Industry Experts: SEO Secrets For Movers With Online Marketing Expert Bryan Bloom

And so interesting, because the point you made about the single solitary purpose of the website, I just like, they call it like a mic drop. And I said, I was thinking, Louis, you could just drop the mic right there.

Hey, my friends, it's Luis Massaro. And welcome to the Moving Mastery Podcast, where we help moving company owners all over the world take their business to the next level.

Have you ever done an online search in your market to see, you know, what movers are showing up on the first page of Google, only to find that there's some new company you never heard of, or, you know, some companies that maybe you feel aren't doing as good of a job as you do, but, you know, you're just not visible and you're not being found. And, you know, you wonder how you could get home on that first page, how you could start ranking and not only rely on leads and other forms of marketing. Well, SEO and search engine optimization and online marketing. Digital marketing is a huge piece to any moving company that wants to succeed over the long term. And today I have a very special guest with us, Brian Bloom, who's the founder of moversearch Marketing. He's the industry's leading digital marketing expert and, and his company helps dominate online through SEO, search engine optimization, pay per click advertising. They specialize in moving company online domination. That's it. They don't work with, you know, plumbers, roofers, dentists, anybody else. Brian's also the former owner of Priority Moving, a company out of San Diego that he sold to start Mover Search Marketing. And Brian, welcome to the show.

Hi, Louis, thanks for having me.

Yeah, thanks for being here. So I'm really excited to have you on, by the way, because, you know, we, we have worked together a little bit now. You've come and spoke at the last two Moving Sales Academy live events, and you'll be joining us again here in a couple of months for the next one. And it's just been amazing, the value that you've been able to provide to the audience. And I wanted to bring that to our podcast listeners to make sure that they have access to the information that you provide, because it's very insightful, you know, it's very, you know, I know for me, there was a lot of, you know, there was a time back in, I would say about 2007 when, you know, the Yellow Pages stopped working and, you know, I had to really dive in and learn online marketing. And it's very, very overwhelming when you first dive in and you start hearing all these terms and you know, SEO and pay per click and, you know, keywords, backlinks, and all the other new stuff that's out now. And for a lot of companies, it's. It's overwhelming. And I think what happens is because of that, two things happen. They either steer away from it and they don't get involved in a, you know, online marketing strategy where they should be, or they get involved with a company that, you know, isn't necessarily understanding the market and what they need to be able to dominate and rank and get the traffic that they need. So, anyways, I'm really excited to have you here.

Welcome to the show again. I'd love to hear a little bit about your background with how you got into this business and how you went from being a moving company owner to working on online domination for moving company owners.

Well, great, Louis. Yeah, of course, I'm happy to do that. And as you know, the way that your listeners may not all know this, but the way we met was I reached out to you. I came across something and was familiar with your previous company and it was, you know, how great it was. And the minute we got on the phone, I knew that we would have a great time working together. You just have the same work ethic, the same approach to helping your clients succeed. And that's what it's all about to you, for you. And we can talk more about that as we go forward. But it seems like we. It seems like it's just a natural, natural way of working together and wanting to really help moving companies. So, yeah, so my story, back in 2002, I almost bought a moving company. And I think that they just wanted too much money. So I said, I'll just do it on my own. And it was called priority moving. Still is. And I went through all the typical growth pains everyone experiences that's in moving Sales Academy. And you know, for the 11 years I had it, and over time, I had to learn on my own. I did most of the things that you help people with and teach. And man, did I wish that I had access to what the movers in your program have. And that's just not a plug. But it's the truth. Because even when I became an agent for Wheaton, they didn't really train you in what to do. You had to learn it on your own, reach out to people. And I can say that it is really a pleasure to work with the movers that are in your program because they're laser focused on growing the right way. And like I said, I wished I had it, because I had to learn it all on my own then. So, so anyway, we grew like crazy. It was pretty insane. We became one of the top agents at wheaton. Out of 270, we see, we added military moving, a hauling fleet, we did custom crating, white glove delivery, and we were the largest local mover in San Diego. And think we were about 3,500 moves a year by the time we sold. But for us, like you said, around 2007, the Internet was exploding. And exactly like you said, I would see the yellow pages stack up in front of people's homes and the salesman would come in and say, spend 3,000amonth and I'll get you in my yellow page. And I said, no, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm going to think of a better way. So I started to learn this new thing called search and the Internet. There really were no tools or software for it back then. It was like me, the Internet and Excel, no list of keywords, trial and error. And I just decided I'd rather put the money into this instead of yellow page ads. It paid off big. Every day I would come in, look at my rankings and tweak them, change pages, add blog posts, try this and that. Over time, we dominated. And the phone never stopped ringing. That's kind of the story then. Then what happened was I remember I would go to the Wheaton conferences and I would speak on SEO and I would get kind of barraged by other agents. Hey, can you do my SEO? But I had to travel back to San Diego and run my moving company. So I put it in the back of my mind that if I ever sell the company, that's what I would do. So that, that's how I ended up doing it.

Yeah, I mean, I remember when we first spoke, you know, we were talking about the strategies that you use, we were talking about your company and what you guys provide. And I was just really intrigued because a, you knew your stuff, you know, because for me, I, I learned it later on I had an in house SEO team which, you know, I learned more through them. And to see somebody that really had in depth knowledge of not only like the fundamentals of what works right, but the cutting edge stuff, I was just really impressed. And the fact that you work specifically with moving companies says a lot. You know, a lot of people these days and in all businesses, you know, try to really cast a very wide net. You know, they get in the business and they're like, you know what if I do this for moving companies, I could do this for all kinds of companies. And we kind of shared the same vision, which was, you know what, let's stay focused and bring the value where we can bring the value the most. Right. Where we have the background and the ability to use that experience to help specific people. Right. We don't need to, like, you don't need to go out and build websites for all kinds of different industries and I don't need to try to teach business to all kinds of different industries. So, you know, tell me a little bit about, you know, I. More so for the listeners. Right. Because I mean, I know a little bit about oversearch marketing, but, you know, tell me a little bit about, you know, like what, what's, what are the advantages? Like, you know, know why, why did you decide to stick with moving as a niche when you could have very well broaden the scope and why do your customers benefit from that?

Yeah, no, it's a great question. And you're right. We share a very kindred philosophy about how we go about things. And I believe that philosophy leads to much better results. It kind of, you know, Archimedes said, give me a lever long enough and I'll lift the world. And, and our lever is specializing in moving. And you are doing the same thing. Like you said, you could teach people how to do well in sales and marketing in lots of industries, but you don't do that because there's a, it's kind of like if you go to the doctor, if I have a bang my head really badly and I think I might have a brain injury. I could go to a general doctor who has an md. Right. But I'm probably going to want to search out a specialist who's a top rated neurologist. There's a big difference. They're both qualified, but one of them's going to really know what's going on. He sort of cracked the code and that's, that's what we really wanted to do. The more we started to look at it, we knew that we were good at SEO and we could take on a plumber, a roofer, a college, whatever, and that's what most SEO companies do. And there's nothing wrong with it. But that means every client they bring on, they have to learn the industry because you have to understand things like the intent behind the keywords. I can look at a list of keywords, look at the volume, but what's the intent? If the intent for the query that someone types doesn't lead them to moving, I'm just getting more, more Traffic, which is a vanity thing. It's no big. It doesn't really help me. So by taking the real moving experience that I had over 11 years, I mean, I could basically, if I wouldn't want to, but I could run another moving company. It's not what I want to do, but when we talk to clients and we understand the different businesses they're in for, we can fold that on top of what we've learned about how Google treats moving, which is different than how they treat plumbers. Right. It just is. And we can get into more detail about it. But trust me when I say that most moving companies on the search engines are being compared to other moving companies. So that's how we really add the value, is we crack the code and we learn over time and, and the metrics build and in the end they just get better results.

Yeah. And I could tell for everybody listening that this, you know, Brian plans on really diving into, you know, SEO. So you have a full understanding of it by the time you get off this podcast. So whatever your strategy is, whatever company you use, if you decide you want to do it yourself, you're going to have a really in depth understanding by the time we get off this podcast today of what you need to do, what's important. And I know there's some, like, really common questions that even I get a lot, Brian, which is like, you know, how do I get to the top of the search results? How long is it going to take to get to the top of the search results? Why is SEO so expensive? Right. Why are some companies very cheap and other companies are much more, you know, what is, what is the ROI on SEO and when do I start to see a payback for that? And I'd love to hear your input on that.

No, those are, those are exactly the questions that we get asked and they're really valid. And, you know, because people go on search and they think I want to be at the at the top, etc. And it's not for them. And there's a lot of misinformation out there, right, from companies. There's a lot of SEO companies. So great questions. I think maybe I'll step back for a second, kind of share an analogy that I use that might be helpful to the listeners. And I think of SEO as like, kind of like working out at the gym. You know, it takes time to get stronger, to get in shape, get your cardio up, build muscle you don't like. You can't just buy a gym membership, show up one day and say, hey, I'm done for the year. Yeah, it doesn't really work like that. For the first, you know, like sort of couple weeks or month, all you feel is sore, and you don't notice that your muscle mass is gaining. But then over time, slowly but surely, if you keep working out, you start to get stronger and get into shape, you start to see the results. Then later, when you're stronger, everything becomes easier. Like if you're strong from working out, Louis, and someone says, hey, let's go play basketball. You can play basketball and you don't run out of breath. So as we talk a little more about SEO, keep that analogy in mind, because that's how SEO works. It definitely builds and takes time. And then to the other question you asked.

Why, you know, how do I get to the top of the search results? What does it take to do that? And I think maybe the easiest way to think about it is like, Google has a version of what I'd call street cred. Right? So, you know, if you don't, if you want to work in SEO, you've got to have a really good. A really good understanding of what Google's version of street cred is. And I think about it, if you're Google and you're just sitting there and it's a pitch, like I on Shark Tank, and you're pitching your page to Google amongst other people that are competing, and they're sitting there and all these pages are being pitched to them, and there's existing ones already at the top of search results. And then Google has to sit there as a judge, and they're trying to determine amongst the millions of possible pages, which one they should sew. And I would ask you, like, generally speaking, if you're Google, how do you decide? And rhetorical question. I know the answer. But think about it. That's what Google does every day for every search term. And the way they decide, there's. And by the way, there's over 200 variables, but there's three sort of what I've called pillars or concepts, how they decide. And it's authority, trust, and relevance. So every page or every search, every keyword, search result, they're looking at the authority, the trust, and the relevance. And so if I could now I'll step back a little bit and think about it. You know, they're trying to determine where you should show up in the results, should you rank higher, should you rank lower? And authority is kind of like this. You know, in the old days, you would, if you wanted something you might go to a librarian. They were an authority. A professor is trusted. And if you want to get an answer to something, let's just use the neuroscience thing again. You don't just say, oh, this is a better article that's relevant, but you're going to go to an expert like the Mayo Clinic or look on Wikipedia or written by someone that has an md. They have authority. So Google tracks the authority and it builds over time. Right then the next one.

Brian, let me stop you real quick because I'm personally fascinated by all this information, but I know that, you know, a lot of companies, you know, people might be listening to this and say, you know, that's great and everything, but what does that have to do with me? What does that have to do with my moving company? And I know what I will tell you is that, you know, SEO was one of the best investments I made, period, into my marketing. And even though it is a long term strategy, it is something that everyone needs to be doing. And to have the knowledge that you're sharing on this podcast, to have that knowledge, to know that information, to be able to walk into a meeting with an SEO company or, you know, to even try to begin to wrap your mind around possibly doing it yourself, you need this information. So I know, you know, my approach to the moving business, and this started for me like back in 2007 when I had to dive in and start learning all this, you know, and most of this I wasn't even around. I don't, you know, this is a lot of new concepts here you're, you're sharing with us. But it was like, you know what, it's my duty to learn this. I could sit here and say, you know what, I'm a, I'm a moving company owner. I don't need to learn all this technical stuff. However, I felt that I needed to know enough that I could go and sit and hire a company to do it or hire people to work for me that aren't going to take advantage of me and are also making the best decisions in how to approach my online marketing so that my company would succeed over the long term. So I just want to say to anybody listening, if this is getting technical, it's important that you have a general understanding of how all of this works if you really want to succeed over the long term. I just wanted to throw that in there real quick. Brian.

No, that's really well said. And maybe I'll just sum up this part with something that's easier. Easier or bite size to Understand because you know, we like you, like you kind of allude to, I mean we could talk, you and I could talk about this for hours and hours but people will get lost in the weeds so it's easier for us to write really, really good content. And you know, we probably don't have the time to talk.

Right.

You know, today about what that means. But we know what it means. So that's the relevant side.

Right.

But if we write a really amazing blog post for a client and they have no trust or authority in Google's eyes, we're not going to rank as quick. So that's the part of the working out part. It takes time to build the trust and the authority and we can talk more as we go along if you're interested or you think the, you know, the listeners will about how you do that. Because there is, there you can do it. But sadly it takes time and if it's done right, it becomes the lever which that I've talked about with Archimedes. It really builds. So if you just work on putting out content, it's not going to happen. You have to be aware. And I can, you know, let's just talk about maybe if you think about it, Louis, who's the most trusted authoritative site on the Internet? Like if you search for something, what usually will come up? Think about it for a sec.

WebMD or something. I mean, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, or Wikipedia. Right. Wikipedia is usually WebMD for sure. But if you think about Wikipedia, Wikipedia is the most authoritative trusted site on the Internet. Anything they post or write will come up at the, in the first page the day they put it out there. It's not because necessarily what's written is the most relevant. It's because they're the most authoritative trusted site. So it's just important that the listeners, without getting lost in the weeds, understand that those, those three terms, trust, authority and relevance is what the judges at Google are looking at to decide do I take this mover's web web page and put it higher than the others. Now we know that. So we start with a company, we look at the baseline of what, what those are and we, if they don't have a lot of trust or authority to being begin with, we better make sure the relevance is really high. I hope that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. And I, and I don't think that we should filter out anything by any means. I just, I, let's get technical, right? Because I think it is important. I think the value is not just talking about hey SEO, it's good for you. I think the value is in what you have to share. I just want to make sure that everyone understands how important it is for their moving company. You know, it doesn't. They don't have to be a marketer, which, you know, in this day and age, if you're in any business, you kind of need to be a marketer. Right?

Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, so talk to me about, like, search intent and, you know, how that plays into the overall strategy.

Oh, no, that's. Yeah, happy to. And to lead right into it, if you don't mind, because I think as a precursor to search intent.

When we, besides the subject, we just talked about the trust, authority and the relevance. If you imagine for a second visually what happens in SEO so that we can connect the search intent, what we have to do for the client is first we have to get them to show up in the search results or nothing happens. Right. Then the second thing is on the page, on what they call the serp, the search engine results page, we want this, the searcher to click on our result, even if we're in third position, because not everyone clicks on the first position. So we want to write the result. That's the second part, to get them to click on our result. Then the third part, when we kind of are done, is when they come to your website, do they, in our eyes, convert, meaning they filled out a form, they called or they emailed. And you understand that beyond that, and this is a part that you help with immensely is to close the sale. We kind of stop. Our door stops when we get them to inquire to the company that to us is a success. Now you, you talked about search intent. And this is another concept that, it's an easy concept, but we, you know, it can get very, very detailed. But it means, you know, it's not just about like the number of keywords you rank for or the volume of those keywords. The value of those keywords is the action the person is thinking of when they type the keyword. Right. What's their intent? Clearly, if someone types Los Angeles moving company, they're probably looking for a mover, right? That's a very high search intent. And we're happy to get a lower volume of people on that keyword because we know they're probably really thinking of moving and all the way down to something that has a lower search intent, like their, how do I get rid of furniture? How do I recycle boxes? It's a lower search intent. So that's where it starts, the other side of it is to determine. And we do this, we have lists of hundreds and thousands. We have thousands of keywords about moving related to moving, things people do before they move. Right. So one of the things someone does before they move is they might look for a real estate agent. They may look at, is this a good city to move to, things to do in that city, schools. So because we have so much knowledge, me personally and then within our, in within our company about moving, the moving process and then SEO, we want to have a really broad range of keywords we target our clients websites for. But we know that the money keywords are the ones with the highest intent. But if you think about what we talked about earlier, the part about trust and authority and relevance, Google wants to see a successful moving website answer all those questions. They want an authoritative moving website. So we don't just focus on move to San Diego, Los Angeles moving company. We want the whole picture and we want it done organically. Google will give you so many keywords because you're building your strength. So it's back to the workout analogy. We're getting all our muscles stronger and that's what Google wants to see. It's not like the old days where you can just make your site optimized for Los Angeles moving company. It doesn't work like that anymore. But if you do what we're talking about, you will be rewarded so highly by Google because you're answering the search intent. And that's all Google wants. So back to wrap up the search intent. If you think about what is it that the person is trying to do with the keyword that they type, that's the intent. If they're looking to hire a mover, that's the highest. If they're researching a mover, that's next. All the way down to things that have nothing to do with the mover.

Yeah, no, that's. I wanted you to touch on that because that was something you taught me that I was, you know, I just found so interesting and so valuable in just the overall strategy. Because with SEO, it's not. There's strategy involved. Right. I mean, there's, there's pieces that all need to come together in order for it to work and. Well, you know, what, what are, like, what are some of the main core pieces of an overall effective SEO strategy?

Sure. You mean more in, in general and then specific for moving companies, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so like for example, like keywords or blog posts, city pit, like that type of thing.

I mean Those are key components, really. I mean, there's a lot to it, but those are some of the key components, am I right?

Yeah. No. And you basically have them in the right order. First, you really want to understand your keywords. And we talked about the search intent. So let's move on to, you know, we know what the money keywords are, and they're usually the ones that people, when they call us, they say, hey, I want to show up first for New York movers or things like that. And it's like, well, if we do that, you can just pay us a million dollars and we're done.

But.

Because that's probably what it's worth.

And would you call them the money keywords?

Yeah, yeah. The ones that like, you know, most.

Right.

They're the ones that have the highest search intent, the highest volume. They're also the most competitive. But once again, you're never going to rank for those if you don't rank for the hundreds of keywords that we call related keywords. Right. Like Brooklyn mover moving to Queens. So once again, we have to always think like, how's Google thinking? Right? And so when you, when it gets to the keywords, then you think about, all right, how competitive are they? What's the volume of each keyword? Because we want a higher volume, but when we put the search intent into it, that is really how we leverage what we're doing for people. So we would rather have 50 low volume keywords that have high search intent then to that, you know, they kind of like vanity metrics. A lot of SEO companies, you know, not. I mean, there's a lot of good SEO companies out there, but sometimes they just say, hey, look at all the traffic you're getting. But traffic's a vanity metric. It doesn't mean anything. Like you would say, right, if they don't convert, what good is it? And you know, so, so Brian, when you say.

Let me. Let me interrupt you real quick. You say vanity metric, meaning that's just something that looks good but really doesn't mean anything.

Exactly, exactly. Like we could look in someone's Google Analytics and say, wow, look at all your traffic. And it's a metric and it goes up. And it's not a bad thing to have more traffic that actually does increase your authority. But if it's the wrong traffic, it can hurt you. It can actually hurt you. So I call it a vanity metric for that reason. So as far as the keywords, there's a process that goes into taking the keywords, and we already Start with a decent couple of hundred of keywords that we know are going to be strong. Then we go geo into. Because moving is local, right. And people tend to search in their area. And so those keywords kind of go from what's the search intent, what's the volume, what do we think that the competition is for those keywords? So now we're going to look at who your competitors are. We're going to look at the keywords they rank for that you don't, and steal some of those keywords. We want our clients to be, we want them to be our, their competitors biggest nightmare. And, and so getting the right keywords and understanding them is definitely puts you on the right road. And there's endless keywords to go after.

What's. What, what would be, you know, for a moving company that's, you know, there's several companies that, you know, may have nationwide offices, there's companies that, you know, might do a lot of long distance, but for like a local moving company in a particular, you know, metropolitan area, what, what would be, you know, really important component to that SEO strategy?

Oh, yeah, for sure. Okay, great question. So moving companies are what are called service area businesses, right? So this is what you're really talking about. And what that means is they go out to their customers as opposed to a retailer where the customers come to them. So movers like construction companies go out to the job. They service lots of areas from on location. But Google's, you know, Google's really smart, but they're not mind readers. So if you ask yourself, well, how will Google know that my moving company services all the areas 5, 10, 20, 50 miles from my warehouse or office? Because I want Google to know that they're not mind readers. Because, you know, I could be a, you know, you're in Phoenix, I could be a, a Metro Phoenix mover. And Phoenix metro is 500 square miles. But you service Scottsdale, Glendale, Peoria. So the, what you do, the number one thing you do, and certainly what we do is you write and you publish what we call city pages. So they're static pages on your website, but each one is very relevant with a lot of trust and authority targeted to those particular local areas. And the reason, if you think about it, it makes sense. One, it's content and the keywords are going to be in there, for example, for, you know, Glendale or Scottsdale movers and things like that, and people actually type those. But also if I'm in Scottsdale and I type moving company, Google goes, wait, their IP address Isn't just Phoenix, it's Scottsdale. Maybe they want a local mover. So there's numerous reasons that if you understand them and you bake them into the page when you write it, City pages are the number one positive way to influence the results you're going to get in local search. You will kill your competition with good City Pages.

Yeah, definitely. And you guys have, you know, I have a lot of clients that work with you as well, and they have nothing but great things to say. And that's definitely one of the things that I think is a great strategy that you implement. I don't know. I don't know if you do it with every. You do probably do that with everybody, right?

Everyone. We start with our. So, yeah, our two. The two most important strategies is the city pages and then blog posts, if you want to talk about those.

Well, you know, what I like about the way that you do things is that, you know, you don't compromise. Right. You know what it's going to take to get the results. Because a lot of companies will come and, you know, they'll say, hey, listen, I don't need all that. I just want a simple plan for SEO. You know, I'm usually trying to get a better price. Right. That's kind of why somebody, you know, I. I've probably done that in the past to an SEO company.

Right.

Like, you know, it's just. It's just what you do, but. And a lot of companies will go, okay, yeah, no problem, we'll take that piece off and, you know, you could do that piece yourself. And what I do like about, you know, your company and the way you guys do things, it's like, you know what it's going to take to win, and you won't do it any other way.

Yeah.

And, yeah, no, I mean, that's. That says a lot. You know, a lot of people just kind of say, yeah, sure, we'll. We'll cut the package in half. And knowing that it's not going to work, you know, by the way, anybody listening at the end, we're going to give you. Brian's ready to give away an awesome, awesome gift to everybody on the podcast to be able to help you kind of make your way through all of this information here and make sense of it when it comes to your site in particular. So we'll talk about that at the end of the podcast. But let's talk about blog posts, because it's something that requires consistent effort by the company, either the, you know, SEO company or the moving Company, new content is key, right? I mean, they have to be constantly putting out blog posts. So talk about that. I mean, I know I'm putting out blog posts pretty much every week. I know how important it is to the overall strategy. But, you know, talk to companies about why it's so important, how they could go about it and just how to start thinking about blogging.

Yeah, yeah, of course. And for your readers out there, you know, we are kind of giving out, I guess, our secrets, you know, like the city pages. And if you, you are going to want to have those, you know, obviously we could write them for you, you could do them for yourself, but you want to do them. And generally speaking, you know, they are going to gain anywhere from the ones we write from 50 to 200 keywords per page. And there's a mix of how they show up. Now, blog posts, like, you're right, Louis. They, they are the ongoing, constant content. And you know, the biggest mistakes we see movers do when we bring them on as clients with their blog posts. And people work really hard. I mean, movers, I was a mover. I know what it's like. I mean, I would work 10, 12 hours and then do this. And the biggest mistakes that they do is they'll write posts for content that no one is searching for because they kind of just know that content's key and get the content out there. That's the first mistake. The second mistake is you just target the wrong keyword. And I could give you examples of things that are getting great.

Great traffic, but they don't really. They're not anything that's good for them. The third one is kind of a, you know, you publish and you pray. You put a post out there, you leave it. But what we do is we go back, we see how it's doing, and every month or two, we actually adjust it. Is it moving against the competitors, et cetera. So, and just so you know that the stats as far as blog posts is a really well written blog post. Within a year, only 6% of them make it to the first page for any keyword. Now, we kill that. I mean, we're way, way higher than that. But generally speaking, that's what you can expect because think about it, there's millions and millions of blog posts. And what you, you might start out with a blog post and target a keyword. Like, for example, moving to San Diego is a great topic, right? Moving to San Diego. What ends up happening after that blog post as well is, is it start ranking for 10, 20, 50 300, 600 keywords. Because go back to what we said at the start. Trust, authority, and relevance. It takes time, but that's what happens. So if the blog post, and I recommend you write your blog post, you want about 700 words, right? And also it takes anywhere from 20 to 35 weeks approximately for, for a blog post to reach its maturity. So it's almost like close to three quarters of a year before it kind of peaks. And then from there it just keeps gaining traffic. So blog posts are super, super important. You want to start with a really relevant, high search intent keyword and then you kind of marinate into it. You can't just keyword stuff, Louis, like the old days. It's gotta be written and be, you know, Google can read, right? Google can read. It does it with software. So you write an extremely well written blog post around a couple of keywords that are high search intent. Now you have a strategy. You start doing one every week or two or three. You will, it's like working out the gym. You'll be a bodybuilder and you know, in seven months. That's the basic, basic strategy. And.

The other thing that you want to do, it's kind of like a domination secret that I'll give out to your listeners. You have city pages that target cities. Write a blog post that becomes the marriage companion with that city page. So if you have a city page that's about moving to Beverly Hills or Beverly Hills movers, write a blog post about moving to Beverly Hills. We have seen insane results from that, that kind of strategy. That's not the only thing to write blog posts about, but that is a strategy that we know works.

Oh, I mean, I'm sure we could probably do a whole episode on writing blog posts, but you can. You know, one of the things that I'm really surprised with, I mean, when I work with new clients, you know, when people, you know, have different programs that are application only and I do a little research on the companies before I work with them and definitely check out their site. I used to do a, what's called a marketing makeover for people as well. And I'm just really surprised at the way some of the sites out there look. Yeah, you know, there's. I'm kind of seeing two things and you know, at Moving Sales Academy, I teach, you know, the layouts of the websites and how to convert different things. And then, you know, you come on and do your part and it just really all blends together perfectly. But, you know, I either see a beautiful site that somebody built for them or that they used a template and it's just, it's beautiful. However, it's just not designed to convert. And for me, all day long the only purpose of the website is to build trust with your customers and convert them into a lead, period. And you know, to see these beautiful sites that don't have the things they need to convert or on the flip side of that, you know, I'll see companies that are very well established already doing, you know, great numbers, but they have, you know, an archaic website that is not mobile friendly, you know, doesn't have, you know, really it's, they're, they're missing out on tremendous opportunities where they have the trust with Google, but they're losing it because they don't have some of the key elements on the homepage or they don't have a mobile friendly site. You know, as far as just websites in general, because I think that's what a lot of people, you know, tend to, you know, a lot of people before they understand all these concepts that you're talking about today, look at their website as their website brings them business. But if your website doesn't have the visibility, no one's ever going to get to your website. And then once they get to your website, if it doesn't have certain key components, they're not going to convert. And when I say convert, pick up the phone and call the number there or submit a request for a quote using your web form. You know, what are some of the things that can be done or, I don't know, best practices? Like a homepage. Right, talk about the homepage of the website. Because that tends to be the thing that a lot of moving company owners either feel really proud of or feel like I need a new website.

No, it's great and so interesting because the point you made about the single solitary purpose of the website, I just like, they call it like a mic drop. And I said, I was thinking, Louis, you could just drop the mic right there. The only purpose of that website is to get someone to call, email or fill out a form. That's it. I mean there's tertiary reasons, but as far as putting money in the bank, that's it. And you, you know, I was at the last.

Conference you gave. It was funny, I had a lot of downtime and I read through the materials, you know, it was the first time I actually got to read. And all of the information you have in there is still 100% relevant. And it's relevant to what we do as well, and it's one of the reasons I think we work so well together, because we get clients that are mutual and they want to implement what you said. And what you said is already SEO best practices, user experience best practices. So it is true, pretty much everything you said I agree with. And I will tell you that in the metric side, on the homepage is anywhere from 30 to 50% of a website's traffic. So it is true that everyone's busy. If you're going to focus your efforts, you want to put it on the homepage. It's your main entrance page, it's your branded page. It's where someone lands and gets a feel. And we know that more than 50% of the decisions are made by women. They have to feel good. They won't go with a mover they don't feel good about that they don't trust. So, you know, some of the things that we tell people are best practices on design. And your other interesting thing you said is it's frustrating for people sometimes to see that a website that maybe isn't very good, it's ugly, it's old ranking higher. But you know, we'll talk about that in a minute, possibly. But what you do want to do is you want to have a simple header, right? So those people listening look at your header on your website. Have a big phone number that's clickable because people use mobile, so they can use their finger and click on it right.

In your. In your main section, use a video if you want a sample of one. You know, reach out to us through Lewis's site and we'll give you some samples. But nothing engages your client more than a really simple B roll type video. Get away from the stock images. They don't work anymore. They used to be good because they're professional, but they don't work anymore.

Then you want to have, in our opinion, on your homepage, I would put a section where you put your most important statistics. So let the people see, I've been in business 12 years, my claims rate is 3%, things like that. Because once again, you want a short homepage, Louis, because people do not scroll through it. You want it, like you said, mobile friendly. Thank you for saying that. Right, that's really important. So you have at the top, easy header, a little video they can watch a form right there. Don't hide your form. Have a form on every page. Have a really good size one right on your homepage. Your important stats, real reviews right below that and then a footer. And I swear that is the best performing homepage you can get.

You know, when you were, when you were showing me, you know, the heat maps that you guys do, right? That. That is so cool. I mean, so they basically. You guys take. You don't have to tell me how you do it or whatever, but like, you know, it's pretty awesome to be able to look at when a customer comes to the site to see where they actually go.

Right.

I mean, you know, back in the day, it was just like you could tell how long they were on a page, but you, you're able to actually track where they're clicking, what they're looking at, right?

Yeah. So we, you know, when we started this, we wanted to learn how to crack the code. And I just think of that, like, best practices for everything we do in regards to movers. And movers have a homepage that is different than like, we could talk about a restaurant or whatever, right. We. And so we started to look at all our clients and heat map, meaning that we actually put a little software code on it. And we can see over time where do people click, do they scroll? We even can record their sessions. And we got so much data. And that's how we got to understand what is the sort of quote unquote, perfect layout for a moving company website. And that's the one that we kind of just described in the order that we described. But yeah, we could see. And maybe 75% of the time, people don't scroll much past the top 25% of your website. It blows people away when they see it. But it's a fact. That means that's the best real estate. Design it well and put that form where they stay. And your phone number.

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, it's hard for people to want to believe that. Nobody wants to read everything you have to say on your site. I mean, they're on there, they have a very limited attention span and you need to convert them. I mean, that's what it's all about. Turn it into a phone call, turn it into a lead, get it into the office. And then of course, you close the deal and book the move. But, you know, that's the focus, right? I mean, it's really build the trust, which, like you said, you know, women are the majority of who's making the decisions with movers or at least searching for the movers. You know, you need to build that trust with your images, build that trust with things like you said, the years you've been in business and so on. And it Needs to convert. It needs to convert, period.

Hallelujah.

Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that I think a lot of people don't take really good advantage of or, you know, maybe they know about, but they kind of just take it out of the box, if you will, and look at what's there. And I think it's something that could really help their business a lot is Google Analytics.

What are your, I mean, what are your thoughts on Google Analytics? Where, you know, for somebody that's kind of just starting out, you know, I mean, where, where would you, I mean, tell me about it and then tell me, like, you know, what advice you would give when it comes to Google Analytics.

Yeah, I know. It's great advice. You should use Google Analytics. It's free. It's a free Google product. And by you set it up, it's relatively easy to set up. It's going to record for you all of the metrics that Google already sees. Because if Google sees that metrics, Google knows what's going on on your site. Right. And so the metrics that you're going to get is. And they're very helpful because it allows you to adjust how many people. Things like how many people visit my website. Is my traffic going up? Is it going down? Where do my search visitors live? I mean, we do this with our clients every month. It's amazing to people where they're getting search traffic from. And you might say, well, okay, that's great. What do I do with it? But if you're in, you know, in Georgia and you're getting traffic from Tennessee, this could be a good thing. People are finding you. So why don't we write some city pages to bring those people over and get them to convert? You know, you can find out what, where you're getting traffic from, what there's websites that refer. How much traffic are you getting from Yelp, from your. Google My business, you can monitor what marketing tactics are driving traffic. Maybe you have an email, newsletter. What devices are they using? Mobile, desktop. What's my bounce rate? A big, big one that you want to know. And like you said, how long are they staying on my page? And this gets back to some of the suggestions on getting engaging things on your site, like video. They'll stay longer. And, and so in, in relation to that, you. You can track, Louis, the metrics that are not just important to you, but that are going to help you become a pain in the butt to your competitors. Because Google's going to see what they want to see.

What best practice I mean, what would you say, you know, is this something you'd recommend that a moving company owner would look at themselves and if so, like, how often?

Yeah, so I would probably look at them once a month. And you can set Google up to send you reports. It's once, I guess I shouldn't say. It's easy to use, it's easy to set up. And if you're just doing a little bit of it, I mean, we do it in, you know, a very detailed way for our clients because we're looking for certain things. We have a lot of data across all our clients. We, we know how to compare and contrast. But there's no reason that all of the listeners out there, if they haven't done it already, can't set up Google Analytics and just start with, what's their traffic? What's going on with that traffic? Where's it coming from? Who is that traffic? That right there is going to really help you. That's a best practice.

All right. For the people that aren't doing SEO, because I think we both agree it's probably not for everybody.

Meaning there's certain stages of development in your business, in your journey. I mean, we have people listening to this. I mean, that I know for a fact they're doing 15 million a year. We have people that, you know, I know are just getting started, and there's probably people doing much more and everybody in between.

Yeah.

So, you know, and there's people doing SEO and have great strategies going and are probably crushing it in their market. And there's others that know they need to be doing it but haven't started. So, I mean, I know my response is, when I talk about SEO and people ask what the top marketing sources are, and I always refer to SEO as an investment, meaning if you're in business now and you're not turning a good profit.

You really can't afford to make an investment. Right. You need leads that are going to convert right away. You need to be able to put money into, let's say, moving leads or a direct mail campaign or even Google AdWords, which I'll ask you about in a minute. But you need something that's going to convert right away because you don't have the money to invest. And I look at it like this. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, if you barely have money for rent and you barely have money for food, you're not going to go invest in an investment, buy some real estate, investment property, or buy some stocks. You have to meet Your basic needs. Well, some businesses are in a position where they're just meeting their basic needs. They're either just starting or maybe they're going through a rough patch or whatever the case may be. But I tell companies that if you don't have money to invest, then SEO is not for you right now because it does take, you know, several months to be able to start seeing results. I'll let you talk on that in a minute. And I just, you know, I'd love to hear your take on, you know, who it's right for, who it's not right for. I mean, I definitely do believe that the sooner you start, the better, but it isn't, it is an investment, right? I mean, it's going to take some time for people to get results.

No, no, you, I don't think I could have said it any better than you. That's exactly what I would tell someone if they reached out to us because we do a, an initial inventory of, you know, I talk to them about, tell me about your business. You know, give me an idea of the size, number of trucks, warehouse. Because I'm, I was a mover. I understand all that. So the other thing we try and do with people is exactly what you said is like, well, should they even do SEO? And you're right. And someone could be, you know, a $5 million a year company and still do AdWords. Because AdWords, you know, the SEO side is the working out at the gym. So I could work out at a gym for a year. I'm going to stay strong for quite a long time. My muscles just don't atrophy immediately. Right. And Google's the same way because you're building the trust and the authority that continues for quite a while. So the work you do continues. But with AdWords, it's instant. You can turn on an AdWords campaign and within an hour you will have traffic. Of course, you know, you got to keep paying for it, but it's instant. So for someone that, like you said, you know, I remember the, you know, the bucket analogy that you use is a great one. Or just, I can't pay the rent, but maybe I can afford this amount for this month. That is someone who might be a contender for AdWords, you can turn it on, you can turn it off, and if you want, I can talk a little bit about just a couple of points about how to do AdWords effectively or what to think about. But you are right about how to think about, do you do SEO or do you do AdWords or do you do both?

Yeah.

I mean, and I think it's important to just kind of briefly touch on. You know, I know some people, when they hear a strategy, right. They might hear you say, hey, AdWords works. I could get leads. Now maybe they hit pause and they go set up an AdWords campaign. And I think it's definitely very, very, very important that Everybody understands that AdWords could make you and AdWords can break you.

Yeah.

In other words, if you go set up an AdWords account on your own and, you know, not to say you couldn't figure it out and study and do it. Right. But if you're. There's a lot that goes into that and I'll let you touch on it more, but just, you know, it's one of the things that I kind of harp on a lot, which is, you know, it has to. Your. The way you set up the campaign is one thing, then the page you send them to is a whole different thing. Right. Because with AdWords, you're not. You're not. You don't want to send them to your. We don't have to dive too deep into it. But you're not going to send them to your website. We could do. We'll do another episode just on AdWords down the road. You're going to send them to a landing page. Right. And it needs to have different elements on it in order for it to convert, because you're paying for each one of those clicks. And one of the things that people like to focus on with AdWords is how much I'm paying per click and how much you're paying per click. I don't know how you feel about it, but to me, it's irrelevant. It's more about how much you're paying for each lead that you actually get, which is you pay for the click and then how many of them are converting into a lead from there. So you could have a very low cost per click, but if they get to your page and they don't convert, your cost per lead is going to be through the roof. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Well, to that last point, which is. I love that you said it. It's so relevant. There's another concept behind cost per click. Cost per lead or cost per conversion. And it's an area that I think we understand like no one else does because we're movers.

So, Brian, you know what? Let me actually realize. We didn't even really talk about what. What AdWords is. We kind of jumped into it so maybe, maybe we lost a few people, you know, maybe just explain what it is like when they do a search where they would see it like, what's the difference between that and the organic listings? Just a brief description I think would be really helpful.

Okay, thanks. So basically, AdWords are paid ads, right? Because Google search is free. But the ads nowadays only show up at the top and the bottom and it says ad. So if someone types a search like Phoenix Mover, you'll see at the top and then at the bottom it'll say an ad. If you can place that ad by buying or paying for to be placed in that ad, you pay if someone clicks on the ad. So that's how it works. If the world's largest, most complex marketplace, and it's an auction, you bid against other people, you can pinpoint it like a laser, you can turn it on and off. Also, it's interesting that 90% of Google's revenue is from AdWords. It's not going away. Some other stats might be the top three ad spots take 40% of the clicks. And so it is, it is traffic that you buy because you cannot buy organic traffic. You earn it over time. With SEO, it's, you know, it's different.

So that's how it works. I have some ideas about what, you know, I mean, a couple things you can focus on in your campaign. So when people come to us, Louis, we take over their AdWords campaigns, the kinds of things we see that are really common, you know, and you also, you hear from people, I don't know if you've ever heard that. They're like, yeah, AdWords. I just, I didn't have good results. I, you know, I lost a lot of money. And it's usually because the campaign is not set up properly. And so one of the biggest things is you want to have what they call negative keywords. So if someone searches movers right in, but you don't want, what if they search aquarium mover or mobile home truck mover. And like we've taken over campaigns where 30% of the clicks they were paying for were things they would never do. One moving company employee handbook, because the, the search term is moving company, right? So you want to have a really well written list of, of negative keywords because that can be 30% of your budget. And then, you know, I could repeat what you said, but you already said it right. You want to have custom landing pages, set the forms up right, make it mobile friendly. But the other thing that's really interesting is if you do it Right.

Lewis.

What you can get to. Because you always talk about roi, and it's one of the things I love. You're like, okay, everyone can do good with leads if you do it right.

Right.

You got to do it right. What's my ROI? So if you have a good AdWords campaign and you're in, you know, an area, I don't know, like, let's say you're in LA and you say, I will take every move I can get out of Beverly Hills, because those are, you know, three truck, $7,000 moves. I like what you said about just don't focus on your cost per click, because I might be willing to pay $150 a conversion over there because that's a $5,000 move. I don't care if my cost per conversion in an apartment complex is lower. I could look at it and say, lower cost per conversion. I like that better. You have to think about your strategy, which is, where do I want the moves? And if I want the moves out of Beverly Hills, I want to outbid the national guys who aren't thinking like me. So I don't know if that makes sense. But even just like with SEO, with AdWords, if you have a really solid strategy and you understand moving, you can do really well with it, just like you can with leads.

Yeah. And I would just, you know, caution everybody that again, I say it like it can make you or it could break you. And a lot of people, and I say that because, you know, a lot of people say, like you said, you know, I've tried AdWords, it doesn't work. Right. Yeah, and it works. It just, it takes some configuration. And, you know, it's. Anybody could Google how to set up AdWords account. I mean, Google will make sure that they have that information for you. They want your money. Right. They want to show you step by step how to set up a campaign. I mean, you could, you know, probably set it up in an hour, but is it configured correctly? Right. I mean, that's. That's really the big kicker. And I just say that with, with caution, that if somebody wants to go out and do it themselves, take it slow, focus on your roi, focus on how much money you put in versus how much money you put out.

And if you are hiring a professional to do it, make sure they know what they're doing.

Well said.

I just hate to see people with such a bad taste in their mouth over Google AdWords. And, you know, we know why it is. It's just because the strategy wasn't there. It wasn't optimized.

No, it's well said, Louis.

So, Brian, is there anything I'd like to find out from you.

What you feel for our audience, the three keys to success when it comes to their online marketing, their SEO, you know, in your realm and everything that we've been talking about today, what are three takeaways that would be keys to success?

Huh? Okay, so the three three keys to success, I guess.

First would be just understanding that without a strong online presence, you're really severely limiting your growth and you're sort of seeding the field to your competitors. And the only real way to dominate online is SEO. So whether you. Regardless of how you get it done, that's the first key, is you want to do SEO. And then I guess the second key is just set your expectations. You talk about this a lot at the academy and in the materials.

Make your plan and then work your plan. So have your expectation. We discussed here what it takes. It takes time and it takes effort. So put it in your mind that your end goal is the conversions. But with SEO, set your expectations and then you know it is measurable and it is worth it. And then maybe the third one would be the same advice anyone would give someone. Make sure you work with a company that understands some of the concepts we spoke about. They really should understand the moving industry and know how to take you from where you are to those converting customers, which means they actually are signing up to move with you and then they can show you what your ROI is. Those would be my three, I guess my three keys.

Yeah, no, that's very helpful. You know, I think we might have to do a follow up, Brian. I think we might have to kind of dive into some other areas and some more things. I'm sure we're going to get a bunch of questions on all this. You know, for those of you who are not already signed up for Moving Sales Academy Live coming up in October, make sure that you go and you check it out. You can check it out@lewisbassaro.com event. All the details are there. Brian will be there speaking. And it's gonna be an amazing three days. I know many of you have been there before. You'll be back again. But if you wanna learn more about this type of stuff and also everything that I teach through Moving Sales Academy, there's no better place to be at the beginning of October to set yourself up for success in the off season, to be able to dominate the rest of the year. Brian's been very generous and is Offering all of our listeners a website audit. Is that what you would call it, Brian? A website audit?

Yeah, yeah, it's a website audit, user experience audit, and SEO audit. We'll look, we'll drill down into all the aspects of what's going on in your online presence.

So if you're interested in getting, you know, taking a look at your website. So whether you are new to SEO and maybe you have a company that's already doing your SEO and you just want to see where you're at with, you know, no cost, no obligation whatsoever, just head over to LouisMassaro.com that's L O U I S M A S-S-A R O.com SEO. Put your name, your website, and the email address that you want Brian to go ahead and send out your audit to, and he'll take care of that for you free of charge. You could take that and use that as your baseline for moving forward with your SEO plan, your SEO strategy. If you want to work with Brian and his company, you'll be able to, you know, email back once they send you that information. And if not, we hope that you take this information and, you know, make good decisions about what you're going to do with your SEO plan moving forward. Brian, anything else you want to add before we.

I would just say that anyone who's listening, sign up for the next event in October. I'll be there. It's like a fine wine. The material gets better and better, but you know, you'll have, if you want more, one on one time to obviously talk to both of us and we'll be there in person. So that's really it.

Yeah, and I would say definitely 100%, get yourself the free audit. It's just, it'll be a real eye opener for a lot of people. You know, I mean, I actually had him do it for my site and I was really surprised at what I found. So if you want that, no charge, no pressure, no, you know, you don't need to sign up with Brian. You don't need to, you know, hire him to do your SEO. But if you want that, just, you know, once you get the email back, reply back to him and he'll be more than happy. I'm sure to set up a call with you. Just head over to LouisMissaro.com SEO and Brian, thank you so much. I'm really looking forward to seeing you in October.

Yeah, me too. And like you said, and I do encourage everyone to take advantage of the free audit. We put a lot of effort into it. We're going to get backed up from the podcast, so bear with us as far as getting it done. But you're going to learn a lot of really actionable things about your website and understand where you are and where you could be. So thanks a lot, Louis. It's been a lot of fun.

Thank you, Brian. All right, take care. Thanks every. Thanks everyone for tuning in to another episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast. Definitely. Let me know what you think about this podcast. Head over to itunes, leave me a review. You know, rate the podcast. Let me know what you're thinking. That's kind of where I go to gauge, you know, where you guys are at. If you're liking this episode that we did today with Brian or the other types of episodes that we do. Also send me a message on Instagram. It's at Lewis Massaro, you know, hashtag the Moving Mastery Podcast. We're always giving away gifts and prizes and trips to our seminars and cool stuff that, you know, for people that are participating. And let me know, you know, what's going on, what they like, what they don't like, and, you know, any listener questions, we always, you know, are able to answer those in future episodes, too. So until I talk to you guys next time, go out there every single day. Profit in your business, thrive in your life. I'll talk to you soon.

Sa.