Bad SEO versus Good SEO - #seopodcast 146

Hi, and welcome to the Internet Marketing Podcast from SEO, where we do Unknown Secrets. Yeah, something like what he said. You know, sometimes when you start wrong, it's just like, oh, man. Let's try that again. Hi, welcome to the SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing, where we teach you how to do internet marketing for your website. You are watching the most popular SEO podcast on iTunes. We happen also to be the most popular internet marketing podcast on iTunes. My name is Chris Burris, and we have a camera adjustment twist angle if you need to. There you go. All right, cool. I'm Charles, you're an internet marketing specialist. We usually don't have a camera adjustment. It's like throwing us all off. Clearly, it wasn't my poor intro. Yeah, it had nothing to do with it. The fact that we started off wrong. All right. As always, a tip from our previous podcast. Let me set the camera up. Yeah, I said, look, I'm fired. Like, I can't do any more behind the scenes, get an announcer. The tip from the last podcast. Remember that e-commerce websites present a specific set of SEO challenges. The nice part is that many of the solutions automatically propagate to the rest of the site. Yeah. Right, so go back and listen to the podcast. That's podcast number 145. We talked almost exclusively about e-commerce, e-commerce sites, the SEO challenges that e-commerce sites have. And, yes, there are some advantages because if you do- Plenty of advantages, plenty of disadvantages, plenty of disadvantages. One of the advantages being, you know, Google base. And we didn't dig too much into that then, but the fact that you can easily submit your products into Google Shopping Network, which is a form of SEO. And that's the quickest way to get your products out there. Some of the disadvantages were duplicate content issues and things like that that you tend to run into because not only do all of your descriptions seem to be similar, all of your competitors who sell the same

products also have those descriptions you manufacture. Right. And so those are some of the issues you run into with any comp site. Yep. Go back, listen to what podcast number 145. Do remember, do not forget that we are your friendly local neighborhood top position snatchers. Yes. And our mantra is, do not be a douche. Do not be a douche, kind sir. Don't be a douche. Yeah, don't be a douche. If you are sitting in front of some sort of electric device, which, by the way, we know that these sound signals are getting to you from some sort of electric device. If that's not just an iPad, if it's actually got a more sophisticated iPod, excuse me, if it's got a little more sophisticated CPU behind it, go ahead and tweet right now. Check what, I always forget, what are they tweeting? Hashtag SEO Podcast 146. That's your tweet. Or Facebook it, G plus it, however you want to do it. Make sure you tag us in an at eWebStyle, and that way we can retweet it, respond to it, interact with you, and get to know you socially. I got a review. Got a review? Paper wagging around. I got a review. That's like a hollow. Yeah. A hollow tear. Yeah, it's a tear with a tear coming out of it. Tear, tear. Because it's a bad review. So first off, how did this happen? Houston, they, in this particular case, it was a guy by the name of Houston, went on to iTunes. He created an iTunes account. He submitted a review. And then we actually reached out back to him, of course, because of the content of this review. So here we go. Couldn't deliver on free website analysis. That's the title. It's one star. Ouch. Ouchy. That's like my shin. Kick in the shin. That's kicks. Yeah, kicks. These guys are great on the podcast. But when I filled out their free website analysis, they couldn't deliver. They sent emails saying they would call tomorrow two weeks ago. And I'll tell you,

we don't like truly bad reviews, right? We don't like them because, of course, it's critical. And, you know, we don't want to be in a position where people are giving us bad reviews. We like them because it allows us to improve. In this particular case, I was a little upset because he says, these guys are great on the podcast. And we kind of felt this wasn't the right forum for this particular complaint. Frankly, we as a company did drop the ball. We actually had some staff moving, if you will. And so a couple emails got lost, a couple kind of trails, customer trails or potential customer trails. In this particular case, a website analysis trail got lost. I reached out to him. I actually spoke with him this morning. His website is clarinetfingeringcharts.net. And even after a one-star, we're going to share that information, clarinetfingeringcharts.net. Had a good conversation with him, basically got the meat and potatoes of an analysis out of the way. He said he was in the process of going back and changing the review. And at the same point, you know, we're not perfect. It's what we do when mistakes are made that makes us a good company. Yeah, address those mistakes and move forward. And move, keep on moving on. All right, let's do a little bit of news. It was kind of a slow news day. I mean, I was having a hard time finding stuff. I saw something that I thought was pretty cool. Regal, the movie company, Regal Movies or Regal, they have two of the big theaters here in town, Regal. And I actually have one of their cards in my wallet here. Regal and Sony are put together. Look at that, Regal Crown Club. I'm a Crown Club member at Regal. Wow, he really did have a card. Truth message. Yeah, sure, you and your Regal card. I don't have a Sony card, unfortunately. Sony, you're welcome to send me any sort of Sony credit card with the $5,000 limit that I don't have to

pay. That didn't, damn, it was going so good. They're bringing subtitled glasses to movie theaters. Subtitled glasses. So I thought this was just kind of cool because last week we mentioned the Google glasses. Not Google goggles, but Google glasses. And so it's kind of cool because, you know, you don't. Everybody don't need to see the subtitle. Yep. And sometimes they're distracting. I don't know. They're very distracting because there is the. I end up reading. It's not possible to read it and watch it. At the, yeah. You get. It makes me a while. If it's from Panthers, it's her second language. And sometimes, especially if there's a thick act or something, she wants the subtitles. And I find myself reading them. I'm like, I don't need to read these. Keep focusing on the image. I keep repeating to myself. Yeah. I can understand. Yeah. You know. And then you start critiquing and you're looking for. Well, I don't look for spell check because I'm the worst spell checker probably ever. Oh, you missed something. Yeah. It was like a big flash. Oh, Lord. What was that? Explosion. And then you see explosion. Explosion. Oh, good. I didn't miss it. Thank you for the text. So I think it's kind of cool. And who knows? It probably won't be too long until that's something that your Google Glasses, you could actually subscribe to in a movie theater and boom, all done. I also, I saw something this week. It was actually, I was at my improv show on Saturday and a couple of the guys started talking about Stephen Colbert and an interview that he did with Neil deGrasse and I may be mispronouncing that. It's a, uh, deGrasse if it's French. Um, and Neil, I, I had, I don't know anything about him and is a, is a, um, uh, cause what's the right term? Cosmetologist? No. He does makeup? No. Okay. Uh, cosmologist then. So is focused on, uh, and astrophysicists and yeah, and all this in Israel, you know, uh, tends to sit around

and, and think about, uh, I think he's probably on a couple of presidential, uh, advisory boards and, and talks about science and education. And I'll tell you what he, in this particular interview gave on like to speak passionately about the big bang is sounds odd, right? Like he, one of the first, uh, terms he uses it as, as it exploded, it's enriched guts across. I mean, it was so poetic for a description of the big bang, right? And, uh, and he's just unbelievably passionate about the subject matter that, that he's an expert at. Um, and, and there's one thing that he says that it's really funny and I have a lot of empathy for this. So he grew up in the city and he remembers specifically at age nine going to the planetarium and, and, you know, they shoot all the lights up there and he's from the city where there are only three stars and, and they're actually in the limos driving by and he looks up and his first thought was, well, yeah, right. Yeah. Right. Now that, and then he went out in the middle of nowhere and he was like, wow. And, and he admitted that now he can be on the most remote places on the planet, on the highest peaks, the most beautiful places you can imagine. And he'll look up and he'll go, yeah, looks exactly like the planetarium. And, and my kind of parallel for that was when I, when I, uh, had to get glasses and the first thing when I put on glasses, I was like, wow, everything looks like a painting, right? Because on a painting you're close and you can see the, the leaves that an artist has put on a painting and then you put on, and for me without glasses, everything's a green blur, right? Like, and then I put them on, I'm like, wow, there are leaves on that bush over there. It's just like a painting. Welcome. Yeah. Welcome. Wow. Yeah. So, yeah, that was, I, I had, it's,

it's long. It's like an hour and 20 minutes. You know, I really like Stephen Colbert. He's, he's really top notch and Stephen was actually out of character. Uh, you know, he plays a very specific character and he was interviewing, I mean, he's funny and still has all the quips that he usually does and, uh, and, and really wasn't that, you know, that, uh, whatever, uh, ultra stereotypical conservative, uh, pundit that he is on. Yeah. So it was good. Worth checking out. So, um, that is our, our news and, uh, and our tip. So. Okay, cool. And it looks like you got right through the Gino time. Look at that. Boom. So today we want to talk about, um, um, SEO versus PPC, right? Um, and this is, this is a, a concept or a competition, if you will, that I'm pretty sure, um, if you're watching this podcast or listening to this podcast that you've heard before. Um, and the big question is, which one should I do? Right. Right. Should I do SEO or should I do PPC? And I'll be honest, some SEO companies are out there pitching and saying, look, Don't spend your money. Right. You may be spending 10K on pay per click. As soon as you get to the first page, you can cancel that 10K. Think how much you're going to save, which is, um, a disingenuous pitch. Uh, right. I, I, I would, I would say, cause it, it, I mean, it's a nice pitch from the perspective of it. It really sounds good. Um, and we're going to talk about, is it really good? Yeah. Somebody, and then you get the pitch from the other side, right? Right. PPC pitch who's like, if sales are going to take too long, don't do it, go ahead and invest your money right now, get a faster ROI and you have more control and everything else. Yeah. Um, which is similar to the other pitch, uh, actually has some fact to it, but slightly disingenuous, right? It's not, it's not

really taking into account the whole picture of internet marketing. Yeah. What we, what we, what we believe here is that, um, if budget permits, uh, do both, especially if you are a, a, a new company, right? SEO is going to help with your branding and I, and I got an article we're going to in a minute. The SEO is going to help with your branding and things like that. It's also going to take time, um, depending on the industry, anywhere from, you know, two months on to six or seven months, eight months, just depending on how competitive it is. Meanwhile, pay-per-click, um, set it and it, and it's goals. You know, once you create the campaign, launch it and then it's live a couple of days later and you can immediately begin receiving traffic for your targeted terms. I got, I got to be honest, I got to be honest, set it and it goes is how most people handle their account, uh, pay-per-click account. Yeah. Don't set it and forget it. Yeah. Like some people tend to do and then all of a sudden they're spending a ton of money and it's not working right. So here when we're handling pay-per-click accounts, we're, um, you know, depending on budget and timeframe, you know, early on we're in daily, uh, right. We're ramping up, toning down, really optimizing that campaign. Uh, and then as you go on month to month, uh, at least weekly, we're looking at that campaign, make sure it's spending, right. Yeah. I log in. I mean, I'll glance at it daily cause I'm in, you know, uh, speaking of Google, I'm in AdWords in my client center. Um, if you do AdWords, you know what that means. Uh, daily looking at accounts. So we'll always check, make sure it's spending right. Make sure it's not overspending. Make sure you're not getting clicks for phrases you shouldn't be and things of that nature. Um, and yes, and that, that's kind of a quick over the top view to make sure everything's functional.

But yeah, definitely before we, you know, the first few months, yeah, we're in there every day, changing ad texts, A and B testing, uh, creating negatives and doing everything else that comes with managing a paid search campaign. Properly managing. Cause there's managing and there's properly managing. You know, we get pay-per-click accounts from other pay-per-click companies and they were being managed. Yeah. Just not properly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's not a good look. Kind of like, kind of like having to redo a website, right? Yeah. It's easier to just, ooh, stop it, build a new one from scratch. Refocus. Yeah. Rather than try to clean up that mess. Yeah. So the article I have is called SEO versus PPC. Um, I got it from, um, lpwebdevelopment.com. And so, um, they, they listed out a few different reasons why you should do each. Um, actually I disagreed with some of them and, you know, we like to talk, so I figured we'd bring them up and we'd discuss them briefly. Um, so starting with SEO, um, they said, um, um, SEO creates web-wide visibility and helps brand strength. Check. Yeah. I concur. Yeah. Um, it definitely does, uh, create, create visibility across the web and yes, it creates brand strength. The more you are ranked naturally, the bigger, the stronger your brand, uh, seems to be or becomes. The more credibility people give to your, to your particular site. Yeah. Definitely. Especially if you're, if you're first page ranking, you know, top three or four positions. Um, the ROI from organic SEO is unbeatable when done right. Um, that goes without saying. Yep. I think any ROI is unbeatable. Yeah. You should really invest in, in everything that has a positive ROI. Yeah. Yeah. Um, this one here says, um, SEO is very slow when compared with PPC or at least the best SEO is. Um, I, I agree. Yeah. You know, SEO, like I said, it can be slow. It's a time consuming process. Um, but what I think one of the things we do

here to kind of expedite that process is, is when we do keyword research, for example, which is kind of the fundamental basis of, of both forms of search marketing. Right. Um, is we handle the keyword research for the SEO phrases and our pay-per-click phrases at once. Yeah. And so that way, um, usually we redesign a site. Once that site's done and we begin launching a paid ad, you know, AdWords campaign, um, we already have the keyword focus done for our SEO. Right. And then I can use the PPC to kind of revamp that, see what's working over there, see if I need to maybe start optimizing for these phrases and whatnot. And so that way, when we do launch, we can launch the campaign and immediately dive in SEO at the same time. Right. So yes, there is, it is a little bit slower, but it doesn't have to be that slow. Uh, SEO is a waste of money when done wrong. Check. As with most things, if you do it wrong, it's probably a waste of money. Yeah. Definitely. You don't want to go optimizing for the wrong phrase. Yeah. Um, that's the first and biggest mistake. You know, the, the phone call we get where, uh, where maybe we're pursuing somebody and they're like, Oh no, my website's already on the first page of Google for what? Uh, Oh, Chris Burris is computer repair service. Um, yeah, you know what? If you didn't show up for that, you're, you got a whole, that's a, you don't have a website. That's really all it takes is being in the game to, to nail a phrase like that. So, uh, yeah, you unfocused, unproperly focused SEO, not good. Well, and then to, to add to that, sometimes, sometimes you have to take that far, that step back because it is fixable. I mean, especially when dealing with, with, with clients and their businesses. I mean, we had a client, we actually still have a client right now and, um, they do a glass replacement, right?

When's the replacement? And one of their phrases that their clients asked for on the phone is auto glass repair. And so they, they really wanted to rank for that phrase. We did some research. I said, I don't know. I don't think you should go for repairs to go for replacement. No, Charles, we want to go for repair. Okay. Repair ended up bringing in tons of clients who wanted scratches repaired and chips repairs. And that's not what they do. They do replacement. Right. And so, you know, it took, it took that lump, you know, that frankly took two months to find out that this is really not what we should be talking about. They needed to answer enough calls of people not interested in replacing their windshields, actually interested in a $20 repair, uh, that they don't focus on. Yeah. To say, okay, you were right. Turn that off. Turn that off. And this SEO can't just turn it off. Right. Right. I can go and change it. Re-optimize that page, change some terms. And then over time, hopefully you'll keep that same ranking, but you know, for a different phrase. Yep. Um, bad SEO hurts the site and the business. Duh. Um, because it does, it really does hurt the business. The last thing you want to do is be ranking for the wrong thing. Um, let's see, let's go into the PPC stuff. It says, uh, PPC gets results fast, certainly within a month. Um, I think this goes back to what you said earlier. If it's done right. Yeah. Um, cause you can get the wrong type of results fast as an example, it, while doing the SEO for windshield, uh, repair, we were also doing pay-per-click for windshield repair, uh, same kind of thing. They got the wrong results from really fast. Luckily. Now here's one of the benefits to PPC. Luckily with pay-per-click, um, when managed, right. If, then that's just an ad group or that's just a set of phrases that I can go pause and or delete immediately. And

then you, you, you stop the bleeding. Right. In regards to SEO, that page has been indexed. It's been ranked. It's in Google search index. Yeah. Um, so I can't just go turn it off. You know, I have to go. I was just thinking about that. We could actually turn it off, but it's so much effort to get to that first spot. You don't want to turn it off. You don't want to turn it off, right? You, it's not something that you can turn off today and back on tomorrow. Yeah. Uh, it's something that normally you turn it off, which would be changing content or removing the page literally from the web. Um, and, and that, that would severely impact any further optimization and the rest of your site. Yeah. You end up with a, with a, with a four, four page or a page can't be found in the Google index. And when, and that's not a good look at all. That'll affect the rest of your optimization, the rest of your pages and everything else. Um, let's see here. PPC is quick to retarget and agile in many ways. I concur. Um, especially with the retargeting. Um, that is a huge thing that is highly effective in regards to paid search marketing. Yeah. Um, the ability to, to remarket to certain individuals, um, really to a granular, granular level, like people who maybe visited our site and look at the SEO page, um, show them, I can, I can remark it to them on different sites. That's not ours and show them your SEO specific ads. Yeah. And so, um, it's really cool. It's a great feature. Glad Google did it. Um, but it, it, you have to know how to do it. Yep. Um, if you set it up wrong, then you'll be displaying ads everywhere and you'll, and you'll plummet your budget pretty quickly. Yeah. And so, um, uh, yeah, definitely take advantage of it or hire somebody who can, uh, to take care of that for you, which goes into this

next one. PPC is the fastest way to lose money when badly run. Yes, it is. Um, I think of, um, our AC client. Yes. Turn it off. Turn it off. We get that call. Turn it off. I gotta go. At AC client. And one of the things we do here, we try to be very transparent in regards to our AdWords. A lot of our competitors and other companies want you to pay them and then they handle it and you don't really know what's going on in Google, how much is it spending, how much are your keywords costing, what's really happening. We allow our clients to have logins and access to the AdWords campaign. Look at it, see what's going on, see what's happening. Matter of fact, see when the last time I logged in and, and see the changes I made, but that comes with the responsibility. This particular client, um, since the billing was on his card, he had the option to make changes and he did, and he did, but what he didn't do was make the change, right? He turned on, uh, what Google calls a display network and ramped up his budget thinking cause it was extremely hot outside. He would get a whole bunch of leads and he went from spending 400 bucks a day to spending 5,000 a day. 5K. And so in three days on, and he did it on the weekend. And so by Monday, when we got back to the office, turn it off Chuck, oh my God, I just paid $10,000 out of what's going on. And now luckily he did get a few full installs out of it. So he was able to kind of break even, had a positive ROI on it. Yeah. But yeah, you can lose money if, uh, if, if you don't handle it the right way. Um, let's see here. Site owners often believe they can do PPC, but tend to do it badly unless they've had professional training. Yeah. So, and then, you know what, we get that

a lot, a lot of, most of our new clients that come in, they've had an experience with AdWords. They know it works because they made some money, but they know it's not performing optimally. Right. And so they come in and we're going, revamp it, refix it, change it and, and get it back up to par. It's being managed. It's not being properly managed. Properly managed. Exactly. So, I mean, I would say in closing, um, you know, if you can do SEO and PPC at the same time, um, do it. Do it. Um, even if you have to start with a smaller budget, it's, you know, it's one thing to get ranking. It's another thing to get clicks, right? Clicks turn into traffic. Traffic turns into business. Ranking can turn into traffic as well if you're ranking for the right phrases. And so, um, I would say, especially if you're a service provider, let's say like a, a plumber or, you know, uh, somebody like that, um, who, who can provide a service that doesn't have a long sales process, right? You know, call, you see a price, you get a quote and it will contact you. PPC works great because, um, it's the quickest way to get that response. If you are, um, a little bit longer sales process, let's say you are consulting for, um, HR companies or, or human capital, right? Or you, um, you're an attorney or something like that, then PPC may not be the best way to go because your cost per click is going to be extremely high and it won't turn into a direct sale. It's going for some meetings and another conference and some other stuff. And it's probably not the best way to spend your money. Do SEO. Yep. Uh, but if you can do both, so SEO versus PPC, any blank stare, a little bit of blank stare, a little bit of blank stare. I'll do my little bit of blank stare. Okay. Yeah. Just a little bit. This blank stare is that, and a

guy I actually worked with at Stompernet a while ago, a guy named Dan Thies. Right. A huge SEO guy, knows his stuff. I mean, big guy, right? So you heard about the negative SEO. Negative SEO is the practice of doing stuff harmful to your competitors. To reduce their ranking. So your ranking will increase. Right. Negative SEO. Right. So Dan commented on that and he made a comment, a tweet. He actually sent out a tweet to Matt Cutts about the algorithm change. They made a change that kind of penalized a lot of blog networks and this and that that they felt were open forums for people to do negative SEO, right? He sent a tweet. Matt tweeted back something along the lines of, oh, so you caught that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're doing the best we can to reduce them on the spam and this and that. Like, two days later, Dan loses all his ranking. And the reason was, according to Matt, was that his site had spam on it. The links were bad, all of this. And so he was a victim of what he commented about. Oh, wow. Yeah. Thanks there. Yeah, Dan. And good job bringing that out, first off. He took some boldness to even say that. Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, you paid the consequence for that. But good luck with that. All right. You have been listening to the most popular SEO and internet podcast on iTunes. It was you and you right there. And everyone, please help us out. Go to our, you know what? You can stalk us. And the way you stalk us is by going to facebook.com slash. Eat whip style. Twitter.com slash. Eat whip style. YouTube.com slash. Eat whip style. Podcast at. Eat this. Eat whip style.com. We really appreciate you guys listening. Go ahead and submit a review somewhere. Good or bad, we're an open book here. That's our policy. Until the next podcast, my name is Chris Burris. So, bye-bye for now.