Big Talk About Small Business
Hosted by Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Our Mission is to inspire, empower, and equip entrepreneurs with the knowledge and insights they need to succeed in their ventures. Through engaging conversations with industry experts, seasoned entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, we aim to provide valuable strategies, actionable advice, and real-world experiences that will enable our listeners to navigate the challenges, seize the opportunities, and build thriving businesses.
Big Talk About Small Business
Ep. 77 - SEO Simplified: Why Honesty Wins Online
The digital marketing world often portrays SEO as a complex technical mystery, but what if the real secret is much simpler? Andrew Laws, founder of Yeseo and a 25-year veteran of search marketing, strips away the mystique to reveal that effective SEO begins with business fundamentals, not technical wizardry.
From his humble beginnings selling buttons (or "badges" as they're called in the UK) to building a successful digital marketing agency, Andrew shares how the internet became the great equalizer that allowed his small operation to outrank industry giants. The key insight? Search engines reward businesses that clearly communicate what makes them excellent.
Throughout our conversation, we explore why many businesses struggle with SEO despite its apparent simplicity. Andrew explains his process of helping clients identify their overlooked differentiators – those unique aspects of their business they've become so accustomed to that they fail to highlight them properly online. These discoveries often yield the most powerful content opportunities.
For small business owners with limited resources, Andrew offers practical starting points that don't require significant investment. The Google Business Profile emerges as the single most important free resource, with Andrew sharing a cautionary tale of a thriving business losing customers because Google incorrectly showed them as "permanently closed." He emphasizes the critical importance of maintaining consistent business information across all platforms to build search credibility.
The discussion also tackles emerging trends, including the impact of AI on search behavior. Rather than diminishing SEO's importance, Andrew explains why tools like ChatGPT actually make website optimization more crucial than ever. Whether you're just starting your digital marketing journey or looking to refine your existing strategy, this episode provides actionable insights to help your business get found online through authentic, honest communication.
Ready to cut through the SEO myths and focus on what really works? Listen now and discover how to amplify your business excellence in the digital landscape.
glad to have you here on the show. This is another episode, by the way, of big talk about small business. That's how we say it here in arkansas, that's right. Don't pay attention, though, to pop culture. We're not all hillbillies here, not all of us mark's, not we, we, we um. Some of us have indoor plumbing. Yes, we've got a dentist in town, but you know a good outhouse.
Speaker 2:We wear shoes. A good outhouse is probably the best thing in the world it's much the same experience.
Speaker 3:Hey, I'm in.
Speaker 1:We're tired of being typecast as a bunch of ignorant rednecks here, Although if you go 10 miles out of town you'll find plenty of them. We're an island of enlightenment and a sea of ignorance to a certain extent here, in. Fayetteville, which is where the University of Arkansas is based.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a fine institution. It is a fine institution. So tell us a little bit about yourself, andrew. I know you've been doing this a long time. That much I know. 25 years. Interesting name for the company.
Speaker 3:Well, I started actually doing SEO last century building servers, building websites and realized no one was going to find them. Now the company name we rebranded a few years ago because the company name was Andrew Laws Associates Limited, but the problem I had with that is it just sounded like a gray haired, middle-aged man I mean, which I unavoidably am, but it just needed something. Also, everyone thought I was a law firm. I mean, my name is andrew laws. I'd get these, get these fancy and slightly terrifying letters from people sometimes and telling him, telling me about the things they did not they've done, and asking for my help. So I changed it and I did my research and the there's only one other person in the world using the name Yeseo and it's a South Korean K-pop star. Okay, and as far as I know, we don't get confused, I think, kind of. So far, I think I'm notably different. I don't think anyone's contacting the manager of Yeseo in South Korea and asking for SEO advice.
Speaker 2:So how'd you get started, Andrew? What was the genesis of you getting in this business?
Speaker 3:The genesis was partly starting a company of my own making buttons, or making what we call in the UK badges.
Speaker 3:I've got one stuck here these things Sorry, I know this is a visual thing on a podcast, but I'm not sure you see that. So I had just enough money to buy, buy the machine like a big crank machine thing for making them, making the buttons. But I had no money for marketing so I figured I'd use seo to launch the company. I sold that company within three months of starting the button company, not the button company. Uh, because it turns out I suck at making buttons like really bad.
Speaker 3:I think we'll rank, rank the website number one and and it's still there and I'm in, I'm in their spare room. When I was looking for an office they've brought me in like a sort of a benevolent grandfather or something so like keep an eye on me. But what really? What? That really appealed to me, the idea that you could, you could be this tiny little company. You know, I was 22 years old, I think, but I I took on the biggest button companies there were in in the uk and beat them hands down and I thought that's cool. I really like that and and you know, the early days of the, the internet, were like the wild west you, anybody could do anything if you could see as far as the horizon, then I don't know.
Speaker 1:You had a lot of walking to do yeah, it is true, the internet was like the great equalizer.
Speaker 3:I mean, it just opened up the whole market to us, with no bounds, in a sense and then, yeah, the market that opened up to me was a lot of people wanting buttons and, uh, I was working in the city at the time. I was working in london, so I had like a three-hour commute every day and then I'd get home and make buttons until like midnight. The problem is when you do it, when you're tired. Two things happen. When you pull the little lever to make the button, to press it, if you haven't got it straight, it pings off and hits one of your cats. You don't have to have cats to make buttons. Or the other thing, if it doesn't ping off and hit a cat, then it will crush your fingers.
Speaker 3:But I still live in the same house, right, and it's been. Yes, 25 years ago I sold that company and we still find button parts down between the floorboards. And well, I live in a victorian 150 year old house because everyone does. They just you turn 18 and they're like the queen just knocks on the door and goes that, that one's yours. That hovel, third from the left over there, that belongs to you now. So there's big gaps everywhere. I'm just yeah, they're all being plugged up with button parts. It's not quite the seo discussion you might be expecting kind of at this stage it's perfect man.
Speaker 2:So you launched your button company with SEO right, search Engine Automation is what we're talking about, for those that may not understand what SEO is. And so you, which basically means that you kind of started talking about it, putting keywords in, really writing content explaining the buttons. And then the internet crawlers grabbed you found, you rolled you up in ranks and you got more clicks, and that's how you did your sales.
Speaker 3:Believe me, back then SEO was very easy indeed. I looked at the bigger companies and they weren't using the word buttons We'll say badges in this country. They weren't using the word buttons wouldn't say badges in this country. They weren't talking about them. They'd have a page with like oh, these are all our brilliant machines, this is how nice our office is, this is what our sales team looks like. And back then it was trendy to have a page saying oh, this is the office dog and his name is barry or whatever it was. But they didn't actually talk about the badges very much so. So I thought well, I don't have an office dog, I don't have a team, but I can write quite a lot about badges. So I did that and I say it was much easier back then.
Speaker 3:Because what happens when you start to do really well with SEO, when you get to the top of Google? So everyone, to this day, everyone who searches for badges in the UK finds my old company. As soon as you start to do well, your competitors notice and they start sniffing around and it becomes a bit of an arms race. So you have to be careful what you start. You've got to be in in it for the long haul. But I still get. I still get a kick out of it all these years later and it's I don't know.
Speaker 3:I hope not to do it until I die. Um, I hope it hope it's not the reason for my death, but I can see myself doing it for a good while. Yeah, the pension pot's not big enough for me to. Yeah, I don't have 401k or anything because we don't have them in the UK. So the king sends out Maundy Day pennies. If you're really poor, the king gives you a coin on some time around Easter, is that it? That's completely true. Yeah, but there's too many of us here now. So 16th century there was not so many people living in Britain and the pennies were probably easier to hand out. I don't think King Charles has got the time to knock on everybody's door and give them a penny now.
Speaker 1:So I'm sticking with SEO. So let's let's just take it Tell us a little bit about what you do for your clients and how you do it, because there are a lot of small business owners out there. You know. We have businesses ourselves that sell products online, for example. What are some of the things? You know? Most of us spend a fortune on advertising, whether it's on Google or on YouTube or Facebook or Instagram. What is it that we should be doing? How do you help your clients with SEO?
Speaker 3:It actually starts well before anything technical. In my experience, there are two types of people who run a business. There's the type of person who's very smart much like your listeners, of course and they've done their research and they've learned about this thing, this thing, this thing over here. They've got that and they've built a business which is really doing well, but has hit a ceiling. It kind of got stuck, stuck. Is there something it can't quite get past?
Speaker 3:Those people are fantastic to work with and when I go and speak to them I just say what are your strengths? Why should people buy from you? Uh, you know what? What differentiates you from the market? What have you had? Successes and failures with those guys are really easy.
Speaker 3:The harder type of person is the type of person I don't know if you've met these people who start a business and they fluke it, like I did with the badge company to a certain extent, because those guys you say why should anyone buy from you? Because we're the best. And you say, okay, why are you the best? Because we're the best. Just, you can't just keep waving your arms around saying you're the best. So a lot of people. It starts with helping them figure out what. What is they're doing. I say you know, why should anyone buy from it? It's a funny question to ask, and if you say to people why, why the hell should anyone buy from you, the reaction you get can be quite telling as well, because some people get quite offended. I don't don't mean to offend them, but well then, it's that would be.
Speaker 1:You've got to know typical of a discussion. If you were helping a company with their branding, I would think right. I mean, those are some of the questions that you would want to get into.
Speaker 3:We have to, because SEO can only amplify excellence. It can't sort of conjure nonsense. If you haven't got a good company already, all SEO is going to do is bring you more leads you can't convert and you can't make sales with anyway. So, yeah, we do a fair bit of helping companies. Just get their, get their act together, kind of. You know, fill, fill in the gaps and and tighten the tighten the ship. Is that what you do to ships? You tighten them.
Speaker 3:Um, it's the end of the day. I'm going for as many mixed metaphors as I can. Um, yeah, so once we found out what is so good about a company, we, we make sure the world knows, so a lot of it does come down to content a lot of the time. You know, um, there's a fantastic book I recommend. Everyone who's wants to know more about.
Speaker 3:Seo is a non-seo book which is very good to read. It's a book called they Ask, you Answer, written by Marcus Sheridan. Have you heard of that guy? No, no, okay, so he's, I can't remember. He is somewhere Midwest, I think, and he realized years ago he's not an SEO guy, but he realized that he was able to sell his product, which was swimming pools like pre-made swimming pools, not by telling people how brilliant they are or trying to convince people to buy them, but by answering the questions that people have about them. Because the genius.
Speaker 3:This is why I like this as a way of explaining SEO, because we're all like to think we're individuals. If we're buying something or we're considering hiring someone, we have a bunch of questions in our head that I think we probably like to think are quite new. I think people like to think they're smart. I mean by about the third coffee of the day, I start to think I'm smart Before then. It's a mixed bag, but the truth is, if you've had a question about a product or a service, you're not going to be alone. There will be thousands of other people. Even a tiny little lump of rock bobbing around in the sea, like the United Kingdom, there's a lot of people who will have the same questions.
Speaker 3:So, with no technical knowledge whatsoever, you can do fantastic SEO by thinking what are the questions people ask me? And start with the ones they ask just before they commit to buy, and then write an article with that question as the title and use your brilliance, share your brilliance, give. Give the answers away because, apart from anything else. When people do end up on that page, it's a brilliant way of building trust, and that's the only thing your website really needs to do. People need to go hey, I'm in the right place, I trust these guys, and that's the only thing your website really needs to do. People need to go hey, I'm in the right place, I trust these guys, and that's it.
Speaker 3:So I I don't. I don't. I do know a load of technical stuff. I mean, I tried talking to my wife about it in the evenings and she doesn't care. Catch it wanders away. I've got a teenage child, so I'm I try not to talk technical because it terrifies me that for as long as I've done SEO, it's been sold as this kind of like, this kind of dark art that you know we do SEO and they take you to this back room and shine a light in your eyes and they give you the secret knowledge. It's not. It's pretty simple. I keep trying. It's pretty simple really. What would you tell people about your business, what you're proud of? I get?
Speaker 1:caught. I don't know about you, but I mean I get like messages, emails, linkedin, you know messages practically every day from somebody who tells me they want to help me with seo. Usually they're in India or the Philippines or somewhere else. But what differentiates somebody who really knows what they're doing and does a good job at this versus all these other providers that are out there promising to do it on the cheap?
Speaker 3:The harsh answer is if someone's really good, they probably don't want you as a client because they're too busy. It's a bit like contractors the best contractors are the ones that can't help you for six months. The worst contractors are the ones who you ring up and say, look, I need to build an extension to the back of my house, and they say, oh, we can start at eight o'clock tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1:You're like why, like why I get the people before I was in that business, so I'm I can appreciate that yeah, so that the real differentiator is somebody who's prepared to spend time learning about your business, the, the.
Speaker 3:There are some fantastic agencies all around the world, really, really good. But I think with seo, having having somebody who's fairly nearby is going to help you because they can come into your business and have a look around and get a feel for you. And one of the things I do and I know some of my fellow SEO people do here is just go sit in the office for a little while, just soak it up. Are just soak it up because when we're looking for the excellence to amplify, quite often the business owner or the marketing guy or sales guy whoever has this pre-prepared thing that they trot out you know, they'll be like oh, we do this and this is why people should buy from us.
Speaker 3:That's usually quite boring, it's usually quite dull. I'll give you an exact example. We were filming a couple of days ago with a client who supplies uh, it's called passive glass, huge sheets of glass that go on on new builds, um, all throughout europe, right. And we were filming and he was going oh, this is how the window goes in. The ledge is like this. We do this so that it doesn't fill up with water. And as we were driving off, he said I forgot about that. I said what he said oh, the roof panels. They just look like roof panels, you know, like shingles, but they're all solar panels. And I was like right, stop the van, get out, tell me that again. Let me film that.
Speaker 3:And we're going to write about that, because all the other stuff was just what all his competitors are saying on their websites yeah, it's finding these little things that you go. Hang on, you've. You've got used to the fact that you do things this way, haven't you? But did you know that? That's really cool? Got work with a company that makes one of my clients that his company makes whole tv series, so, like a tv channel will contact him and say, right, we need a six part series on motor racing, anything like that. And they go and make them and he does some really cool stuff.
Speaker 3:And I did this thing of going and sitting in his office and he's an editor as well so just watching him work and I was saying, you know, what are we going to talk about on your website? What do we need to get across? And he was like I don't know, I don't know, I don't think anything that interesting happens. And behind him, where he was sat, there was a massive kind of six foot square photograph of him with guy ritchie and he's holding um british director, he's holding guy ritchie's oscar. I was like, you know, guy ritchie, he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're friends like, and you think that's not interesting.
Speaker 3:You know, you've clearly sat in front of that picture for so long, but you found something really interesting. You've got something interesting there that people will want to read about. So it's partly. I think a lot of business owners are quite shy. Maybe they don't want to be boastful or brag, but quite often all the hard work that all successful business owners put in is probably in the back of their mind. That all successful businesses put in is probably in the back of their mind because they're looking for the next great thing. They're looking for the next good leap forward. They might have forgotten the really cool stuff that just got them going in the first place. So we dig that out and make sure people know about it.
Speaker 2:But I appreciate what you're, you know I mean SEO can be such a complicated conversation, right? I mean especially like you're talking about when folks don't know much about it. But conversation, right, I mean especially like you're talking about when folks don't know much about it. But I feel like that when you explain that, what are the it's like a frequently asked questions about a really specific thing that you do. That's unique, differentiator, that your company does, just like the solar panel roofs, right? And then what are all the 20, 30 questions related to that specific niche that you have? That's where you're basically building some competitive advantage from all the web crawlers and such.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because Google's getting pretty good. Google has the comprehension of a toddler like a three-year-old. So it comes and looks on the website, you know, like a kid wobbling around. So what's this? Okay, there's a picture of a swimming pool here. It must be about swimming pools, oh, but they're not saying anything else about swimming pools. I'm going to go over there now and film a diaper or whatever. That's how I imagine google thinks. Um, but the reality is, you know, if you, if you have your website, if you do swim pools, just stick with that, because why not? And Google's toddler waddles onto your website and goes, oh, it's a picture of a swimming pool. And look, oh, look, there's an article about a swimming pool here. I wonder how long it takes to fill a swimming pool from a faucet in a house. Well, oh, look, there's an article explaining it. I like it here. This is nice, there's lots of interesting. I, if you, if you lose too much personality, then that toddler is going to lose interest as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that that toddler is just a simplified version of all humanity, right so, yeah, from the out to all humanity, yeah, from the toddler perspective, I mean, it's like, as it starts to learn your site, it's going, you know, wow, this person or this company really knows what they're talking about, they're an expert in this, and so now I'm trusting that, like a toddler would I trust this opinion, this perspective, and so then I just keep. Then I want everybody else to know about the expert. So that's what my search rank result page is, that's what page one is Right. And now, yeah, and then.
Speaker 2:So quick question I mean, like with SEO, it's been going on for you know, for a couple of decades now. Right, I mean the practice. You've been doing it for 25 years and I mean what have you seen has evolved in this? Has it become more complicated, or is it really the same basic thing that people just don't seem to do? Really well, that's been kind of my experience, right, like it hasn't changed much. It's really exactly what we just said Niche, expertise, providing credibility, expertise, expert voice on it.
Speaker 2:Differentiator yeah differentiator and just and then telling the robot over and over again and giving that credibility. But it feels like that people take it on these scroll paths Like it's just this big complicated thing now it's so difficult, but is it really just the same? True kind of fundamental things that are going on in one one respect, nothing has changed at all.
Speaker 3:In another respect, the people who, years ago, used to try and fool google yes, and and this is where all the complexity is to be honest, if you're going to try and fool Google, you've got your work cut out. And every big change they make to the way they crawl the site and work out the results is not to make things more difficult for genuine business owners. It's to make things more difficult for the grifters, for the people who are trying to get around the corner and get to number one faster without having actually done the work. So every time there's a big update, it's cause for celebration because it means if you are running a good company, then your life's just going to keep getting easier, easier and easier.
Speaker 3:The other side of it is sometimes you do have to do some really complex things, and the reality of that is if your company has national reach and you are in an incredibly competitive market, if you're selling mortgages or I don't know some sort of insurance policy, you're going to have to do some really technical SEO. The reality is, if you're a small to medium company, so if you're just a freelancer, if it's just you or you're anything up to maybe $25 million a year. Where you are located, you probably haven't got very stiff competition around you. Going back to my example of the button company, that website was not the best button company website that ever existed, but it was enough, better enough, betterer, it was better it was it was it was.
Speaker 1:Why did I?
Speaker 3:installed a bottle of betterness on it. And yeah, you don't have to be the best in the world, you just gotta be a little bit better than your competitors. But just watch, because they're going to come up behind you real fast when they figure out what you're doing. Yeah, so, yeah, big changes at google, but all all for the better, all for making us guys. You're making the people who fight the good fight get, get through. And and the david versus goliath thing. You know the small company leveling the big guys, that it's harder now and it comes down largely to budget, but it's still possible. You can still do it. It's still the thing that I get a real kick out of here. You know doing what I do every day.
Speaker 3:It's like especially young companies if a company's been going six months to a year, we'll actually work for them for free. Um, just to go right, we want to give you a foot up, we want to give you some time just to help get that ball rolling. Just explain a few concepts to you because, for one thing, that's what we like to do. It's kind of a cool thing to to keep our community, our business community, healthy, but also they're probably going to come back when they are doing well, when they become one of those type of business associates I mentioned earlier that hit ceiling and get stuck and go look, we've done everything we can. How are we not getting to the next step? Then we'll hopefully be the guys they remember. That's another reason for changing the name, so that people actually remember us.
Speaker 1:I do like that. Yeah, let me ask you a question. I just want to kind of get to a specific example. So let's say, for example, we have a motorcycle manufacturing company that has very niche products in a very small percentage of the market. In what we do, we're 12 years old, we give tons of content. We just have tons of videos on how we make every part on the bike and reviews of bikes and rides on bikes, and you know so much content. What would you do Now? We sell direct to the consumer. So obviously this is what it's all about is getting people on our site where they can design their own bike and then they order it and we make it. What would you do to help our SEO If that was a case that you were working on?
Speaker 3:The first thing we'd look at is talk about amplifying excellence. We look at what assets you've got, okay. So in your case you say, look, we've written a lot of articles about various aspects of the bikes. So what we do is we look at all of those and we we try and find articles in your archive that are maybe page three, page two on google. Okay, then we figure out what google understands about that article and then we look at what the competition is in that very small niche. So if it was like saddle leather on motorbikes I guess that must be a thing we would say okay, well, this page on your website is in the third page of results on Google. Who are the first 10 results?
Speaker 3:We then do some analysis. This is the technical side of SEO. We then do some analysis and we say, right, well, your article's 300 words. The articles on page one range from 2,000 words to 800 words. So you need to up the number of words on your page. And as we look at the other articles, they've all talked about where you source the leather and what the grain of the leather is, but you haven't talked about that. So that tells us that google values that as a part of the information, as, in a way look at what is number one yeah yeah, there's always a way to do these things without tools.
Speaker 3:When I when I started, I didn't have to have any software. Now I have to pay a crippling amount of money each month for software, but all software is doing is making these things faster. You don't need any software if you've got time and you've got a brain. Any business owner or anyone in marketing just stand back and look and go. One of these things is not like the other things and those pages on those posts, those articles, whatever on page one. Google likes them. So what is it about them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, where I see what happens is like it is really simple. I'm glad you're, because SEO is really very a simple thing and it's just being genuine honest. You know, and I go back to, like Google, it lives in its own paradox. It absolutely has to deliver the best result. If it does not deliver that to its search users, it cannibalizes its entire business. That's what people don't understand. Like it has to, it is really the it's got to work, it's got to. It is really the it's got to work. It's got to. Yeah, well, it's, it's, it's got to be the truth center.
Speaker 2:The second that it starts fibbing people lose credibility. Like they just stop using it. And so to andrew's point all these spammers, these people trying to trick out this stuff google sets out rules that that, just that tries to destroy them because basically they found ways to work around google's laws and they come on the top results and if those people win, then google loses its business, sure, and so it's super simple it has to tell the truth. It's like a really great librarian like that knows every book and article in that library right and can point you exactly.
Speaker 2:Remember those people back in the day. You go to the library, talk to the librarian and be like, hey, I'm looking for this book, and they go oh yeah, come over here. It's like how the hell and all these millions of books did you find? That's what google is across the entire planet. But you know when? When people go outside and go try to go all these little tricks and stuff, but where I see the breakdown happens is that humans skip, they want to skip all these processes. And it's to Andrew's point no, what is what article is getting some ranking? That's not hard to find.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or video. What video is getting ranking?
Speaker 2:What is it? That's kind of winning. And then look at the competitors. What are they doing Because that's kind of winning? And then look at the competitors. What are they doing? Because that's telling you why the librarian of google is saying this is the right book. Yeah, this other book.
Speaker 1:Never heard this before. Yeah, all I've ever heard is you come up with all the keywords and you try to make sure those are there. They're hidden on your site or whatever you have a white background and we write white text so nobody sees it.
Speaker 2:Those are the spammers, isn't that right?
Speaker 3:I mean you've heard all that, I'm sure. Oh, it's very entertaining to hear all those things, especially see people on YouTube saying, hey, this is how I got to number one in three days, and you think, nah, you didn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what they're promoting is the lies. What they're doing is they're a book writer that's lying to the librarian and eventually that librarian's going to go. You know, wait a minute, that book's not credible. That's not the best book.
Speaker 3:You're out. You're not reading the Bible. There's a comic in there.
Speaker 1:So this tells me why you need somebody who's really thinking and you need somebody who's willing to do the work to put all this together. What about AI and its impact on SEO today? I mean, I personally, you know everybody all they want to talk about is AI, and I'm a professor and when I see somebody that use chat gpt to write their paper, I can spot it like that um, and I've seen it so it's.
Speaker 3:it's really, really easy in the in in britain it's so easy to spot anything generated on chat, gpt or any of the other llLMs, because it's just a reflection of the information it's absorbed. And America is so much bigger than the UK. If somebody in the UK says, hey, write me an article about motorbike saddles, it'll write it in American English. I mean, we don't use Zs when we put an S, you put a Z for organization words like that and you just scan it yeah, you just scan it and go.
Speaker 3:Well, that that's been written in chat, gpt and it's it's lazy to such a deep extent because even if you are going to generate it, you still need to scan it, and before you put it on your website. You were saying about um mark. You were saying about how Google only has the ability to refer people to good sources, and what we're seeing at the moment with GPT is it's conjuring nonsense sometimes, and people love to poke fun at that. They love to go ah, have you seen what it thinks like when it started, when you could make images? Make me an image of Donald Duck. I can't do that because it's copyright protected. It's alright, I'm Walt Disney alright, then here you go you know.
Speaker 3:So if, if google's, if google's, it's true, if google's crawler is a toddler, then chat gpt is an overenthusiastic nine-year-old who just really wants to please but has no idea what it's saying. Yeah, it's like you could. You could give a nine-year-old a a rude poem, you know, with full of hidden meaning and double entendre, and read it out with a straight face and all the adults in the room would be falling over themselves laughing. That's basically where we are with that type of ai at the moment, but it's gonna change and it is changing all the time. But in terms of SEO, in terms of the relationship between SEO and AI, it's making SEO more important than ever. So, google if you ask a question to Google or look for information, google looks at your website and it bases about 60 to 70 percent of its answer on what it finds on your website and the rest of it is looking all around the web because Google owns all these properties. You know they've got Google business profile. They've got they're always trying to launch their own social network and no one cares. But they go. Look at Facebook, they go right.
Speaker 3:Well, where's this company being talked about? How important is this company? Big bit of research done recently by, I think, ahrefs or the SEO software people, found out the chat GPT relies 90% on what you put on your website, so the information can't be as good because it's not verified from other sources. But what that also tells us is that the search, the number of people leaving Google and using ChatGPT instead, it's like 5%, but you're talking about hundreds of billions of searches every year, so it's still a significant number of people. But the nice thing is, if you're still doing good stuff, then you're already perfectly positioned to benefit from being found by AI. It's the same thing. It's exactly the same thing. It's amplifying your excellence, making sure the crawlers or the AI understands what it is you've got on the page.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question Does the design of the website impact whether it finds the information or not? Because let's just say, there's a ton of information on the site but you got to go here and you got to go there, I got to go to the blog, I got to find the blog first. You know, whatever. Does that make a difference?
Speaker 3:or if it's just there, it's absolutely, crucially important, this user experience. Put it this way If you walked into a gas station and you said, look, I want a cold can of drink, and they say, sure, help yourself. And you're like but where is it? And they go, well, no, just go looking. And eventually they're like, look, we put the refrigerator underneath the floorboards, is that okay? Why would you do that? I'm not coming back here, you freaks. Whereas if you walk in and you immediately see the chiller cabinet, then I've got what I need now.
Speaker 3:It's quite a nice analogy, because a lot of people in SEO freak out about how long people spend on your website. It used to be a thing if people are only on your website and they only look at one page, or if they're only on there for five seconds or 10 seconds, and you failed and Google will put you lower down in the results because people aren't hanging around. That's not the same. Now Google's so smart and it understands the way people use your website. If people are on your website for a relatively short period of time unless it's a big investment-type product like a motorbike then you want them to stay for ages. On the whole, if you can serve people the information they're looking for and then they go off somewhere else. That's fine, that's good, but the difficult design thing is it really amuses me Sticking with the gas station.
Speaker 3:If you ever walked into a gas station and there's been a been a table, you just kind of you walk into and crush your groin immediately and fall over on the floor? Probably, probably not, because we don't do that kind of thing in real life. So why, in that case, when you go to a lot of websites, does it have this massive image at the top that then goes away and another image comes up that's the website quiver and they're walking in and crushing your groin on a table in a gas station, and you can quote me on that yeah, because, like it, like it, what google wants to deliver back to the customer is really fast, relevant, accurate information as fast as possible, to your point, like it.
Speaker 2:It kind of applauds people get being able to get their information they need and they go on about their day and their businesses. So that could be credible because you're delivering that. And I think that people overwork their site right, they try to over design, they try to get into this massive experience. Now there's some parts on the site that could be that could be valuable from just a pure brand perspective or ad perspective. But you know, when you're like, my philosophy on a lot of times, andrew, is that that article section.
Speaker 2:You know what we call a blog, but I'd really like to see it as more of like an article. You're creating a magazine, you're creating a news resource with all the FAQs. You're just giving that information to the humans and the bots, genuinely answering questions, and then that's very well organized, categorized, has good taxonomy to it in the back end and it's just simply. It is the library, it's a card catalog system for us old-timers, but I mean it's just pure organization that allows everybody the bots and the humans to easily navigate and find what I'm looking for and get back out of there.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm sorry, go on, andrew. I'll just say I love the library analogy. I was a volunteer librarian at high school. That's why I know the word Dewey Decimal System.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too, man, the card catalog.
Speaker 3:Well, I got fired. I got fired as a volunteer student because there was one corner of the library that I thought that's the one I'm going to look after and I rearranged all the books by color. Oh my oh yeah, they didn't like that, Not good not good at all Let me go back to this again, though.
Speaker 1:Let's just say I'm a prospective client of Andrew's here and we've got this business and we sell something online and we've got this complex website. Before you come up with your recommendations to which I assume is to help them generate more content and maybe reorganize the site right, what does that cost somebody? Can a small business afford to use somebody like YesEO?
Speaker 3:It's a really interesting theory and it's one that a lot of people here in the UK are wrestling with. At the moment. The uk is struggling. We, we left europe, which was, I think, was a mistake, but at the moment, because a whole bunch of stuff there's there's many, many, many things it's the first time that I've run a business going into a recession where people don't want to spend money on marketing. Normally, smart people in difficult times spend money on marketing because their, their competitors, lose ground that you can rush in and grab it. That's not really happening. So our our rates and I've got them on my website which is fairly radical.
Speaker 3:For seo agency, our rates start around 900 pounds a month, so say 1500 us dollars but what I'm increasingly doing is saying to clients look that that's us doing a lot of things. We can charge you less if we can train your people. Doesn't matter who it is, it could be the you know janitor, it could be absolutely anyone if we can train them to help you meet your goals, we don't have to pay you this, we don't have to charge you these retainers that are so high. And I picked up a few clients just in the last few weeks and we're charging them for our mentoring sessions. So that's like $200 for an hour and the amount of value that we can get across in an hour is I'm not boasting and I'm not being brag. I'm not bragging because I've worked hard to develop this system, so I'm proud of it. Sure, but I'm starting to realize that, yeah, the days of the big retainers unless this companies are big, then they're kind of over and the amount that we charge in the UK and Europe is about a third of what American SEO consultants charge.
Speaker 3:When we look at people doing SEO in America, they're like ah, you've got a really nice car. Look how big your house is In the UK. I don't know why that is. I don't know it's because America kind of got there first and developed it as a, as an industry, before anyone else really know knew what to call it. But, um, it's a massive disparity between the two companies. And then from us, you know, stepping down to you mentioned india and indonesia places earlier they appear to charge very little. It's it's a a path which is challenging at the moment, but I think the companies that are going to survive in all sectors are the companies who properly double down on just being a brilliant company, so paying people properly, not cheaping out on parts, all that kind of stuff. I'm afraid it's white-knuckle time. You've just got to stick with it. You know, uh, that was a fairly that kind of went, went all over the place that answer, but hopefully that I should have just 900 quid a month there you go yeah, I, I got it, I got it.
Speaker 1:So, so no, that makes a lot of sense, I mean, I guess you be careful, though, that you don't destroy your business by selling what you do too cheaply.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, the skill of it is not diminishing the value. So if you give any business, if you give somebody a price for something, you say, right, it's going to be $1,000. And they say, well, can you make it $800? And you say, well, I can't reduce the 800. You say I can't reduce the quality, so I can't reduce the price. But that thousand includes these bits, sure? So if you don't want those bits or you're going to do those, if you're going to make your own motorcycle saddle, then I'm going to charge you 300 less for your motorbike. God, that would be awful. How would you drive away?
Speaker 1:you just have to, like, stand the. Yeah, you've cut the scope, so do you work with any companies outside? I mean, I know you said it's great to go there and observe but do you work with companies in the US?
Speaker 3:We have done not so much recently. The time difference isn't an insurmountable issue, but now I don't know why. Actually, I did approach a lot of American companies a few years ago and when they found out I was in the UK, the conversation just kind of dried up, which I don't understand. I don't think I have an impenetrable British accent, you guys understand me.
Speaker 2:Okay, we can change your S's and organization disease I mean I can do that now, like we've got to do it ourselves, right I mean, if you call an elevator, a lift, we can fix that or whatever right?
Speaker 3:bizarrely, I I grew up between two massive american air force bases. So when I was a kid I I grew up around a lot of amer, a place called Bentwaters, which is where the only official USAF United States Air Force UFO sighting is. That's the one that they said. Yep, that's where I grew up, that one where it chained to the school?
Speaker 1:Is that the one where it landed at the school Do?
Speaker 3:you know, despite the fact I grew up right next to it, I'm not that up speed on the details I can tell you that when I was at school, we did work placements and they put me with the security police, who taught me how to use an M16 machine gun when I was 14 years old.
Speaker 2:Well, you'd make a great mass killer today.
Speaker 3:I probably wasn't at the school then. It's one of those things. Oh, it was a different time back then. Yes, we had this thing called the cold war and everything was wonderful, hey andrew.
Speaker 2:So for our listeners that have maybe are starting a business, they're really small businesses. You know one thing that I've, you know I just want to get your your gut check on this, on my perspective. What I've told with my one of my businesses is I got the team relentlessly focused on the google business profile and I mean like I am just adamant that, like the reviews responding, optimizing that page, telling them it's our hours when, when are our holiday hours? Put pictures, videos, everything you possibly can on that page, and I've always advised that that's a really great first step at seo. If you're not going to do much, do that be really have an excellent google places page I agree wholeheartedly.
Speaker 3:I do quite a lot of public speaking. So I go and speak to business groups and obviously, like a lot of people who do public speaking, I have a set of talks I give. That's the one I give most often and it's called Is Google Lying About your Business? Wow, and I say to people, if you've got no budget, if it's just you, if you haven't got the big marketing spend, focus on google business profile. Do that first, because google don't lie about you. But if you don't give them the information, then they won't know what to do. And the example I give I bought a.
Speaker 3:I'm a guitarist and I bought an effects pedal. You know, I go, you spend 500 pounds, you get a metal box with a button on it that makes you think you might be able to play guitar better. But it got delivered. It got delivered to somewhere else, somewhere I used to have my old office and I was like, oh man, I haven't been there for years. And so I looked up who was in the company, you know who had that building, and it said in big red letters permanently closed. And I was like, oh man, where's my pedal? I'm gonna have to face up to the fact, I suck at guitar.
Speaker 3:So I drove over there and what do you think I found when I got to the location? A business that was opening, a thriving business. There were people in there tapping keyboards, speaking on phones, doing business stuff, and I spoke to them. I got my pedal, so happy ending. But I spoke to the managing director and I said you know, when people search for your company name, google's telling them you've gone out of business. And they went. Yeah, we know. I was like, well, I don't want to tell you what to do or anything, but you might want to fix that. And they're like I'm not bothered. And I was thinking, oh my God, this room full of people and this company spending money on marketing and branding and doing a good job for their customers, trying to drive referral traffic, and 86% of all searches for information start on Google and 86% of people looking up that company see a red bit of text that says permanently closed. Don't let that happen to you. Your business is crucially important and it's free. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:It, is it really?
Speaker 1:is.
Speaker 2:I think with the, you know, think as simple as we talked about SEO really is. It's just the truth of it, but it also can get complex. It's a big spider web of things that you can do. You do the complexities as you have done a lot of the foundational stuff, but doing those places is like it allows people just to just focus on that, just get into that thing. And then I would also advise, like the next step on that is on your social media channels, doing the same type of practice. Like who are you, what you know, like making sure the because Google is crawling, like Andrew pointed out earlier, it's about if it has your places and then you're big into Instagram, because that's where a lot of your readers are.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see that all the time.
Speaker 2:Fix that crap too, and tell Facebook what you're about. The thing is, the bot will go check your places, go look at your social. It's going okay, check, check. They're at the same location, they have the same phone number. The same phone number, the same contact, this the same hours, and it's just going validate, validate, validate and all that's going credibility.
Speaker 3:I said that I don't use acronyms, but I'm going to use one because it's nap, which I like, because nap just means a little sleep but it's name, address, phone number. Make sure they're the same everywhere you are. I know that's exactly what you're saying and it's free. It's another free thing to do because you won't just be listed on Google Business, you have to have your address on the bottom of your website and it will be on business directories. There's loads of free directories that are associated with newspapers here in the UK. There'll be thousands of them in the States as as well, but if you don't put your information down exactly the same way on all of them, it makes it hard for google to match it up and people always think well, how would I get that wrong very, very easily? This building I'm in is seven bailey close. Ipswich is the shortest version. The address the longest version is seven bailey close. Hadley road, industrial estate, south ipswich, ipswich, suffolk, you know there's all these different ways.
Speaker 3:I think you, you have an advantage in the states because you have a zip code and you don't have these very, very two things we like in this country, like very, very long addresses and very, very long names. You know, we love it when a whole load of people get married and they both keep their name and it takes you 10 minutes to introduce your friends.
Speaker 2:And then 20 minutes to describe where you live. Right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So we need to wrap this discussion up. Unfortunately we're running out of time, but I think this is some really valuable information for our listeners. So I used to go to London occasionally. I had several clients over there in years past and I was always fascinated with the way it worked over there. The arguments the Brits were always the Irish and Scots made fun of the Brits and they said they were all uptight.
Speaker 1:And then the Scots and the Brits all made fun of the Irish and said they were all drunks. And then the Irish and the British made fun of the Scots and said they were all cheap. Is that still the case? It's been a while. You think you'll find it's enshrined in law. Is that still the case?
Speaker 3:It's been a while I've been there, you'll find it's enshrined in law. And when did you see King Charles' coronation? Yeah, he has the duty to uphold they took out the bit about the duty to uphold the Christian faith and it is just the duty to uphold. The joke an Englishman, an Irishman, the Scotsman walk into a bar. So the King's speech next year, which they genuinely put on television. They stop all television and put on the King's Speech. It's going to start, I hope, with an Englishman, scotsman, irishman walk into a bar and then hilarity will ensue, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been great having you on the show. If anyone wants to reach out to you, what is your contact information?
Speaker 3:Andrew, the website is yeseoio and that's Y-E-S-E-O, dot I-O. And it's I-O because that means input, output, because with SEO, put good stuff in and you'll get good stuff out. You can also find me on my YouTube channel, which is called the Business Amplifier Podcast.
Speaker 1:Okay, Awesome, that's great. Well, I think this has been a wonderful episode. It's been educational for me. He's an old fart. He doesn't know anything about this.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that I honestly believe though I mean you know to your point about yourself, mark, but then there's new confusion related to AI and, like you don't have to optimize or you know, I've seen a lot like the advertising side of algorithms has, especially on the social side, andrew, I've seen has really interestingly become stronger, like as far as getting discoverability, because everybody's trying to get paid by ads on the social platforms, but people cannot forget about the seo, the foundational roots. I mean there's not a human in the world that likes to be lied to. There is not a human and the best bots don't want to be lied to either, and so all you got to do is just speak the truth, just be honest, you know, and then be consistent with that honesty.
Speaker 1:I learned that from both of you guys. Today the consistency is so critical.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then the nice thing is you haven't got to invent anything. It's your business, it's in your head, right? That's the most powerful thing. You can ignore all the seo advice in the world. Just have a good business, all right well of it. It's ain't advertising, it's truth-telling yeah, which I realize that's not going to help me get work, is it if I keep going out and telling people that you don't need seo? Just wait a minute?
Speaker 1:I thought you said we're supposed to share all this stuff and that's how they find us.
Speaker 3:So no, no, no To do SEO. You just give me $10,000 a week and I'll sort it out for you.
Speaker 1:All right, guys? Well, we really appreciate your being here today with us, Andrew, and hope you have a great rest of the day and week.
Speaker 2:And until next time. This has been another episode of big talk about small business business.