From Listicles To Lead Gen: How Modern SEO Actually Works

Search isn’t broken, it’s louder—and that changes how we win. Steven Schneider, founder and CEO of TrioSEO, joins us to break down why Google’s results feel crowded, how LLMs surface authentic takes, and why classic formats like listicles and “X vs Y” pages are quietly outperforming generic blogs. We get tactical fast: building tight topical clusters for a single ICP, writing honest competitor comparisons that LLMs actually cite, and using accessibility and voice search to widen the funnel while lowering risk.

Steven pulls back the curtain on his path from building and selling affiliate sites to leading a 45-client agency through market shocks like COVID, Amazon’s affiliate cuts, and product review updates. We dig into the pricing mindset—when to undercharge to earn proof, when to say no, and how to spot red-flag clients. Then we connect SEO to revenue with interactive assets: calculators, benchmarks, and quizzes born from keyword research that convert curious readers into qualified leads. It’s a practical blueprint for turning attention into pipeline.

We also explore how UGC and micro-influencers amplify trust, why embedding real video into written guides boosts engagement, and how personal branding acts as an SEO flywheel on platforms like LinkedIn and X. Steven’s take is clear: in a world where AI can churn out words, authority comes from useful, honest, and accessible experiences that help people decide. Subscribe, share with a teammate who needs an SEO reset, and drop a review to tell us which tactic you’ll test first.

This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Mediascape, Insights from Digital Changemakers, a speaker series and podcast brought to you by USC Annenberg's Digital Media Management Program. Join us as we unlock the secrets to success in an increasingly digital world.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

I am so thrilled on MediaScape today to have Steven Schneider with me. Steven, you actually were on my other podcast a few months ago. You're the founder and CEO of Trio SEO. And I imagine some things have changed the landscape even more than they had with generative AI and the whole AI landscape since then. So first of all, thank you for being on MediaScape.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Yes, thank you for having me again.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Yeah. SEO is a big topic of conversation in our programs. I teach, you know, for the masters in digital media management and now also the master's in digital social media programs at USC. And we're always talking about the different techniques and the different things that are happening in this world. So will you talk to us a little bit about SEO and how it's evolved since you got your start into growing your own company today?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Yeah. I'll do my best to make sure that people's eyes don't just glaze over whenever we talk SEO. But yeah, I think the biggest thing is that it's just so much harder. And I know that's kind of a loaded way to answer that question, but I feel like back in the day, Google was still trying to even understand what quality content meant and how intent was actually matched to people's queries. Because at the end of the day, Google's just guessing. It's just trying to align some sort of result to whatever people search for, get them something close to their ask. So nowadays it's doing that, but even worse, there's a lot of extra noise in between. It's trying to give you any option available so that it has a fighting chance to continue meeting your demands, essentially. But I think from an SEO perspective, it puts us in a weird spot because people who are trying to give people the best experience or the best information or the best service aligned to their problems, they get lost in the crowd. So I think that there's a massive, massive leap compared to where we were 10 years ago when you could essentially throw up a website, throw up some content, and connect with visitors. And it's not like that.

LLMs, Listicles, And Competitor Content

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Yeah. Well, and when we're thinking about SEO, I mean, I've heard from different experts that old days, right, they wanted obviously your own website is really important to have long-tail keywords and send different words that would bring people to your site. But now I've heard that also some of the LLMs are trying to search for the authentic reviews and information from other people, which could be as far as Google page 10. Because when we when we as brands think about SEO, we want to be on page one. We want to dominate page one, page two. But with the LLMs, I'm hearing it's a little bit of a different case. And I think Google has tried to mitigate that a little bit to keep people on Google and search platforms. So I'd love for you to unveil a little bit about what you're seeing in the market. And you work with B2B, right? And SaaS companies, which most people who are going through our programs work for big businesses or they aspire to be their own business and work with businesses. So I'd I'd love to hear a little bit about your perspective on that and those shifts you've been seeing since the advent of generative AI just a few years ago.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Yeah. So the really interesting thing is that long ago, when I mean long ago, I mean like 2021 in SEO worlds long ago. But listicles, at least from like the best of or top 10 lists, all that sort of stuff, kind of they had their time in place. They worked really well. It's how I grew my first company. And then they just got absolutely demolished by Google because they were being spammed and weren't really an authentic take on what was being interpreted at that time. And nowadays we're seeing them kind of resurface and become a very integral part of how LLMs are picking up on these top 10 lists. And so we're having to have these conversations with clients where I come to them and say, hey, we want to go off this topic, but we also want to talk about your competitors. And it's really interesting to see the split because usually the bigger the brand, the more standoffish they are, which should be the opposite because they have actually a bigger kind of authority or a bigger sense of a website to actually go out and crush the competition. But it's this really weird sense where they don't want to talk about competitors, they don't want to paint them in a positive light. Cause what if they what if the visitor goes to them instead of us? And like the my always thing I say is, well, you're just gonna miss out on the entire opportunity to begin with if you don't at least play ball. And they're like, nope, doesn't matter, we still want to do it. And so for the people who do go after those competition, that topic or however you want to view it, really are thriving from those listicles or versus articles or brand comparison guides because they are picked up more frequently in LLMs. So it's really interesting to kind of see everything come full circle, but also kind of see who wants to kind of put their foot in the water and kind of go after it.

Student Advice: Strategy, Clusters, ICP

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Yeah. What advice would you give to our graduate students who are listening right now and trying to figure out how they can grow either their own companies or the companies that they work for?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I think those are a really big opportunity and also making sure that there's actual demand to go after to begin with. So don't just write articles or content or put pages on your website just because you think it's a good idea. Obviously, there's gonna be things like industry pages or you know, ICP pages or stuff like that that are always gonna be kind of essentials, but especially from a blogging point of view, don't just write a blog because you think it's interesting and it's gonna be picked up by everyone. Like that's not how it works. So it should always be some sort of strategy and keyword focus to begin with. But I always think that like keeping things isolated, keeping things very relevant amongst each other. If you're in a, like, for example, our site, we cater to B2B and SaaS as two different kinds of like categories or ICPs. You should have a mini section or category of your blog dedicated to just like 10 to 15 articles on B2B SEO or 10 to 15 articles about SaaS and how those kind of all work together. So keeping things in clusters, speaking directly to your ICP, their problems, solutions, that sort of stuff works really well.

Founder Journey And Portfolio SEO

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Yeah, nice. You uh majored in finance and business for your other degrees, and you ended up in SEO and you've owned multiple companies. So tell us a little bit about that journey. Because I know a lot of our students and even alums are in that space where they're not sure what the work environment's going to be. Maybe they started in one place, you know, got one master's, and then now they're doing digital media because they see that that's a better opportunity. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about your pathway.

Black Swan Hits And Reinvention

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, so I kind of an interesting journey. I went to college to in marketing, essentially, to begin with. And then I started taking marketing classes and it just felt very saturated. Like the information I was getting from those classes just felt like I could learn it on YouTube at the time. And so then I was like, well, if this is the case and the kind of career path from here doesn't really have a lot of upside, then I would switch into finance. And I was like, at least I'm going to sell my soul, go into VC, hate my life, but make a ton of money. It's kind of like how I looked at it. And that was just what I kind of agreed to, and it was just like, okay, put your head down, go to your MBA, kind of go through the life check boxes. And then a friend of mine, we were in a product together, and he had mentioned that he like had this business on the side, and I thought it was just like, you know, making a couple hundred bucks, flipping books, like something on the side. But he was doing SEO and buying and selling affiliate blogs, websites, which is kind of for those who don't know, you can buy and sell a website if it makes ongoing monthly revenue similar to like real estate. So if a website makes a thousand bucks a month from any sort of online ad revenue or affiliate, you can sell it for 30 to 45,000 from a multiple standpoint. So my background in finance and kind of drive to not do the long ride kind of corporate path. I just started building websites, became addicted to SEO, and kind of started learning what he was doing. And once I had my first website that was making like two or three grand in college per month, I the valuation on that was like 110 to 130. And so I always just thought I was like rich. And I was like, oh, this is I'm done, like I'm gonna drop out. And so that site ended up crashing, but it was really enough of a taste to what was on the other side of it to give me the I always call it like ignorant freedom to just pursue this thing as fast as I could and just kind of say, I will do whatever's required in the short run to make so I don't have to get a real job after I graduate. So we just started building a ton of websites, had a small portfolio. He was already making like 25k a month from a couple of their websites in college. And so he kind of like brought me on and like at least allowed me to work hourly on one of his websites until our portfolio made enough and then remerged with his other business partner. And at our peak, we had about 40 websites and uh scaled that up to just over seven figures annually. So it was this crazy ride of just like no backup plan, just anything I could do to not get a real job was how I kind of looked at this thing. But ended up creating, you know, a real job and a real company out of it. So it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

And after you scaled all those websites, did you exit and then decide that you wanted to start working on other people's websites?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Sort of, but not really. So what happened was along that way, we would kind of use a very similar like MA mindset when going through. So if a website was like a cash cow and one of those sites that we had like made like 50, 60k per month, that was kind of like the lifeline of a majority of the business. If another site that we had was maxed out per se in terms of the content that we wanted to add at like one or two K per month, then we would just sell that and kind of take the lump sum and then kind of reinvest those profits into other websites or content, et cetera. So it was always like a build-by-sell, depending on like what site was in the portfolio. And then from there on out, some sites were sold off, some were kept. But we got hit with a like trifecta of a black swan event, which I think we might have talked about last time. But we essentially had COVID hit us, which obviously shook the economy as a whole. Uh, Amazon cut their affiliate rates in half overnight and just sent out an email to everyone was just like, hey, this is going into effect in two weeks. Sorry. So that shattered our entire revenue. I mean, like 60% of our site revenue was from Amazon. And then uh Google released the 2021 product algorithm update, which kind of going back to the listicle style thing, they caught on to how people like us were just blasting content in listicles and being able to drive obscene amount of traffic to affiliates through that. And so they kind of went after a lot of those sort of sites. And since we had so many sites, it was like some went up because they were so high quality, some went down because they were newer in the space and kind of seen as like didn't have enough authority to kind of compete against the big dogs. And so ups and downs. But long story short, I ended up stepping away from that company, kind of like selling my equity to my partners and kind of said, like, hey, press on, love you guys. I can still talk to them weekly and kind of let them take that however they wanted to take it. And then I kind of took some time off, digressed, figured out what was next, and then one thing led to another and I started trio.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah.

Starting Trio And Choosing ICP

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Yeah, that is certainly a trifecta of events. How did you figure out who you wanted to target for your ICP with Trio?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Yeah, I I didn't. I wish I had a better answer for that. But what happened there was that I was kind of in between jobs and I went back and I got a real job at a startup before Trio. And I had taken like a year and a half off at that time. It was just kind of like figuring out what to do. And I I had a couple different startups along the way that didn't really blossom into anything. So it's like, okay, we'll, you know, get a real job and kind of enter the workforce. And I started going on LinkedIn a lot and creating content on LinkedIn just as a right place, right time, opportunity. And around that same time, I connected with one of my now partners, Connor Gilliban. And he was already like super active on LinkedIn, had a pretty big following at that time and still does. And then I met his other business partner, our now business partner, Nathan Hirsch. They were just coming off of an exit and kind of building a small portfolio of companies round two. And so, long story short, I pretty much said, like, why don't you have an SEO agency? And they said, Oh, we have it all planned out. We just don't want to run it. We don't want to own or kind of be the operator of companies anymore. We just want to kind of be more of like a strategic kind of partner in that sense. And so I pitched myself. I had already quit the startup after like six months because I hated it and hated being the workforce kind of mindset instead of the entrepreneur. And so it kind of was a really serendipitous way to kind of pick this up and run with it and kind of sink my teeth into something new. And then they had kind of already, like I said, been testing and kind of thinking about this for a year or two. And so that's when they said, well, most of the opportunities in B2B services and SaaS. And so that was kind of how we stuck on that and then kind of just going down the rabbit hole of like what industries work well, which ones don't, and kind of figure out a process from there.

Pricing, AI Objections, And Fit

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Yeah. Fantastic. You know, you're answering genuinely. And I think that a lot of people with that entrepreneurial spirit, which you clearly have always had, do the same thing. We go in, we think we might, we know what we want to do, but we don't know exactly who our target customer is. So we play around a little bit and then it comes to us. And sometimes it comes to us because we start getting a lot of client referrals. Sometimes somebody else has it mapped out a little bit and you see the opportunity as well. And so I think that's something that's really important to for everybody who's listening to digest is in our minds, right? And when you're thinking about your business plan for an organization, you do start mapping out some things perhaps, but a lot of times it does just happen organically and you go, oh, I thought I was going down this path, but it's actually this other thing that's attached, but not quite the same.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Yeah, absolutely. And I would also encourage people to do a lot of experiments with clients for free, or like when you're trying to figure out your footing, like see what sticks. Uh, if you do have like a small client pool, figure out like what makes some clients successful versus others who aren't. And what we started doing now is if you work with a lot of clients, you're always gonna have some that are annoying, which is just the reality of it. Some are super hands-on, they don't always need to be, but they want to be. And then some who are just completely passive. And those are typically the best people to work with because they don't ask questions, they let you do your job, they trust the process, and those are great. And so what we started doing is we're taking a look at like what clients are the happiest, which ones have been with us for the longest, and which ones don't get our way of kind of letting us do our job. And so we started to kind of figure out like, will they have these tendencies and we can adopt these strategies and they all kind of overlap in this kind of sense. And so that's kind of what I would say is like try to find patterns in the people you enjoy working with. And usually that's another way to kind of find your ICP and kind of like just really dive into that pool.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

So another thing that I think is an issue when people are first starting a business, and I'd like to hear if this was for you as well, is underpricing.

unknown 15:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Especially nowadays, people say, Well, I can do all of that with AI. I mean, maybe you can, but is it going to be fine-tuned and tailored to your business and your ICP? Or is it going to be generalist information? Right. I mean, I'm coming across this myself where I have an offer that is about to launch and I was like, I'm going to put it at this price point. And I got on a call yesterday, and I'm now charging five times that. And that's still probably under what I should be charging for it. But it it's a big mindset shift sometimes. And so I'd love to hear how you approach that in your businesses.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yeah, it's a tricky one. And I say that because it's it's one of those things where, from my experience, it's much easier to charge more when you have the mental freedom to care less about the people who say no. And so if you're starting out and you don't have a lot of cash flow or you don't have a strong, you know, client roster, every client feels like it's the lifeline of your business. And so if you're struggling to get afoot and kind of take those first steps, yeah, you will have to work for free. You will have to undercut your services. I don't think that you are should always be like, no, this is the price and this is it. Okay. Well, then you won't make a lot of clients in the beginning. But I think once you kind of build up that authority and that strategy and those results or the case studies, you do have a little bit more freedom and flexibility to say, nope, sorry, this is the price. And I get to kind of choose who I want to work with, and I'm picky because I value my time and I value my skill set. And so it's not an overnight thing to get there. But I think people like us, people like you, you're a great example of that too. When you have this reputation for doing something repeatedly very well and producing great results, people will come to you for that and you can start charging a higher price.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

Yeah. Do you have anybody who has come to you with the objections of, well, this is what I can do with AI and it's done this much for me in business. And what are some of the things that you say to that when when you get these?

Voice Search, Accessibility, And UX

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Yeah, I I encourage them to try. I think that if they think that they can do that better for cheaper, you know, as an entrepreneur, you should. Like if you're confident in that strategy, go for it. I can tell you my opinions. I don't think it's going to work, and here's why. But I think it it looks at like, you know, I have clients come to me and think they know SEO, which I think is great. Like I think that there's a little bit of, you know, I encourage people to study it and know the basics. But I've just like I've written, I published like literally over probably 10,000 articles. Or not like, you know, literally written them, but like been the overseer of publishing that many articles and generating millions of dollars through SEO. And so it's like there's only so many ways to skin a cat in SEO, and you think you're gonna cut corners through like crap quality content and buying a thousand backlinks for five dollars, good luck. That's just kind of makes my life easier when you're not competition. So it's like it probably sounds bad to say, but I think that's just like it's just part of the game. I think that people are always going to try to find the path of least resistance, especially in business, but it's it's not always the case. So it's hard, it's a hard toss-up.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Yeah. And when those clients or prospects come back to you, are they a yes for you? Or do you uh if you kind of written them off?

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Uh it depends. It depends on how the attitude was to begin with. I'd say that and sometimes like I've had clients where they question everything, or I can just tell like there's a whole like list of red flags when we first started talking. And I just feel like, hey, it's just how good fit. Like, sorry, but it's just you kind of have to pick your battles. And if you think that this person is going to nickel and dime you and ask you why you're doing everything and kind of like get in your way of just doing what you do best, it's probably not worth it. But at the end of the day, if they are excited to work with you and they trust you and all that sort of stuff, then sure, like we'll take them on. But I think it's important for people to remember. That when you're starting a business, the clients fund your business, but how you spend your energy on their business is equally as important.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

That's something that I think a lot of people, going back to your statement about, you know, when you're starting up, you might feel like you have to take everything because you just need to get money in the door. But when you do start getting those clients who are not your ideal customer that you're spending a lot of time on and it's not worth the energy that you're spending, it's really discouraging as a business owner.

UGC, Influencers, And YouTube

SPEAKER_01 20:33

No, it's so true. It's it's like the worst thorn in my side. But it's just uh the way I always remind the team is that we have at the time of this filming, we have like almost 45 clients, and there's always gonna be a few. Like there's always gonna be one to you know X, depending on the sample size. And if you can kind of keep that at a modest limit of one to three people, I would say, that are probably always emailing you, always asking questions, like that's a pretty good average, I would say. So as long as you kind of accept some sort of baseline number and just kind of stick within that threshold, then the rest is you're doing pretty well.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Yeah. We've seen a lot of trends, and we know that YouTube is a big search engine. So we've we've had voice search, which didn't, I think, really go anywhere. We have video search, and we have people searching through LLMs, people searching through social media platforms. I'd love to hear, do you think any of these are going to stick? Do you think people need to tailor their information for these specific methodologies? Or is it better to stay with a baseline of tried and true? Just make sure your on-page SEO is strong, that you are writing, like you said, to your topics and your ICP?

SPEAKER_01 21:56

No, I think all of that is just going to continue growing. I think voice search is increasingly growing in demand, even though like it feels weird that we don't always speak to Siri. Like my parents only use voice search. It's the weirdest thing in the world, but like I don't know why. Like they always just talk to their phones like it's a robot and it's like the weirdest thing ever. Especially like I've seen like people who are older that are not as familiar with technology and maybe aren't as adept to typing, prefer voice. Um there's a huge, huge audience as well within the accessibility kind of community that rely on voice search as well. Also, like if your website should be very accessible through all different types, it's like why alt text exists in image, because people might not be able to see the images. And so if you have alt text to describe the image, that'll help people who are visually impaired. Hearing impaired as well will kind of help based on different aspects of your website. So I think as websites and LLMs develop and Google kind of tries to continue catering to all different types of communities, it's massively important to ensure that your website caters to anybody who wants to find you at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Yeah. That's good because I've heard different things about voice, but accessibility, there's such a huge part of the audience that is very loyal if you are accessible and you're giving them the opportunity to be part of your community.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah. It's also a really interesting legal battle, too. Like if your website is not accessible and you're a big enough brand to where somebody's accessing your website and feels like it's not catering to them, that could be hot water. So just kind of keep that stuff in mind, especially as you're kind of going down certain industries or certain audiences and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

And do you see any emerging trends, things we haven't spoken about that you think are going to come up in the next couple years?

Personal Branding As An SEO Flywheel

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yeah, I think the influencer marketing mixed with SEO and YouTube, I think will be really interesting to kind of see. I think we saw a little bit of that with how Google and Reddit kind of teamed up. By team up, I mean Reddit paid Google for better rankings. But yeah, I think that that kind of showed that Google is starting to favor a lot more forum style, like UGC style discussions. And I think that people who are using products, obviously influencer paid, but looking for like authentic use cases of video content, I think is going to be really, really popular in the future because we've already seen like YouTube Shorts and TikToks and Reels. And so I think that kind of blending that side of things with your written content is just going to make your entire kind of like asset pool that much stronger versus people who don't blend those two mediums.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Yeah. It's so interesting because that tracks with one of the classes I'm teaching right now is about digital content direction. And we talk about professionally produced content versus UGC and how much more money brands are spending on UGC than they are in professionally produced at this point in time and into the future. And then we have AI generated content as well, which is going to become an even bigger player.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah. No, I think UGC is uh a very interesting development. But I think that people want that. Like they want that raw, like amateur style filmed content. They don't want the fake, overly edited studio content anymore. And so I think when you kind of have that, it kind of breaks the fourth wall of like, oh, this person's like me and I relate to this brand versus the athlete who is nowhere near yourself or the person who doesn't look like you at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

So yeah. So you are you're also seeing maybe a trend towards micro influencers versus paying the big bucks to the big athlete, the big celebr. You know, I'm putting it in quotes because I'm thinking about specific people that we all hear about a lot in the news. But so instead of paying people like that who also own their own brands, who have a lot of tie-ins, who make money in multiple ways, we want to see people who are relatable to us. We want to see real people using it and we want their perspectives versus, oh, I love this, I follow this, you know, athlete or singer or model or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Yeah. I think personal branding, which is kind of like one step away from most of that, is just is so powerful. I mean, I'm definitely biased because I've been building mine for the last couple of years since rediscovering LinkedIn. And I think just knowing the amount of connections I've formed and like obviously forming my business and I, you know, going on a ton of podcasts and relationships and going to conferences and virtual speaking events, it's just opened up so many doors. And now when I look back on it, it was this really weird, like impostery syndrome sort of thing to have my name littered all over this little micro niche of a community. But I also think that from a branding perspective and from a business building perspective, it's so powerful to already have that trust built in. And so I think that I kind of speak a lot about how personal branding and SEO just kind of reinforce each other to create like this flywheel of sorts. And I think that those who lean into personal branding for their businesses, if it is a kind of front-facing opportunity within their business, will just really, I think, skyrocket their business much more than competitors.

Platform Choices And Content Mix

SPEAKER_02 27:16

Okay, interesting. Question that piggybacks on that. When it comes to personal brand, right? There's personal brand, then there's you as the business owner. They may be built on different things. An example, I have maybe 38,000 followers on my personal Instagram. I have not been very active on it, right? So my engagement's gone way down. Part of it is because I try to change it from what it was before, which was more me and me in a different time in my life, than me as owning a PR agency or a podcast agency or a whole bunch of other things. And so I think there's also that push-pull and that transition between choosing what mediums you're going to put your brand on and how you portray it. Because I can tell you people respond a lot better to content where I'm posting fashion or family travel than talking about podcasting or PR or branding. So how did you shift that narrative for yourself?

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Yeah, it's a question. Uh, first off, start posting again. That's just your why you please start posting.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Yeah, that's that's my intention.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

I think that it's hard. I mean, every platform obviously has a whole different demographic attached to it. Like, I don't post on Instagram because, like you, I it's private, it's for my family friends and family. I've also had it since like day one of Instagram. And so, like, if you scroll back far enough, there's some crazy stuff in there. But I just I that's not a business platform for me. Like, I don't I don't look at Instagram as like, oh, this is a great opportunity to connect with B2B CMOs. It's like, yeah, no. LinkedIn, on the other hand, yes. I think Twitter, we've seen a lot of success from Twitter. Personally, I don't post on Twitter, but my partners have had good success. We've had a lot of clients come through from Twitter. There's other platforms I think that are out there that are kind of like Facebook is still a really weird platform where you can find success. But again, like this depends on how active you want to be on certain platforms. But yeah, I think that like from your point of view, like one thing I would say to that is like you have all the power to pick and choose what you want to post and how you want to post it. I think that the people who are following you, like if 38,000 is like a decent size, like there probably are people in there that are your ICP, they're just kind of waiting for that to pop up. So maybe it's like a once-a-week thing, or you're only posting it on stories, or even just announcing, like, hey, I'm gonna be posting more business content here and there. Um, if you don't like that, like much love, but like just FYI. I think that it's your brand, it's your your personal brand. And I think it also posting more about your personal life reinforces your business posts. And I don't see people do that a lot, but it definitely you know helps people understand who you are and the person that's not always business and not always speaking around your business. And then when you do drop more of a bottom-of-funnel sales-focused post, it kind of is the springboard for a lot of those first few relationships. So yeah, I think I'm such a huge proponent of all that. I think it's great. So yeah, start posting TLDR.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. And it's funny because I when I hear people's advice, sometimes I think I'm like, this is the advice I give to students or to other people, but then you have to look at yourself and go, am I following my own advice?

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Yeah, that's hard one.

unknown 30:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

Yeah. So what do you see next for Trio SEO and for yourself?

SEO + Lead Gen: Tools And Quizzes

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Oh wow. Yeah, this is this is all I've been really thinking about lately. I think that we have a really good strategy in place for 2026, which really leans into the marriage between lead generation and SEO, which has always been kind of this massive disconnect in our industry. Many SEOs kind of just look at it as like, yeah, we're gonna get you leads, but most SEOs are going to need traffic to site. And there's always like some sort of barrier when it comes to lead generation. So maybe someone's website looks like trash and hasn't been updated in 10 plus years, or the marketing team doesn't have the bandwidth for lead magnets. And even though the traffic's there, there's not a funnel in place to bridge that traffic. And so what we've been looking at is using SEO data and keyword strategy to go after tools and assets like calculators and quizzes and things that kind of have inherent search demand, but giving users a more authentic, engaged way to communicate with brands. So delivering those for clients and making sure that that's not on them. It's not one more kind of constraint to the process. And we can kind of just go in and deliver it. We've already doing that already and kind of generating like upwards of 150 plus MQLs for some clients. So I'm really excited about rolling that out and getting it kind of in the hands of more brands.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Yeah. Okay, fantastic. And then for Trio SEO, because you have about 45-ish clients right now. Growth, are you looking at going into higher growth mode as well?

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Yeah, we just went through a huge growth spurt, which is kind of unexpected. And so we're letting the death settle from that to kind of make sure the team is, you know, we went through a big restructuring within the team, like all of not like firing, but just really making sure that like who's taking what clients, like, do you know the processes? Like making sure that if I, you know, kind of bring in another big pool of clients, the team's not gonna collapse and hate me for that. So it's always good to kind of let the dust settle before scaling up again. And that's kind of what we're doing right now. But yeah, once the new year comes, um, I'll be releasing a pretty large e-book that kind of complements the strategy I just described and kind of using that as our big kind of lead magnet to go after the lost space. And that's always been kind of like a untapped niche in industry for us. Uh, I know it very well from like an SEO point of view. Finding writers in that space has always been kind of our Achilles heel. And so that's kind of what we're trying to master right now. And then once we have that kind of secured, it's kind of off the races. So it'll be fun to kind of explore that in 2026.

Scaling, Team Structure, And Growth

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Yeah. What are some of the other categories that are your ICPs?

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Yeah, I wish I had a better answer. But the main thing what we do, so we kind of do a reverse engineered process. We look at industries and do an audit beforehand. And it's usually like our sales vehicle, and we always say, like, oh, let's do an audit on your site and show you what you're missing. Nine times out of 10, it's our own due diligence check to see like, is this super competitive? Is there an opportunity in the space? Like, what does this brand actually represent? And like we're kind of picking and choosing our clients from that standpoint. But we have really good success with any like agencies. So, like Amazon agencies, we have a bunch of clients in MA space, does really well. We have a really good strong client that's been with us for like three years in the MA. We know that topic inside out. Law will be kind of the next big one for us and kind of going into that. But yeah, anything that's like really boring for SEO, like that's where you can just absolutely crush it because that's like it's not sexy to go after, but that's kind of where we try and like find those hidden gems.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Okay, fantastic. Any last pieces of advice for the audience listening today?

Industries That Win With SEO

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Yeah, I think the the main advice I always try and give people is stick with something longer than you expected it and give yourself the freedom to see it through. Entrepreneurship is so damn hard and it takes so long to get anything off the ground. And so if you're expecting these like 10k months, 30, 60 days after starting, you're just you have false expectations around what your business should be and what the kind of potential upside will bring. So I think it's always good to just go in there with like what is the actual timeline I'm going to give this. And like, for example, when I did LinkedIn, you know, building my personal brand, I said, okay, I'm gonna post every day for three years. And what happens when I do that? And three years is the end of like two more weeks. And I have like I've missed it by probably a hundred posts, but for the most part, it's been a hundred days or a hundred once per day for that entire time. So I think just looking at it like three to five year increments and seeing what can happen when I actually invest all of my energy into this for three to five years. And at the end of that, it's like, okay, move on, but you'll be surprised what actually happens.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

Fantastic. And obviously we'll link Trio SEO. And if you're okay with it, Steven, I'll link your LinkedIn as well in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Yes, please do. Anyone can reach out, I always love talking shop.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Amazing. And we'll look forward to your ebook coming out.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

Yes, I will uh I'll send to you up next.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Fantastic. Thanks to everybody who's listening to this episode. Please follow Media Escape if you're not. Leave us a rating review. It helps discoverability. And thank you to Steven Schneider from Trio SEO for being on the show and giving us a lot of really great things to digest going into 2026.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

To learn more about the Master of Science and Digital Media Management program, visit us on the web at dmm.usc.edu.