NerdBrand Podcast
The NerdBrand Podcast is at the intersection of nerd culture, branding, and advertising. Nerd culture is no longer an isolated subculture; it’s THE culture of the day and makes its way into our daily lives through the entertainment we seek and the technology we rely upon. Listen as we discuss our views on visual design, branding, and advertising for movies, comics and novels, video games, technology, and other nerdy passions.
NerdBrand Podcast
Keeping YOUR NerdBrand Strong: A Talk about SEO ... Again.
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NerdBrand is a national branding and advertising agency based in Louisville, KY.
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Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the NerdBrand podcast where I'm going to talk about SEO versus SEM. What are the differences? Because everybody wants SEO but for some reason, we all still miss the mark on understanding, I think, how hard it is, not exactly always what it is. There's a lot of thinking, a lot of strategy, a lot of effort into content quality that go into it. So having a conversation about it is often difficult, because every business is different and what you want to say, what you want to promote and how you say it, it's just going to be different. So it's used to get your brand noticed by potential customers because content is king. However, how is your grammar? And do you want to be short and punchy with your copy? Do you want to be philosophical or do you want to be, you know, clippy? Or what tone are you going to take? Because, believe it or not, you think like, well, how's that got to do with SEO? First on Google and instead try to provide good quality answers and information to people that you would want to help and do business with. Then you'll start to see things pivot and change in a better direction.
Speaker 1:Targeting customers with local SEOs to increase sales is typical. It's something that can be done, but you have to think about what do I want to offer? What percent offer this? What BOGO do I want to put out? What campaign do I want to run? What do I want to say? These are things that a marketing agency isn't necessarily going to know if 15% off such and such or these things for how long is going to be good for your bottom line. They're not CFOs. So really think about what your content is going to be. What do you want to offer? What message do you want to say? And think about your imagery. Images say things more than words. So your target audience, the imagery, needs to line up into what they expect to see, what you want to see and expect from them. Imagery is very, very important and on brand for many, many companies. Just look at Target and look at the imagery they use, the colors and how vibrant they are and the people that are in them. That's the demographic that they want to sell to, and so you know you want to fix how you appear on Google. Well, those are the elements to focus on, because, as we head toward AI-generated content and results, the blue links are going to go away and we are going to be left with a prompt box that's going to give us answers, and we want our website and the answers that are on it to be in those prompt responses that we assume Google will eventually show, and so, with that, it's going to require rethinking your entire content strategy and what you're doing, and so it's going to be a very, very disruptive year for content, for SEO, for search engine marketing, which is SEM, so you do want to update it frequently.
Speaker 1:As of this podcast, I think a new algorithm is still rolling out. I haven't heard if it's finished yet or not, but it's definitely. Google is focusing on content, for sure, and the quality of that. So if you want to see the new Google search, you can go to nerdbrandagencycom, scroll to the footer, click on SEO, sem services. You can actually watch a video Google produced to show you what search generative experience with AI will be like, and it is very different and it has evolved over time, because that's how fast this moves. So how can we help you win on search right now? Well, if you're waiting to fix your content and your website and you're going to do this internally and you're going to think about this later, it's really a bad. You're not really prepared. You see, google's not going to wait until you're ready to update your stuff. They're just not, and your competition is already working to do so.
Speaker 1:So branded content and imagery is important. What is that? Well, you have professional photography. Um, that cannot be compared to stock photography, because it's you, it's your photos, it has an organic feel that it's from you and your brand and, um, if you're doing a video and you have B roll and the B roll contains a lot of footage that just is not, um, organic to the brand or original, then, uh, it's going to be a really difficult product, I believe, to market locally, especially. So you want to definitely focus on branded content and imagery. Um, graphic design and artwork Um, again, I not trying to hack on the DIYers out there. There's a place for that if your business is that small. But'm not trying to hack on the DIYers out there. There's a place for that if your business is that small.
Speaker 1:But when you start to elevate and start to look more professional and you want to hit a higher class of clientele those that have more expendable money and incomes that can come to you and pay you for your services you definitely want to step up how you present yourself in a myriad of ways. So copywriting in your brand's voice is also very important in shifting away from informational tone and speech and things that are in your copy on your website or whatever. I mean, if you have a website, you may not need to redesign it. If you have a good design, you might just need to spruce up a copy. I mean you just may need to. You know, sound more authoritative. You may need to sound more friendly instead of talking at people, talking with some people, inviting conversation, perhaps try to make the brand more human.
Speaker 1:And then a custom website with user experience focus being its first goal. You know UX stands for user experience, focus being its first goal. You know UX stands for user experience and UI stands for user interface. And there's a meme out there that's very popular of two ketchup bottles the old ketchup bottle. Many of us my age remember that we didn't really know that if you smacked it on the neck after turning it upside down, the ketchup came right on out. That if you smacked it on the neck after turning it upside down, the ketchup came right on out. We spent many a time hitting the bottle furiously at the back of the bottle as it was turned over, to try to get some ketchup on our beloved burger and fries, only to create a mess and then walk away with a shirt that looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. So somebody got together and said this user interface is bad and UX was like we're going to do some studies. Yeah, people are mad. They don't want to do this anymore. Let's make something that actually works.
Speaker 1:Now many people think that the new bottle that's plastic and has a lid that doesn't create messes and all of that is UX. I argue it's user interface. Still, however, user experience was there to look at and study and question and see the frustrations that people were having with that particular product, and they fixed it, and even though we may not agree on how they did it, and they sell a lot of ketchup. So you definitely want to have some kind of custom experience created, but in order to do that, you have to do the studies to see how people are reacting to your brand, and we often say advertising makes a lousy mirror, because we all are amazing, but in reality, we are probably not as great as we think. So at the end of the day, you definitely want to have an outsider, come in and find words and phrases that people want to use to search for businesses like yours. I mean, it helps really narrow down, like what you're going to talk about, because, at the end of the day, yes, we want to reach people, but we have to strike a very good balance between optimization and talking to people. That way, we remember that the internet is made of people, kind of like Soylent Green, and for those of you out there that know that reference, god bless you. God bless you.
Speaker 1:So change your website. Make it more appealing to search engines, from the imagery, the layout, the design. Modernize it. It has to be strong. If it's not a strong look well, your competition could win contracts and RFPs that you're going after because you just don't look as sharp as they do. You don't look as trustworthy, and that's really hard to do with a faceless brand. Sometimes you can get away with an entity that is faceless, but you definitely want to have something that can connect with people, to show that you're legitimate. So it's very important, right? So you want to work on content. You want to work on what appeals to your target audience.
Speaker 1:There could be several verticals in that segment, but at the end of the day, you do have a base that you need to operate off of your beliefs, your philosophies, your values, and you will have an audience that will be attracted to that, because that's really what you're trying to do. You're trying to attract long-time consumers, not first-time listeners all the time. If you do the first-time listener all the time, you're going to have a really hard time replicating that, making a living and you're just always going to be stressed. So we don't want that. So you want to reduce your stress. You want to reduce anxiety on your marketing. You want to know where your marketing is going. We know how to track those dollars. We can even show you from a mapping perspective, creepily where and what road and path people take to get to your store.
Speaker 1:The technology exists, it is out there. The world of paid advertising is vast and massive. It just is up to your goals and really, your imagination and budget. Most importantly, the last part, because a lot of people are already doing this too. So the more highly competitive the industry is that you are in, you're going to need to expect to spend more to be competitive, and Google does a really good job of telling you this, especially if you have competitors listed inside of it. You know it'll say, hey, these guys are spending this and they've outspent you this by this much.
Speaker 1:The tools are out there and they're free and available. However, you need to remember that just because SEO is free, it's not free for the professional who's doing the work. It is very expensive, it's very hard work, it's very time consuming and it's not limited to title tags, meta descriptions or anything else that you may not understand. It sometimes just comes right down to that ketchup bottle, the very thing you hold in your hand, that everyone else does. They've just done it better and one day you're going to get there too. You just need to make that investment. You just need to figure out what do I need to do to get there and that consulting is free. So go to nerdbrandagencycom and check us out there for that you can check on, ask us for a consultancy of your brand, get an audit. We'll take a look at your website, tell you what's busted, what's not working and, you know, help you keep your nerd brand strong.
