#SEOFOMO Product-Led SEO Audiobooks Giveaway

Hello, hello, hello everybody, SEO formers, hopefully, uh, there. I am so very excited to be here today with Eli. Hello, Eli Schwartz. He is the author of Product, uh, Led SEO, the audiobook in this case, that, uh, was, uh, part of the giveaway, the, the big prize of the latest giveaway of SEO FOMO, uh, readers. And today we are going to announce who are the 10 winners of those audiobooks. But before going there, I want to start the conversation with Eli, uh, asking about the book. Eli, thank you very much for giving, uh, away these audiobooks, and I want you to tell us a little bit about, uh, why did you write this book, right? Like, and, and then what can people expect to read and see from the book?

So first of all, thank you for doing this. Thank you for having me on today. Um, I'm gonna out our little secret, which is you told me that if I give away some books in the newsletter, I get a chance to have a conversation with you. So I appreciate it. It's a great trade. It's been too long.

Always welcome. Always welcome.

We need to get back into conferences and hanging out together. So I wrote this book because when I— so I, I've been a consultant now for about 2 years or 3 years, and I— when I was going out into consulting and starting to work with companies, I had a distinct take on how companies should be doing SEO. In my opinion, SEO is not that complicated, and a lot of people overcomplicate it. And especially when it comes to in-house SEO, overcomplicating it means that you don't get things done. Means that like people are like, oh well, that sounds really expensive and it sounds really difficult, I'm gonna go give my budget to someone else. Or, um, what you're explaining to me doesn't make a lot of sense, so therefore I'm not going to invite you to more meetings, or I'm not going to resource SEO. So I, I did my best to try to simplify it when I, you know, when I was employed full-time and when I started consulting. And when I would talk to potential clients and then talk to business owners and talk to C-suite people, they would say, where can I read more about this? And I didn't really have anywhere to go and send them. You know, there are great blog posts out there that other people have written about SEO, there are podcasts, but executives like books. So I started putting together my thoughts in a book, and— well, I actually started putting together my thoughts and it became a book. So that was really why I started writing this book. The other piece is that I really wanted to have something that I can develop my thoughts. Like everyone in SEO, we all have great thoughts on how SEO should work, but it's in our heads. And by really putting it down on paper, it helped me to kind of think through the better way this should work. I think all of us have great opinions on whether links matter and technical SEO and what kind of content you need, but articulating it to a piece of paper and and then working with multiple editors, that's how you refine your thoughts. So I'm really, really happy I went through that process and wrote the book. And I've been so touched by like everyone in the SEO community that like they're reading the book and they want to read the book. Like I wrote it almost for myself and it's just such an honor to see other people read it and appreciate it too.

Yes. And actually one of the feedback that I have heard a lot about it is that it's not the typical SEO book about Yes, keyword research, uh, SEO auditing, link building, but is it more of like the higher level of it? And I, I do believe, and I do think, as you mentioned well before, that sometimes this is a challenge that we have in SEO, right? That we, we, we cannot sometimes explain or word, uh, SEO, well, work, um, the output of it, the, the impact of it, in a way that non-SEOs, non-technical people can easily identify as, uh, something profitable, something impactful that will really move the needle from a business standpoint. So this is amazing that you took the time to, let's say, create something, build, like, share your— also from your experience. I know that you have worked a lot during a long, a long, long time with enterprise-level, uh, companies and also startups, right? And, and as a consultant, as an in-house professional too. So I'm sure that, well, you have this wealth of knowledge, uh, that for any SEO, not only those who are starting. But I have to say that I do believe that there's this skill gap, as you mentioned before, uh, too, from those SEOs who are practitioners, who already know the day-to-day, how to like what matters, what not, how to implement. But then this layer of activities and knowledge that you need to, to communicate to clients, to communicate with decision makers, to, to get resources, right? And, and unfortunately, um, this is why many SEO processes end up failing, because we cannot communicate this well, right? So before jumping into the, the announcement of the winners, I I want to take the opportunity to also pick a little bit of your, your, your, your brains and your knowledge, right? What would you say to those SEOs who are facing this type of challenge of communication with C-suite, for example, with decision makers who are non-technical, and why they should invest in SEO more and why it makes sense to, to really to, to, if even if they won't see the, the, the outcome of the investment in the first months, it totally makes sense. And how you can make the case, so how, what, what, what are the steps that you will follow there, you will recommend people to follow?

So I, I think the biggest problem in the SEO community is confidence, that the SEO community lacks confidence in their own abilities to understand their own, their recommendations, and to sell the recommendations. So my biggest pet peeve, and maybe someone has seen me say this on Twitter, is when SEOs say it depends. So yes, that's true, many times the answer is it depends, but when you give that answer to your boss or to your clients, you're indicating a lack of confidence in your recommendation. So you're allowed to be wrong, but imagine like a scenario where you go to a doctor and You ask the doctor and say, well, is this going to kill me? And the doctor says, it depends. And you say, well, is this medicine going to work? It depends. You know, imagine all those scenarios. And even like, think about COVID Part of the problem that made everyone crazy was that they're like, is it going to kill you, or are you— or is it just fine? It's just the flu. So like, everyone's kind of— we were stuck making our own opinions. They said you need to wear masks, or you don't need to wear masks. It— well, it depends on what kind of mask. Right? So just think about how we were all impacted by that, that the lack of confidence from our lead— from the government leadership and from the medical leadership. Now, moving that over to SEOs, when a client asks you, if I write this content, will I get traffic? We don't know, we're not Google. But if you don't confidently give an answer, you say something like, it depends, then they look for someone that will give a confident answer. So for SEOs that are stuck with this resourcing issue and with selling what they need to sell They need to go back and they need to be more confident. And that's not— obviously not an easy thing to do. That's, that's a self-reflection thing. That's a, uh, you know, a self-building thing. But really, that confidence is, is what enables you to go and get things done with an SEO.

We—

anybody with experience has great ideas and has great, great recommendations. And of course we don't know, but if you caveat things with, this is my opinion, this is based on my experience, this is what I believe will happen although at times I could be wrong, you're more likely to be listened to. But when you have— when you give a detailed it depends, first of all, you confuse them because you say, well, is this scenario or that scenario? Now you're forcing them to choose. They don't need— they didn't need someone to go and tell them all the bad things that could happen. They need someone to tell them all the right things that could happen. And, and I learned this from some of the greatest SEOs I've ever worked with who gave confident answers and were wrong. And when things went the wrong way, they They simply said, you know, there was always a chance it wouldn't work out, and people trusted them again. But if you say it depends, you're ruining your credibility right from the start.

I think that you have made a good point, that at the end of the day, it's not saying that, well, it doesn't depend on anything else, but how you word that and how you explain it too, right? Like, it depends, but it depends on what, right? And what are the chances? Can you please show proof that it has worked in the past? I think that this is what is important, that we get a little bit like our hands a little bit more into the nitty-gritty rather than giving the easy, let's say, answer of it depends and leave things as they are rather. And then not being able to get the resources and get a little bit more risks. Well, being able to—

Yes, exactly. So in going back to the resourcing, if a CEO says, well, if I spend $1 million on this SEO thing, is it going to work? And then you say it depends, and then they think about it, and the next person comes in, they say, if I spend $1 million on a, you know, an ad on a TV, you know, during a football game, and they say, is it going to work? And they say, of course it's going to work. They're going to give the money to them even though the SEO effort is more likely to work out. So So be confident, take those risks. And, you know, in my career, I very rarely have seen people take the risk and when it doesn't work out, really be fired or get in trouble for it. You know, you take the risk, you build a bunch of SEO and it doesn't work out, the CEO doesn't call you and say, you know, this is terrible. You had such a terrible idea, you're fired. It's more likely to say, well, a bunch of things happened, it didn't work out as expected, what's your next idea?

Indeed, indeed. Amazing, amazing. So we're about to announce the 10 winners now. finally, uh, those who won, uh, one of the, the edition of your audiobooks. But for those who unfortunately won't be able to win the one of the, the, the audiobooks, um, what would you say of why they should read the book? What, what is there for the, the SEO who has already read most of the SEO fundamental books out there?

So part of the reason I wrote the book is because there was no other book, like you said, like this. I mean, one of the best SEO textbooks out there is The Art of SEO. So it's 950 pages. I've read the whole thing a couple times. Content like that becomes obsolete fairly quickly. Even the screenshots become obsolete as Google updates, as Google Analytics updates, as Google Search Console becomes Google Search Console from Google Webmaster Tools and all the things happening. wrote the book to really not be obsolete because I wanted that higher level of thinking. So if you're new to SEO, by all means read the book and it maybe will give you ammunition of things you could talk about to your clients and to your bosses. If you've been in SEO for a while, there might not be anything new in there, or I might be wrong. So read the book just to kind of prove me wrong and tell me what I missed out. So everyone out there can read the book. It's, uh, it's very inexpensive on Kindle, and if you can't access the book, I'm happy to help anybody. So just reach out to me.

Amazing. You're very kind indeed. So thank you. Thank you for, for your kindness, for your willingness to share your wisdom with the book and also with the, the audiobooks giveaway. I have already clicked on SparkLoop, which is the tool that I use, uh, as for the referral system of the SEO FOMO newsletter, where you can also organize and pick the winners of the giveaways. And I have already the 10 advocate winners who have referred, uh, 2 or more, um, subscribers to SEO FOMO. And the tool randomly picks 10 of those people who have, um, now won one of your audiobooks. So the winners are Mark From Kander, Eric from Digital Neighbor, Andrew from Digital Love, Rasmus Lindbacke from Group M, Philip Hesinger from DM, Abdul Ganiyashu. I'm sorry because I'm very likely pronouncing it bad. Very sorry. Vikram Patel, Jay Caballero, and Lydia too. So I will be sending all of you an email. So you can be sure that you have one, and you just need to reply saying, I want the book, give me the access code to the book, and I will send you one of those coupon codes that Eli has shared with me already, with a little bit of instructions so you can enter to the platform and start listening to the book, right? Eli, I think— well, I already followed the instructions myself. that you sent to me, and it's pretty much like registering to the audiobook platform, adding the coupon, and start listening right away. Very straightforward.

Awesome. Yeah, I, I— it's not on Amazon, it's on audiobooks.com, I think.

It is, it is audiobooks.com. But I have to say, I was completely new to the platform, and it was very straightforward to register right away and start listening. And, and they also have an app too that works pretty well on, on your, on your mobile. So you can, you can listen to Eli's wisdom and insights. It's not mine if you're working, etc. Yep.

And it's not me reading it, so don't ever think that's me. This is how I really sound. That is someone else.

Oh yeah. So sorry, sorry. I'm so, so very sorry, Jeff. Jeff is a little bit disappointed because he didn't win. But yes, you can always, uh, buy it, Jeff, for sure. I, I'm, I'm sure that you will like it. That's for sure. And thank you again very much, Eli. Have a, have an amazing day. And congratulations to the winners that I mentioned before. I will just share the names again over Twitter, and you can expect an email from me in case you're not sure if you're that Mark or not that Mark, etc. Don't worry, the right Mark will receive an email with the email that you use for SEO FOMO. Expect, uh, that email from me with, uh, to follow up with a coupon for the audiobook.

And if you didn't win, refer more people and you'll participate in Aleyda's next contest.

That, that for sure. There will be many more contests to come, and there's always a benefit and something for SEO FOMO subscribers for sure. Thank you, thank you very much everybody. Thank you very much, Eli, for your time. I really appreciate it and your kindness with, uh, with the audiobooks.

Thanks, Aleyda. Thanks everyone.

Thank you. Bye-bye.