stephan: [00:02:46] Yeah. That was an interesting time, but then Google changed everything and became the 800 pound gorilla. And I knew that I needed to reverse engineer that algorithm and figure it out. So I did, and our agency went from being more of a web agency, interactive agency to being a specialist SEO agency. And we really made a name for ourselves. Even I developed a technology platform for, uh, doing an end run around all the technical, uh, roadblocks that most SEOs face with regards to things like, uh, implementing URL rewrites and, and, uh, fixing architectural issues and so forth. I used a reverse proxy technology and created this software as a service. We had clients like Zappos and Nordstrom using it, and we charged on a cost-per-click basis, which was brilliant. Because we could go head to head with pay-per-click, you know, like, oh, well you're paying 50 cents a click on average or a dollar per click? We only charge 15 cents a click. So you should buy as much traffic as you can from us and if we don't deliver, you don't get the traffic, you don't have to pay. So it was a no brainer. Jason: [00:04:01] I love it. Now, was that part of the agency when you actually sold it or was this a spinoff? Stephan: [00:04:06] It was. Jason: [00:04:07] Very cool. Stephan: [00:04:08] It was. Yeah. So that technology was really the main reason why our company was valued at what it was valued at and, and we, we got, uh, the nice exit. In fact, I don't even know if we were just a traditional agency, like everybody else. If we would even have been approached, I have a feeling we wouldn't have been. Jason: [00:04:28] Now, do you feel that having that, and I've been talking to a lot of agency owners, you know, in the mastermind and over the years about, you know, if you can build that little black box that only you have. Because I saw part of that as well as our agency, we were one of the first to build our own CMS system because we started in 99, so a little behind you. And we built the e-commerce system, email marketing system. Now we probably weren't as smart as you and a lot of other people that are like WordPress and all these, because we didn't turn it into a SAS product. We installed it every time and we were always working on our clients. But do you feel that more agencies, especially the specialized agencies. If they could try to figure out how to build a technology that makes them unique. Does that really separate them? Stephan: [00:05:18] It does. It does. And I think figuring out what can be automated or scaled with some artificial intelligence technology and to not have to kind of, you know, brute force it. Because there's some really incredible AI tech out there already. Like for example, GPT-3 is a game-changer and you could sign up for their, their beta and start using it and incorporate it into your product and have a real competitive edge. Jason: [00:05:49] Fantastic. I have not heard of that, but I'm not in that realm. Uh, so everybody go check that out or tell us a little bit more about that. So people know. Stephan: [00:05:58] Yeah. Yeah. So there's a company called Open AI, openai.com and their flagship product is GPT-3. And GPT-3 stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer… three. In case you're curious. But the idea of it is that it can take your input. Let's say you, you ask for a GPT three to write you a poem. Write me a poem about Elon Musk and make it like a Dr. Seuss poem and lo and behold, it actually does it. It's, it's amazing. You could ask it to catalog and sort images based on the kind of animal it is. You can just ask it questions and it will answer those questions. It's phenomenal. So somebody who asked GPT-3 to write a poem about Elon Musk, like Dr. Seuss would write it. This is really hilarious. Uh, you can, you can Google it or you can drop this link into the show notes. I'll just share one stanza from that poem with you, “but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send my Mars Rovers to red planet you.” Jason: [00:07:15] Oh, that's… man, that would've been awesome for college, for me in college. To be like, do this paper for me and do it this way. Stephan: [00:07:25] And it seems to have a sense of humor. Yeah, it's like, really outstanding. Jason: [00:07:30] This is a free tool right now? Stephan: [00:07:33] It's not free, but it's not prohibitively expensive. Jason: [00:07:38] Wow. Okay, everyone go check that tool out and they're not sponsors or anything. So that's just a really pretty cool tool. I'm going to go check that out. Let's talk a little bit about, now we talked about you built a particular technology that was your own, you know, four year SEO agency that enabled you to, to sell it. But what were some of the other things that you did in order to get to a point where you could go on sabbatical and the agency keep growing? Stephan: [00:08:07] Yeah, well, it's important to work yourself out of a job. If you are relying on your own steam, your own initiative and skill sets in order to do all the selling and to manage the client relationships. To help with a higher level projects, activities, and so forth, then by being indispensable, you become the biggest roadblock to the growth of the agencies. So I didn't want that for myself. I wanted to be the visionary and not the integrator or implementer. So I brought on COO and, uh, different VPs. And even to the point, I brought in a CFO to help with the growth and even a CEO so that I could just step back. And if I had my company acquired and I had to go with the company that defeats the whole purpose, because I want an asset that I can sell, I don't want. To go from being self-employed to employed by somebody else. That's the wrong direction. So I wanted to build a company that I could be able to run, but without having to do the day-to-day work and I wanted, uh, so to own it, but not operate it. And I wanted it to be an asset that I could sell at any point. I didn't have golden handcuffs that would keep me at the acquirers' premises for very long. So I negotiated down the earn-out. They did want me to stay for a period of time, but I, the maximum I would do was six months. As soon as that six months came and went and then the check cleared, they were surprised that I, I gave notice. I'm like, really? How, how could you be surprised by that? I would just, I don't get that. Anyway, so that was, uh, uh, you know, kind of a quick story about how I went on and did other things. I, I started another agency. It started more as a lifestyle kind of business where I could just take months off at a time, even with a very small team. And I did do that. I signed up for Tony Robbins platinum partnership, which was amazing. I followed Tony all around the world. All these amazing life-changing experiences. Platinum partners pay a lot of money to Tony Robbins every year, but they get incredible experiences in very exotic places all around the world. So I did that for three years and it was incredible. It was life-changing and I was able to do that because I had a successful exit. Jason: [00:10:53] Yeah. That's great. A lot of times people want to hire for things that they don't know, right? And to bring into the agency. You know, I was chatting with a buddy of mine, Dan, and he was talking about, you want to hire people based on what you don't want to do anymore first and start, right? Like if you're at the center, so you start looking at the under-hundred-dollar tasks, email bookkeeping, account management, project management. All these things and going, how can I hire so all of that is done? Because that's working in the business and then you got to look at what's the other side, on the business. Well, that's content creation because you know, like what we're doing now only us can really create this, but we shouldn't be doing post-editing, or editing it, right? That's kind of why I'm trying to do this all in one take. Stephan: [00:11:44] Well, you're doing a great job of it. Jason: [00:11:47] Well, I hope. You just jinxed it now. And just do like strategic planning, leadership development and work on those things in order to, you know, surround yourself. So, when you go back at looking at the first agency and even the agency now that you have now, what was the order of people that you started bringing in? And would you, you know, obviously don't name the names, but tell us that the titles or their, their responsibilities and like, who did you hire first, second, third that started making this to a point where you could have that freedom in the agency. Stephan: [00:12:23] Yeah. Well, when I started, I wanted to bring on contractors first. I wasn't sure to what scale I would get and how quickly and I was bootstrapping. And I didn't have any money to speak of, I, I was up to my eyeballs in student loan debt. I was studying for a PhD and I dropped out in order to start the agency. So I started with contractors to deliver on the client work and the, the very first event that I, I networked at to get my first big clients, it was, I don't know if I'd call it dumb luck. It was maybe a mix of, of that and, and gumption. I was pretty cheeky to go and I talked my way into this event as conference called How to Market on the Internet. It was a very premiere event, costed several thousand dollars to attend. And I wasn't a speaker. I didn't even have the money to afford to attend at that point. Because, remember, I was up to my eyeballs in student loan debt. But what I managed to do is I got in for free by being a volunteer and they gave me the job of being a mic runner. So, imagine this, is 1995 and this is my first conference that I, uh, in my industry that I'm, uh, I'm at. And I'm the mic runner and one of the, the rooms and I, as a cheeky 24-year-old, I think that I know more than the people on stage and so I have the mic and I start chiming in. And I ended up getting a big stack of business cards by the end of that day. Two big accounts came from that, both of those each worth, uh, over half a million dollars in customer lifetime value to me. I didn't have to get funding. I just had to put myself out there in a very daring way. Now I did get uninvited from volunteering on day two. Apparently, some of the speakers didn't think this was too cute when I was doing, but I didn't know any better. I was, I was just trying to add value in a way that, um, you know, many people would, would be pretty nervous about doing. Anyways, so this is how I got my start, with contractors to help deliver on that work. And then I started working on a more kind of permanent situation. In those early days, I hired developers and, um, uh, systems, administrators and stuff like that to handle a lot of the technical stuff. But where it gets really interesting is when I decided, you know what? I'm going to move to New Zealand, because why not? Now everybody else has gone, I was in Madison, Wisconsin at the time. Everybody else was moving to Silicon Valley to make their fortunes. I'm going to do the exact opposite and go halfway around the world to New Zealand. I'd never been there and I just knew intuitively that it would be a fantastic place to live. So I applied for residency, permanent residency, and I got in. So then I convinced my wife at the time and my kids to make this huge move. And we did, and I had to start all over again, pretty much, because I wanted to keep the US business running, but I wanted more of a skeleton crew. I had an office manager at the time. We were like seven staff or something like that, or maybe it was nine and we scaled it down to three. Three staff. And the main person that I left in the Madison-Wisconsin office was the office manager. I promoted her and made her a managing director so she could get in to exclusive meetings with, with C-level executives and stuff like that because she had the title. And I went to New Zealand and I started with nobody there, no… uh. It was very stressful for a month or so, but the very first hire there was a, a general manager. That general manager I have found through a recruiting firm and then I was able to, using that same recruiting firm and the guidance of that general manager, find I think we had seven other people that we brought in within a two or three month time period. So we had to build the team fast, because we had a lot of work and we didn't have anybody to deliver on it because I, I scaled down the other, uh, office to just three people. So that was stressful, but really rewarding and fun. And once I had that general manager, it was just so much easier because he was the equivalent to a COO. And so if you have to find one person, it should be your COO. Maybe the very first person should be your EA, so that, that can free you up from a lot of the tasks that are bogging you down and are not high value tasks. But after that, for sure, the COO I think is the most critical role set that allows you to stand back and be the visionary and, and speak at conferences and write books and write columns for magazines and things like that. And not have to worry about the day to day of operations. Jason: [00:17:47] You know, the, the one thing that I see is when you're on the side of the fence of working in the business. You're always kind of thinking of what and how, like, what should I do and how should I actually do it? But if you're on the other side of the fence of working on the business, the only thing is, is like, where are you going? Why are you going there? And who. Like who do I bring in to figure out the what and the how and all of that. It makes things a lot easier. I see, like that operations person as crucial, just like you. But I also see like with certain agencies, it depends on the situation, right? I look at it as the first hire almost, you know, after like a project manager to manage some of the stuff. So you can keep doing sales because you got to think of like, when you're starting out, you're doing sales. But you also have to figure out how can I get leads before I hire a salesperson in order to help them? So I look at it as hire a marketing person to produce leads. Because you're probably already doing a lot of marketing things that you can get off, right? And then after that, bring in a salesperson to help you, because as you get busy with, you know, delivering all that work and building the relationships. You start dropping the ball and you actually start, you might've gone through this, I know I did, self-sabotage the deal. You like, you try to grenade the engine because you're like the car can't go any faster because I know we're going to do really bad. And then I look at it as like, how do we bring in that ops person in order to, to really help out? But everyone's in a little different situation. Like if you're getting a ton of leads and you know, you're in a good spot, then you can bring in that person. So you've got to self-evaluate, there's no one solution every time. Stephan: [00:19:32] That's a great point. And if the lead flow is what needs to be addressed first, you don't have to necessarily hire a salesperson. You could go with an outsourced firm that can help you with the appointment setting or with the closing or with all of it. For example, there's a… one company that comes to mind is called Meta Growth and they will recruit the salespeople. They're going to be commission only, and they become your team and you pay Meta Growth, a monthly retainer, and then a percentage on top of that, of the sales that, uh, their team generates or the team that becomes yours. But they continually train and, and if somebody leaves, they'll replace them and so forth, and that's a way to build an outsourced sales team pretty quickly. Jason: [00:20:26] Exactly. Let's talk about the GM and the operations person. What were their responsibilities to enable you to step away? And what were the other team members that you had to have in place so you could go on the sabbatical? Stephan: [00:20:43] Yeah, so it was a few years later after I went on sabbatical. We built up the Madison office again to one that was at one point we got to 35 staff over there. And, uh, we had a CEO and the CFO, or no, we didn't have the CFO yet with the CEO, we had the general manager the same one that was my first hire in New Zealand. And I ended up taking six months in New Zealand and yeah, it was just, uh, worked great. It was really refreshing and I, I was burned out at the time. This was back in, I don't know, 2004, 2005. I had just worked myself to exhaustion, really, and I was needing a break. So, uh, everyone was very supportive of me to just take that time off, which I needed. Jason: [00:21:35] Let's talk about that because there's a lot of agencies that work themselves to exhaustion. So how did that happen? Especially since you had, you know, everyone thinks hiring an operations manager. You know, like you don't have to do anything anymore. So how did you work yourself to exhaustion and what would you avoid going through it now that you know what caused it? Stephan: [00:21:59] Yeah, well, I, I made myself too essential to the marketing of the business, being the thought leader, the thought leader, right? It wasn't like there were five or 10 of us. I was the one who was, uh, writing books and, uh, writing columns and so forth. It wasn't until after I had the sabbatical and I kind of realized I needed to have that function of the business, be distributed out across multiple staff, that we encouraged other team members to start writing columns and, uh, speaking at conferences as well. But yeah, that was pretty much just my job was to keep going from conference to conference to conference. So I was on the road all the time. I was based in New Zealand, but I was spending probably a quarter to a third of my year in the US, and I had small children at the time, and it was not easy for me to spend all that time away from them. And that took a toll on me and, and on my happiness. So that was a big part of it, and then I was a workaholic. Maybe I still am to some degree, but I'm way better, way better than I used to be. It's, it's like, it's a socially acceptable addiction. But it's not okay. It doesn't help your health or your family in the long run. It's just a way of numbing out, I guess. And if this relates to you and you're feeling like you're kind of a workaholic, then you got to take some powerful action to address it. Don't just think, yeah, that probably is something I should get to someday. You know, you got to address it because it doesn't break the camel's back until it does. And you don't know when that's going to happen. So just preemptively address it. Jason: [00:23:52] I've learned that the hard way as well. And the only way that I've found through that is creating kind of rules on your time and really goals around your time. That is first, I feel. For many years I taught people in the agency playbook the framework for us that, hey, set your revenue goals first, then your create goal, and then your time goals are last. Well, when you do that, you're going to sacrifice your time because everything else should be leading up to the time. And thinking about why, you know, like one of the exercises I walk people through is going all right, write out your perfect week and what does that look like? And then tell me why, like, do you want to take your kids to the swimming practice or track? Or, you know, do you want to be home when they get home from school? That's why we work so hard, but then we sacrifice it. I've been breaking my rules on, on health. I've just working, you know, until I get back to Colorado and literally just, you know, kind of skipping, you know, the health stuff. So what worked for you? Do we have to go away for six months to do that or…? Stephan: [00:25:04] No, you don't. Here's the key. If you're chasing after, whether it's your health or your relationship or career, family, whatever it is, it becomes elusive because when you're chasing after one thing, you can't chase after all of the things. The only way that you can win at all of it, the business/career. And your health and finances and family and significant other, all that, is to chase after just one thing that has it all. And the analogy I give you is, I learned this in Kabbalah class, actually. It's, it's a prism and the white light shines in to one side of the prison and outcome all the colors. And the colors represent all the different aspects of your life. Friends and, and the business and family and health and all that. So stop chasing the colors and chase after the white light. So that's the light of the creator. Like whatever your spiritual beliefs are, just that encompasses everything. That's where I had the biggest breakthroughs is by stopping chasing after those individual things and just worked on me as a spiritual being and everything just seemed to fall in line. It's just like life was happening for me not to me, once I started focusing on the bigger picture. Jason: [00:26:44] I love it. I mean, that's, uh, it's so true. And, I think we always have to remind ourselves that. Because we'll say it now and we'll do it for a week, two weeks, maybe a month. And then there's something that breaks our cycle. You've got to constantly be disciplined and I think also kind of self-aware of when that triggers in order to go back. Because it's a, it's like that one, that one story I heard one time, it was a guy that was working himself to death, running a business so he could sell it and go buy a fishing boat. And then he wanted just to be a charter boat captain. Well, he didn't have to waste 30 years of working around the clock. He could have just been a charter boat captain from the start. And I think a lot of times we have to kind of learn those lessons the hard way, but that's why you guys listened to the show to hopefully speed up that success or avoid those, those failures from others. That's why we, uh, we have those conversations. Well, this has all been amazing. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience? Stephan: [00:27:56] I do think if, if you can establish your authority in a very powerful way, that is going to make a huge impact. So for example, a thing that really put me on the map, not only did, uh, the gravity stream technology really help with this, but I co-authored a book called “The Art of SEO”. I ended up coming up with other books as well after that but the big one is The Art of SEO. And if you can find a niche where you can write a book, maybe even get a publisher for it. O'Reilly was my book publisher. We have three editions of The Art of SEO and I'm working on a fourth edition right now. And that is a huge game-changer. If you don't have the time for that, maybe hire a ghostwriter to help you write it. You don't have to be the one to write it. You just have to be the author of it or co-author of it. So that, that can be a game-changer. Another thing that is along those lines that really made a big impact in the early days was when we went from building search engine optimized e-commerce websites to doing consulting for even bigger companies that didn't want us developing the sites. They just wanted us providing the guidance like SEO audits and all that sort of stuff and they had their internal teams implement it. Our first big account. We didn't actually make any money off of, and that was strategically on purpose. We wanted to get a really big name right out of the gate as a, a, a client for SEO auditing. So we approached Target, target.com and ask them if they would like a free SEO audit in exchange for use of their logo and a testimonial, assuming that they were happy with what we produced. And they said yes, and they loved what we produced made. Made them a lot of money and they were happy to give us a testimonial and use of their logo. So once we had that on our, uh, clients page and, and our testimonials page, it was a lot easier to sell, uh, other, other accounts that was, that was just super ninja. Jason: [00:30:14] Yeah. I, I remember landing the first big account and then it just, they kept rolling after that. They want to hang out with others, even though it doesn't matter. It, it really. It's just a name, but people think, oh, if the biggest companies work with you, they're the smartest. Which that's not true either, they're just, uh, they're just big. So, that's awesome. Stephan: [00:30:37] Yeah. And so, but you come preapproved, it's like social proof and if you can shortcut that process, if you haven't worked with a really big name company. Imagine somebody so huge that everyone will have heard of it. And that could be one of your clients. Yeah. There's just a, it seems like a no brainer to me. Just offer them something irresistible for free in exchange for a testimonial. Somebody's going to bite somebody going to say yes to that and hello. Jason: [00:31:06] I love it. I love that. It's just grassroots stuff too, right? Like this is easy stuff we all can go do. So make sure you go do it. Where can people find out more about you and check out the books? Where can they go? Stephan: [00:31:20] stephanspencer.com. I also have two podcasts. So you were on one of them. You were on Marketing Speak. That's at marketingspeak.com. And then my other podcast is a biohacking and spirituality podcast. And that's Get Yourself Optimized, which is at getyourselfoptimized.com. Jason: [00:31:38] Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. And if you guys enjoyed this episode and you want to be surrounded by amazing agency owners on a consistent basis where we can see the things you might not be able to see and also help you get over those hurdles, because we've been there before I want you guys to go to digitalagencyelite.com. This is our exclusive so community where we provide you the tools, coaching community. Everything you need to scale your agency faster so you can get to a point to exit one day if you want, whether it be exiting your current role or exiting the business. So make sure you go there now. And until next time have a Swenk day.

“SEO is an opportunity to actually move your opponent's chess pieces, not just your own.” Excited to welcome SEO Expert, Founder of Netconcepts & Co-Author of the book The Art of SEO, Stephan Spencer. In this episode, we break down the use and importance of SEO, how to compete in Google’s content playing field, and the ways in which AI is changing the landscape of everything we’ve ever known. Stephan also shares valuable tips and resources in creating viral-worthy content, using hashtags, and much more. Wouldn’t sit this one out if I were you! Hear more about Stephen’s journey on #TheKaraGoldinShow Show notes at https://karagoldin.com/podcasts/152 Enjoying this episode of #TheKaraGoldinShow? Let Kara know by clicking on the link below and sending her a quick shout-out on social! Follow Kara on IG: https://www.instagram.com/karagoldin/ Follow Kara on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karagoldin Follow Kara on Twitter: https://twitter.com/karagoldin Follow Kara on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KaraGoldin/ Stephan Spencer’s Website: https://www.stephanspencer.com/ Stephan Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/sspencer

Stephan Spencer, an author, speaker, consultant, podcast host, founder of Netconcepts, and leading expert in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is an optimization pro – in all areas of life. He shares why being experimental, comfortable with uncertainty, and willing to put yourself out there is key to success, and proves it with his own story. Stephan explores the value of SEO and he explains why he sees it as the “operating system of the internet”. Listen in to learn what SEO can do for you and your business, what to watch out for, and why it’s an asset – and hear why SEO is like a chess game where you can move your opponent’s pieces, too. 3 Key Points Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there! Distinctions make a difference and everything is an experiment. Be comfortable with uncertainty in SEO and life. Contact/Resources Primed Mind – Elliot’s Mindset Coaching App Stephan’s Website Marketing Speak Podcast Get Yourself Optimized Podcast A Free 15-Minute Consultation

On today’s episode of Steal the Show, we’re talking about using search engine optimization (SEO) to drive conference organizers and meeting planners to your speaker website.  Stephan Spencer is an SEO expert and bestselling author of three books: The Art of SEO, Social eCommerce, and Google Power Search.  He has optimized the websites of some of the biggest brands in the world, including Chanel,  Sony, Volvo, and Zappos. He founded the marketing agency Netconcepts, which was acquired in 2010 and now remains a part of a multi-billion dollar ad agency conglomerate. Stephan hosts two popular podcasts: Get Yourself Optimized and Marketing Speak. Read more at https://stealtheshow.com/podcast/134-grant-baldwin-speaking-college-circuit/

Way back in the 90s, in the early days of my first startup, Netconcepts, I read a book that changed how I viewed the information technology revolution. It was called Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut. I never forgot that book. In fact, I recently looked up the author to see what he's up to these days. And what came out of that was well, this episode number 219. It's my pleasure to welcome to the show my guest today, David Shenk.  He's author not only of the book Data Smog, but many other books, including The End of Patience, The Genius in All of Us, The Immortal Game, and The Forgetting. His books covered topics as diverse as the history of Chess, Alzheimer's disease, and the Grateful Dead. David is also a filmmaker, and he's the creator and executive producer of the Living with Alzheimer's film project. He's a contributor to National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, the Atlantic, and many more.  David was ahead of his time; Data Smog nailed it as far as predicting the negative repercussions of living in an information-saturated world. On this wide-ranging episode, David and I discussed the effects of information overload, including his thoughts on the way it impacts politics and the environment. We also get into the nature of genius, genetics, and Alzheimer's. It's a fascinating episode with a fascinating guest. Enjoy!

Stephan Spencer is an SEO expert and bestselling author of The Art of SEO, Social eCommerce, & Google Power Search. He founded the SEO agency Netconcepts (acquired in 2010) and is now part of a multi-billion dollar ad agency conglomerate.   He's optimized websites for some of the world’s biggest brands, including Chanel, Volvo, Sony, and Zappos and hosts two popular podcast shows: Get Yourself Optimized & Marketing Speak. He's also overcome circumstances that would have destroyed most, including a childhood of constant moving and foster homes. But it was during this childhood, where he was left on his own to take care of himself, that he learned computers...which led him to where he is now: as one of the world's leading experts on Search Engine Optimization.   In this episode, we discussed resilience, Tony Robbins, proposing in a hot air balloon...and much, much more.   Would a book help your business? Click here to find out: www.futureauthorquiz.com.

Stephan Spencer is a recognized expert in SEO and the best selling co-author of The Art of SEO, Social eCommerce, and Google Power Search. He founded the SEO agency Netconcepts in the 1990s and in 2010 it was acquired by Covario. He has invested in over $1M over the last 10 years in personal and professional transformation and we discussed at length the power of transformation in health, mentality, relationships, and spirituality.

In today’s aggressive digital market, it is important to be searchable, visible, and valuable. The secret sauce that your business absolutely needs is search engine optimization or SEO. Stephan Spencer, an internationally-recognized SEO expert, author of three bestselling SEO-focused books, professional speaker, consultant, and founder of NetConcepts, guides us on the fundamentals of SEO and shares tips on how improve your Google rankings. On top of that, he throws knowledge bombs on how you can improve by adding value to your podcast and grow your audience. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Podcast Peeps Community today: podcastpeeps.com Podcast Peeps Facebook Podcast Peeps Instagram Podcast Peeps YouTube

In today's aggressive digital market, it is important to be searchable, visible, and valuable. The secret sauce that your business absolutely needs is search engine optimization or SEO. Stephan Spencer, an internationally-recognized SEO expert, author of three bestselling SEO-focused books, professional speaker, consultant, and founder of NetConcepts, guides us on the fundamentals of SEO and shares tips on how improve your Google rankings. On top of that, he throws knowledge bombs on how you can improve by adding value to your podcast and grow your audience. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Podcast Peeps Community today: podcastpeeps.com Podcast Peeps Facebook Podcast Peeps Instagram Podcast Peeps YouTube

Imagine buying a failing company for $2 and not just turning around in a couple months, but growing it to the point where you have offices in San Francisco, LA, and New York, and an impressive client list that includes companies like Lift, Intuit, and more. That's the remarkable story of Single Grain, the agency owned by my guest, Eric Siu. Eric is an SEO consultant and entrepreneur who's developed growth strategies for dozens of noted brands. He also cohosts the Marketing School podcast with Neil Patel who has also been on the show. Eric is the creator of ClickFlow, a CDN or proxy server for SEO. It's an unusual idea and actually similar to Gravity Stream, an optimization platform that I had developed way back in 2003 and got sold with my agency, Netconcepts, in 2010. In this interview, we'll be talking about the secret behind creating a more powerful connection with your customers, how to harness multichannel marketing, and the process behind turning your website into an evergreen traffic machine. Since Eric is a prominent speaker and podcaster, he'll also be providing some valuable tips on creating a personal brand and building an audience for your podcast.

Stephan Spencer is an internationally recognized SEO expert, consultant, and bestselling author. He is the co-author of The Art of SEO (now in its third edition), author of Google Power Search, and co-author of Social eCommerce. Stephan founded Netconcepts in 1995 and grew it into a multi-national SEO agency before selling it in 2010 to Covario. He is the host of two popular podcast shows, The Optimized Geek and Marketing Speak.

 Have the potential to be an industry leader by starting to work on your online reputation Achieve business breakthrough and become a thought leader in your industry. Get help improving the SEO of your website and be guided where to start Resources/Links:   www.marketingspeak.com/invisible   5-Day SEO Maximizer Challenge Summary Stephan Spencer is a 3-time author, avid blogger, international speaker, and consultant on all things SEO. He founded his own SEO agency, Netconcepts, and even created a unique pay-for-performance SEO technology. He's also the host of two weekly podcasts, Marketing Speak and Optimized Geek. In this episode of Marketing the Invisible, Shares shares the misconceptions about SEO that could cause you to lose everything. Check out these episode highlights: 00:29 – Stephan’s professional background as an SEO Expert 01:48 – His ideal clients: mid to large sized businesses who wants to improve their rankings in Google 02:32 – common mistakes that his ideal clients are likely to make when trying to fix their ranking problems 02:37 – The symptoms his clients experience when trying to solve their SEO problems 06:35 – Stephan’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): Figure out what words people are searching for. 07:47 – Stephan’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): https://www.marketingspeak.com/invisible/ 07:57 – How do you avoid getting snookered if you don't know SEO that well and you've got to hire an SEO expert. You can hire me but you probably you're going to hire somebody else. And for that go to my valuable free resource and you'll get the SEO hiring blueprint and the SEO BS detector which has trick questions and it's so that you can slip those into the interview and you have the answers there. And you'll find out who the posers are. Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode: “You don't realize there are tools out there that will help you to compare yourself with competitors in terms of number of organic keywords that you're ranking for and estimated traffic volumes coming from Google for you versus competitors…Click To Tweet “It's like trying to diagnose a disease without even being able to articulate the symptoms.” - sspencerClick To Tweet Transcript (Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast) Tom Poland:Hello everyone. A very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. My name is Tom Poland I'm joined today by Stephan Spencer. Stephan, where are you hanging out man? Stephan Spencer: Santa Monica, California. Tom Poland:Santa Monica. They've got a boulevard there, right? Stephan Spencer: Hell yeah. Tom Poland:I've seen a song somewhere. Stephan Spencer: And a promenade and pier it's a beautiful place to live. Tom Poland:Fantastic. Well, I'm just delighted you joined us. For those of you who don't know Stephan, he's a bit of a legend really. He's generated millions and millions and millions of dollars of revenue and it's not in his bio. But I wanted to tell you that because I want you to understand that it's a bit of a privilege to hear from him. So well, I mean it's it's well deserved. So the bio which is understated, very modest three times author, avid blogger, international speaker, and consultant on all things S E O . He founded his own SEO agency NetConcepts in terms of marketing. I'm just a lot of this because he created a very unique world first pay per performance SEO technology which meant that you paid for results. As opposed to handing over a fat fee every month to an agency and hope to hell I get it right. So from a marketing point of view, that's just brilliant because it just removes the obstacle for people buying. But I'll get off my little marketing hobbyhorse now and get back to Stephan I promise. He's also the host of the two weekly podcast Marketi...

Jason Hartman talks with Stephan Spencer, founder of Netconcepts and host of Marketing Speak and The Optimized Geek podcasts and author of The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization, about how to get to the top of the Google rankings. Stephan discusses how to get quality links in today's online world, how to avoid getting banned by Google (and other search engines), and the main pillars of the SEO community. Key Takeaways: [2:12] Paying a random company who contacts you in a spam sort of way can end up making you worse off than you were before [4:41] You have to be topically relative and authoritative to rank in Google [6:21] Links are not created evenly [9:35] The 3 SEO Pillars: Content, Architecture & Links [12:14] How to find the right company to help you with your SEO [16:12] How to make remarkable content [20:47] Some tools to identify good keywords, Website: www.StephanSpencer.com/Jason www.MarketingSpeak.com www.OptimizedGeek.com www.Moz.com/Explorer www.SEMRush.com www.SearchMetrics.com www.AHrefs.com www.Majestic.com www.LinkResearchTools.com

Organic traffic from Google and other search engines remains critical to many merchants. There is no greater authority on search engine optimization than Stephan Spencer. He's the co-author of "The Art of SEO." He founded the pioneering SEO firm of Netconcepts. He's a worldwide speaker, consultant, and host of two popular podcasts, "Marketing Speak" and "The Optimized Geek."

Watch the video podcast here. Writing "The Art of SEO" Stephan is best known for the Bible on SEO “The Art of SEO”  which is currently in its third edition. The book came about because he was sharing his knowledge at the conference "SMX Advance". He believes that what you put out into the universe you get back so he gave away some of his best tips. Everyone in the SEO industry was there including Rand Fishkin (the founder of Moz) and three weeks later Rand approached Stephan in the speaker room and gave him a hug! They had a great conversation and decided to write a book together. He had never written a book before, but there were four co-authors for the first and second edition. Having four authors was tricky because the voice needed to be consistent so they hired a ghost editor to ensure that it was written all in the same style. Why SEO? Stephan was studying for a PhD in chemistry but had always had an interest in programming and creating websites. In 1994 when web development was taking off, he attended the second international Word Wide Web Conference where he met one of the creators of Netscape and NCSA web server, Rob McCool. Tim Berners-Lee was the keynote speaker. Stephan was starstruck and knew he had to get into development. So he dropped out of his PhD and started an agency called Netconcepts and they started specialising in SEO. Hot tip: Get a blue chip client, even if you have to buy that client. This was when he was able to get his big break. They had a lot of clients from a web development point of view but no large SEO clients. He wanted a huge eCommerce client that was also a household name. So they went after Target. They offered to do a website and SEO audit for free in exchange for a testimonial. That was a game changer for them because this testimonial was a huge credibility builder. It cost them a lot in resources but it was well worth it. Tune in around the 11-minute mark to find out how he as able to make millions from click revenue and what he did after he sold that business. Always Look After Your Personal Brand Now Stephan focuses more on his personal brand. If you keep putting it off because you have no time, that is a bad idea. It is the brand you will carry with you to the grave. So he wrote a book “Social eCommerce." It is his own book and doesn’t pigeon hole him into being “that SEO guy”. He recommends that you have at least two distinct areas. "Don’t be a one-trick pony." For example, you may work with WordPress but then also love playing an instrument. How can you combine these two things? Get creative! If you have two dimensions and find a niche, it will prevent being “replaced by the robots”. Listen in around the 19-minute mark where Troy and Stephan agree to disagree on what will happen as robots will take over human roles. Stephan also gives us a look at how technology has evolved over the last 100 years and how it will continue to speed up until computers will be smarter than us. They discuss things that will blow your mind including Moore's Law.  Keeping this in mind, you need to think about what is going to happen in your industry two years and then 10 years down the track. Think about how will it impact you and what you need to do to be ahead of the curve. Your client needs to rely on you to be proactive and pre-emptive. Make sure that the client relies on you to know the latest technology, never allow them to come to you and ask about a new advance in technology. Think about the bigger picture and more into the future and that will help shape your business. If you’re doing something that’s a commodity and doesn’t have a future then get out now. Where Will SEO Be in Five Years Time? If you are the kind of SEO consultant who is doing the basic stuff such as figuring out which keywords are better than others, remember that these things have a shelf life. If that’s all you do you, you will be left behind. The same goes if you are doing low-level WordPress development, then you will also be replaced by a robot soon enough. What Do You Jump into If You Are Working at a Low Level of SEO or WordPress? If you’re doing SEO, then you need to look at the cutting edge part of SEO such as RankBrain and really understanding this Google algorithm that’s all about machine learning. Everything will be running off of Artificial Intelligence at Google in only a matter of time. So in order to go into battle with AI then you need to be an expert in AI. How Do You Start the Conversation About Selling SEO Packages to Clients? It is something that clients don’t understand and it is a difficult conversation to have. So Stephan's advice is to "stop educating the client and start poking at their pain point". You say to the client, "Here’s where you are at now, and here is where you would like to be." So make it painful and obvious about how far they are from that point. You will make their brains hurt if you tell them about all of the options that you have for SEO so instead make them see that there is a problem and ask - "What is it worth to you to be there? What do you think that should cost you on a monthly or yearly basis?" Show Results Then you need to show the client results, so track the rankings using a rankings tracker such as Rank Ranger or Authority Lab. Show them how far they are coming along and don’t get too caught up in the fine details of explaining what you did. Stephan recommends charging by results rather than by the hour because you have the value that exceeds an hourly rate. Stephan's Personal Brand Stephan is more than his work as well. He was a foster child and he sees his difficult childhood as a gift. He now has three beautiful daughters and he wouldn’t have them if he didn’t have the childhood he had. He had to grow up fast and got married when he was 19. He attributes his happy life and success now to how he got through his childhood with resilience and strength. He used his story to be able to help other foster children and bring awareness to the topic and let people know how they can help. He also helps with a non-profit that builds schools in Africa. He says that by doing these things you are also still building your personal brand. He has also had TV appearances which means that you are seen as the authority on the topic that you are discussing. Your value then increases because you are seen that way. "Facts tell and stories sell".  Stephan says it is so important that people relate to you. They need to know that you understand them. So don't be afraid to be real and be vulnerable. And that's a wrap! Troy and Stephan covered some super interesting topics here and even more if you listen in. That's the final podcast in this season. We hope you've enjoyed and learned from the high calibre of talent we've had on the show over the last 10 weeks.  Stay tuned, we'll be back in January with a new and improved podcast format. You're going to love it!

Stephan Spencer is a 3-time author and the founder of Netconcepts, a leading SEO firm. He’s also the inventor of GravityStream, an SEO Website Optimizer, as well as being a blogger and frequent conference speaker on SEO and other online marketing topics.

Stephan is an internationally recognized SEO expert and bestselling author. His books are The Art of SEO, Google Power Search and Social eCommerce. He founded multinational SEO agency Netconcepts in 1995, selling it in 2010. Clients include Zappos, Sony and Chanel. He hosts the podcasts Optimized Geek and Marketing Speak. Sponsors: Billy Gene is Marketing: ​My friend Billy Gene is hosting a free training where he’s going to build an entire Facebook advertising campaign from scratch - the ad copy, the landing pages, and everything in between!​ ​Why struggle trying to figure out​ Facebook ads on your own when you can just copy Billy Gene? Claim your spot today at INeedThisTraining.com!

 Stephan is an SEO expert and bestselling author, with 3 books published by O’Reilly: The Art of SEO, Social eCommerce, and Google Power Search. He founded multinational SEO agency Netconcepts in 1995 and sold it in 2010. His clients included Zappos, Sony, and Chanel. He hosts two popular podcast shows: The Optimized Geek: Marketing Speak. Inside this FREE “First Millionaire Manifesto”, J V reveals the seven steps to seven figures and how to put more money in the bank, enjoy a richly rewarding life, and make a big difference. Subscribe in ITunes Like this Podcast? Help spread the word. Subscribing and leaving a review helps other business owners and entrepreneurs find our podcast…and make their big difference. They will thank you for it.   Watch this FREE Video to discover the Secrets to getting in your zone, achieving fast results, and building a high-profit conscious business.  Conscious Millionaire Podcast: On his free podcast, Monday through Friday, J V interviews top successful entrepreneurs and business owners who reveal their business solutions and business opportunities on topics such as: conscious business, social entrepreneurship, business online marketing, internet business solutions, internet marketing, team building and culture, goal setting, how to become a wealthy entrepreneur, and developing a high-profit business plan that will change lives and the world.  

 Stephan is an SEO expert and bestselling author, with 3 books published by O'Reilly: The Art of SEO, Social eCommerce, and Google Power Search. He founded multinational SEO agency Netconcepts in 1995 and sold it in 2010. His clients included Zappos, Sony, and Chanel. He hosts two popular podcast shows: The Optimized Geek: Marketing Speak. Inside this FREE “First Millionaire Manifesto”, J V reveals the seven steps to seven figures and how to put more money in the bank, enjoy a richly rewarding life, and make a big difference. Subscribe in ITunes Like this Podcast? Help spread the word. Subscribing and leaving a review helps other business owners and entrepreneurs find our podcast…and make their big difference. They will thank you for it.   Watch this FREE Video to discover the Secrets to getting in your zone, achieving fast results, and building a high-profit conscious business.  Conscious Millionaire Podcast: On his free podcast, Monday through Friday, J V interviews top successful entrepreneurs and business owners who reveal their business solutions and business opportunities on topics such as: conscious business, social entrepreneurship, business online marketing, internet business solutions, internet marketing, team building and culture, goal setting, how to become a wealthy entrepreneur, and developing a high-profit business plan that will change lives and the world.  

  Guest Bio: Stephan Spencer is an internationally recognized SEO expert and bestselling author. He is the author of “Google Power Search”, co-author of “Social eCommerce”, and co-author of the “The Art of SEO”, now in its 3rd edition and considered THE bible on SEO. Stephan founded Netconcepts in 1995 and grew it into a multi-national SEO agency before selling it in 2010 to Covario. Stephan continued as a sought-after SEO and digital strategy consultant. His clients post-acquisition have included Zappos, Sony Store, Quicksilver, Best Buy Canada, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Chanel. Stephan speaks at many Internet marketing events, including SES, SMX, PubCon, Internet Retailer, Shop.org, etc. He’s contributed to Huffington Post, Search Engine Land, DM News and MarketingProfs, among others. Stephan is the creator of Traffic Control, a 3-day seminar on SEO, co-creator of the 3-day professional development seminar Passions into Profits with Kris Jones, and the host of 2 podcasts, The Optimized Geek and Marketing Speak. Interesting Facts and Sound Bites:   He holds an M.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Inventor of “The Gravitystream” - an automated pay-for-performance natural search technology platform, re-branded as RIO SEO Website Optimizer.       Show Notes:  Nile:              Hey, welcome back to the social media business hour. We’re talking with Stephan Spencer and Stephan is a true SEO expert. He’s really written the bible on SEO. Go back in the first segment if you’d like and listen to the details regarding that. But without getting into the details we were talking about some SEO strategies and one of the things that we happened to talk about was an SEO audit and in that audit finding duplicate content. Now, one of the questions I get asked a lot Stephan is about duplicate content. What’s considered duplicate content? What’s not? You know, what would get you slapped by Google if you will. And so rather than me speculating on it let me just ask you about that. Stephan:          Yeah, great question. So, let me first dispel a big myth about duplicate content. It doesn’t create a penalty situation. It is a filter. Not a penalty. So, when you get filtered because you have duplicate content that another more authoritative site also has it’s not like you are being slapped. It’s just basically that you’re not being favored over a more authoritative site. And this can happen if you’re even the originator of the content. So, let’s say that you have created unique valuable content about cruises and cruise lines and various, you know, just each cruise line, princess cruises and so forth. And this is an actual real world case. A company, cruises.com created all these different write ups about each cruise and each cruise line and so forth and then they would syndicate it to various sites that -- like airline partners and travel partners like Orbits. And guess who would end up winning the duplicate content filter war in Google. It wasn’t cruises.com. it wasn’t even any of the airlines. It was Orbits. Because when you think about how much authority Orbits has with all of these links and really powerful, important links pointing to their site. So, cruises.orbits.com was the site that would win out and then everything else would get filtered. So, you don’t want to get filtered out. Even if you’re the originator of the content that can happen so there’s some strategies and tactics you can use to ensure that doesn’t happen. Like for example, any partners you’re syndicating to asking them to link back to the -- your original article from their article. Like if you’re syndicating an article to various business sites then you could have in the byline or the bio where you specify, you know, just your company and so forth. You can include a link to the original article on your site. Not just to your home page because we want to link directly to the article in question so that Google can see that oh, this is the originator. And also when you’re the first one to show that article on the web and then later your syndication partners start to show it on their websites that’s also a signal. And then there’s another thing that -- I’ll geek out for just a moment here and then we’ll get back to normal talk. And that’s called a canonical tag. So, you add this into the HTML code. It’s not really difficult to do. It’s just one line of HTML and it just specifies what the definitive source URL of that piece of content is and so if you get permission, you get buy in from this syndicating partner that they’ll put a canonical tag in your HTML on the page that points to your URL, your article on your site then that will be a very definitive signal to Google that you’re the originator of that content.   Nile:                You know, if you happen to share content or get it syndicated and the syndication partner -- obviously, you might want. But they are not going to do anything related to linking back to you or allowing this conical tag. Did I get that right?   Stephan:          Canonical tag.   Nile:                Canonical. See? I told you I’d mispronounce it. What -- or how much of the content do you have to change on your page to make it unique?   Stephan:          Substantial. It would have to be very substantial. Because if you just move your paragraphs around or you add an extra paragraph -- think of it like if you had this imaginary five or six-word long window that you ran across both pages to compare and contrast them and see how many of those -- these are called shingles. These five or six word long windows are in common between the two documents. Shuffling paragraphs around is going to still leave most of those shingles in common between the two documents. Adding an extra paragraph or reducing a paragraph, that’s still going to keep -- leave most of the shingles in common between the two documents. You’d have to do a substantial rewrite. Paraphrase most everything. Or significantly augment the content with tons of like user generated content, lots of customer reviews or discussion forum posts and things like that to really differentiate your content from the other site. And that’s also -- we didn’t even go into the issue of duplicate content that you’re causing to your own site just by misconfiguring all the -- like the URL structure or having superfluous parameters in the URL. And I’m getting geeky again. Sorry. I just -- I’m a geek.   Nile:                That’s okay. Keep getting geeky. You know, we get some technical people on here so we want to know this.   Stephan:          Yeah, yeah. and actually I’m a podcaster as well so -- when I say I’m a geek I actually have a show that has geek in its name. optimized geek.   Nile:                I like it.   Stephan:          So, yeah. I’m a real geek. So, anyways, if you have duplicate content on your own site -- so, you are competing with yourself. Now it’s like you are creating not only duplicate content but you’re creating page rank dilution. So, think of it this way. Like if the leading candidate for president -- whoever that is. I’m not going to get into Trump and all that sort of stuff. But let’s say whoever your favorite candidate is had a twin brother or a sister, whatever. And they both ran and they had similar platforms and they didn’t really have any differentiating, you know, their level of experience was pretty much the same and so forth. You’d have a hard time picking one of them, right? So, it would split the vote and neither would win. So, imagine doing that on your website. You have five different variants of the same exact product page at different URLs. You know, flags or parameters in the URL, tracking parameters and things and they’re all picked up by Google. It’s like having four twin brothers and you both, you know, all of you running for president and none of you are going to win.   Nile:                You know, so people get into article spinners and then they’re looking to change words out in the article and they get the percentage of words and all that type stuff. It sounds like that’s sort of a game that they’re probably not going to win. Is that a fair statement?   Stephan:          Oh, are they not going to win? In fact, they are going to lose very badly because most of Google’s future algorithm is going to be based on machine learning and you can bet that with artificial intelligence they’re going to be able to sniff out any of that nonsense and if it does not read like it was written by a human and it like reads like poetry -- you can't make an article spinner right like Shakespeare or, you know, whatever. Pick your favorite poet or a writer, right. So, you cannot fool the search engines going forward. You might be able to fool them today or a couple of years ago. But even today I’d say you probably aren’t fooling them. Maybe a few years ago possibly. So, you are down a path that is not going to bode well for -- it’s not going to -- you’re not going to win. You are going to in fact lose. Certainly get penalized for it. And when you do something that you think okay. I’m going to kind of skate the edge here and see how far I can get away with this and I know it’s not cool, I know it’s against Google’s guidelines but it works. And other people are having success with it. So, I’m going to keep writing this out until I think it’s too dangerous and then I’ll stop. That’s a terrible idea because what will happen is Google will be able to retroactively look back on all your bad behavior because they’re keeping a rap sheet on you for certain. And they’re going to be able to figure out -- hey, wait a second. You have a pattern of, you know, skating on the edge here, doing stuff that’s against Google’s guidelines until you suddenly think you’re about to get caught and then you stop. We’re sick of that and we’re going to slap you like you’ve never been slapped before. And rightly so. You know, you had it coming to you.   Nile:                Yeah, and that’s what everybody, you know, has heard about the Google slap that happened to a lot of people and they went from respectable or high rankings to being invisible.   Stephan:          Yeah, but they think in terms of like okay. I did this thing and then I got caught or I did this and then I got caught or I do this thing and I don’t -- did I get caught? I’m not sure but suddenly my rankings are not what they used to be and so forth. So, they can't pinpoint it to a particular algorithmic update. What they’re not thinking about is they’ve created a pattern of bad behavior. Google’s been keeping that rap sheet on them and they can retroactively go back and reassess, reanalyze the data, figure out that you were doing something that was not okay and you have this pattern of stuff and something that probably wouldn’t on its own have gotten you in trouble; with that pattern of bad behavior you’re slapped.   Nile:                That makes perfect sense and I know a lot of people won’t like that but let’s go back to where you were talking about duplicate content on your own site. And it’s not there for any other reason than you’re trying to create, you know, different pages on your site that address specific issues and you might have people look at content on those pages.   Stephan:          Yeah. it’s totally inadvertent. It’s not like you said well, let’s create five different copies of every product in my catalogue or, you know, whatever. It’s just that whoever built the site didn’t know what they didn’t know.   Nile:                If you encounter that problem, is there any way to basically say this is my main page, these other pages, you know, ignore because -- it’s something like that if you will.   Stephan:          Yeah, absolutely. That’s what the canonical tag was built for. So that really reduces the duplicate content. The thing is it’s only a hint. It’s not an absolute directive so Google may or may not obey that canonical tag but the -- before the canonical tag was cross domain meaning it covered multiple websites -- you could go, you know, like let’s say you get syndicated onto -- I don’t know. Businessinsider.com or something, right. And they agree to do a canonical tag back to your site, to your original article on your blog. Well, back in the day when canonical tags were brand new that was not supported. You only could use canonical tags within your own site and that was to reduce the duplicate content that was inadvertent created because of tracking parameters and things like that. Because if you have like added to the end of your URLs source=blog to track when people are coming into your home page from your blog or source=email if you’re tracking people coming in from your email newsletter and then you also have that email newsletter archive down the web and, you know, have all these different pathways into the home page and they all are different URLs with that source= whatever tracking parameter. Now you’ve created umpteen number of duplicates of your home page and that’s not -- that creates that duplicate content situation we’ve been talking about.   Nile:                Okay, okay. It makes sense. Well, listen, we’ve got a lot to talk about. I feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface but we’re at the end of another segment. So, join us in the next segment. You definitely don’t want to miss what’s coming up next. And we’ll be right back. Hey, welcome back to the social media business hour. This has been so exciting. We’re in segment three of a three segment interview with Stephan Spencer who is -- I’m going to change your title. I was saying that you wrote the bible on SEO. I’m now going to make you the SEO god so -- you might argue that Google really is in that position because they’re the guys that are making the rules but listen. I’ve learned so much. I appreciate it. Thank so much Stephan.   Stephan:          It’s great being here. Thanks for having me.   Nile:                So, you know, if somebody wants to learn some more about some of the SEO there’s a lot of tools out there. Are there any tools that are really worth your time?   Stephan:          There’s so many. That’s a great question because there are a lot of time wasting tools out there but there are some great tools and it depends on what you’re trying to do. Like some people will buy a big, expensive enterprise level tool and then they don’t have anybody to run the tool which is absolutely ridiculous. It’s like buying a really expensive car and nobody has time to drive it. What a waste of resource. So, if you instead buy lower priced tools and you spend your money on internal resources, staffing and outside consultants and so forth that’s way more effective use of your money. So, my favorite tools -- and I’m using these for all my clients, right. So, every engagement where I’m dealing with the three pillars of SEO which is, you know, every engagement I’m dealing with all three pillars so architecture, content and links if you recall. So, for links I’m using link analysis tools such as AH _____16:28 majestic.com, open site explorer which is part of MOZ. Of course Google has their free tools inside of Google search console. It used to be called Google web master tools. Doing link analysis with those. And linkresearchtools.com. these are all fantastic tools and I recommend having at least a couple of them so that you can compare and contrast the data that’s coming out of them and the reporting because they’re all different. They’re using different algorithms, different data sets, they crawl the web differently and to varying degrees. So, that’s just link analysis to figure out what your competitors are doing, where they’re getting their links from and which links are the most authoritative, important, trusted links so that you can maybe go after some of those same links and -- but again. That’s more tactics than strategy. You’ve got to have a strategy to like go viral with some crazy, amazing content marketing piece and so forth. And so we can circle back to that if you’d like. But so that’s link analysis. And then let’s say we’re doing some competitive intelligence on what keywords and so forth are driving the most traffic and rankings for our competitors. We could look at tools like search metrics. That’s M-E-T-R-I-C-S.com or semrush.com. and if we’re talking about keyword research to figure out which keywords are popular. Not based on looking at our competition and what they’re getting traffic on but just like what’s popular with Google searchers in our niche, our categories and so forth. Then you want to use the Google AdWords keyword planner which is a free tool. You just have to have a Google AdWords account which means you have to sign up with AdWords and give them your credit card but you don’t have to start buying AdWords campaigns. You can just never do that. And then log in and start using this free tool inside of Google AdWords called the keyword planner and this will tell you which keywords are more popular than others, synonyms, verb tenses, plurals versus singulars, all that sort of great stuff. And there’s complication with like -- algorithms have gotten better over time with google so it’s not so much like oh, I’ve got to get the right verb tense or I have to get the singular or the plural right depending on which one’s more popular. It’s more about entities and stuff so we can geek out on that later. But keyword research tools, that’s one of my favorites but there’s also keyworddiscovery.com which is a paid tool. There’s a tool within authority labs that’s great for doing keyword research. Authority labs is knows as being a tool for tracking your rankings. Your search rakings across the engines. It’s like Google and Bing and so forth. And speaking of tracking your rankings if you have never thought of YouTube as a search engine you should because it’s the number two search engine by search volume, number of search queries. So, tracking your rankings on the YouTube search engine is something that’s not on anybody’s radar for the most part but it should be. And there’s a tool called Woot that you probably have never heard of that allows you to track your YouTube search rankings as well as some other YouTube engagement metrics like watch time and number of views and favorites and likes versus dislikes. All that sort of good stuff so that’s --   Nile:                Okay, spell that one for us.   Stephan:          Yeah. Woot, W-O-O-T.net.   Nile:                Okay, great.   Stephan:          Yeah. lots of tools.   Nile:                Well, you know what? That -- listen, that’s worth the price of admission just to the podcast here for getting that listing of tools. And I know that wasn’t a complete list.   Stephan:          Not even close.   Nile:                But, you know, the thing that amazes me is you were just rattling all of that off the top of your head.   Stephan:          Oh, yeah. there’s a lot more up there.   Nile:                I can't remember all three of my names consistently. First, last and middle. I’ve got to stop and think every once and a while so that was impressive.   Stephan:          Oh, thank you.   Nile:                So, listen, what are some of the common or maybe even the most common myth about SEO?   Stephan:          Boy, there’s so many. And I actually created a white paper full of myths to dispel many of them. There were 72 in that document all in so --   Nile:                And I bet you that document’s on your website, isn’t it?   Stephan:          It is. It’s my lead magnet on my home page, on stephanspencer.com. so, yes. You can go ahead and download that if you’re listening -- if you’re driving don’t do that now. Go do that later when you’re in front of a computer.   Nile:                Yeah, we’ll have the links on social media business hour. This is episode 142 so no problem. Just go get the links and in the meantime continue to listen.   Stephan:          Yeah, yeah. so, let me give you a few examples of just myths that need to die but still haven’t. so, I still, to this day in Florida people are talking about meta tags and them having really any value for SEO. And I’ll -- let me get into specifics here because details matter. Like the devil’s in the details. So, the meta keywords tag is a meta tag that never counted in Google. And this is a great screening question by the way. If you’re looking to hire a consultant or an in house SEO person ask them about meta tags and specifically about meta keywords. What’s your process for optimizing meta keywords, how are you going to go about doing that? And if they give you any answer other than meta keywords what -- they never counted. Never. If that’s not their answer you boot them out the door because they never counted in Google. And if they give you some BS line about how, you know, they’re not as important as they used to be. Or yeah, they used to matter and not anymore. None of that is true. They never counted in Google and I can point to concrete evidence of that fact. Google webmaster central blog which is owned by Google and Google engineers write for that blog. They said that -- and back in 2009. We never counted the meta keywords tag. So, that’s one. And there’s another meta tag that’s talked about a lot called -- so, that was the meta keywords tag. Now I’m going to talk about the meta description tag. Do you know the meta description tag doesn't move your rankings at all? It’s not part of the rankings algorithm. It’s only used to influence the snippet that’s displayed on your search listing. So, you can change that snippet from like a copyright statement all rights reserved sort of thing to something more compelling which is great. But if you’re position nine, who cares? Nobody’s going to see that search listing. You’re buried. Yeah, you’re on page one but barely. So, instead do stuff that’s going to improve your rankings in the search results instead of tweaking the snippet that’s displayed. So, meta descriptions, that’s a very much a second order activity if that, right. Focus on the things that really move the needle. So, you could ask another kind of trick question or screening question of your candidate in front of you in the interview. Like tell me about the meta description and how that influences the rankings or how that -- where that plays in Google’s rankings algorithm. And if they give you any answer other than it doesn’t count, it’s not part of the rankings algorithm you boot them out the door.   Nile:                Well, you’ve got a quick boot process. I mean, we’ve got two questions already that we could identify if they know anything and boot them quickly.   Stephan:          Yeah, so just download my white paper and you’ve got 72.   Nile:                And if they don’t get through all 72 you know that you need to be looking for somebody else.   Stephan:          Yeah.   Nile:                I bet that you have some recommendations. Tell us a little bit about your business and how people could engage with you in all seriousness.   Stephan:          Yeah, okay, cool. So, I used to have like dozens of staff. We were in three different countries and it was fun. And I decided after I sold my agency that I was not going to replicate that again. That I was only going to take on a small number of clients that I could work with individually rather than just handing them off because when you run an agency, you’re the thought leader who is writing books and speaking at conferences and so forth you don’t have time to work on individual clients when you’ve got, you know, 30, 40, 50 active clients at any given point in time. So, I take a small number of clients and I work with them directly. I’m the one doing the deep dive SEO audits, I’m the one writing the content marketing strategy and presenting it. I’m the one who’s doing the keyword research and creating keyword strategy and doing the ongoing month by month kind of retainer work for the clients. Now, I don’t do all the like trench work. I’ll recommend, you know, outside people for doing things like optimizing individual title tags across a 10000-page website. I mean, I’m not going to -- I’d rather like -- I’d rather pull my teeth out than do that work. But the more strategic work and the really -- the deep dive forensic analysis and a really creative brainstorming for content marketing to get links and so forth, I love that stuff and so I do that with my clients. So, _____25:59 handful of clients at the beginning. Those are all clients I work with personally since I sold my agency. So, _____26:06 Chanel, Sony, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Bloomberg business week, Best Buy, Canada. Those are all post acquisition clients. So, if you’re interested. If anyone’s wanting to talk more about potentially taking it to a whole other level in terms of Google and driving more traffic just, you know, contact me at my -- go to my website stephanspencer.com. email me directly at stephan@stephanspencer.com and we can talk.   Nile:                And we’ll have all those links as I’d mentioned earlier up on the website. You know, I’ve been blown away. We’ve been through three segments. A lot of information. And I feel like we just haven’t scratched the surface. So, I understand why you’re so revered and have reached the status that you’ve reached. Because really, there’s just a lot of great information and I had so many questions that I wanted to ask we didn’t even get to.   Stephan:          You know, there’s always another level. There’s always deeper that you can go. Your website’s never finished, your SEO is never finished. If somebody is interested in doing more on your own DIY kind of SEO I encourage them to get a copy of my book the art of SEO. You don’t have to buy it in fact. I got permission from my publisher to share a free electronic copy of this 50-dollar book with listeners. If you email my assistant she’ll send the link. I can't -- we can't include the direct link to the O’Riley site because it’s super-secret and O’Riley, my publisher would have a fit if it got out there in the wild but for your listeners we can allow them to download one of my three books for free. So, there’s social ecommerce, art of SEO and Google power search and they could pick any one of those three for free. Just email my assistant admin@stephanspencer.com.   Nile:                And we’ll make sure that that is on the site as well. Actually we won’t put that on the site. You’ve got to listen. If you don’t write it down, go back and listen to it. It’s there. I think there’s value in that. Wouldn’t you agree?   Stephan:          Yeah, yeah. you can allude to it and say somewhere towards the end of the episode there’s instructions about how to get a free copy of a 50-dollar book from Stephan.   Nile:                There you go. That’s what we’ll do. That will be the tease in the site. But you’ve got to go back and listen. You know, Stephan thanks so much for being with us. I can't tell you how much I’ve learned and how much I appreciate it. I know that all the listeners with me do. Again thank you so much.   Stephan:          Thank you Nile. It’s been great being on the show. I love it.   Nile:                You know, and for the listeners, I want to thank you too. You really make the social media business hour. We would be nothing without you. And hopefully you learned a few new ideas or concepts. I’d be surprised if you didn’t. you know that my desire is you take just one of the things that you learned today and you apply it to your business this week. I know those small changes can make a big difference and I’m committed to bringing you at least one new idea each week. So, identify just that one small change you could make from the information that we’ve presented here and find out what a big difference it will make for you. So, until next week, this is Nile Nickel. Now, go make it happen.

Jody Hartwig is the Vice President of eBusiness at Netconcepts, a company specializing in natural search marketing and ecommerce. She joins Practical Ecommerce Publisher Kerry Murdock to discuss Microsoft’s new Live Search cashback program.

TinaKellyNews reports indicate that revenue growth for Google and other search engines is slowing. Bids on keywords and keyword phrases, some say, are softening. Could all of this be an opportunity for ecommerce merchants to increase PPC ad spend and gain more customers? We asked this to Tina Kelly, a pay-per-click advertising expert and an Online Marketing Manager for Netconcepts, a pay-per-click and search-engine-optimization marketing firm.