How to Improve Your SEO to Expand Your ROI

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm really excited for today's guest because he's going to help us with a lot of marketing and can I get better at it. But before we talk to our guests, I'd be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host, the brain, the professor. You know him, you love him. Scott Todd. Scotttodd.net landmodo.com learn anything but anything. Investor ninjas.com Scott Todd how are you, Mark?

I'm great.

How about you? I'm good, I'm good. You know, this whole Covid thing, I'm cutting my own hair now, so I'm a little self conscious about that.

You know, it's funny because I was looking on Sunday, I was looking at my hair. I'm like, time for a haircut. And I've cut it. I've cut my own hair. Like I can't remember. It's two or three times now. I haven't gone back to the, to the salon or to the, you know, the sports clips or wherever. The hair, the barber. And you know, like, I go there and I'm like, I don't know that I need you guys anymore. I can do it myself.

Yeah, I'm feeling the same way. It's like good enough. I mean, it's all jacked up, but it's good enough.

Who cares?

But let's talk to our guest, John Vong of Local SEO search dot com. John is a seasoned sales professional and Internet marketer. He has an exceptional track record helping companies grow their clientele and profits. He's been doing this for 15 years. He's got experience working with CEOs, business owners and marketing leaders in some of Canada's most successful corporations. He has owned local SEO search since 2013. He's helped over 5,000 local business owners. John Vong, welcome.

Well, thanks a lot, Mark. I'm excited. Thanks for having me here today.

Yeah, thanks for coming. So, John, let's rewind the tape a bit and tell us like, what got you interested in marketing and how you became the owner of local SEO Search?

Yeah, so I'll take a couple years back. I would say even before I started this company out of university, I studied business finance and I didn't know what I really wanted to do at that time. I went to school thinking I wanted to be more of an accountant finance guy. I did some interns and I hated that desk job. And my first opportunity of work was really sales, sales and marketing. And I didn't know at that time, but I really knew that it was a required art and I refined it. Over the years I got better. I listened to a lot of Zig Ziglar's, Brian Tracy's, all those influential people that actually got me to where I am. And at that time, Internet wasn't really the thing. Right. Like Google wasn't dominating at that time. And for me, so it was audio tapes, listening to MP3s and just getting better in sales. And so that 10 years before I started my company, I actually worked at some medium media companies locally and really helped these business owners just get better, good ROI understanding, you know, the impressions, the clicks, the ROI and what really matters for business owners. And by the time I left that whole large media space, I knew there was a need, there was a desire for business owners to understand and work with someone they can trust, but someone that can really help them grow their business. Right. Help them, guide them, and give them a really good return. Because previous to Google existing, it was yellow pages that kind of dominated the space where every single business owner had to be there to really capitalize on the local landscape. And it really did benefit a lot of local business owners to scale their business, get a lot of, you know, good, good returns on that. So when I left, I actually started this company because I knew there were hundreds of customers that used to work advertise locally that were frustrated. So I kind of just let them know I'm moving towards this direction. I didn't really understand SEO at that time, but I knew there was a demand and need. So that's how I started because my background was in sales and marketing. So I had that relationship built with customers and they were ready to move away with me and I just had to figure out how to then help them rank on Google.

Okay, great. So let's just pick on Scott Todd for a second. Right. So Scott and I are talking about marketing some properties that he has, let's say in Texas. Right. He's got a lot of them in this part of Texas. And Scott says to me, you know, Mark, I'm killing it on Craigslist and Facebook. I'm not spending money on these Google searches. Yep. And I say to him, well, John Vaughn would say this.

Yeah, so it's a different type of clientele, I would say, depending on the platform that you're using. Craigslist, Kijiji, Facebook, social media, it is a different type of person going on those sites. To do research and looking for properties. Right. Typically it's someone that's looking for a deal. Right. You're offering a lower tier, you know, price point. Someone that's going shopping on Google is someone that they understand Google has already vetted those business owners. They understand that Google has done their best job positioning those business owners or websites to be more of an expert or authoritative figure. And therefore they're serving them up. And that's what we do. We help business owners achieve that dominant space on a local market or broad market, it doesn't really matter. It's basically on the terms that they offer, like services and products. And it's all about just making sure that they own their niche and domain. And how do we do that? Right. Google has so many signals, they're changing their algorithm all the time. And yes, it does take time to do that, but ultimately that's prime real estate. And I know this is the land podcast. And as you know, owning versus renting is, is a different beast altogether. And when you're spending money on ads, that's like renting space. But when you own and dominate your space, that's what Google can provide you on the natural landscape of things.

Scott Todd, what do you think? What are your thoughts?

So here's my question. Like how would I me, how would I compete against a large company that has like a whole team, teams and teams and teams of people that are out there work on the SEO? How do I do it? And it's not a quick fix, right? Like this is a long term investment and then how much does it cost me to do this thing? Yep.

And these are great questions because every day I get the same questions from either small, medium size, large, Fortune 500 companies. Right? Why should I invest today? It's like real estate. If you don't invest now, it's gonna get more expensive. It will take longer in the future. Right. So why not start today? And if there was a magical solution that you knew it worked five years ago and prices of real estate was less expensive, if you had that magical ball to predict that, you would have said, I should have bought it back then. 100 more properties, right? So SEO is the exact same thing. You understand that there's paid ads at the top and then there's natural free ads below that. And what you want is that coveted space, organic listings. And as a small business owner versus competing with a Fortune 500 company that has hundreds and thousands of dollars that can spend on either in house teams or hiring big agencies. But what you have to go after is opportunities that still exist. Just like how there's opportunities in land. You just have to be creative. You got to figure out what terms there are that will convert to higher conversion rate. Because if you're going after the broad terms that every other big Fortune 500 companies are going after that have big budgets, good luck trying to rank against them. So you have to look for creative ways to really capitalize. And that's where SEO can really help business owners. Small, medium sized to large corporations. Doesn't really matter. It all depends on really the investigation of how you go about doing that research.

What's some of the worst advice you see or hear given in ranking organically on Google?

Well, I see it all right, Because I've been doing this for seven years. There's a lot of guarantees. There's a lot of people that phone you and call you, or out of the blue, email outreach you with a great price, great offer. The problem is you have to understand what they're really doing, and that's a problem. A lot of business owners or people who get these emails are sold by the price and not knowing what is really involved to get them good results, right? So you have to understand the foundation of why Google would rank you in the first place. Once you realize that, then you can have a better idea as to what it really takes on if you were to do it yourself or hire a company to do it for you. So it's education ultimately, right, in terms of SEO or in terms of business in general, right? Don't go do things just because you heard of it or you read it or watched a video or listened to someone. Do your own due diligence, right? And talk to people that have gone through what you've gone through. Experience. Is everything all right, Scott?

Todd?

Yeah, I mean, like, see, that's, that's where I think a lot of people struggle with this, this whole SEO concept, right? Because ultimately, one, there's no guarantee, right? Like, you know, we talked about how, you know, you're putting your ads on Craigslist or Facebook or wherever, and that's kind of rented land, if you will, but Google's also rented land and you're kind of playing that piece. There's no, there's no guarantee. And I think that's where a lot of people struggle with this whole thing is, man, I'm gonna sink money. I can't even tell you how much money is gonna be there, right? Like, I can't tell you how much it's gonna cost me to get There I can't get a guaranteed result. Why do it? Like, why not do what works? I mean, like, okay, it's different, but I don't know, like, how much. See, even in real estate, I can buy, I know it's going to cost me this to produce this, right? It's going to cost me a dollar to produce $4. But how do I get my ROI? How do I put my brain around this whole SEO thing to determine, like, yeah, there is in fact value there. I'm going to get this amount of money back?

Yep. And these are really good questions because like any business owner, they want that roi. They want to see visually see that end product, right? If you put a flyer ad out, you put a magazine ad, you put a paid ad on Craigslist or Google or Facebook, you see the actual ad, you see metrics. The challenge is the user's behavior of when they're in search of a product or a service, right? Do they click on ads? First off, they're bombarded with ads everywhere. You see, from TV ads, radio ads, Facebook ads, Google Ads. But you as a consumer, you're a user. Where do you go when you're ready to buy? Do you click on the ads or do you not click on the ads? That's where people then kind of understand what? Well, if I'm the average consumer and say 60, 70% of these people don't click on ads, where do they go? Right? So you have to be a believer yourself that you don't click on ads. And then how do you get there? Right? So, yes, there's time, but there's an analysis. You got to figure out what really works and what moves the needle. Unless you're in it and you've played around with the space and you saw people have really good success, you. You're going to be a non believer. I get it. Right. The challenge is how do you get to the other side? Because there's a lot of business owners that are capitalizing and dominating the space and owning their niche because they're ranking so well with so many terms locally, nationally, internationally, and they're capitalizing with leads every day, every minute, right? How do you get to their stage? Right? Like, how do you get there? Well, it starts off with being a believer that SEO can really move the needle because there's a lot of mediums out there in terms of advertising. Like you mentioned paid ads. But then there's also trade shows, radio, television, you know, traditional media that still plays a role in advertising, right? And then there's you know, salespeople. Right. Like that's also another avenue. Telemarketers, outdoor sales, like all that, it's all about growing your business. But if you believe that Google is a really good medium for your business to captivate some good users that are actively looking for your business and services today, then you should kind of investigate it further.

So, John, let's say that I'm a believer and I've been in business, let's say three years.

Yes.

But I don't know definitively how much it costs me to acquire a customer.

Yes.

And I don't know the lifetime value of my customer. Would you say to me, mark, you're not ready for organic or paid search on Google until you know these numbers. Because until you know these numbers, we don't know what your ROI is going to be.

So with SEO, because there's so many touch points, there's so many signals that Google's looking for, it's hard to refine even that. The lifetime value customer, the first time acquisition cost, it's easy for ads because you have an abstract dollar figure. Right. The challenges with SEO, there's so many components throughout that process from creating good content, development time, link time, social media, engagement, reviews, reputation. There's so many components to it that it really can't give you an abstract dollar figure. My big thing would be first believe that SEO can really help you grow your business. If you're believing, then you got to figure out who your ideal customers are, because then you can cater your website to attract those type of people. And once you refine that in the, you know, you've been doing it for three years, you've probably transacted on hundreds of customers. You know who those top 10 of those customers are. You have that Persona built. Once you understand that Persona, buyer Persona, then you cater towards that website to attract more of those type of ideal customers of yours. That's when an SEO campaign can really elevate your game.

So, so if I was. Okay, so I'm, I'm a believer. Okay. I'm a believer. I believe. And I go to you and I go, okay, John, I believe that this is the way to do it. How does it work? Do I just give you a check every month and then you just work on it like forever and ever and ever and ever? Right. Like is that the strategy is like you just work on it every month?

Yeah. So the thing is, Google is updating their algorithm daily nine times a day. Last year, that was how many times they update their algorithm. There's Always changes and they're trying to always provide the best results. There's a lot of people trying to trick Google with spam, toxic links, ways to try to, you know, deceive Google to get you ranked. We play by the book. So we always have to stay on top of what Google's guidelines are. And they're always tweaking things. So that's the thing about real time constant updates and tweaking. Just like your phone, there's updates that occur on a regular basis, just like your websites. If you have plugins, you have to update it so that there's people that don't, you know, hack into your site servers, right? So with SEO, yes, you gotta constantly pay unless you know how to manage it yourself, right? And do the SEO work yourself. The challenge is, you know, it's always changing. So this is an evolution and it's not like traditional media where you do it once and that's it, you set and forget it. Because there's an amount of people that constantly watch tv, you know, that's what happens. But today's day and age, there's so many different apps, there's new software, there's new mediums that is constantly coming out, right? From Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, you name it, right? Social, TikTok and all this other stuff coming up. And there's always new stuff. And with Google, it's still Google. Bing, Yahoo has the three major search engines, Baidu in China. So these are the big search engine players, right? Unless you believe that there's another one coming out. I focus on Google, right, Because I believe I spend Google a lot, I consume search a lot. I either use video like YouTube, listen to podcasts, I consume content like images, I read a lot, right? So with Google as a search engine, I still believe it's the dominant place where people are spending time during a transactional process. Throughout that buyer journey, they still use Google either at beginning informational phage, ready to buy, or even afterwards after the purchase. And if you believe that, then why not invest in something that you know, a lot of your customers are using today?

Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. So John, the question then is, you know, how much content do we need to rank? Because I've been reading up for SEO search, you need lots and lots of content. And videos are going to beat blogs, blog postings. If you have a podcast, you better transcribe it, that combine it, in fact, even better make a video, transcribe it, be everywhere. And then I've read less is more quality over quantity. What's going on?

Yeah. So I always say put out content that positions you as that leading expert. Do depth research versus just to do it for quantity purposes. I always say whatever you do and put out there, make sure that it's the best that you can produce. Right. To position yourself as that expert, don't just do it for the sakes of doing it, because Google will recognize if you're doing it to try to just do it or do it to position yourself as someone that knows what they're talking about. Right. So it's like running a business. Right. And if you've been doing it for many, many and being fairly successful, what really matters is you take care of your clients, you offer a really good value prop. You know your differentiators, you understand who your ideal customers are. You understand how to run a really good business. Focus on where your customers are consuming that information. Don't focus on just doing it everywhere because you believe that's what Google's looking for. Focus on what your type of client is consuming. Content. If it's video, focus more on creating good quality video and producing good content. If it's social, create really good images with a compelling hashtags and content. Bits and pieces. Right. Don't do it just to do it. Do it for who your audience is and where they're consuming content. So if you believe search is where your customers are now navigating and potentially finding you from, focus on search. Right. Invest your dollars where you believe will give you the best roi. And I truly believe as a business owner myself, and I've worked with hundreds of business owners for SEO, it's still one of the most dominant places to get a really good roi.

All right, fantastic. So, John, because I know Scott Todd is a total skeptic about everything.

Yes.

Can you. Can you give us a case study of a recent client where you took them from, you know, before and then got them ranked and then after and what the results looked like?

Yeah.

So from beginning to end in the timeline.

Yeah. So we, we've been doing this for seven years. We sign clients on monthly and there's a process. Right. Each client is unique to its situation because they're in different niche, different demographic, different keywords. So we can't just say this is broad, but we know the type of things that needs to be done. Right. Understand the client, understanding the differentiators, creating good, compelling content. Pieces written, understanding what makes them stand out. Of course. So images, videos, podcasts, audio, written. But personalize with a story, brand it so Once you have a really good website and optimize with less errors because constantly you have to make sure technically it's sound. And then you build influence so it's foundationally the same. You get good content, you fix all the mistakes or recreate a new website and then you amplify that message by letting other people know about you. And this is where links come into play, where you have to let. It's like traditionally without the Internet, it was all word of mouth and referrals, right? And that's how you grew your business. Today, if you want to dominate on Google or search, you have to have other people talk about you that links back to your website. So that's like a word of mouth referral. So you have to really do good work for other people to have mentioned you and really back you up. Right? So it's all about just running a really good business. And then of course, after the fact is get more reviews, get case studies, white papers, testimonials. All that is all about running a really good business. If you run a good business, then we can help you really scale your business through SEO. But if you run a really not so good business and you have really bad reputation, you know, people aren't, you know, happy with your services and products. Like, we can't help people that aren't running good businesses. We only want to help people that actually understand how to run a good business and have been doing it for a little bit.

All right, fantastic. Scott. Todd, any thoughts?

No, no, I'm not. I wouldn't say I'm a skeptic. I do believe it. I see how it works and I see the influence of being on front page or top, top pieces. Right. Like when you have the number one position of something man, your, you light it up on that, that keyword. I see that through Lanmoto for the ones that were ranked high on. And I'll tell you, you know, it's. It's just a hard pill to swallow is I'm just gonna write someone a check and I have no guarantee results. That's, that's hard, right? Like that's, that's a piece. So it's, it's really that, that thing of I believe and you just jump.

So these are things that I hear a lot and I've transitioned a lot from paid ads or even traditional like trade shows and radio, television. A lot of people spend a ton of money on advertising to figure out what works for them. Right. And they're skeptics like yourself because they don't Know what they don't know. Like, you go to Treasure, you put a booth out, you know, your ideal customers are walking through the floor and maybe your exhibitor stands out and they're going to transact, like interact with them. You actually are there. The challenge with SEO is a lot of it's behind the scenes, especially if you're not technical savvy. You don't really know what goes on behind the scenes. The big thing is trusting someone that you know that they are in it with the best interests in mind, like yourself, and really going through it yourself, like, it's hard to grasp, but when you see the fruits of it, it's very rewarding, right? Because like you mentioned, you see some of the keywords that are ranking, you see the traffic and hopefully the conversion rate if you're tracking everything. But without knowing what you see today, it's very hard to know what you're going to get unless you know someone that have actually gotten good results. It's hard, right? SEO is a lot. It's a huge unknown because, you know, Google loves paid ads because that's where they make the money through AdSense and search, right? It's all ads, same as Facebook. They make their money through data mining, selling this, right? Gathering all this information, displaying ads at you, catered towards big companies that want to target specific ads in front of people, right? What you want to do is naturally appear in front of Google because, you know, a lot of people will even scroll below those ads knowing that they just want to look for someone that's not paying for that space, right? And that's where you have to understand, like working with SEO or doing it yourself, positioning yourself as an expert will always give you the best type of lead source. The quality is always better, bounce rates lower. Just refining it. And I've done a lot of different media advertising over the years, and I've seen the results of every form, you name it. And I've spent tons of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars in every form of advertising. And I know for a fact that SEO, if done right, can really bring you the best type of return on investment.

All right, well, John, this has been great and your mentorship has been invaluable. But we are now at that point where we ask you for your tip of the week. But before we get to the tip of the week, I have here for my producer, I've got to read a script about our sponsor for today. And our sponsor for today's podcast is Fight School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform the your life. Go up the mountain of land, investing quickly, efficiently, safely with none other than land geek Yoda himself, Scott Todd. He'll take you up there, literally transform your life. Because once your passive income exceeds your fixed expenses, you're working because you want to, not because you have to. Total freedom is yours. How do you learn more? Go to landgeek.com training schedule, a call with the Zen master Mike Zaino or the nightcap OG Scott Bossman, thelandgeek.com training and thank you to flight school for sponsoring today's podcast. So, John, we're at that point now. What is your tip of the week? A website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

So over the last, I would say six months, I've been really transitioning my health and I've been reading on a daily basis and books every week. So I have a couple, but I know that this is quite a few. So over the last week I read a couple of these books from Paleo to keto to really understand just how fat works. I've never studied health and nutrition, so this is all new and interesting to me. Over the last six months, lost about 35 pounds, where now it's all about optimizing my life. And this is very impactful for me because now that this Covid is happening, I eat better, I do all grass fed, I order all organic foods, everything that I've never really been educated on this front. Now I'm able to take control of my health, lifestyle, not just my business because, you know, business. I've been doing this for so many years. It's kind of like on the back of my head, right? Like this is all new, so I really want to ingest the source. So for me, there's tons of books from Gary Tubbs to Nina Teachloth, Katherine Shanahan, all these are great books. And yeah, it's all about health for me.

No, that's great. Don't give any of those to Scott Todd because if I go to Tampa and he's like, mark, no more Cuban bread for us. Because I read all these paleo books and keto books from John Vong, I'm going to go into a deep, deep depression. So, Scott, you can ignore all that. Scott Todd, what's your tip of the week?

Mark, check out, check out this app, okay? It's called the any line. It's@anyline.com anyline keyboard. So basically it's the the any line keyboard. And I put it in the chat, by the way, if you go there, look, the cool thing is you download this app onto your phone or this keyboard onto your phone. You know how, like, you go and you, like, look at a gift card or something. You got to scratch off the back. It's got the number on there. You got to type the number or whatever or, I mean, there's various uses for this things. Credit cards, you know, it's just. It's just old. Typing is old. So all you do is you. You bring up this keyboard, you put this code in front of it, it pops up on your phone automatically. No, like instant copy paste right where it needs to go. Saving time. You have it?

I have it already. It is amazing. You can scan your passport, vouchers, barcodes. It's amazing. Save so much time because again, what's our philosophy? Scott Todd can always make more money. Make more money, can't get any more time. So that's a. That's a great tip. It's almost as good as my tip of the week, which is also going to save you time and make you money. Learn more about John and dominating owning instead of renting. Go to local seoseosearch.com I have a link to it localseosearch.com and learn more. John Vong, are we good?

Yeah. Thanks a lot, Mark and Scott. I really had fun. Hopefully your audience members enjoyed this discussion. And if you do have any questions, feel free to reach out to us.

Excellent. Scott Todd, are we good?

We're good, Mark.

Well, I want to thank the listeners and remind them the only way, the only way we're going to get the quality of guests like a John Vong is if you do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, get a rate. You have to review the podcast, send us a screenshot of that review to support thelandgeek.com we're going to send you the $97 wholetailing course for free. So please do that. All right, Scott, you ready to do this?

I am.

One, two, three, Let freedom ring. Not bad, not bad. We always do that at the end, John, so that you actually would actually show up for the podcast. Because I think if you knew, you'd be like, oh, no, I'm not doing.

Thanks a lot, guys.

Thanks, everybody.