Stop Relying on Luck - Build an SEO Engine That Delivers | Episode #28

The moment yall have been waiting for.  The SEO 101 episode.  We start by talking turkey day, then get right into the SEO discussions.  Charlie talks SEO fundamentals (content/technical/backlinks) like parent/child pages, title tags and keywords.  How to do keyword research, have a clean domain and rank a new website.  Hint... new website are brutal to rank so buy (if possible) an old domain and clean it up for your own.  We end with last week in AI with app pricing fundamentals, when to raise capital for your AI company & AI platforms and their adverts.  Subscribe today!

Transcript

Sponsor: Campaign Pilots Overview

SPEAKER_02 0:10

What's up y'all? Charlie here with Builders Growth Lab. Uh I want to take a second and tell you about uh campaign pilots. So let's say that you've built your app and you've got it out, you I use bolt, uh cursor, cloud code, whatever it is, it's out live, you've got the domain, uh you deployed. Awesome. Users are visiting. So let's say you're staring at your GA4 screen under user attribution and you're looking at your traffic sources. Let's just say that. Okay, how do you actually make sense of that, right? You're the builder, not the marketer. Okay, but that's fine. That's where campaign pilots comes in. It does the work for you. So what does that mean? Go to campaignpilots.ai, fire up your connectors, you've got GA4, you've got Search Console, you've got Google Ads. Okay, it takes less than 60 seconds to connect. Start a new analysis chat. Let's say you're connected to Search Console. You can prompt it, you can ask it, give me the top five pages in the last uh 30 days compared to the last 30 days. Tell me the deltas and tell me what to do moving forward on how to make this the most profitable campaign I can. And it will tell you the pages. And then you can ask it where the top five non-branded keywords, and then how to optimize those moving forward, and it will tell you. It basically tells you how to you know get the highest ROA as possible for your app. It solves a problem for getting customers to your app in layman's terms. So go to campaignpilots.ai, sign up for a free two weeks, and message us and let us know how it is. Thanks, all. On to the episode.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Builders Growth Lab podcast, otherwise formally known as AI Code Central. As of last week, we have a new name. Super exciting. I'm Mallory, your brand and community marketing expert. And then, of course, we have Connor, who is expert in all things growth, paid advertising. And then we have Charlie, who is the SEO god. And funny that I say that as he. I know I wanted to make it dramatic. He's really not.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

But it's a hell of an intro.

SPEAKER_04 2:21

Hell of an intro. But uh, I say that because this episode today is going to be diving into all things SEO. Charlie is going to kind of take us through the basics, especially if you're a builder here who doesn't really know how to get started on this. This is a great episode for you to learn more about all things SEO.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Okay. Stoke. Mallory. All right. Buzzing. Way to bring us in, Mallory. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:49

Yeah, it's the matcha, you guys. That's what it is. Ah right.

unknown 2:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Giving me actually it's SEO if that's giving me life right now. It's just the excitement of diving into this topic is getting me energized. No, I can't. I can't.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

I think the takeaway is too, though, right? Like SEO, it as technical as it can be, it's super integral to anybody who's building this site, right? So so it's like going through it. Charlie, we're going to pepper you with a ton of questions, you know, as if I know nothing about SEO. And even as much as I do know, it's not as much as you. So it's going to be one to listen in on, and again, kind of take some things away for you guys who are out there building and in the process of getting a website up and running. This is going to be super integral.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

SEO is the heartbeat of a website. Uh, it is your basically your online store. Uh, you run paid ads. That's great. You do some email marketing, awesome. You got um badass community and everything. Like the heartbeat of the website is critical for customer acquisition. So we will go through that in this episode.

Holiday Catch‑Up And Sports Banter

SPEAKER_04 3:51

Definitely. But uh before we dive in, curious to hear how uh your Thanksgiving weekends or holiday breaks went. Any updates to share?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Charlie, take it away, man. Charlie. Oh, me first. Me first. I'll go first.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

Connor, I feel like you don't go first. So okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Uh thank you so much. I get to go first now. Um, Thanksgiving weekend was great. Honestly, it was a nice couple of days to have some downtime. As I've spoken about on all of our previous episodes the past few weeks, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, going to the holidays is it's such a slog, especially for people in the e-commerce space, you know, paid marketing, digital marketing space. Um while busy's good, it's mayhem, absolute mayhem. So listen, busy's good. I'm never gonna complain about being busy, but it's one of those things where after you're done, it's almost like like you're so fatigued, even mentally, and like fried without even realizing it. Like Thanksgiving hit, and like that morning I just got up and was like, oh my gosh, like the sense of relief of just getting everything done. Yeah, like all clients were happy. Best feeling. It was the best feeling. So it was just nice to kind of like you know, take a break, um, you know, give myself a little space and take some time off. So Thanksgiving was great, had family over, good food, you know, good drinks, um, just nice connecting with people. And again, stepping away from the computer for a little bit. You definitely need that um off-screen time, I think, to kind of recharge and reinvigorate yourself. And I came back yesterday, Monday, and I was just like ready to dive back into it and get back to work. So can't complain. It was a good weekend so far overall. Charlie, give us some uh lowdown on your Thanksgiving, man.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Real quick, real quick.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

What football did you watch? Oh my god. Oh, all the football, man. Big sports fan over here. So I watch, I mean, I watched all the games. I have a really bad habit of Mallory's pits. I do like the whole parlay thing and the DraftKings thing. It's absolutely terrible. It's a bad habit. I wish I didn't do it. Listen, I'm not spending like hundreds of dollars at a time, but like I'll spend like I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

Maybe you are, Connor. Maybe you are.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

No, no, no, no. Are you a degenerate? Dude, I love gambling. I'm not gonna lie. If you get me in like lost Las Vegas, like one of my favorite places on planet Earth, like for two days at a time, right? Any more than that, it's too much.

SPEAKER_04 6:07

That's terrible.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Yeah, I I like I think it's like anybody, right? You gamble a little bit and you win some money, and you're like, it's the coolest feeling in the world, but it it hooks you in so much. Right. I want the feeling again and again and again. So listen, I don't I don't blast$50 on a bet, but I will take$50 on a Sunday and just make a bunch of little bets here and there. But listen, sometimes they pay off Thursday, Thanksgiving. I bet on the Cowboys game. Cowboys are my team, and they ended up rewarding me with like$500. I bet like$5 and won$500. So it was nice, but if I'm being honest, the winnings probably balances out the amount of money I've spent over the last three months or so, right? So it's kind of just a hobby, I guess, in some capacity. I'm not like sitting here bleeding out cash, but uh, but yeah, definitely big on betting, big on the sports, all the football. Cowboys won. They're on a streak. I think they're better than the Broncos right now. Sorry, Charlie, to say that. Why are you? I don't know if you're like a big sports fan or not.

SPEAKER_04 7:09

Well, I'm not super huge, but I know the 49ers won yesterday. So like recently, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, they won a few days ago. So they look good, but my cowboys are looking really, really good. That gets me amped up. You're from New York. Why are you a Dallas fan? Well, yeah, yeah. All right. So I get a lot of flack because the Giants, New York Giants and Dallas are like, you know, big rivals, but I'm an 80s baby, right? So I grew up like when I was younger, it was like 93, 94, 95, is when the Cowboys won like all their Super Bowls in a row. Troy, so I'm a very yeah, exactly. So I was a very impressionable young, young man who's just watching the TV and was just like, yeah, they're winning. I like this team, and I just I never went back. You know, I just stuck with the team.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

I can picture a little Connor with his little mustache.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

I look the exact same as I do now. Full headed, like just already gambling.

SPEAKER_04 7:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's already gambling.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Already gambling. Like I was doing gambling before DraftKings was even a thing.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Like I was just parlaying crayons, and yeah, I I can see that. Uh okay, what did I get into? Uh well, Thanksgiving is okay. I I think the week of Christmas, that's like my favorite week of the year. Um, but Thanksgiving is a close second, just because you know, it's great to see family. Um, you know, I'm from Denver, so I'm just buzz over to my sister's place. Parents are there, uh, niece and nephew are there, which is cool. Caught up with them. Girlfriend came with me, of course. And I ate so much. I felt I told my girlfriend, like, I feel like a sewer rat right now. I ate turkey, I ate stuffing, I ate mashed potatoes, I ate sweet potatoes, I ate ham, I had rolls, I had like three different kinds of rolls. They were freaking unbelievable. It was so good. And then I ate again, of course, the next day. I think I ate for two days um off of that. And just like I just love stuffing. I just I smash it. Stuffing's so good. Stuffing is the best. Stuffing. I I go ham on that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

So you do like the do you guys do like the the after Thanksgiving like leftover like sandwich thing where people are like, I'm just gonna put everything on a sandwich and just so good. Yeah, it's the best.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

It's yeah, I do that for sure. Um, yeah, I did that. Uh started shopping. I'm going down my list of my little notepad on my phone. Started shopping online, of course. I'm not going in person shopping.

SPEAKER_04 9:26

I'm not same.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

I'm not insane.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Oh, I wanted to go shopping in person. Although I did, but I tried to get my wife on Friday. I got up. I'm like, Do you want to like our family had left? I'm like, let's go shopping. She's like, absolutely not. Like I didn't want to go.

SPEAKER_04 9:39

I'm surprised. I'm surprised she wouldn't be like, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Oh, we she shopped. It was just all online, it just wasn't in the store. Quick um quick sidebar here. Uh Connor, didn't you do the the parade?

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

I did do yeah, I did do the parade. It was the first time I've done the parade, living in New York my whole life, like not too far from the city growing up. And I've been in the city for I don't know, 10 years now. And it's like a 20-minute subway ride, like over to uh to where the parade starts. So I went over where it initially starts. It was fun, don't get me wrong, but it's like woke up at 5 a.m. The parade doesn't kick off until I think it was 8 30. But in order to get a spot, you have to wake up super early. Very crowded, people like as you would expect, it is right. So it was a really cool experience. I think it's just a one-time experience for me, right? Unless at some point I have kids and they really want to go, et cetera, et cetera. But you know, for now, ton of fun. Cool to see the floats up close, but you don't see like the things you see on TV, the performances, the singing. It's just the floats kind of going by. Yeah, not that it's silent, but there's nothing else really going on, but still, nevertheless, it was a really sweet experience. Um that's cool. Something to check out.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yeah, that's cool. Uh, well, I'm not doing shopping in person. I'm just gonna go nuts on Amazon, of course. Just get it shipped in. Uh, I can I'll be done in like a week or so.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Can I say something really quick? Not to be that person, but my hot take is that um buying gifts on Amazon is the equivalent of getting someone a gift card. Okay, continue.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

Get the hell out of here, Mallory.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

No, I'm serious. I said that this weekend to my husband. I'm like, I really think it is. So sorry.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

What if it's like a very like thoughtful, unique? Those don't exist on Amazon. Oh, sure they do.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

No, I know they do. I'm kidding. But if I'm doing like thoughtful gift, I'm such a big Etsy guy with that because it feels like it's all handcrafted and I know it's a lot of it's mass-produced, right? Like, you're not really fooling me, but it just seems a little bit more genuine, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Uh a nice knife set.

SPEAKER_04 11:38

A nice knife set. I'd rather buy it on like which is not that much better than Amazon, but I'm like, ooh, I'd rather buy one buy it from like William Sonoma or like West Elm or uh Pottery Barn or Creighton Barrel or So that's what I would do.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Yeah, see, that's just uh okay. So it it's not just Amazon. Like I'll go to yeah, Pottery Barn or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 11:59

But um, I'm gonna call you out there.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

I've been uh okay, Mallory. See, okay, Charlie really is taking hosting the easy way out. She's already being a bully. Okay. So anyway, moving on now. Um yes, I I do have a a list on my phone. And um, yeah, I'll I'll be done I think a week and a half or so.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Uh for buying gifts, you're done in a week and a half.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

Yeah. I'll just carve out like a couple hours and you know on like a Saturday or something and just get it all done. Unl unless there's something, you know, unless I see something while I'm out, and you know, I'll I'll swoop that up, of course. Um yeah, start doing that. Uh the Broncos, yeah. So I'm in Denver. Uh Broncos are are crushing right now. Hell of a game on Sunday night. I know Mallory's gonna get boopy pants.

SPEAKER_04 12:45

We we talk about no talk about it.

Travel, Wine Country, And Lifestyle Chat

SPEAKER_02 12:47

About sports, football, yeah, sports. Uh hell of a game on Sunday night. That was that was a while ago. I I'm not even really a uh uh football fan. I mean, that was the first football game I watched in like I think three years. Like from oh wow, maybe not the whole game. I think I watched like halfway through the first, but yeah, I mean it was back and forth, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

I mean that yeah, I mean literally to like the last like couple minutes, I think, or like last minute, then Washington lost by like a point.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

Yeah. Yeah. On on the last play, too. Like that, yeah, he should have he for sure should have had that. Um, yeah, and the Aves are crushing it right now, they're a frickin' buzzsaw. Um it's kind of dangerous though, like when teams get on a heater like that in the beginning of the season, because typically you know, you can't sustain that, right? You know, you kind of tail off towards the end of the season, and then in the playoffs, it's like the worst timing. It drives GM's bananas.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Are Aves games super expensive? Not really. I that would be really cool if we can go to like an ABS game when we all meet up. That would be cool.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Okay, because it it like the the best. So I I was talking to uh to this with a buddy a couple weeks ago that football games are better watching than in person. Hockey games are better in person than watching. Like like when you go to a hockey game and like you're sitting kind of it's better to sit up, you know, a little higher because you can see the plays develop, that's where the scouts sit. But if you sit like a look kind of close and you see it, like you hear them chirping, like just talking shit to each other, which is hilarious in itself. Like you you hear them calling each other pigeons and fucking losers. It's it's so funny.

SPEAKER_04 14:20

I mean, that's the whole point, you know. But that's also like baseball to me is much better to watch in person than it is on TV.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

So I'm I'm not a baseball person.

SPEAKER_04 14:28

I I I'm not I mean, I grew up watching a lot of baseball. I grew up as a Chicago Cubs fan, so um, but yeah, I feel like it's much better in in person. Um, yeah, because you're eating you're eating, you're drinking, yeah. You get the whole experience. You get the experience, you know. So and baseball's pretty slow. It's a slower moving sport than you know, football and and definitely hockey.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Um it's it's so much fun to to go live. And um, yeah, I I have a buddy with with a box there, and uh like we'll we always stop by the course, have a couple of beers, and then um head back to our seats. But yeah, they're they're fun, especially when there's fights. Oh yeah, crowd goes exactly bananas. It it's it's so cool, it's so much fun. Like we're talking in other sports, baseball, uh football guys will throw down. Not that I'm like a advocate for violence, but I think when it's legal to fight in the sport, it keeps the players honest. Like there's no cheap shots, generally speaking. Um like you you can't hit a guy over the head with a stick because you get your your teeth punched in. And I I really think, and I've seen it too, that um it keeps players honest, and you know, they're not so dramatic. You know, if oh my gosh, they they got nudged going around a base or something like that, and then the guy freaks out, and okay, we'll settle it. It's just hockey has a very certain culture to it. So um I think also, too, that's that's why hockey like the players are like so down to earth, and like I've heard this from reporters that they're very easy to talk to. They they always give their time, and you know, they're not prima donnas like other athletes.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

And um respect to the hockey players.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Yeah, and by the way, if you guys haven't seen it, the f one of the funniest shows I've ever seen is called Shoresy. It's a hockey show. It is so the guy's an absolute ballbuster. It is yeah, I've seen it. It's good. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

It's the reminds me of like Leonter Kenny almost. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

It's it's a oh yes, yes, yes. Yeah, so Mallory, you you've seen Letter Kenny?

SPEAKER_04 16:22

Um I've seen a few episodes. I have a friend that's like obsessed, obsessed, obsessed with this show. So yes, I've heard about it.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Has that friend watched Shorzy? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 16:32

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Shorzy, it is so unbelievable.

SPEAKER_04 16:36

Maybe though? Maybe.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Okay. We'll find out. So funny. Of course, if you if you play hockey, it's like you know, because they they have the the there's a a lingo to hockey of like you know, pigeons and losers and pee pee wax and uh god.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Yeah, like have your own vocabulary in hockey.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Yeah, it I they really and it's so the dialogue is so fun, and it's so spot on. It's so Canadian, it's so awesome. So um, yeah, I all that to say, I did watch a couple episodes of that. Um and they're 20 minutes, like you can knock them out like super quick. So um yeah, as you roll it into Monday, um, yeah, get getting good feedback on the app campaign pilots and um yeah, fine-tuning that. So um yeah, that is exciting. I know that that was uh oh, also as I'm looking at my notepad here, I will finish this up. I've been doing hard cardio first thing in the morning, like right when I wake up, hop on the bike, 30 minutes, just go hard. There's a lifetime 10 minutes south of me, so I'll just hop on the bike and then rinse off, hop in the steam room 10 minutes. Way to start the morning, man. Freaking fantastic. Do you guys steam?

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Yeah, I actually have a little pop-up in my house. One of those like pop-ups you can get. Yeah, my husband and I use them. So it's it I've had it for almost two years, year and a half now. But yeah, it's it's great. If you don't have like a personal sauna at home, you can easily get a pop-up one. Um, and it works well. So we do use it.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

We should get one of those. Freaking awesome. Yeah, it is it like you can literally feel the difference. And now that it's getting cold out, you you hit up the steam room, we you walk out, and it's just like such a nice chill on you. Yeah, that's it, it's so nice. And first thing in the morning, like 7 a.m., 6 30, whatever. Yeah, it's it's freaking great.

SPEAKER_04 18:20

So now you just need a cold plunge, add that to the list.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Oh, I love cold plunges.

SPEAKER_04 18:25

Um, I have many times. I do enjoy it. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

So you go cold plunge to dry sauna?

SPEAKER_04 18:30

Yeah, you know, it's so it's like what I think it's it's like cold plunge, go into the uh steam sauna. So I have a steam sauna pop up and then go back into the cold plunge.

unknown 18:42

Boo, woo.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Okay. When I was in Thailand, there was an there was an onsen sauna, and there's like six seven stations, I think maybe five stations, but we look like such losers because we're like, oh, what is this? What is it? You just and we were just going out of order. But there's like an ice room, yeah, a jet sauna, those are awesome. Hot tub, and then there's regular hot tubs, still water, and then there's like a cold plunge, and then I feel like I'm missing something. Missing three or four. Anyway, uh, yeah, it was freaking awesome. It was fantastic. So, yeah, that's that's been my last couple days. So just eating like a disgusting human and uh watching a couple episodes of of Shoresy. So uh Mallory, what's what's been up with you?

SPEAKER_04 19:26

All right. Uh well, I absolutely had a pretty chill Thanksgiving weekend. Um, spending some time with my sister here in San Francisco. She hosted her first Thanksgiving with my niece and nephew. Also ate a lot. Um and what else? Did some Black Friday shopping with a friend here in San Francisco as well to get some gifts. That was fun. Uh went up to Sonoma uh to go to a few wineries with some friends as well, which was really fun. Um, can't complain about that. I think there's something really fun about doing that when the when the um leaves on the wine bushes are kind of like falling and um it's just the air is a lot crisper. So that was cool. And then what else? And then did some hot yoga with a really lovely founder friend of mine who I'm hoping can come onto the pod next year. Um and yeah, I've been loving hot yoga. Been obsessed with that lately.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

How long are those classes that you do?

SPEAKER_04 20:30

They're an hour long, hour uh 60 to 75 minutes, depending on you.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Oh goodness gracious.

SPEAKER_04 20:36

Um, but I love that. Uh and then what else? Oh, I started watching straight the the season five of Stranger Things.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

So Oh, how do you like it?

SPEAKER_04 20:46

It's I'm so I love it.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Yeah, I only got into the first season. I I never got into anything after that. You gotta watch the rest of them. They're gotta watch.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

It's it's the show gets better as it progresses. I think it's it's it's just excellent. Um, but I'm obsessed with Stranger Things. I'm already almost done with the last episode of part one in season five. So the way they're breaking it down is like they're releasing the first four episodes last week, right before Thanksgiving. They're gonna release three more episodes on Christmas, and then they're gonna release the last episode on December 31st on New Year's Eve. So um, so yeah, I wish they were kind of all available now, but yeah, I think that's that's we've been trained to want it immediately the second it joins. I know we are. We are so. Although I'm like breaking this down in three parts seems excessive, but I get the hype around Christmas and New Year's, like everyone's gonna want to watch it. And so yeah, obsessed with the show. Um, and then kind of coming back into this week, just honestly playing catch up and trying to kind of starting to plan for next year um is my focus. I'm wrapping up my first client project this week, too. So that's really exciting. Nice. Um, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

What's the project on? Um, it's just the work.

Kicking Off The SEO Deep Dive

SPEAKER_04 22:01

It's it's a rebrand project that we've been working on. So we're just finishing up with like a final brand guide, all the final messaging, colors, font, logo. We redid their logo, um, everything. So we're delivering that this week and finishing that up, which is awesome. So, and then yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

Here we are.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

Uh, quick question. What is when you go to Sonoma, what does that entail? Like, like what do you do? Because my girlfriend and I have talked about doing something like that.

SPEAKER_04 22:32

Yeah. So Sonoma is right next to Napa in um up north in Northern California, where uh folks tend to go to drink all the wine. So if you are a wine connoisseur, absolutely love wine, I highly recommend you come visit Northern California because it's not just Napa. I think Napa is like everyone knows what Napa is. And it's actually the more expensive. Like if you're gonna go try wine, it is more expensive because of just the name itself. Sonoma is actually right next to um Napa. Um, and it's just a little easier to get to and it's more affordable, even though the wine is just as good. Like, um, but it's interesting because like what's really popular or what's known about San Francisco is we have a lot of microclimates here. And so even if you go up north and you kind of visit different towns, like Healdsburg is another town with a few wineries. Yauntville is like super bouge, like really good restaurants, really great like wine up there too. But depending upon where they're located in the region, they may have more rain, it may be cooler, it may, and that will affect how the grapes are essentially made. Um, so but yeah, I mean, I think it's one of those things where it's like if you fly into SF with your girlfriend, maybe spend a day or two in San Francisco and then drive up north and stay in Sonoma or Napa if you'd like to, and then just kind of like drive around and experience the different restaurants, the wineries. If you want, you can go to the Redwoods too. Like that's not as much of a it's like probably about less than an hour, and you can go hike and check out the Redwoods. So there's lots of cool stuff to do.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Have you ever been out that way, Charlie? Like out in SF? No.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

I I've been in SF before. I was there for Macworld. But like I was there, but not like near Sonoma or or what what you're talking about, Mallory.

The Three Pillars: Content, Technical, Backlinks

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Like when Mallory's describing me. So like I did that trip, I don't know, a few years ago now. We went up through Sonoma, Napa, and then we drove all the way. We drove all the way up to Portland, Oregon.

SPEAKER_04 24:28

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

But we wanted to go through the Redwoods and like like the meat of the Redwoods, I guess you would call her just like, you know, as much as we could see of it. And it was a breathtaking trip. Like driving down the coastal highway, like all the way up. It was gorgeous. Highly recommend it if you're thinking about it.

SPEAKER_04 24:43

I'll give you a whole, I'll give you my my list and all that good stuff. Um, I use this app. I'm obsessed with this app. This is not a sponsored ad. Uh, it's called Corner. Um, and it's where I essentially cultivate my lists of places to go and things to do because I people are always asking me, hey Mal, I'm going to Chicago. Like, can you give me your list of places to go to? And I I send all of that. So I'll have to send you my my corner list that I curated and you can get an idea of what's good. Um, but yeah, and there's all kinds of wineries too. Like there's so many. There's so many, and there's yeah, all kinds. So I feel like there's something for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

I was I always think of that movie uh sideways with Paul Giamatti. Was that in Napa?

SPEAKER_03 25:25

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

Have you seen a Connor? No, really? I know Paul Giamatti, he's great. I just don't know, I don't know the movie. He's so good in this movie. It it's he's so good.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

Probably it is in if it says it's in wine country. I would guess it's there, but who knows?

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Yeah, okay. Anyway, well, I I can make a reference, but it won't. Anyways, um, I always uh not gonna hit that. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 25:49

Unless it's a Spongebob reference, it just goes over my head. So and I'm not kidding about that.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Or what is it dressed to impress?

SPEAKER_04 25:58

Or a Roblox.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Roblox Roblox, okay. All right, anyways. Um, okay. So what everybody has been waiting for with all the Reddit threads. Let's go.

SPEAKER_04 26:12

SEO.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

So search engine optimization. Now, I'll ask y'all first. When I say SEO, what what do y'all what does your mind go?

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Keywords, site structure. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 26:26

Where like where I'm gonna rank and search.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Yeah, like keyword ranking, domain authority, backlinks, referring domains, like everything, okay. Pretty much everything I uh you say SEO and I just picture a SEMrush or Atrefs dashboards. Like that's what I think of, right? So it's probably a very just data. So someone like you, Charlie, probably a very like, okay, like the basics of what SEO is or just basic reporting, right? I mean some other things, core web vitals, Google Search Console, all of that stuff. Um Yeah.

Parent–Child Pages And Content Silos

SPEAKER_02 27:00

So there's three arms to SEO, three pillars, I should say. There's uh content, technical, and backlinks. So content keywords like Mallory said. So it's like we're gonna use the the domain PDF.ai as an example. So like uh example uh keywords would be like uh PDF AI, chat with PDF, uh summarize PDF, you know, keywords like that. So the idea is to get in front of high volume keywords like AI PDF, so that when somebody searches for it, your domain, your page, Google ranks web pages, not websites, but your page targeting that keyword shows up in that search, and that's organic growth. The technical side would be like uh what Connor said, so like a fast loading website, um proper website structure, so like www.pdf.ai uh slash, I've got some examples here, they call it content silos. So a pillar page would be like uh slash chat with pdf, and then another slash research papers. So that if somebody in the research paper uh uh realm or like a use case for a research paper, they would upload a PDF and it would link to that parent page, which I'll go over this, chat with PDF. So the the parent page goes after the main domain. So p so pdf.ai. Then you you have the parent page, chat with PDF, and then you have the child page research papers.

SPEAKER_04 28:38

What's a parent page versus a child page?

SPEAKER_02 28:40

So a parent page is like that's like your your your main keyword that you want to go to. So if you ever go to a website like um what would it be? Like uh I don't know, uh www.wine.com and then slash redwine slash merlot. So that parent page is red wine. That's really what you want to rank for because that has the most uh volume. But because it's so short, it's gonna be the most competitive. So like with uh go ahead, Charlie, I'm sorry. Uh so I I was gonna say with the the child page is Merlot. So uh that target keyword Merlot, that's in the H1, which I'll go through later. Um in the parent-child page relationship, the child pages all link together and they link up to the parent page, and the parent page links down. So thus it creates a content silo.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

So like you could use an example even of like Nike.com is the main domain, your parent page is high tops, and then your child page is SB dunk red black. Right? High topslash sb dunk red black, right? So like that would be your structure in terms of main domain parent and then child. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

And that gotcha that parent page is is really like your target keyword. So your target keyword, you want to put it in your title tag. You want to put it in your uh so in PDF to AI, you want to put uh if his target keyword is uh AI PDF, he wants to put that in the title tag, he wants to put that in the meta description, uh, he wants to put that in the URL, of course, he wants to put that in the H1 and then the H2 will have variants of that target keyword. So like your keyword inventory. And there there'll be prompts for this. I I know this is like a lot like uh all at once of this. Just it is really boring, but when you see it happen, it's like it's like freaking magic. I remember the the first time I ever ranked a page, uh, I mean, my brain stem like blew apart. Like I I couldn't believe like it actually showed up on Google with the content, and it was like, oh, like that website belongs to me. It is that was bananas. That was absolutely bananas.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

When it comes to SEO2, Charlie, right? And you're talking, you know, we're still sticking with PDF.ai. I don't know if bringing it up is is good to kind of show people who are viewing via YouTube or not. But for something like PDF AI, or for anybody really, how do you go about finding out what you should title your parent page and then what you should title your child page, right? I'm assuming that takes some keyword research. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

So um I'll I'll back up to and really um I the reason why I picked PDF.ai is because it's a great example of something called domain authority, which again, it's so boring to talk about, but it is critical to website health. So domain authority is like how authoritative, it's what it sounds like, uh, is the website in the eyes of search engines. Now, let's say we're starting from scratch. Let's say that uh I went to GoDaddy and I bought PDF to AI. For some reason nobody bought it, and I want to rank that. For one, that keyword PDF, I'm guessing that's getting searched over like three million times a month, at least. Yeah.

unknown 31:53

Yeah.

Domain Authority, Aged Domains, And 301s

SPEAKER_02 31:53

And just PDF, you're saying, get searched over. So that in that domain name, that's already a strong signal to Google. However, ranking brand new domains is pure hell. It is it is brutal. It is absolutely brutal. So the best way to do it, if at all possible, is to buy an old domain, an age domain, which is like from an auction or something, clean it up, remove all the content and everything, and then you can just 301 it, which is basically merging uh websites into one. You have two websites that just merge one into the other, and then use that domain equity moving forward. So what this guy did, his name is Damon, he bought PDF.ai, uh, he cleaned it up, and he just ran with content. So it was already on Google, it's called indexed, and then he just poured gasoline on the fire that was already there rather than having to try to start the fire because that is the process that takes a lot of time. And it it's it's better. You know, the the 8020 rule, uh, it's better to just buy, if at all possible, it's better to buy an older domain, clean it up a little bit, and then pour gasoline on it. And now, uh, to my understanding, he's doing it over, you know, close to two million ARR right now and organic growth. So organic growth is is a huge part of that. And that domain, PDF, it's a perfect domain name, right? For what his solution offers, it's it's absolutely perfect. So I think there's a masterclass in how he did that.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Do you have like suggestions too for someone who's searching for because that's actually the first I've heard that, and it makes a ton of sense, right? Buying a domain that's already been used at some point in time or still exists, someone's just trying to offload it, and it has a ton of domain authority. And I'm assuming, Charlie, there's just a few questions here I have. One, domain authority is built just by what, like the content and historical presence of the website over time, right? So the older the website, the higher the domain authority, or is it the more content, the higher the domain authority? Is it a combination?

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Content, technical backlinks, um, all that plays into historical um relevance, age, ages. Like you're not gonna have uh, you know, check SEMRUS, check age reps for uh the the metric for domain authority. They're different on the two platforms, but check them. Yeah. You're not gonna hit like a strong domain authority if your domain is like campaign pilots, the domain is brand new. We're not gonna hit there for like uh two years at least for the 60, right? So yes, age does play into that. That's why it's it's really, if at all possible, just buy an old domain and just um 301 and click.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Where do you go to buy old existing domains that are for sale? Is there like is it just a setting and like a GoDaddy? Is there a specific way you go about finding domains that are relevant to what your business or offering may be? So you can make sure it aligns.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

I've seen it on uh GoDaddy. I was actually bidding for CSV.ai. That's originally what campaign pilots was. Uh and again, Connor, you brought up the connectors, so that's good. Um, so you can do go daddy, you can do Empire Kingdom, you can do uh, or what is it? Empire, Empire Flippers, Empire Kingdom, Empire Flippers and Flippa, F L I P P A.

SPEAKER_03 35:02

Flippa.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

Uh you know what? Let me triple check the FLIP.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Interesting. Because and the only reason I bring it up too, again, it's like if if I had known, I feel like if I had known that when I first started, even my agency, right? And and again, you learn things as you go. I probably would have looked for an old domain. I've had my domain for four to five years now, probably closer to five years, and the domain authority is like still only like 20 to 24. Like I think it's like 20 or 24. It's not terrible, but for five years of existence, my assumption would have been that I would have made it further based on some backlinks, content, yeah, just history of being around, you know.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

And and now, pardon me, and then and now with your your domain authority as it is now, if you add more content, you the the propensity of indexing and ranking pages will will go up too.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Does it just like it speeds up your mean? So the more content I add, it'll just so like the domain authority being at say 20 now, it'll just snowball and work and go up faster than it typically would.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

You can have an agent just uh do content outlines, like do keyword ideally AI is good at keyword research, but you know, there there does need to be you should have some human oversight. Uh come up with a content outline and then write the content from that content outline. So a content outline is like here's the title of the page, here's the H1, and then here are all the H2s. So a a proper website hierarchy for a web page, one H1, and then you can have H2s, but don't have the same keyword in there as the H1. And then you can have H3s, which are subtopics of the H2s. I this is gripping information right now. I I know that this is like so like riveting information right now.

SPEAKER_03 36:45

No, it's important.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

It's important um cascading, you know, uh page hierarchy. So um one H1, you can have H2s, and then have your keyword inventory, and then have your your you can have your highest volume for the keywords in those H2s. And then the target keyword, like PDF AI, will be the H1. And then like your your like money keyword, like that actually has your um uh intent behind it of you know using AI for your PDF, whether you want it to scrape it, whether you want it to summarize it, whatever it is, that's your homepage, H1. And then if you can somehow get that in the domain, like PDF.ai, then you like you've really got something there. Then you can do the organic, you can build out the website, you can run ads, and your customer acquisition cost will slowly decline. And at the heartbeat of that is the SEO.

SPEAKER_04 37:40

So how does SEO sort of influence positioning in a super crowded AI category? Like chat with PDF has got to be, and just like that the keyword PDF alone, right, is so popular. So how does how does that work?

Tools, Research Workflows, And AI Prompts

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Uh look, I I think it's critical that you rank for those keywords because it sends a trust signal to a user. So like if I search AI PDF and I see that that guy's domain is at the top, his page is at the top, I'm clicking on that. Or like an uh overview now that you know uh Google is doing what it's doing with AI results, uh, you want as much dominance, that real estate, that ocean front real estate, you want as much dominance at the top of search results as possible. So um how does it play into it? It's it's absolutely critical. And by having those three pillars that we uh we talked about you know nailed down, uh that's how you do it. And then eventually, people you know on LinkedIn and Reddit, you know, it's cool companies are built on you know getting listed on Chat GPT and Claude and you know, Manus, like it it's the same frickin' thing. It's content, technical, and backlinks. And the cleaner your website is, as long as you're putting out content, uh human content ideally, uh, that is valuable in answering questions, and you get other websites on the internet to mention you, that's when your relevance will go up. Because that it it's a clear signal to search engines, right? Search engines are built for humans, so that solves that problem that they're looking for. And you want to be at the very top for all of those keywords and tools like SEMrush and AHREFs uh will help you do that for you. And obviously, you know, ChatGPT and Claude too.

SPEAKER_04 39:25

All right. So it's like how do you take a lot of that content and work with you know specific podcasts or bloggers, right, that are you know covering your industry or covering products like your your own and do that outreach press releases, right? And do that outreach so that you can you can get those backlinks.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

Exactly. Yeah, and it it's frustrating because the the backlinks are out of the you know users' control, out of the builder's control. But if you've got great product, you know, maybe it's product-led growth, you know, whatever it is, people will talk about it. People will absolutely talk about it. And they will link your page on LinkedIn. Um also, you know, create social pages as well. So like X, YouTube, LinkedIn, just start putting out content. I know it takes a lot of time. You can have agents do it for you, uh, but just put that out, list your domain as much as possible, and just get a buzz going about your product. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:16

And then if um if you've got a lot of UGC content that's starting to take off from the organic content that's created, exactly use it. Um don't just like repost, like find a way to use that in a case study, a blog, a newsletter, right? Um so many different ways, landing page. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

Exactly. When you were at Bolt, Mallory, were you there when uh I think it was Eric that put out a tweet or I guess a post that uh he said something like, I realize the value of SEO, so now Bolt has made it easier, like for technical SEO side. Does that read it?

SPEAKER_04 40:49

Yeah, there's actually like a whole like in the product itself, like they have an SEO um area for you to essentially optimize your pages and your projects that you're creating with Bolt. Um, how in depth is it? Great question. I've just started playing around with it with for my own website, but it is a yeah, it is something that you can um have options. You have those options with bolts when you're building it.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

So an interesting topic to bring up too, Charlie. Like in your experience, how much have you leaned on? Like, I'm just going through the pillars, right? And in pillar one is your content. So that that is your keyword research, right? Like figuring out what, again, domain name, child like, but also your H1s and your H2s. That's all part of the content process, the pillar one process. How heavily do you lean on AI to help you do a lot of this? Or is it, you know, what's your what's your approach there?

SPEAKER_02 41:40

So you can you can take your you can ask GPT or Claude, here's my domain, here's the idea behind the app, here's my ICP. Now come up with 50 keywords that you think, this is me talking to AI that you think would make sense. Get those 50 keywords, put those in SEMrush, uh, do some keyword research, get the volume, take that CSV, export it, load that back up into the respective AI, and then have it run again. Uh, because that that tells you you have so much data behind that, and then ask it, okay, based on this, what do you think my H1 should be on my index page? What do you think my H1 should be on our landing page? Our landing page about uh PDFs for education. Like what should that H1 be? And then what should the subsequent H2s be? So AI, it look, it it plays a huge role. Um, we'll have some prompts too, like in the show notes. Um, but I I mean it saves so much time. It saves an unfoldable amount of time.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Before AI, even you and I working together, right? It's like we you do re keyword research, content research, and it would take a couple days for turnaround, right? Just because you have to, you're not just taking what what's spitting out from hrefs or semrest you, you also have to like validate it against other terms or what the keyword density is or the competition and and how much you actually think you can drive in the set amount of time you have, right? Because SEO also isn't it's not like flipping the switch on with paid ads, right? Where you can turn it on and traffic comes in immediately. SEO takes weeks, months to even start showing some return on on what you've implemented.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Yeah. Um exactly. Once it kicks in, though, I mean, Connor, like you I mean, I my company would literally hire your company to do the reporting. So you you've seen the first hand. It's like it will return millions and millions and millions of dollars when it's done right, and you've got the domain authority, and you've got in this case product market fit. Yeah, it it absolutely works. And then you just pour more fuel on it with paid ads, and then that's then it gets just so my thing.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

My uh follow-up here, too, is also like in your opinion, you know, I know enough about how everything kind of works holistically, right? Like community and branding, which is like Mallory's you know, experience and what she's really great at, like that definitely ties into SEO, paid ads ties into SEO. It's all it all works in tandem with one another. What's your take on like how they each support, you know, each channel respectively?

SPEAKER_02 44:07

Like how SEO supports like paid and email and then community.

Internal Linking, Audits, And Indexing Wins

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Yeah, and vice, and vice versa. Like how that all and you in an ecosystem like you would want to build out, don't you would you look at paid ads? Would you look at branding, community for clients, or is that kind of something that you would shy away from and say, hey, we're just gonna implement the SEO piece of it?

SPEAKER_02 44:27

I would well, I I guess that depends where you're at. Like, you know, do you have some capital to put behind paid ads? I think you should get the SEO. Okay, so first thing first, get the domain, make sure it's clean. You know, if you buy it from GoDaddy, okay, cool. Put it into bolt, put it into lovable. Get the sitemap, uh, make sure it's search, it can actually be crawled, make sure your website can even be found in the freaking first place. Submit that to Google Search Console, get Google Search Console wired up, submit the site map, get a verified domain where it says SC on the left-hand side, get that thing verified, get a robots file, get all the technical BS out of the way. Start building content on there with parent and child pages. Uh if at all possible, get it off of Lovable, get it off of Bolt, put it on a WordPress site so you can easily scale it so that you know you can link pages together more easily.

SPEAKER_04 45:20

So starting to or a frame, like a frame or a webflow would work really well too.

SPEAKER_02 45:25

Yeah, put that in there. Make sure there's not a bunch of uh garbage code in there. You know, all all the animations will slow down the page, but generally speaking, uh make sure it's clean. Okay, it's index, it's cool, it's on Google. Start building out the content, start building out the the the content silos. Then uh once you've got some some landing pages fired up, then I think then that's when you start running paid ads. Then you you can start doing the paid ads, then you can start doing retargeting email. Um, and I think at the very very day one forefront of that, I think you you start building the the community as well. Because after talking to Mallory, I thought branding community, to be honest, was like I I never even thought about it just because you couldn't quantify it in GA4, but now uh I I realize it, yeah, it it's really boring.

SPEAKER_04 46:12

I I think it depends. I I will say, like it's a bit it it's kind of similar to the the beginning of your answer, Charlie. It really depends on what stage you're at, right? Like if you haven't found product market fit yet, right, and you're still trying to figure that component out, brand, in my opinion, is is not gonna make this huge difference. Um, it I'm sure there's outlier examples of me being false in that, but I do think like that would not be the first place I would focus on if I'm like trying to find product market fit and put my product out into the world and learn from users. Um, I think it's really when you find that PMF where I think brand starts to matter a lot more. And then community, right? Like going back to the user-generated content piece, like building community, I think from day one is really important. Even if you only have a hundred users, right? Out of your hundred users, are there like, you know, just a handful that are interested in or really excited by what you're doing that are they want to volunteer to help, you know, test, amplify, whatever it may be. And then, like, you know, how do you encourage them to create that user-generated content off those keywords? Is it going to be Reddit posts? Is it going to be X? You know, is it going to be social posts, right? Like, what does that look like? Um, because that will ultimately help.

Founder Pages, UGC, And Human Signals

SPEAKER_02 47:29

Um I would even like that community, like you said, with 100 people, it like that is so valuable. Like, I I'm on the PDF to AI uh website right now, and I'm on slash use cases, and it says books, scientific papers, financial reports, product user manuals, legal documents, employee training documents. To me, those should all be individual pages. They are, and it says training documents, chat with employee training documents. There's not a lot of content on here. I I guess he doesn't maybe just maybe at this point he doesn't need it, but I would build out at least 1500, 2000 words on the training documents page on how what he offers is the solution for training documents. You know, bait the hook to suit the fish, and then have, of course, proper keywords in there. And that's why I I haven't touched a frame or website before, but with WordPress, you can just have templates and you can set the templates.

SPEAKER_04 48:20

I haven't played with frame.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

That's crazy. I know I've never touched a frame before. So you can have like the hero image and then the H1 and then the H2s, and then you know, you you have your page template, and you you can just hit scale from there. And then you can ask your community, okay, who is in the medical practice? You know, what do you use that? Uh what do you use this solution for? And then you can just build content around that.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Gotcha. Smart approach. I mean, I to you know, Mallory, you said something too, which, you know, I even have it in our in our upcoming newsletter, right? Kind of my how everything pieces together. And this especially coming from a paid background. It that to me comes after SEO and even after branding in some capacity, right? Because, you know, yes, you need to validate, you need to have your ICP and make sure that you're validating all of that beforehand before you dive down the rabbit hole of of branding and community.

SPEAKER_03 49:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

But without without it, you could turn the switch on for Google Ads all day and drive as much traffic as you want. But if the brand doesn't resonate and the message doesn't resonate, you're just gonna get a high bounce rate, no engagement. And listen, you could find you could be having the exact users you're looking for go to the site, but if it doesn't speak to them, 100% then you're basically just spending all this money on paid for absolutely no reason.

SPEAKER_04 49:31

So um I'm almost curious, like it's also like linear, but it's not, but you're not wrong because you do need that work to then kind of help inform the brand messaging and the positioning and and what that looks like. For sure. And vibes do matter, like they do. Like when you land on a page, right? Even if you are trying to find product market fit, like it still matters. Um, and it's like, how do you take, how do you maybe like kind of predict, okay, these are my ideal ICPs, and from there I'm going to build around them. And you may learn that they're not your ideal ICPs in six months or maybe they don't want to pay for your product, right? Maybe they don't, they're not the right, they're not the right target, right? But at the time, like you got to kind of work with what you got. If you know, if like if you're building something and you're like, this is for everyone, I always tell people like initially, I'm like, no, you cannot do that. Like you're not gonna find success there. So really ask yourself, like, who are can you focus on it'd be great if you can focus on one ICP to just make sure that your messaging, your keywords, all of that are just as consistent as possible. But if you have a few ICPs, which like when I was at Bolt, you know, in the early days, we had like eight to 10 different ICPs. Um, and so it's like, how do you build for all of those? Which ones do you prioritize? What's the consistent sort of messaging and through line and themes and keywords throughout all those ICPs? Cause there's too many in that like you can't necessarily perhaps really build for all of them. So you really need to find those themes um, you know, between the ICPs and really nail down that messaging and positioning.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Yes, that makes total sense.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

And I think just go ahead, Charlie. Sorry, sorry, sorry, pardon me. There's eight to ten ICPs in the early days. How many were there when you left?

Lightning Round: Quick SEO Takes

SPEAKER_04 51:13

Uh actually, I would say two or three by the time I left. So they were they really were able to like the whole time I was there, though drill down into it, right? Like you're learning who's coming onto your platform, how they're using it, right? These specific ICPs, um, how much like how much they're willing to pay, et cetera, et cetera. Like we just learned over time, like, okay, we really targeted prosumers and you can break that down in so many different ways because it's such a broad, right? Like that's a very, very broad ICP. You got to break it down even further. Um, but after a few months, it was like, you know what? After we learned XYZ about revenue, about retention, right? About what the really needs and problems are for these ICPs, it actually makes more sense for us to serve, you know, enterprise and product managers or whatever it may be. And so it just allowed us to have that focus because we did those experiments, like we did those experiments, right? Um so it just depends. It's a to Connor's point, it's not linear. Like you very well may be changing these things six months in because you're learning more about your product and your ICP and your and your messaging and how it resonates, right? All of those things.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

And even to SEO, really quick, Charlie, too, because I didn't want to want to just negate that, right? Again, the branding, the community is important when it comes to paid ads, but I think SEO is even more integral to it because a good side experience, a fast website, keeping keyword costs down for paid, like this is this is why you should probably have your SEO plan dialed in before you even turn on Google Ads. Otherwise, again, I just to me, you're just wasting all this money without validating that the website experience is you know optimal for a user. You're dialing into the right keywords, you're getting that traffic, right? Then you amplify it with paid. I think again, it's not all linear, but but the SEO piece, I think, is one of those first things everyone really needs to think through before just, hey, let me dive into Google Ads and set something up and drive traffic. Cause I just I just never see great results from it.

SPEAKER_04 53:09

I feel like SEO is one of those things where I've I see a lot of teams be like, we just have to do it, but it's actually it's not just doing it, like you have to continue to do it. So I think right. So that's another thing I want to call out here is that I feel like for some reason there's an assumption around SEO that's like, okay, we did all of the main things we gotta do. We're good. And it's like, no, you gotta keep going.

SPEAKER_02 53:29

That's like saying I'm gonna lose weight, and then just like, okay, well, I'm not gonna watch what I eat, I'm just gonna eat like a trash panda and not work on it.

SPEAKER_04 53:37

I I have heard these things, and I think it's like I have heard these things, and I think it's just an educational thing, right? Which is why we're all here on this podcast, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

But and um speaking of ICPs, let's say using Mallory's example, if they start with eight to ten ICPs and then later on uh you narrowed it down to only a handful or a small handful, take those old pages, targeting those ICPs and just 301 them, combine them into those pages, into the your your uh ICP pages that actually are working. So keep that link equity, keep the page equity inside the domain. Like, like worst thing to do is just delete pages. Like you don't want to do that. Um, also, you should be running audits at least once a week, at the very least.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Oh, I have them automated for every client I work for that I'm like helping with that. Even just just not if I'm even doing SEO, I'll just be like, hey, gonna put you in AHRES, you're gonna get a weekly report, it's gonna tell you broken links, redirect stuff that's off, like rankings going down, right? Keywords that you're missing out on, etc. And it's it's a huge benefit to them. And obviously to me, I'm looking out for for the best interest of everybody, but um yeah, yeah, second that you definitely have those reports set up because they're integral to and it's holistic, right?

SPEAKER_04 54:53

Like if there's something going on with SEO, it's like okay, like you break it down even further. Like what what's yeah, exactly. What's the what are we missing here? Are we seeing less backlinks? Are we seeing less content made about us? Are we seeing like really breaking that down?

Pricing, Free Trials, And Usage Models

SPEAKER_02 55:07

It's like why why are there broken links on the website? Why are there broken links? Links don't just magically break, like something is going on there. So um also, uh, pro tip, internal links are like the easiest, well, I don't know what the easiest.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

Um like link building mechanism?

SPEAKER_02 55:25

Uh no, like internal links. So what you could do, so what you should do, I'm not sure if Damon did this or not, but after again, going back to the PDF.ai example, let's say you buy the domain, you can boost the 20% of the pages of the website that are producing 80% of the results, and you go into GA4 to find that, or hop into campaign pilots and it'll tell you. And uh what happens when you land on that page, you add, let's say, a couple paragraphs of like new content of like new keywords, and then you internally link that uh page to a new page or back to the home page or back to like another page on the website. And you have to do it strategically, but internal links are like like one of the quickest ways um to boost your your SU on the site. So as you continue to build pages, always keep those top 20% pages in your your uh reticle as target internal linking so that that boosts the the authority of your website over time because those those pages are linking, and what you want to do is pull up the rest of the domain and search results um by linking them. And of course, keep an eye on them, you know, monitor GA4 and Search Console under the you know respective KPIs and data points. Um yeah, internal linking, you know, with the right anchor text and and just prompt GPT. Just say, hey, this page is about this. Here's the URL, paste all the content in there, say this keyword is has an opportunity to be anchor text. What can I link it to? And just copy in your your site map and then just hit go and it'll give you like five ideas.

SPEAKER_04 56:59

Got it, got it. That's probably a lot.

SPEAKER_02 57:01

It is, it is a lot of like very technical.

SPEAKER_04 57:04

It's very technical in nature. I actually have a question that may kind of move the direction of this conversation differently, but I mean, you guys know this, like there's so many founders building in public. Every founder, uh, like there are agencies that just focus on building personas and content for founders. Um, and so my question is kind of like for those founders that are actually building it in public, like how can that content feed SEO instead of sort of just being siloed to specific social media platforms? Like what yeah, how do you what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 57:36

Like, how can the persona, like the founder content?

SPEAKER_04 57:40

Yeah, like how how can correct, correct, versus just kind of having it stay on one specific like LinkedIn as an example. Like the content is just there, but like how do you I think use that? I think to to sort of yeah, uh be feed SEO, essentially, is what I'm I'm asking.

SPEAKER_02 57:57

So what you can do is you can have let's say pdf.ai, and then you can have a parent page be slash team. Uh no, no, no. Ideally, you want the parent page and the child page respectively. And and then let's say it's uh you know, Mallory is the founder. Ideally, you would want Mallory Lore to be the the the URL to be in the title tag, to be in the method description, and then that page is just about Mallory. So it's Mallory's bio, it links to the LinkedIn, it links to the X, it links to I don't know, let's say you have a YouTube account, but uh so maybe it can be like about us, and then that's you know Mallory's AI app. And then there's like a a card and it's Mallory's face, and then you click on that, and then it's all about Mallory. So um have an individual page about the founder. Um and yeah, put your your email address and then your your social channels on there, but everything about Mallory on there, you know, just as as much as possible. And then eventually platforms will pick it up like LinkedIn, like X, you know, maybe even press releases, I'm sure. Just make it as easy as possible for you know TechCrunch, you know, those news outlets to find Mallory. So by putting up a page all about Mallory, you've solved that problem. That makes sense. I I hope that answers that.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Yeah, it's again, I think it's a lot, it's it's so much to unpack because it's it's highly, highly technical, all of the SEO stuff.

SPEAKER_02 59:21

This is a good exercise. Just go to Chat GPT, go to Claude, give it that uh that scenario, that question, and then uh see what it comes up with. I would guess it's something around the lines of have an about us page and then slash Mallory Lure, and then her position at uh you know the AI company, and then just a huge bio about Mallory. A couple of pictures, maybe a picture of the the pop-up steam room. I do this in the morning, I cold plunge, maybe you know, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

So that being said, too, Charlie, right? It's like you're you know, the recommendation here is yeah, if you want to start validating things, of course. It's like you know, I use Chat GBT Cloud every day for for that kind of stuff. But it sounds like you unless you have a true, true technical understanding of a lot of different moving pieces, it's also hard to just take this entirely by yourself and implement it. Or would you say, hey, listen, you can use Chat GPT to guide you through the entire process that you just went through pretty efficiently?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:16

You can use an AI model. I mean, uh ChatGPT Claude, I mean you can have agents create content every day for you. You can have uh so yeah, look, it's it's so much easier now. Like, you know, we were talking about earlier, it took hours to do keyword research. Um, with SEMrush, J Dress and partial SEMrush. Um you can get that keyword research, you can you can upload it, you can plug it into uh Chat GPT, tell it the idea around your app, just start like a new project, um, keep that centralized, and then you can just over time just keep uploading keywords, you know, have it learn your website, have it scrape your website, and just ask it for suggestions like look, I have a AI PDF tool. Who who would be interested in this outside of academia? And then maybe you have lawyers, maybe you have doctors, and then you can build content around that. Well, what kind of doctors would you know? Maybe that's going a little deep, but if you really want to, you know, hit hard and like drill into that that profession, um, I I think that's a good way. And it AI is is so easy. Well, I shouldn't say easy. It it's uh it helps so much by doing that. Um I I would ask two different, I would ask ChatGPT and I would ask Claude because you'll get different answers. And then uh see which one aligns better with with what you're trying to do with the app and and the content.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:30

Okay, so I'm learning here as well that um, and this makes sense to me, but uh if you really want to be able to test these keywords a lot faster than what SEO is able to really provide, putting out social posts, especially even if you have a smaller following around specific like keywords in posts or what have you, could be a really easy way to test. Paid ads, of course, is another way to test that out, but without putting paid behind it. That's the best way to test, right? Um, you're just going to be able to get more reach there. But um, you know, if you're seeing high engagement posts on social, you know, perhaps it kind of validates or pre-validates some of those keywords.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:12

So I think so. I think the keywords, I think you can use uh SEMrush hrefs for volume. And I like Glimpse as well, because Glimpse tells you the the trend. Is it going up? Is it going down? If it's you know tells you historical data, so is it going, you know, has it been upward trending in the last month? If so, by how much? In the last quarter, if so, by how much, and then uh by the year as well. So um I I like I like SEMrush and I like Glimpse together. And then we'll we'll just plug it in there. Um and then uh yeah, just just run with those keywords.

When To Raise: Angels Vs VCs

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

Interesting. Do you Charlie, do you do you see a world in which AI can fully take this over at some point in the near future, right? Because I know a lot of people talk about that too. It's like, yeah, I can want AI to automate as much as possible. But again, to me, it still just seems like there's you need that human brain behind it to really make sure everything's up to snuff, right? I've seen content created by AI and it and it's terrible. It sounds robotic, it doesn't have keyword insertion where it should be. The M-dashes. Yeah, like the M-dash is we talk about. Like, where do you see it though going in within the next six months to a year? Do you see it being more automated or or kind of remaining as is?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:21

I I think it'll be more automated. Um I think it's it's great at giving you content ideas, especially like the you know, it's it's AI. The more context you give it, the better the output you will get. I don't ever think it'll be 100% automated. I I just it's it's too laborious and it requires just oversight um uh to have it be 100% automated. Like I I see SEO platforms, I just I just don't think that that is sustainable.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:48

Can like give it fully to an agent to just be like, here you go, do the whole thing, and we'll check in with you in uh 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

Yeah, I I think even then it just requires oversight because look that's your website, like that, like that's your customer acquisition channel, that's the heartbeat of your company.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:04

Your storefront, digital storefront.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:05

Yeah, like do you want to be compromised by uh an agent that just went nuts or something? You know, that maybe tripped up or you know, something happened. And like I I just I don't think it will get to that point. Maybe I I mean I I just don't think it it will get there. And even then it just worries me.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:25

Um you know I mean I see a lot of lot of mistakes made by startups, even people a little past the startup phase where again there's so much reliance on AI, like content generation being the it's the first thing I notice, right? And just yeah, I can create one blog a day as long as I'm using you know chat GBT to produce it for me and not really edit it too much. And it and the results are terrible. Like it doesn't drive traffic, it doesn't improve over time, doesn't help the domain authority. It's I just kind of see it fall short. So I think it's one of those things that people should be wary of. You can go ahead, implement everything Charlie Charlie's telling you, but don't have that full reliance on content generation because it just that's where it falls short.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:08

Right, right. And now these freaking search engines are getting so good now on just detecting AI bullshit that yeah, your website will get compromised. So look, it put in as much human touch as possible. I know at scale it's hard, I know, but put in as much human touch as possible, like case studies, like UGC, uh stuff like that, quotes, you know, but just put that in your website just as as much as possible. And you know, stand out, just bring a human element to your domain. You know, it doesn't ask you.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:39

I was actually um I was gonna ask like what should app builders stop doing immediately when it comes to SEO and it feels like this is it. This is AI slop. AI slop.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:50

Yeah, write so in the context of PDF.ai, it would be something like write a 1,000-word blog post about people using AI for PDFs, and then it just you know puts out garbage. Like don't do that, like like have a proper hierarchy. First of all, it should be I'm not sure if I would hope PDF.ai does this, it should be slash blog, slash title of the blog. Okay, good. And then you should have you know, following the proper SEO uh techniques, yeah. Look if you use AI to create blogs, okay, it's not the end of the world, but just make it sound like it's from a human.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:25

And look, if you are not, so say you're someone who's listening to this and you're like, oh my gosh, but like I'm so terrible at copy myself. So it's like, I mean, I would look into if you can, I feel like they're pretty affordable. Like maybe you hire a copywriter, um, freelance or contracting wise, that can just kind of like take what you already have and just like get it, get that 10%, right? That like 10% of humanist touch creativity storytelling that could be like placed in to get that article in a place where it's like, okay, this wasn't just AI slop.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:57

So there's great talent on upwork, great talent.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:00

Great talent on Contra, Upwork. Um, there's plenty of ways to find someone to help you sort of just get to that 100% mark with the content.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:09

So and it'll pay for it'll pay for itself. And I'm I'm I'm partial to if you have to use AI, I'm I'm partial to Claude for content writing versus um yeah, yeah, chat. So Mallory, when you're at Bolt, was there ever an emphasis on um uh or like feedback from the community of like how to do SEO? Or it's like, you know, maybe the the builder community at Bolt was like, okay, like we can build an app, how do we do SEO? What is it? It was a request.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:36

It was like, how do we make sure? Yeah, it was definitely like a request, right? Like if you're gonna actually put out a website, it's not, it's not just, and I think that's the vibe coding space, right? Initially it's been known as like a place to just kind of create toys or mock-up pages, but nothing really at scale. And so you know this, right? For your for you to really, you know, actually deliver something at scale, you need to have SEO implemented into your into your page, into your website. And so that like as like, you know, we started learning more, it's like, well, if we want people to build serious websites and serious products, they're gonna need to have access to this. Um, and so that was, you know, something that the community had requested. And if we want to, you know, expand outside of mock-ups and pages, which makes total sense, then you've got to be able to provide that to customers and users.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:24

Yeah. Yeah. It's an integral piece to it. So it's all the sense in the world. Charlie, I wanna, I wanna basically do a lightning round with you now, like we do with with most guests we have. Bring it. So since you're you're the technical guest here, speaking to all the SEO experience, um, let's jump into this really quick. All right. So what's the single most important SEO move for a new AI tool? Like what's number one thing they should be doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:49

Getting it indexed.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:50

Getting it indexed. Okay. Yeah. Okay. If you had a favorite free SEO tool to name for builders out there, what would you suggest? Isn't Moz free? Moz is Moz local?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:02

How do you spell that?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:03

M O Z. M O Z.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:04

M O Z Moz.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:05

I thought there was uh like a portion of it is free. Either that or I'm sure there is. Oh, it is free. You're right. It is free. Okay. Or that or ask the public. Just something that Oh, Ask the Public's great. That something that will give you an answer of what people are looking for so you can get your solution in front of that. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:23

Okay. So if okay, so we have the favorite favorite free SEO tool. Let's go. One thing founders get wrong about backlinks.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:33

They're not end all be all. Really? So once you hit topical authority, I mean backlinks help, but once you hit topical authority, there's a point where it's more important to uh index your content, your pages, versus backlinks.

OpenAI Strategy Shifts And Humanizing AI

SPEAKER_00 1:09:49

Gotcha. Okay, cool. So all right, so I I think before we wrap this portion up, Charlie, very much appreciate all of the insight. Uh no, I got another question for you. Oh, yeah, bring it. Um, where can listeners learn more or ask questions?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:02

Oh, okay. Uh so there's this badass website. Well, we got bullied into changing the name. It's now called uh buildersgrowth lab.ai.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:11

I feel like we're y'all on the same page here. We love it. You know what I mean? It's better. It's better.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:17

And uh sign up for the newsletter. So that that'll hit your inbox every week. And uh look, we we've got uh advice on customer acquisition. So covering paid ads, SEO, and um uh brand and and community. Uh you can learn more on there. Or from our our YouTube channel. Like and subscribe. Sick. That's it. No more. We got bruh.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:41

Do you want to talk on SEO for another for another couple hours, man? I'm all for it.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:44

No, I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:46

I gotta go.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:47

I love you guys, but I'm like, I can't for a few more hours. We're gonna have to break this down into chunks. I think it's just I'm too I'm not gonna break it down. Because I'm not technical. So I think like the but I did learn a lot here and I think it was digestible, but I'm just not I'm not technical. So you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:04

And look now, like okay, the the takeaway of this is use AI for your SEO efforts. We're gonna put some prompts in the uh description show notes and get rolling that way. Just just get content onto your website, don't just deploy it and just leave it and just run paid ads, like just get some content on your freaking website and have the URLs properly structured. So don't do pdf.ai slash slr question mark one four. That's like a default setting in WordPress or whatever. I I see this, I was like, what the f like the hell are you people doing? Like cleaning your shit up and actually you know make it presentable on your website. Um yeah, man, once once SEO gets cranking, it is it's it's like when we first got that project cranking, Connor, um Steven's website, Elevate, I was like, Or Elevate? Like this is like witchcraft. Like like he would put in one dollar to us and then we give him back like ten dollars, just like on a monthly basis. It was like a this it's a flywheel.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:09

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:10

Um yeah, once that gets gone, it is it's it's like magic. It's freaking awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:15

Foundational SEO, gotta gotta apply it, otherwise you're gonna be behind.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:19

Get it indexed, get some content on there, and get some some uh user signals on there, and you'll be awesome. Cool, cool. All right, does that wrap up this interview?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:30

I think this wraps up the interview with Charlie. Brought to you by Campaign Pilots.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:34

All right, good. Because I'll thank you, Charlie. Of course. Thanks, Charlie. Appreciate the inside.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:39

Anytime y'all want to sit down for a couple hours and talk about search engine optimization.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:45

I think like walkthroughs would be so cool to go through, like just like breaking it down piece by piece to show how you do some of the keyword research, how you use AI back and forth with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:55

So I think eventually at some point, love to go through all that stuff too. But this was again really insightful. Uh, I think the listeners probably got a bunch of stuff out of here that they can use.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:03

So yeah, I feel like this episode is like foundational, right? Like this is kind of like the building blocks that you need to start with before you expand. And so that's the way I would think about this episode and and you know, all of the the thoughts that you're able to share, Charlie. Wow, what a riveting interview that we had with Charlie.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:25

Get the fuck out of here, Mallory.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:29

Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You don't want this one to be good, but you left, Charlie. Okay, all right. We're back. We're back, everyone. We are back.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:40

And we, like I said, my mind is blown from all the SEO knowledge.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:44

Y'all had to glue your cell game together.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:48

No, but I actually did learn a lot of new technical keywords that I like even when I was like, what's parent page, what's child page? Like I've never heard to like I I never have ever heard it called like that before. So I did learn, I did learn some things today.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:04

Wouldn't that be the same thing as a breadcrumb, Charlie, or is that different? I want to continue, I want to continue this SEO chat like so badly.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:11

I thought that was like a part of a nursery rhyme or something. Like, what do you mean breadcrumb?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:16

Where like it it has the the URL on the page, like in the top left corner. That's the breadcrumb, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The the WordPress setting. Interesting. Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:25

I don't know I thought I saw it in Google Search Console anywhere. Anyway, I digress. We're supposed to, we're on it's it's AI topics happening this week, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:32

Yes, yes. Lots of interesting, lots of interesting things happening every single week, of course. Uh first thing I think that we're gonna kind of chat through is app pricing and free trials. And I know that this has been just such a topic of conversation. Um, I recall Elena at Lovable uh releasing a blog post a few weeks back around sort of just the importance of you know credits and how it's kind of like she wishes it it wasn't sort of important, but it is right now. Um, and then I know Rob Hoffman put out a tweet um saying that if you're still offering free trials for your SaaS in 2026, you're NGMI. So we've scaled two profitable boot. Yeah. Okay, okay, interesting, interesting. Um, but yeah, so I guess like with a lot of the products that we've been testing, like what has that process been like? And like what are our thoughts around just app pricing in general?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:31

You know, um, I'm gonna ask you first, Mallory. I'm I'm gonna throw this, I'm gonna porcupine this, as my old sales manager would say. I'm gonna porcupine the question back to you, Mallory. So I'm gonna I'm gonna toss the microphone back to you. Okay, as you've had the most experience uh on this call with pricing. It do you do free trials, do you do two weeks, you do a month? Do you not do it? Like what what's the whole philosophy behind that?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:55

I'm not a pricing expert per se here, but I think what I will say is that pricing and subscriptions in the AI space right now remind me of early sort of data and text message plans that we we dealt with in the early days of having you know cell phones. Like you used to have to pay for minutes, we used to have to pay for our amount of text messages, we used to actually also have to pay for the amount of data that we were using each month when eventually you could start browsing the web with our phones. And so to me, AI is sort of seeing something similar here because all of these AI sort of products are at the helm of, you know, tapping into the Claude API or this LLM or this agents attached to XYZ, right? Like you have to pay for the costs of utilizing those products. And so um, right now we're seeing a lot of kind of usage-based type pricing um being kind of bundled into a subscription plan of some sort. Um but what I what I will say is it's a little frustrating because there are times where, like, for example, I pay for the pro plan with Chat GPT, but I actually hit the max amount of like agent, you know, credits that I could use. And so, you know, there's even limitations within these plans, right? So, say you are someone who has a specific subscription with bolt lovable ChatGPT Claude, right? Like you will find right now that you can only use a lot of those subscription tiers to a certain extent until it's like you can't, right? Because like it's just becomes the cost-wise, right? For them, it doesn't make any sense because they're paying, many of them are paying based off of usage, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:32

Okay.

Risks, Competition, And Builder Reality

SPEAKER_04 1:17:33

So I look, I mean, over time, the hope is that like all of this stuff will become a lot more affordable over time. I think that's why we're seeing the rise of data setters being like created all over the world. Like the hope is that this will be a lot more affordable over time. Um, and so I uh because I I think we'll get out of it just like we did with the cell early cell phone era of paying for all of these things specifically, when it's like we don't, it's just all bundled now and I can send as many text messages as I want and I don't even have to think about it, right? Or I can be on the phone for however long and I don't have to be mindful of my minutes. So I think we'll see that transition once we see, you know, data centers and a lot of these resources uh just become cheaper um over time.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:16

Interesting. I think I think pricing sends such a strong signal to a user, whether it's it an agency, whether it's an app, you know, are you a premium app? Are you a premium agency? So uh with that in mind, I I I think it's better to price for premium customers because they are less um less less likely to churn. Yeah, less likely they're the they're more involved. And you know, uh weird thing happened with my old with my agency when I went from like a broad agency doing like web design SEO, um, some paid ads, I think, and some like email stuff. And then we just did SEO just for a certain type of customer, but charged like pretty high monthly retainers. Uh, we actually got like more interest. And of course we had a podcast to build our authority, but it was such a signal to say, like, hey, you're gonna pay us our monthly retainer is X. Here's a case study. Like, if you're in, let's roll. If you're not, like it's not for everybody. And I think it's this is just my opinion. I think it sends such a strong signal to be the most expensive, or like the uh assuming you you have a great app, of course, and it's a topic. Sure, the product actually has value actually works than to be the cheapest. I think the cheapest is just a uh a race to the bottom. You don't have the right customers, and you're you're just putting out more fires and customer support tickets with like really cheap pricing. That's what I thought. Now uh or think, pardon me. I think um to start, you know, you want case studies, you want feedback, you know. I ideally you want feedback more than anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:52

I think it just depends on what you're building for. Like if you're build if you're building for consumers, you most likely will have some sort of free trial at Bolt. Um, I believe we had like X amount of prompts that you can um sort of input. And like we just wanted folks to get to the magic moment of like creating the project or the website or what have you. And then over time, as you use more of it, you you have you have no choice but to actually pay for the product itself. Um, but if you're building for enterprise, it probably doesn't make sense for you to even maybe have a free trial. Um I I that is like, yeah, I don't know. Um may not be to your point. Um, I think it just depends on where you're at, like who you're targeting. It depends on just so many things to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:39

I think that yeah, there's a ton of variables here. To me, it it just comes down more to like where are you at with the build, right? Are you like fully confident that this thing is works without a hitch, there's no hiccups on the user experience side, et cetera? And if so, sure, price it to whatever your heart desires, right? Whatever you think it's worth. But I think if you, you know, I don't necessarily uh agree with this kind of bootstrap approach of listen, our app could be halfway done and maybe it doesn't fulfill the need entirely or it's buggy, but we're gonna make you pay the full price anyway. I just I think there needs to be, I always say validation. I think getting people in at the free cost is what really also helps validate your product and get the feedback you need to make it better and reiterate until it's to the point where you could say, hey, listen, free app pricing for the first 14 days is done. Now it's it's just X amount when you want to start. But yeah, uh each use case is different. I think it's such a a hard topic to dial in on like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:32

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:33

I think we should have a pricing specialist on here.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:36

I think that's a great idea. Um, okay. We'll see who we can find with that. But it would be nice, I agree, for someone to come on and kind of give our listeners a breakdown of how they should approach pricing, depending on whether they're focused on enterprise, consumer, etc.

Takeaways, Newsletter, And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_02 1:21:52

So um have you heard, Mallory, that it's hard, it's harder in the in the app space, SaaS, to sell to customers than it is to B2B.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:01

No, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:02

Have you heard that before?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:03

Mm-mm.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:04

Okay. I heard that.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:06

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:09

I'll have to pull okay. Anyways, anyways, all right. Maybe I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:12

No, pull that up. I I would be curious to learn more about that because I that wouldn't be my assumption, but I'm sure there's something interesting there around that. That and I'm not a B2B marketing expert personally, so um I'll I'll find the video.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:26

Maybe it's not a video. Anyways, okay, moving on.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:28

Go find it. Moving on. Okay, next topic. Um, and I think we're gonna do a whole episode around this. So, but the topic is is really around when to raise capital. Do you go VC or angel? And so if you're listening to this and you're trying to kind of figure out what that should look like, um, I'm happy to kind of like start sharing my experience. But I would say like the first question to ask yourself is like, are you building a VC backed business? Um, and it's interesting because a lot of founders that I've met, and even myself as a previous founder, have been like, yeah, of course I'm building a VC, you know, uh type of company. And that's it, it's like if you're not planning to scale your product to millions and millions of people, VC minutes, um, then like it doesn't make sense for you to actually approach VCs. Um, and quite frankly, I've seen a lot of founders kind of waste their time sort of pitching and trying to get fundraising when they haven't, they don't even have an MVP yet. Um, and like five years ago, I could understand that. But this day and age, with all the AI tools we have, like you've got to have some sort of MVP. And if anything, a lot of these VCs also require traction. So ask yourself the question do you have, you know, early signs of product market fit? Do you have a workable MVP, right? Um distribution. Are you built? What's your distribution plan? And are you building, are you answer honestly? Are you building a VC backed startup or a VC type of uh startup and business? Um and then I I will say too, if you are building something really early and you actually perhaps just need, you know, maybe you only need 10K to get started, whatever it may be, to me, going down the angel route, right? So those that are sort of um investing single-handedly into founders. Um when I personally uh worked on my own startup, I believe I raised with like 20 plus angel investors initially to just kind of get our product off the ground to support ourselves, et cetera. So um that is also another route, um, very different sort of process from raising with a VC, but a lot they'll ask a lot of the same questions. And many of the time, many times like they're just investing because they believe in you and they believe in the team that you're pulling together, versus like, oh, you have like a product that has traction. And you'll see that a lot of angels are actually they're open to to investing earlier stages or like, you know, than a VC. Like a lot of VC pages will be like, we support early stage startups. But then it's like you go through the process and you find out, like, oh, I need all these things to even be like to maybe even get a check, right? So I think a lot of VCs say they want to like support early stage startups, and to some extent they do, but like it, it's like, well, I gotta have these boxes checked. Whereas an angel will is sort of more about like, yeah, your business plan, all this other stuff is important, right? But like they're kind of investing in you.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:24

We'd say more like vibes and like kind of vibe and like feel for where the potential is.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:28

I think it's investing in the the jockey, not the whores, and that the jockey will find the right whores and especially because so many first-time founders fail.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:40

Um, it's very common for first-time founders to to flounder. And so it's like, I want to invest in this founder because when they do get into a rough spot, I believe they can pivot, right? They can change directions and they're capable of doing that, and I believe in them. So um, yeah, you know, I I think those would be some of the things to kind of start considering. But I would love to do a whole episode on this, and we can definitely bring on um, you know, an angel investor. We can also bring on maybe in a different episode of be a VC, right? To kind of get the breakdown of what they're really looking for, what their process is like, what are the things you really need to consider before you even dive into that world? And I have a lot more to say on this, but um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:22

So you're obviously in that space, you're an SF being with Bolt. Um, would you find that VCs roll their sleeves up like angels do?

SPEAKER_04 1:26:30

Um that's a no. I don't know. I don't, I mean, look, like I've seen they should. I mean, they definitely should. You want VCs and angels that are gonna be like, if you need someone to amplify your post on LinkedIn or repost it, they're gonna be there for you, right? Like, there's so like maybe you need an introduction, right, to someone and they've got a great network. Maybe you're not great at distribution, but you know, this piece your angel is, and so you're gonna be able to tap into that. And that's the other thing to ask yourself is like, can of these VCs and angels that I'm gonna work with, what are the complimentary skill sets or things that they have that my business really needs that I can learn from and or, you know, take advantage of? And so um, I would look, I think it just depends on who you partner in the VC world. I'm not here to say that all VCs are not helpful. Um, but I do think that many of them don't come from an operating background. Like they haven't really dove into um building their own businesses or really being a part of the startup world. Whereas I find a lot of angel investors kind of have been through it. Like a lot of them have like worked at all these startups, like they understand it really well.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:38

That's assuming that the angel, the respective angel investor, actually has been through that process and scaled the company, started it, scaled it. Yeah, had an exit, has been through the company.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:48

Um, but you know, like anyone that you decide to put on your cap table, whether it's a VC, whether it's an angel investor, right? Like you should always ask yourself the question like, how could I tap into this person to support? And there's so many different ways to actually do that. Um, you know, some of them I've seen uh, you know, some of them be open to like judging the hackathon or, you know, like as an example at Bolt, right? Um, and sort of becoming a part of the community. So there's so many different ways you can get support from your from your investors, but that would be something because I think a lot of founders get obsessed with the check. Like they want the check, right? And like, sure, but like uh getting an investor off your cap table is apparently more difficult than divorce.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:31

And so you really want to make sure you literally bring that up.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:35

Like I've heard it's harder to get them up. What possible make sure? I don't know actually what it was on, but I've heard the same thing. So it's gotta be from some some I don't know, some tech uh investor type of podcast. But yeah, so like make sure you are, you know, um because you're giving away a percentage of your company. And sometimes in the early stages, you don't really think about that until like you're lucky enough to get to the later stages of five to ten years and building your business and you need to start raising more capital or what have you, and you get to finally see, or you get an acquisition right and you get to kind of see the fruits of your labor there. But um yeah, yeah, I've heard some I've heard some stories, so be just uh be on the lookout. So yes, but we'll do we'll do an episode on that in the future.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:22

Let's do it. Let's do it. Cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:24

Okay. Um, so the next thing I wanted to talk about is just kind of all things open AI and Chat GPT. There's been a lot of interesting, I think, updates um around open AI in general. And I wanted to bring this up too because I was actually driving around San Francisco this weekend. And as you guys know, I'm consistently bombarded with like the worst of the worst AI ads. Trust me, a lot of them don't make sense. And I'm which, you know, maybe it's because I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:51

You cringe when you see these, Mallory, or are you like, oh I'm hungry? Like, how could you?

SPEAKER_04 1:29:55

I'm obsessed with billboards and ads. Like I'm I will literally be in the car. I'm like, that is shit. That makes no sense. The messaging is terrible. Like, oh, that's good. I'm like, if I'm not driving, I'm like getting my camera out. I'm like trying to take a picture so I can refer to it later on, you know, with other marketers. But um, I do. I get a little, it's because I'm a marketer, I think. But like, you know, I wish there was zero billboards.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:18

Yeah, like billboards. I don't think is like I can see, Mally, how you would like really examine again. I think that's more of your world, right? Especially the out-of-home stuff, right? For me, I'm like, yeah, all right, billboards are billboard. Sometimes it's dumb, sometimes it's not. But yeah, I will see some, like even TV commercials or whatever. It's just some of them are just so nonsensical, AI or not. That I'm just like, what were you thinking? What's the message you're trying to get across here?

SPEAKER_04 1:30:42

Exactly, exactly. And so I was telling these two that I saw um an open AI ad about chat chat GPT, and it was very human-like in that it just showed a photo of two people trying to fix their car, but looking at their phones because they're trying to get ChatGPT to, you know, give them instructions on how to actually fix the car. Um, and it was very simple, just said like ChatGPT in the middle of it, and it just had this photo. And so to me, I was like, ooh, this is interesting because I think what I'm starting to see is sort of the human, the humanness element of advertising in San Francisco when it comes to AI. And that is big because I've seen it personally in the last two years. I've seen a lot of ads that are like, this is their last piece of software. Don't hire humans, do this. Like there, there's really just like a lot of, I don't know, it's just gross marketing. I don't like it personally. I'm not really for that kind of marketing. But um, yeah, I've noticed that. I thought it was really interesting. So I think like, and and it's important that I mention open AI here because they are the trendsetter in the AI space, right? And so what I'm thinking is that we're gonna see a lot more, we're gonna see a lot more AI companies move in this direction over the next 12 to 24 months. And I will also say that I think it's because like the there is a uh rise of negative sentiment around AI with Gen Z and young people. They don't want to use it, they don't want to be near it, they don't like how what it does to the environment, they don't like a lot of different things. And so I wonder if like we're seeing that because it's a in response to this sentiment in that, like, oh wait, like we're not just AI, like there's this human humanist element to it that you know makes it useful, friendly, what have you. And I think showing the use case of like, you know, fixing the car makes it very like, oh, you don't need it's not gonna replace you, right? It's just helping you in this sort of situation that you're in.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:37

Yeah, my question to you, Mel, and and I somewhat think this too, after you kind of just went through everything, like you think they've almost like tapped out their market, right? Their their current market, right? It's it's that's it. Yes, that's not what it's watered down and they need to bring new people in because it's like, yeah, sure, builders, everybody knows it in that space. We know it, most marketers know it, but I mean, you're only gonna your reach is only so far, right? And so you get to the everyday person and show them how they apply this to their everyday life, and like you said, humanize it, take away some of the you know, hesitation and caution around it. That it's like you're just gonna hit your limit of people who use it, and that's it. You don't have any way to scale up after that. So yeah, I imagine it's part of that too.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:20

That's a great point. I think it's absolutely a part of that. Um, and then I was I was telling you guys before the pod too, that like they're they I think this was a few weeks ago, so not super new news, but like they are now gonna allow adults to like create erotica content as an example. Like to me, it feels like a cash grab personally, just knowing like where if you look at like the chart of you know, like oh like OnlyFans is like the largest platform like on the internet that like makes a shit ton of money in comparison to a lot of other these tools that have invested billions and trillions of dollars into creating the best LLM, creating all these data centers, right? Um, so I almost wonder if like that is a move of desperation. I don't know, but it feels like it.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:05

I think it's we spoke about this too before we hopped on, Mally, where it's yeah, I I definitely think it's a cash grab. I also think it's the path of least resistance for them to do something that they can just get out there, get people to utilize it. Because it's you know, I'm reading an article where they had plans to leverage OpenAI for for ads, for shopping, health agents, personal assistance, and they're just they're pushing all of that out further and further and further away because it's probably very complicated to put all that together. And something like this erotica creation is like, oh yeah, you could have done that anyway. Now we're just you know really throwing it out there and letting you know right, we're talking about it so you know that you can it's capable of doing that. So interesting timing for but you brought up um a good point.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:48

Interesting timing and good point, Connor, because there's been um a few articles coming out. I think like Sam Altman tweeted something around how like they're declaring code red, especially as like Google catches up in the AI race. Um, and they and they announced, right, that like Altman said that they're gonna be delaying initiatives like ads, shopping, health agents, and and personal assistance so that they can improve and focus on ChatGPT as a whole. And those core features are things like you know, greater speed, reliability, better personalization, and ability to answer more questions is kind of what they're focused on. So they're gonna put those things off in the meantime, which is yeah, interesting time.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:28

It is very interesting. I mean, also listen, that's that's just a product of the competition in the space too. Again, it's like last week or two weeks ago, Claude, Gemini, oh like everybody's just rolling out a brand new updated product. And I think they're kind of realizing that people are catching up to where they're at and and they have to shift their focus to just making their platform better. So it's the still the mainstay, right? They want to be the Google of AI right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:53

I think it's it's it's pretty exciting where you know where this is going. I mean, with anthropic, they're ex-open AI employees, aren't they? The founders, the the brother and sister.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:04

Uh I think so.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:05

I think that's they were researchers.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:08

And I mean you that alone, like if if if I started, you know, campaign pilots and let's say you know y'all started something else with an I mean, I would be like, I would just go. We're we're going toe-to-toe. Like we're it would be like they say in the media arms race. Um I mean I'm hoping to see some some pretty cool stuff uh the next calendar year. And interesting timing with um with that erotica stuff that CES is always the f I was first, second week in January. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to that show for five five years, five years in a row. And ABN was always the next week. So you'd see a bunch of guys like stay for like three weeks.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:48

Like, oh my god, three weeks in Vegas wants to make me die. You guys I can't.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:54

I I wonder how much of that of the ABN is is gonna you know focus on open AI and and and all that. And I I remember a a booth because my old sales manager did it when VR was like a really big thing in like 2017, I think. Like the headsets, yeah, yeah. It was like adult content. And he's like, dude, you gotta like I'm not and there's like 200 people in line at the booth, and it's it's science.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:15

It's so weird. It's I know. I worked at a lot of gaming conventions where like you know, there would be a booth around like you know, VR, whatever girlfriend or whatever the fuck.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:24

So yeah, that's that's their thing. That's cool. That's that's their jam. But I mean, look, that's uh a lot of people are into that.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:32

So I don't that's a whole topic that I think would be worthy talking about on itself because I have a lot of strong opinions around the rise of AI and human connection and like what you know, my fears around the next 10 to 20 years of I feel like I think someone in Japan just married the first like chat GPT by wild. Come on, just um no, I'm not this is happening. Like, and I this is the stuff I keep tabs on, like the psychosis stuff. People there's a whole Reddit subreddit thread about AI boyfriends now. Um, yeah. So, and like look, don't want to dive too into this, but you the dating pool right now, and I've been in a relationship for 17 years. So, what do I know about the dating pool? But um, I think we're seeing a lot of women who are not opting into relationships. We're seeing a lot of men that are experience a lot of loneliness and isolation. I think we're just right, and like I'm worried that AI is gonna kind of play into that in a way where it's gonna, it's going to scale this AI human sort of connection versus us opting to have human relationships and human connections. So I have a lot of thoughts on this, and perhaps this is a future episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:36

It's a good episode. It blurs the line so much between that, like uh it's scary, it's scary. To me, it's it's actually a little scary.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:43

What's the movie with with Joaquin Phoenix and uh the the robot? Doesn't he like fall in love?

SPEAKER_00 1:38:48

Oh, I know what you're talking about, and I forgot the name of it. I I heard it's pretty good. Well If only there's a way we could figure it out.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:56

If only there was a way. There's a few can ask AI. I feel like Smart House in 1999 on the Disney Channel is like the OG AI show, but or AI movie. It's so old. It's like basically a woman robot runs the house and then eventually she comes to life in human form. It's it's very, very like it's nine, yeah, 1999. It's so old. But anyway, um, yeah, I'd love to dive into this at some point. Um, but it's pretty wild. And I look, if it's wild for Claude and OpenAI or anthropic, all these tools, right? Like, imagine how hard and challenging it is for founders that are building in this space um that are somewhat reliant on these tools, right? And maybe even um, you know, creating specific tools that like Chat GPT or like Claude can't do well, right? But it's it's it's a it's hard to build in because you never know. Two months from now they have an update and it's like, well, my product is completely irrelevant now, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:39:54

It's hard. That's terrifying. Now I I thought MCP is what was gonna bury campaign pilots. When it came out, I was like, you gotta be kidding me right now. You gotta be kidding me. But luckily it hasn't. Yeah. So um uh worth you on that. Cool, cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:09

Cool. Well, that's everything you guys, and and sort of the topics for this week. Good so good stuff. But this has been great. This has been a good episode. We're just like, you know, able to dive into Charlie's world and his every well, actually, I was gonna say every day, but you were telling us earlier that you haven't done SEO in a few weeks, actually. You said like three weeks or something. Oh, months. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:31

It's been like three, four months. I haven't done keyword research and I didn't do much before, but yeah, the the SEO world, I just didn't put my brain into that. I've been building campaign pilots. So um no, like it's it's still a a fascinating um artwork, art form, and it it's not going anywhere. With uh who bought SEMrush? Adobe?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:51

Adobe.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:52

Adobe, yeah. Look, that like that's a signal. It's SEO is not going anywhere. And if anything, it gets more important and it's critical for your customer acquisition channel. So yeah, like and subscribe.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:06

Like and subscribe. Thank you so much for listening to the episode this week. If you want to follow us, you can uh check us out on LinkedIn. I believe you can follow us at Builders Growth Lab. And then we do we have a new website yet? Because to subscribe to our newsletter?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:21

Yeah, we do. Yeah, as we do.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:22

Buildersgrowth lab.ai.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:24

Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:25

So feel free to visit, subscribe to our newsletter, get the info, request more SEO videos. I will say I've been getting some comments in my um LinkedIn DMs around folks that have been listening to the podcast and have kind of outlined how they found us and you know some topics that they're interested in learning more about. So if you are listening and you're like, hey, you know, I really would love Mallory to dive into this or for Connor and Charlie to talk more about this, like do not hesitate to DM us on um LinkedIn. We definitely keep our eyes out there. And yeah, if you've got a good idea, we want to hear about it. So thank you. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:02

Thanks, guys. See y'all next week. Peace.