Mastering the SEO Game with Expert Brent Jacobs

And welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. Today we're going to Belgium. I wanted to say goedemiddag, but that's Dutch, isn't it, Brent? How do you say good afternoon in Flemish?

Goedemiddag.

Oh, not too far away. Okay, well, of course, Belgium and Holland are right next to each other as well. Brent's going to talk to us today about SEO, and for us to understand that SEO is not a scam, but it can be a scam if you're sold by the wrong people. He's going to explain what SEO is, why we need it, how much it should cost, and how to avoid the pitfalls. But Brent's also a young entrepreneur in his own right. He's only 25, but he's already built a business— in fact, multiple businesses in SEO. So we're going to talk to him also about his entrepreneur journey. So a lot of wonderful things for us to gain today from Brent. So Brent, Thank you for coming on this show. SEO fills a lot of people, including me, with a little bit of dread because we know— well, I know my website's not as good as it should be, but people come to me with, I can get you into the rankings in 30 days. But we also hear about black hat and so on. So tell us a little bit about you, but then please tell us about SEO, what it is and how we get it right.

First of all, thank you for having me. It is indeed true that like I run multiple local SEO businesses. That's mainly what I've been doing for the majority of my journey in entrepreneurism. I run also some e-commerce on the side, but marketing really makes the majority of my income and also Well, it's my passion, so I would say that's the most relevant to it. I have been doing it for quite a while, and during that time I've also booked incredible results. But it's like you said before, it's that there's a whole big stigma around SEO where it's considered a scam. And well, that's horrible because most people who come to me, most customers, they initially got burned before. Burned is, yeah, when they got hit obviously by a scammer. I think the majority, the main reason behind that is the lack of knowledge on the field. And that's something I'm definitely trying to change by providing as much quality resources as I can for free. So yeah.

Brent, so you've touched on a point there about local and national. And until I read your website and read your excellent guide to SEO, which is free to download, by the way, for anybody, uh, we'll put a link on that, um, I hadn't understood the difference between national and local. So perhaps what you could do is explain SEO, how it works, but also why there's this distinction and how important that is for entrepreneurs.

So the main thing you have to look at with Google is that Google will try to provide the most relevant results for your search query, the most relevant as possible. And that's why local and national are different. For example, if you're looking for good headphones, you don't necessarily need good headphones in your city. You will probably order them online, and thus location is irrelevant. But if you are looking for a good dentist or a good chiropractor, suddenly you want something close by, and that's where the between local and national is local is really depending on your location because Google cares where you are and tries to give the most relevant result for your location. And this is often based on your IP address, the location you give through your phone, or basically the city you search for. But they care a lot about how close you are to these businesses, a.k.a. the proximity. And by filling in these variables, you can appear higher for people searching for your business in your relevant area, which often calls for a big increase in revenue if done correctly.

So Brent, one of the things I've looked at is Google My Business. But my company is registered legally with the accountants in a serviced office. I'm based here in Wiltshire. Just tell us something like Google My Business. How important is that as a platform and how easy is it to use?

Yeah, so it's incredibly important, right? Because your Google My Business, if you make one and you link your Google My Business with your website, they work very much so together. They almost work in symbiosis. What I mean by that is if you change something on your website, if your website isn't optimized, but your Google My Business is, they will affect each other, but also the information you put on your website or on your Google My Business is what we call NAP. Your name, your business address, and your phone number are very important. And where, like, if you put the same information on your website or if you put different information, it's very relevant because Google uses that information to verify your business location, your business legitimacy, and that's very important. As well as your address or where you're located, or your service areas are very important for the proximity reasons. You know, how close are you to the person? And Google My Business allows you to get higher on Google Maps. It's also the place where people can request driving directions or get to know more about your business. So it's one of the quicker ways to get results as well as one of the easier ways. So having it is incredibly useful because it also helps your website, but it's incredibly easy to use and the results are often quicker than with a website.

Okay, that's fantastic. And I think a lot of people, including me, hadn't really even thought about Google My Business until I got the flyer, uh, and then I can get more page views on Google My Business than on my own website, which is incredible. So Brent Jacobs, you're in Belgium, um, you're working with clients presumably from around the world.

Yeah.

Um, how does the black hat SEO work. Let's just explain that for, for me and for my fellow listeners, because we've raised the specter of, if you like, false hunts, false treasures. I've never understood how people can do that. Yeah, explain.

Black hat is more like— black hat basically stands for unethical, you know, it's doing the, the unethical things. And, um, in SEO There's you have things that happen on your website, what we call on-page, such as optimizing your content, making sure your website looks good for Google. And then you also have off-page, basically signups to your website from other websites, from other locations, too. And Google uses that to see how well you are doing, right? AKA backlinks. Now, a lot of people when they hear about SEO, they know about backlinks, but They don't know how to, well, how to look for the relevancy in backlinks, so they don't really care. And a lot of black hats, what they do is they generate backlinks, for example, by using tools like Money Robot in big amounts on free websites. So they basically generate free websites with content on there and they all link to your website. And the thing is that it actually works. It generates your results for like 3 months, sometimes 6 months, and if you're lucky, maybe even a year. But the thing is that after that period of results, your websites start crashing, and that's where it becomes really difficult to get back up. The thing is that a lot of black hats use these certain unethical strategies to generate quick results so that by the time that they hop off and their job is quote unquote done, you will have the results you were looking for. And once your website starts crashing and they are no longer in the picture, you have no one to blame because you have no idea what to look at. And that's a very common strategy that I often see being used. And it's incredibly sad because I feel like it's an SEO's job to also educate his customers.

Okay, very interesting. So there's sort of these black haters creating almost a cloud of phantom websites and making those links. And then, but it's creating a false impression, like false reviews, Brent. Fascinating. So how is it done correctly? What is the kind of service that an unnoticed entrepreneur that wants to increase their ranking should be looking for?

So the thing there is that the correct way is the boring way, which means you have to create valuable content and you have to create valuable incentives to give to people where you want a link back to your website. And a good service provider, a good backlinker, will provide you with certain prospects beforehand, and they will share with you what and how. And, um, the best way to get somebody to do good SEO for you is by looking at their actual results on a revenue basis and not so much rankings. You know, in the SEO industry, we have what they call vanity rankings, which is basically keywords that don't matter. Ranking is one thing, right? Rankings, getting higher in Google is one thing, but getting money from it, that's where it's really important. You know, you want your revenue to increase. And that's why I think if you hire an SEO, it's better to look at the amount of revenue they created than how many keywords they rank for, because they are not the same thing. And One of them is very easily to— it's very easy to game and the other not so much because numbers don't lie. So I would look at revenue generated. Yeah.

Brent-Jacobs.com, you've got some charts and you're showing, for example, revenue going to $37,000, for example, for one client, 103% increase in revenue. And another one, maybe the same client, 168% increase in calls in less than a month and more revenue. So what's actually happening there in terms of that revenue increase? What has your SEO done?

So when I work with clients, I work again, like I work very revenue-driven. So I look for keywords with commercial intent. So when I would start working with a client, yeah, sure, they pay a bit more because I have to, like my expenses are higher than some I'm somebody who does black hats, but I often generate incredible numbers. Like most of the time my revenue increases are above 100%. And that's mainly because, well, I focus on keywords. I focus on the terms that people search for that actually create revenue. And that's what we call commercial intent keywords, right? For example, if you are looking to sell headphones, If you have a headphone related, like buy your headphone now is going to generate far more money than what to look at when you buy a headphone. One is very informative and they are very important too, but the real money is going to come from the landing page that is optimized for the commercial intent keywords. For example, like chiropractor near me is going to generate far more revenue than a page that says what to do when you strain your back. Both are relevant on a website, but I feel that the main effort should go to the commercial intent, even though you should have both of them. And that's where the revenue comes in.

Brent, that's fascinating. It's a whole science that you're engaged in there, isn't it?

Yeah, it's complex.

Yeah, well, it sounds like— and for the average entrepreneur like myself, Are there any tools that are accessible? And we've all been talking about AI more and more. Are there some simple AI-assisted tools that people like me can use, not necessarily to do the SEO, but at least to, if you like, take a check of the performance or the health of our websites?

So currently there are a few bigger tools, but they have what I would say an expensive paid plan like Semrush, which it has a subscription of $30+ a month, but they also have a free trial, which they will give you a chart saying how well you're doing pretty much. You also have your own Google Search Console, which is by far like Google Search Console and Google Analytics are by far the best ways to check how well you're doing and they're completely free. You know, they are the best reliable source for that, but that's difficult to read for some people. So then you can go to Moz, for example, which is something that allows you to search up your website 5 times a day completely for free, which if you are a beginning entrepreneur, you don't need to look at your charts every day. You don't need to go over that every day. So 5 times a day is is more than plenty, and it gives you enough of an idea of how well you are doing, how much authority your website has, and so on.

Okay, that's wonderful. That's Moz. M-O-Z. Is it?

Yes, M-O-Z.

M-O-Z. Okay, perfect. Brent, you're also an entrepreneur in your own right. Although you're currently 25, you've explained already that you've got this business and others. Just tell us about your business strategy as an entrepreneur building out your SEO companies.

So I believe a lot in becoming an authority figure, and the best way to do that is by knowing the pain points of your audience, which is very important for marketing, right? You, in order to make a good offer, in order to make a good sales package, you have to know what is the main issue of the customer, and that's why my team works. I niche down to specific industries because it allows me to get to know the per— the people what I'm working with. It's far easier for me to get to know roofing companies than it is for me to know everybody interested in SEO. So if I just get to know the roofing companies and their pain points, I can make my sales approach and my offer and my entire company, my marketing philosophy based on their pain points, which allow me to become an authority figure far about cricket. Combine that with being just genuinely helpful and providing quality information, and you have a steady approach to business that creates revenue.

Brent, on your website, you've got a free viewable document. It's a Google Docs that explains how SEO works. How valuable and powerful has that been as a lead magnet for you?

So it is incredibly— it's also very trust-building, you know, for people, especially in the SEO community. Like we discussed before, there's a lot of people who have been burned before. That's mainly because they are not sure whether the person has knowledge on the subject or not. So I figured, what works better than just putting all my knowledge on paper and sharing it for free with people so they can verify themselves that I know my stuff? And then I also came to the idea that might be good to use it as a tool to educate people. So it is a very good lead magnet because people don't only— people learn something, that's one thing. So they get to know me from a teacher perspective, but they also can verify my knowledge as well as they get to see that the stuff that I personally apply also works for them. So it's incredibly useful both as lead magnet as well as an educational tool. It's amazing.

Yeah, wonderful. And I read it, it's very good. It starts off at my level and then gets quite technical. And then, um, I was pleased that we're having a chat with you about this because, uh, to get some more explanations. Brent, as an entrepreneur, um, you've run your multiple businesses already. Is there something that you found hasn't worked, an experience that you've had that you would suggest to other entrepreneurs not to try at home?

Yeah, I think the main thing, especially as a beginning entrepreneur, is one of the biggest lessons is being like a lot of people take on every customer they can to increase their revenue, right? So For example, sometimes people just aren't a good fit with your company. Sometimes you can't help somebody, and then it's better to to leave them and give them a good alternative to go to because yeah, you will miss out on some money, but that's better than putting yourself in a position like at one point in my life, I was sleeping with my phone under my pillow, and every notification would scath. Like would almost give me a panic attack just because I was so overwhelmed because I was taking every customer on. While I quickly learned by doing that, that it's far more productive and far better in the long run that you just have to vet your customers, figure out who is actually a good fit for you, who can you genuinely help? Because not only will your results long-term-wise be far more sustainable and far better, your mental health will be better, but also your reputation will improve over time because you're genuinely in a position to help people that like they know as well as you that you can help them. So vetting your customers and not just taking anybody on, but actually be willing to take that pay cut, be willing to leave if you aren't 100,000% sure that you can help somebody.

Okay, wonderful, Brent. So my final question is always the one piece of advice that you think, you know, in terms of moving the needle from a marketing point of view, getting noticed, Brent, what would that be for you, do you think?

Yeah, get uncomfortable. Sounds very weird, but I believe that people are so stuck in their comfort zone, including me, where I'm not a very people person. I don't like social interactions as much as the common extrovert, more so because I have a crippling computer addiction. I'm a technical guy, right? And the quick, the most game-changing thing for me is to just go ahead and do it. You know, just step into the deep and get yourself out there because the things you don't like to do are often the things you have to do. And once you start doing them, the results are incredible. And that's what I've been applying for me in any business. That's what has been working consistently.

Brent Jacobs joining me from Belgium. If you want to find out more about you and And check out your SEO guide as well, which I can recommend. How can they find you?

Just head over to my website, which is brent-jacobs.com, and you will not only get the ability to reach out to me, you will get my free ebook as well. So just hop over, give me a sign. I'm more than willing to help out if I can.

You've helped me a great deal. Thank you so much, Brent, for agreeing to come on the show today.

Thank you for having me. It's, it's been a blast.

Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. And you know, what a lot of knowledge in, in, in a young entrepreneur, but also in just sort of 20-odd minutes, we've managed to learn so much about SEO. And also for me, exploding the reality behind the black hat. I've never understood that. So I'm really grateful to Brent for explaining that to me. If you've enjoyed this, please do share it with a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur. And if you've got a chance to, please rate it on your player because those reviews really help us. And until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating. Thank you for listening.