Imperfect Marketing

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Imperfect Marketing

Episode 64: Controlling How You and Your Brand Show up On Google with Jason Barnard, Digital Nomad

January 19, 2023 • Kendra Corman • Episode 64

0:00 | 33:42

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In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, I had the honor of speaking with a Digital Nomad, Jason Barnard.

Jason is not just a digital marketing expert; he has been a cartoon blue dog and is a musician with the double bass as his specialty. When we recorded, I got a chance to look around his music room, and it was pretty cool to see all of his instruments.

Basically, we talked about the importance of Google SERPs or Search Engine Result Pages for YOU and your business or organization.

Two big takeaways:

Educate Google and give them a consistent message about who you are.
Think about the customer experience. Google is sending their customers to you; if they have a good experience, they will send them back. If they don't, they won't.

The thought process of Google sending me their customers in search totally blew my mind. I never really thought about it that way.

So many of my customers ask, "how do we rank on page 1? What do we need to do?"

But suppose you flip your thinking to the problem you solve and instead focus on adding value for the visitors that Google sends you. In that case, it takes you further away from games and more toward what you should be thinking about—creating a great user experience for the visitors that come to your site, from Google or anywhere.

Resources from Jason Barnard

Additional Free Resources:

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Kendra Corman:

Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Imperfect Marketing. I am extremely excited today because we have a Google expert.

Jason Barnard is here. He's an author and digital marketing consultant. He specializes in brand SERPs, S E R P, which is search engine result pages. That's what happens when people go Google your brand name or your personal name the knowledge panels, that's what Google understands about you and what you do.

It's very cool. One of the interesting things that I liked about his bio in history is that he's never had a proper job, is what he says. He's always been part of a gig economy, especially appropriate term during his time as a professional musician.

Very interesting. So you are considered a digital nomad. Tell me a little bit about that.

Jason Barnard:

Right. That's really delightful. I love the way you presented that. It really is about what does Google says about us, and it's what our audience sees through Google's lens, that's incredibly important to our business and our own personal brand.

And as you said, I am a digital nomad. I haven't had a proper job in my entire life, and it's delightful. It's dangerous, it's difficult, it's never easy, but at least you do lots of things that you really like.

Kendra Corman:

That's good. That's what's important, right?

So, let's, let's talk about Google. You say Google is the new business card.

What do you mean by that?

Jason Barnard:

Right. Well, I mean, I think during Covid we all ended up with this idea that when you are sitting on a call with somebody, you are under the table Googling them. That was already the case before, but now we see.

So Google is your business card, because when I'm talking to you, Kendra, I'm immediately thinking, who is she? What does she do, and is she credible?

So I'm Googling you under the table during our meeting, and I think that's true of 98% of everybody's business meeting.

Kendra Corman:

So how do you control what you look like?

Jason Barnard:

It's actually really simple, and that's one of the delightful things from my perspective, is that I come from a world of SEO, search engine optimization, where my industry likes to make it seem complicated, and it really isn't complicated at all.

It's all about how am I presenting myself to my audience and how can I package that for Google. Google's aim is to present me in the way that makes sense to my audience, and as long as I'm honest about the way I present myself. As we say in English, Bob's your uncle.

It's really simple. I present myself. Google will present me in the way that I want as long as I can package it for Google.

So search engine optimization in terms of brand narrative management is all about packaging for Google.

Kendra Corman:

So when you talk about packaging for Google, is that just search engine optimization or are there other pieces that are included in that?

Jason Barnard:

That's a really interesting question. From the perspective of, what you present to Google should be the same thing that you present to your audience.

And all you're doing for Google is saying, how does the machine understand this?

So if I'm posting on Facebook or on Twitter or on my own website, how can I best package it for Google so Google can accurately present me to my audience in the way that I want?

So my brand narrative that I'm already giving to my audience is there. The only question then is through Google's lens, let's say, how can I, I was gonna say manipulate it, but it's not.

It's how can I help Google understand who I am, what I do, which audience I serve, so that it can present me accurately to my audience when they Google my brand name?

Kendra Corman:

You talk about educating Google, cuz Google needs to be educated about who you are in your brand and things like that. So it does goes out, finds things across the internet, right?

Facebook, Twitter, website. How do you educate Google outside of just being active and posting and sharing?

Jason Barnard:

Right. Yeah, and that's a huge question, is that we imagine that we post these things on different platforms and it's all terribly isolated, but it's not.

Google sees all of this, Facebook, Twitter, my own website, clutch.co, ZoomInfo, Crunchbase, all of these platforms. Google will see it, Google will digest it.

And it's up to me to make sure that that digital ecosystem is consistent and accurate, positive, and convincing to my audience.

So we end up with a situation where I'm looking at, looking at it, excuse me, from a point of view of saying, how can I in ensure that Google presents me to my audience in the way I want through my brand, set the result on Google for my own name or my brand name.

But at the end of the day, what we're doing is making sure that all of those different references through which our users, our audience, are seeing us are consistent or accurate. Google simply reflects what it is we've put out there.

So hugely important. Use Google as a measurement of how you're perceived online, but make sure that the way you are presenting yourself makes sense to you and to your business.

Kendra Corman:

So I know that a lot of people, there's some people who are starting out who have never Googled themselves or their business. And there's other people who are trying to manage their Google rankings within an inch of their life, right?

If somebody was starting out, what's a piece of advice that you would give them, towards starting their profile?

Jason Barnard:

Right. Well, the single most important thing is to decide yourself, where is the reference point for me or my company, or my podcast, or my music album, whatever it might be.

I need one page on the web where I can explain to Google, and indeed to my audience, who I am, what I do, and which audience I serve.

So the first question is to say, what is my reference webpage? And for a company that's often the company homepage.

For a human being, for individuals like myself, you would think, well, maybe I can put that on my company website. I would advise you to put it on your own website that you control. Because you might leave the company, you might sell the company if you're the owner.

And from that perspective, it's saying what is the one source of truth from yourself that google can find, and indeed, your audience can find, that You can reference absolutely everywhere and forever.

Kendra Corman:

So I like that, you know, for a company, it being its website. For a person being your own website.

A lot of people use LinkedIn as their own website. What are, are your thoughts about that? Is that enough or do you think that people need their own website too?

Jason Barnard:

Yeah. That's a lovely question because LinkedIn belongs to Microsoft.

Kendra Corman:

Yep welcome to the world of Bing.

Jason Barnard:

Exactly. LinkedIn is great, but you want to be sure that you own the reference to yourself. Be it for Bing, be it for Google, be it for your audience.

So rather than sending people to LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter, send people to your own website. And from there they can choose if they want to interact with you on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

So, and. For me is the crucial point. Bring people to your own website, then allow them, or give them the opportunity to interact with you on these different platforms. Some people prefer LinkedIn, some people prefer Twitter.

Giving them the choice from your own website is hugely important, and making sure that your own website represents you in the way that you want to be represented is hugely important.

Control.

Kendra Corman:

It's all about control, right?

I mean, what, Facebook and Instagram's gone down at least twice in the last couple years, I think.

Jason Barnard:

Yeah.

Kendra Corman:

Twitter had its best day ever.

Jason Barnard:

Yeah. And then, and then you look at Twitter. I mean, I, whatever your opinion of Elon Musk is, what can he do? He can close your account down tomorrow.

That's the end of, that's the end of your presence on Twitter. If you are sending everybody to Twitter and Elon Musk closes you down, that's the end of your digital presence or your capacity to communicate with your audience.

If they come into your website and you're then sending them to Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn, it gives you control.

Kendra Corman:

I like that a lot. And I think the thing that's important to remember is that social media is rented land. You own

Jason Barnard:

brilliant,

Kendra Corman:

own your website, email marketing. You want to own your contacts and you want to own your brand identity, which I think is really, really important.

So let's talk about search engine results pages or SERPs.

What is a brand SERP and how would somebody check on theirs? How do they, why would they care about it?

Jason Barnard:

Right. Well, number one, why do you care? You care because the people that you have communicated with, offline, online, wherever it may be, are gonna Google your name, your personal name, or your company name, at some point.

What they see is absolutely crucial. If you're looking at Google or Bing for that matter, it's their stamp of approval on what you are saying.

And if I have talked to you and you've talked to me about business, and all of a sudden I search your name Kendra, and it comes up as cartoons. I'm confused. I am suddenly doubtful about your credibility within the business world.

So what Google or Bing shows when somebody Googles your name is phenomenally important. It's your business card. People don't look at your business card with the same emphasis as they look at the Google result or the Bing result.

You need to make sure that Google and Bing represent you the way you want because that is their stamp of approval.

They are the authorities. They are the companies who are vouching for us, let's say recommending us.

Kendra Corman:

So one of the things that I encourage most of my clients to create is their Google business profile. I think that's what they're calling it now. It used to be Google My Business.

How important is that and updates inside of that, when it comes to your brand identity on Google?

Jason Barnard:

It, it's super, super important and you have to make one distinction, which is you and your company. The Google business profile is for your company. You yourself are different.

So even if you are a, an independent consultant, you and your company are two separate things and you need to make sure that in your own mind you are communicating that.

Jason Barnard, for example, is a consultant, but he is also a musician. So my Google business profile will say, Jason Barnard is a consultant, but my own personal profile will say, I'm a musician, I'm a cartoon blue dog, I hang out with my friends.

There's two very different things and we need to define that in our own minds and be able to communicate that to Google and Bing because they simply don't understand If we are not clear ourselves.

Kendra Corman:

Okay, so you said something interesting. What's a cartoon blue dog that you are?

Jason Barnard:

Oh right, yeah, sorry. I keep throwing that into conversations and people dunno. I was, I played the role of a cartoon blue dog, or a blue dog in a cartoon, 20 years ago.

And one of the reasons that I'm so obsessed by how Google represents us is because when people search my name 20 years ago, it would say, "Jason Barnard is a cartoon blue dog."

And I've changed that to Jason Barnard is an author, an expert on search engine optimization, an expert on brand management, and an expert on your narrative on Google. And it's taken me years to get Google to understand that although I was a cartoon blue dog, or a blue dog in a cartoon, I am now a digital marketer.

Kendra Corman:

Very cool.

So, all right, so let me ask you about, and I know I'm surprising you with this, so bear with me. Oh yeah. So Google rolled out their helpful content update.

Jason Barnard:

Hmm.

Kendra Corman:

Couple months ago, I don't know. It's getting close to half a year ago now, it feels like. But a lot of people took some big hits in the rankings because they were still trying to, I don't know, I wanna call it play the game with Google.

Google is getting too smart for games, I think. And they don't necessarily write for people. They're writing, they're trying to write for bots and things like that, and just put out a ton of content on a ton of different topics.

What have you seen this Google helpful content update do or, or what's your take on it?

Jason Barnard:

That's a great question.

There's been a whole shift of Google's understanding of the world, which has been announced for the last seven or eight years, and literally the last six or seven months, all of a sudden Google has really got to grips with it and it's saying, We are starting to understand the world.

We're starting to understand who you are. We're understanding what you represent and what your expertise is, and therefore, we can better match you to our users who are searching for a solution to their problem.

So from that perspective, if you've been cheating the machine, which was really easy for. You are now in a situation where you're saying, I now need to prove that I'm an expert, that I'm authoritative, and I understand what I'm saying, and that I can truly offer a great solution to Google's users.

And you should never, ever, ever forget with Google that the people Google are sending to you might be your audience, but when Google sends them to you, they're Google's users. So you are asking Google to recommend you as the best solution to the specific problem that user has just expressed.

Kendra Corman:

I have never heard that put that way, and I love that.

I had a guest on my podcast a while ago who, she was talking about selling on Amazon and optimizing for search inside of Amazon. And one of the really interesting things that, things that she said is, "you will do great on Amazon if you remember one thing, they're not your customers, they're Amazons.

Jason Barnard:

Brilliant.

Kendra Corman:

And that is just a, I never thought about it that way. From when Google is sending them to you, they are your, they are Google's until they start to embrace you, right?

And when their Google's audience, Google wants to make sure that their customers are satisfied.

Jason Barnard:

Yep.

Kendra Corman:

To keep them coming back.

Jason Barnard:

A hundred percent.

And you can take that a little bit further and say, even if they buy from you, they're still going to use Google to search for the next thing.

Kendra Corman:

Yep, you're right.

No, I love that. I have never really thought, I've always been knowing, you know, hey Google's tracking to make sure that they don't drop off and that they're engaging and that they have certain amount of time on my site and you know, all of those different things that are important to search engine optimization.

But I never really thought about them as Google customers. But that's what they are. Cuz that's what Google deals in is information.

Jason Barnard:

Yeah, exactly. So they are Google's clients in the sense that they are looking to Google to solve their problem, and Google is using you to solve that problem for them. So you are asking Google to recommend you as the best solution each and every time.

So even when you've got them as a client, always remember they're likely to go back to Google and ask Google for advice for the next question. Even if you could potentially answer it, unless you can communicate with them incredibly effectively through the post sales funnel, you're still battling with this idea that Google is recommending you.

And I think deep, deep down, I want Google to recommend me. For Google to recommend me, I need to be a great solution to its users, and in fact, I need to be a great solution for the subset of its users who are truly my audience.

And if we can focus on that, we're gonna be winning all away.

Kendra Corman:

I, yeah, I just, I'm blown away cuz that was just really, that opened my eyes to just looking at it at a different perspective.

Cause I keep thinking of Google as a bot and you know, it's searching and it wants to see expertise and it wants to see, you know it written for people.

It wants to see traffic, it wants to see back links, you know, all of those technical pieces. It wants to see.

But yeah, I mean, Google deals with eyeballs. It wants eyeballs on, inside Google all the time. The better it does, the more eyeballs it gets, the more ad revenue it can get, right? The more effective it is for everything.

That is just really, really interesting. I love that

Jason Barnard:

You've actually just kind of brought it all together in this really neat package.

Google is a product. Google's product is getting me to the solution as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

And as a website or a company or a person, my role in terms of Google at least, is to fulfill its desire to fulfill the needs of its users, which is its product. But at the end of the day, the people I wanted to send to me are the true, real users who will be able to benefit from what I have to offer.

And that's a huge change in perspective is saying Google isn't this kind of free source of traffic. It's a huge business that aims to satisfy its customer, much in the same way that you do.

Can I help you? Can I get you to the solution to your problem? Yes or no?

Kendra Corman:

Wow. Again, just such a different way of thinking about it.

So definitely. Cause I always tell people to write for people, not bots, because that's really important. Cuz again, if you're writing for people, people are gonna stay on your page longer and Google's smart enough to see that too.

Jason Barnard:

Hundred percent.

Kendra Corman:

And again, I think if you look at Google as a business, beyond just an advertising tool and a source of free traffic, like you said, it could revolutionize your content and the way you're looking at your online profile

Jason Barnard:

hundred percent

Kendra Corman:

for either your business or yourself.

Jason Barnard:

Well, for me, there are two points. Really, really important points.

Number one is that we are providing solutions to people. Google is the interface for us to do that to a massive audience that we would not otherwise have. That's point number one.

Point number two is we create content for our audience that satisfies a need, provides a solution. And that content simply needs to be packaged for Google, for Google to present us as the best solution.

So we have the best solution. We just need to convince Google about that.

And the third point is all about Google, as you rightly say, it's a business. Its aims are exactly the same as ours, which is to satisfy the users and the audience that we can truly satisfy.

The difference is that Google is massive in terms of scale, and we're asking Google to recommend us. And so we come back to point two. We need to co, to convince, excuse me, Google, that we have the best solution by packaging our solution that we should already have created for our users.

We simply package that for Google and make sure Google understands that we are indeed the best solution. And if you do that, you win on both sides and Google becomes a bonus. And that's what I love about Google, is that if you approach it from that perspective, you say, well, I've got a solution.

I'm presenting that solution to my audience on different platforms, Facebook, whatever it may be, Twitter, clutch, Crunchbase, all of these different platforms, Google's bonus.

If I can package it for Google, Google sends me the bonus audience, the bonus customers that I wouldn't otherwise have had because Google has that enormous reach that I don't.

Kendra Corman:

Yeah, I think that's great.

And one other thing that I really like that you keep repeating is, You're solving a problem. That means that you understand your audience, you know what they're looking for.

You know the questions that they're asking so that you can answer them. Show Google your expertise, but also show your audience your expertise and that you understand them.

And I think that that's important.

We're talking very much in terms of solutions and problems, and when it comes to solutions. Your audience has to have a problem.

They're going and searching for something for some reason, right? And you want to solve that problem. And I think that that's really important, that when you go towards content or content marketing, search engine optimization, you wanna start with the problem.

Jason Barnard:

Yeah. Hundred percent

Kendra Corman:

Then talk about the solution.

Jason Barnard:

Oh, a hundred percent. And I think we, we forget that, I mean, particularly at Kalicube, we, we have a problem that people don't know they have. And that's a huge, huge issue is that we are in constantly saying, well, you want the knowledge panel.

Which is on the right hand side of Google. If you search for somebody famous like Barba, you will see the knowledge panel.

And I'm saying to people, what you want as a company or a person is for that knowledge panel to appear whether you are famous or not. And it's a problem people don't know they have because it's somewhere outside our usual perspective.

So our first problem is to say, let's educate people about the fact that this is possible, and then tell them this is what you can do and this is why it brings you value.

And that's a huge, huge, huge job for us to achieve to, to finish. And so you have that question as well. Once again, in Kalicube, we have an immense job of educating. And what then happens, and this is hugely interesting, is we educate.

People search our brand name Kalicube or Jason Barnard. So you search Kalicube, K-A-L-I C-U-B-E, or Jason Barnard, J-A-S-O-N B-A-R-N-A-R-D, which I can barely say without tripping up over the letters.

You will see a result that states exactly what we do. But to get you to do that, we need to communicate not only our brand name, but also our brand message, our narrative. Which is Google's representation of you as a person or your company is hugely important. You might not know it, but when you realize it and you realize that you need to deal with it, come and see Kalicube or Jason Barnard.

Kendra Corman:

And we'll definitely put links to Kalicube in the show notes. So if you're looking to find out more about Kalicube you can do that and you can skip Google and just click on the link.

Jason Barnard:

Brilliant.

Kendra Corman:

All right, so I have, I do have a question. We'll go back to the blue dog for a second.

How did you go from being a blue dog to digital marketing, and being this Google expert?

Jason Barnard:

Oh, I love that question because, I was in a punk folk group playing double bass, and the group left me and I was on my own and I thought, oh, right, okay, I'll make some music for children.

And that didn't work.

So my ex-wife then created two characters. I was a blue dog, she was a yellow koala, and we were quite successful.

And that's a huge problem or bonus, it depends how you look at it with Google. Is that Google understands TV shows and musical groups. So what it thought is, "Jason Barnard is a cartoon blue dog!"

And when I try to tell Google, actually, I'm a digital marketer now, and I need to make a living, Google kept saying "he's a blue dog! He's a blue dog!"

so I needed to then educate, as you said earlier on, I needed to educate Google so that it presented me as a digital marketer first and a blue dog second. So, being a blue dog is great fun. It's really cool and I really enjoyed it.

But if I wanna make a living, I need to be recognized at, recognized, excuse me, as a digital marketer.

So the reason I'm now in this space, which is how can I control my brand or personal brand, my narrative on Google. It all comes from Google thinking I was a blue dog and me realizing that you can't make money as a blue dog.

Kendra Corman:

Wow, that's really interesting.

So the last question that I have for you, so question I ask everybody, the show is called Imperfect Marketing, cuz marketing is anything but perfect, as we all well know.

What is your biggest marketing lesson learned?

Jason Barnard:

Ooh, I didn't know that was gonna be one of the questions, or I would've actually prepared an answer.

I think my biggest marketing lesson is that I always thought if I had fun and learned lots of stuff and shared it with lots of people, I would end up making a living.

Unfortunately, that isn't true.

And so what you need to do is take the fun, and the learning, and the desire to understand and package it up and figure it out so that you can then present it to your potential clients where it has a real value for them that they can understand and see.

And at Kalicube, we're right in the middle of this, which is to say we have a phenomenally valuable offer, which is, control your brand narrative on Google. But we haven't yet managed to package it so that people understand the value that that will have for them so that they're willing to pay us to help them with their brand narrative on Google.

That's my huge lesson, and I'm still in the middle of it.

Kendra Corman:

Yeah, I think we're always learning when it comes to marketing because it's, it's, you know, part art and part science, so,

Jason Barnard:

oh, I love that.

Kendra Corman:

it's not as predictable as we'd like.

Jason Barnard:

Art and science, I do love that. And when it's all science, it's boring. When it's all art maybe, but it's fun. Art and science together is absolutely my delight.

Kendra Corman:

Yeah. No, I love it.

Thank you so much, Jason, for your time today. I really appreciate it. It has opened my eyes to looking at Google in an entirely different way that I've never thought of.

And again, I always thought of I was, it made sense, you know, when I had a previous guest on talking about marketing on Amazon, that you have to remember as long as you remember their Amazon's customers and you keep them happy for Amazon, Amazon will be happy with you.

That goes the same for Google, so think about the traffic that Google is sending you as Google's customers, and keep them happy once they get to your site. And Google will reward you.

Just like Amazon would if you were selling on Amazon. It's just such an interesting way of thinking. I really appreciate it. I love the perspective also of owning your profile, personal and business. And identifying the fact that there are two parts to who you are and again, controlling how that shows up on Google.

So, so much great stuff from Jason. We appreciate it.

We'll have links to Kalicube in the show notes for you and be sure to check it out and see the offers that they have. It's very cool.

And again, I appreciate you tuning in. If you like this episode, please go ahead, rate and subscribe wherever you're listening. It would really help me out.

Have a great day and I'll see you on another episode of Imperfect Marketing.

Kendra Corman

Host