You're honestly at the top of your game with this stuff. Nobody seems to think as deeply and practically about search as you do in this industry. Hats off to you, man!
You described the marketing funnel! Using Tiktok/social media to drive awareness to lead to interest, then leveraging interest to lead to consideration, then....GOAL!!!! ⚽️
This is a perfect summation of what I've been seeing and thinking for a while. Half of my conversations with ecomm clients in competitive spaces are about building their brand via content that may not necessarily be SEO-style written content. But some of them aren't willing to put in the effort and just want the SEO agency to write it/create it. And we are not the experts in their product so it ends up being sub par. Thanks for the great share.
Agree! I think a lot of ecomms can be hands off. I definitely feel the ones successful with seo tend to be doing way more than just seo. Sponsorship, PR, seo, google ads, Facebook ads, email etc etc. Just seo on its own will be a struggle for the mass influx of ecomm stores right now thanks to covid and other factors.
@@deanayer3822 The two extremes are the worst. The "no help" client, as well as the "we want to control everything" client, that never actually gets round to approving anything you've done because they have "no time" or they just slap down everything you suggest, without offering their resources or alternative suggestions. I actually find the latter more frustrating but both types aren't setting themselves up for optimal SEO results.
I think this is where keyword research comes in because whether we like it or not, there are sites that are already dominating whatever market you're in. Targeting keywords with lesser competition is a good angle to attack if you want to build more authority and audience. Thanks for this!
As a SaaS CEO focused on SEO, I definitely resonate with what you are saying. On AI, buyers will gravitate toward people they trust as the noise levels gets higher. Case in point, TikTok is now optimizing for SEO search. Because people spend more time there and trust the channel. Overall, there is no magic bullet strategy but SEO at least has a way to curate the best content. But we will see how the TikToks of the world curate better. My question is, when will the name change from SEO to AIO? 😊
SEO can be used in so many ways. Doing SEO as a service for the right local phone driven businesses in cities without too much competition for the right niches is still something that can be very profitable.
Wow. This is truly a game changer video. I think every SEO should see this. I also think about it sometimes, that are we creating tons of content when we can leverage other stuff. But what you see is really true and people who will do this will succeed and those who don't will eventually die out.
I've been feeling this for a while. putting in hours of work and getting no results whatsoever. I thought maybe I can't do SEO anymore, but your video confirmed my doubts. It is time to leverage organic traffic wherever it is and ditch the old keywords/content/links system.
In 10 years I've NEVER used Google to search for and buy a product. I ALWAYS hit the Amazon app. No matter if its too much money. It's the convenience. I even went and spent an extravagant amount of money on Amazon for a velvet red dress one time to wear one time for a photoshoot (and then returned it for a refund 😂 ). I DO use Google for solutions to pain. "How to grow my business" / "how to write better content" / "what does __ mean" etc. And I still comb through the organic results and click on the one that pops out as the most thoughtful, useful to me. Do I follow/subscribe to brands from those results? Rarely. This is the big change from me. I follow brands now based on referrals. i.e. you or Brendan Hufford in Slack Pro, or an email from someone I trust featuring that brand. The SEO world has changed, and I loved your video. Listicles are absolutely dead. What I'm seeing work in numbered lists with quality are numbered lists of marketers / creators / publishers / resources to follow. We have had more traction on those than at any other time. There are ways to frame your content and topics to go after, if you continue to position yourself as a trusted source in SERPs (key - and you won't do this through spitting out AI content day after day), that WORK bigtime - more than ever.
Great thoughts. As an agency owner, I've been marinating on these ideas for a while. I see the SERP results and think "this is just some SEO a-hole like me ranking this and this content is not worthy of actually ranking." The challenge for me has been how to educate clients but also have them understand that a multi-channel (or omnichannel) approach needs to be adopted and that it's going to cost them a whole lot more to do marketing to get the ROI they were used to from SEO alone just two years ago. It's a hard pill to swallow for most small businesses and big businesses alike. Adaption is the key here, completely agree, great video.
And I thought I was the only one who thought this way!!! Thank you! A note - have SEO in mind - there are some "best practices" that can still be recommended even if "the SEO" is not the first channel.
I can`t recall the last time I didn't skim through a 15min SEO YT vid in 1min, but watch the whole darn thing. This is so spot on it's not even funny. Great point as always Ryan 💪
Outstanding video! You brilliantly described an accurate and current snapshot of SEO right now 🎯 A lot of small website owners don't care about SEO at all. I can see how a better deeper client market analysis is required to understand if I should bother selling SEO services (to my clients who mostly acquire customers from social).
I remember you had a video about how you turned a shoe blog into a shoestring company, but I can't find it anywhere. I learned a lot from that video and would love to see it again. Thank you.
As a CEO of a bespoke software development company, I've struggled in getting more customers so I setup a whole SEO team to promote my company and get more customers in - the principle is to genuinely produce quality content. Now the customers I'm talking about here are not $1k or $2k valued buyers, the ticket size is at least $20k. What I learnt, after investing time and money, completely complements what you mentioned. Fact is that Google has been polluted with keywords and irrelevant content, no matter how hard Google tries but the content pollution is above the head and it will get difficult and difficult to get right authority (as you mentioned) in your quality content.
Our primary focus is driving more leads for attorneys. As of right now, SEO is still one of ways to do that (combined with paid search). But we're constantly re-evaluating that and we're completely open to doing that
What's your opinion about local SEO like service-based websites real estate, lawyers, plumbers, photographers etc. Is SEO worth it or google Ads are more powerful?
In terms of eCommerce it would mean competing with Amazon and eBay. In terms of SaaS it would mean competing with G2 and Capterra. However in other niches like plumbing, dentistry, solar roofing, pest control - SEO still has benefit especially for GMB. Despite this now nearly any industry has some sort of listing website so it would mean competing with those for the transactional keywords - however decent longer tail keywords can still be targeted.
The fashion people on Tik Tok have the same reason for sharing that content as the people writing the articles with product placement. They both do placements. Just one is video.
Hi Ryan. Do you think this will impact affiliate marketing as well? I rarely purchase any product after reading a long listicle type article on an affiliate website. Would love to know your thoughts.
Do you think for small blogs it's a better idea to focus on putting content on places like Tiktok and Pinterest trying to get people to the website so they can get the attribution where possible?
Thanks, Rayan for this! but I have clearly observed that a ton of Saas companies use SEO as a base foundation for their business module and they are killing it!
i don't think there is a big difference between Tiktok search results and affiliates sites results as most of Tiktok fashion models getting paid to offer specific products
I also don't think SEOs destroyed content marketing. The industry (digital marketing) is lazily copy-paste. Holding onto past trends instead of adapting to omnichannel environments.
I was under the impression that after a certain amount of engagement on tiktok you could put direct links to products ... so people go on tiktok, see something they like, then go to google and buy something different... there is a lesson for tiktok... but that is like ebay and amazon anyway
thank you! i think we're starting to see AI adoption for content writing, i think in 2 - 3 years its going to flood the market and change a lot of things for marketers
Depends on the niche. Most are not spending 2k on a portable generator from watching a tiktok video or two. Same with a SUV, or a kitchen remodel. Search will always have its place.
what's really frustrating as a user, if that if i cannot find what i am searching google for on pages 1-3 the odds rapidly decrease that i will ever find what i am looking for on google. it's like pages 1-2-3 'relevant'. then... nothing. i find that very bizarre
can someone please point me to one or more courses that detail exactly what kind of niche sites i should start or buy. i don't want to waste my time on SEO training until i get the first step right. thank you
What tools can I use to find keywords and search volume for TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest? It seems most of the top SEO tools Iike Ahrefs, Semrush and Moz focus mostly on Google.
What makes you think that a TikTok creator can be considered an authority when writing content for SEO? Maybe they are just incentivized by the money, exactly like affiliates and product placements websites.
@@NOTRyanStewart no directly, but you did recommend hiring a TikTok influencer. Then you also said to translate the TikTok content into blog posts by hiring someone who is an expert in the industry, because of authority reasons. TikTok content is really bad, I wouldn't advise brands to work with influencers. But that's just my opinion.
Why did you do a different search in TikTok than you did in Google, your original Google search was summer suits for men, but your TikTok search was around fashion ideas. They are clearly different searches with different intent.
Well you left out an entire, giant sector of business - service businesses, especially utilitarian service businesses - trades & health care. Google has made a mess of this space too. Their algorithm makes all kinds of mistakes here. They favor big corps which is exactly not where the best service is delivered in most cases as the “C” suite and admin gobble up the profits and kill the quality.
I get what you are saying people are using social media to “discover” instead of Google at the top of the funnel and then going to Google to research and buy. For e-commerce they may go to Google to research and then buy on Amazon. SEOs are spamming content without a branding and marketing strategy, an actual expert with experience writing the content, a skilled copywriter, a well designed website for conversions, no knowledge of the sales funnel how to get that to convert, and no Followup using email marketing or retargeting to get more conversions. What I didn’t like about this video is how it was designed to get a reaction out of people leaving out the nuance. You didn’t say specifically what it is that SEOs could do better you just criticized what they’re doing wrong to get a reaction out of the SEO community. Also I’m Gen Z and don’t use TikTok I think it’s Chinese spyware and poison for the mind. I don’t know a single other Gen Z that uses TikTok. In fact I only know Millennials that use it. I think TikTok is not nearly as popular as the media makes it out to be and if you look at the revenue it tells the true story.
wait... if i push my ACME Ace Razor Blades on TikTok... and users Google ACME Ace Razor Blades... then i should put the keywords ACME Ace Razor Blades in my content? but wouldn't the keywords ACME Ace Razor Blades already be in my content? what i'm hearing is that SEO is worthless because of SEO pollution, so i should just focus on pushing my brand at places like TikTok and forget about SEO
Want more of Ryan's time?
Join his Pro Slack community: theblueprint.training/slack-channel/
You're honestly at the top of your game with this stuff. Nobody seems to think as deeply and practically about search as you do in this industry. Hats off to you, man!
thank you, i appreciate that!
You described the marketing funnel! Using Tiktok/social media to drive awareness to lead to interest, then leveraging interest to lead to consideration, then....GOAL!!!! ⚽️
😀
This is a perfect summation of what I've been seeing and thinking for a while. Half of my conversations with ecomm clients in competitive spaces are about building their brand via content that may not necessarily be SEO-style written content. But some of them aren't willing to put in the effort and just want the SEO agency to write it/create it. And we are not the experts in their product so it ends up being sub par. Thanks for the great share.
thanks for commetning Edmund!
Agree! I think a lot of ecomms can be hands off. I definitely feel the ones successful with seo tend to be doing way more than just seo. Sponsorship, PR, seo, google ads, Facebook ads, email etc etc. Just seo on its own will be a struggle for the mass influx of ecomm stores right now thanks to covid and other factors.
The "no help" client! - thats a recipe for also-ran results.
@@deanayer3822 The two extremes are the worst. The "no help" client, as well as the "we want to control everything" client, that never actually gets round to approving anything you've done because they have "no time" or they just slap down everything you suggest, without offering their resources or alternative suggestions. I actually find the latter more frustrating but both types aren't setting themselves up for optimal SEO results.
I think this is where keyword research comes in because whether we like it or not, there are sites that are already dominating whatever market you're in. Targeting keywords with lesser competition is a good angle to attack if you want to build more authority and audience. Thanks for this!
well said!
As a SaaS CEO focused on SEO, I definitely resonate with what you are saying.
On AI, buyers will gravitate toward people they trust as the noise levels gets higher. Case in point, TikTok is now optimizing for SEO search. Because people spend more time there and trust the channel.
Overall, there is no magic bullet strategy but SEO at least has a way to curate the best content. But we will see how the TikToks of the world curate better.
My question is, when will the name change from SEO to AIO? 😊
Agreed, well said Jeff. Sometime soon perhaps?
SEO can be used in so many ways. Doing SEO as a service for the right local phone driven businesses in cities without too much competition for the right niches is still something that can be very profitable.
agreed
I am going into e-commerce with high keyword competition. This is exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you
You're so welcome!
Wow. This is truly a game changer video. I think every SEO should see this. I also think about it sometimes, that are we creating tons of content when we can leverage other stuff. But what you see is really true and people who will do this will succeed and those who don't will eventually die out.
well said, thanks for the comment!
Wow this is very smart! your in a whole different level men, i just learned something new today. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I've been feeling this for a while. putting in hours of work and getting no results whatsoever. I thought maybe I can't do SEO anymore, but your video confirmed my doubts. It is time to leverage organic traffic wherever it is and ditch the old keywords/content/links system.
💯
In 10 years I've NEVER used Google to search for and buy a product. I ALWAYS hit the Amazon app. No matter if its too much money. It's the convenience. I even went and spent an extravagant amount of money on Amazon for a velvet red dress one time to wear one time for a photoshoot (and then returned it for a refund 😂 ). I DO use Google for solutions to pain. "How to grow my business" / "how to write better content" / "what does __ mean" etc. And I still comb through the organic results and click on the one that pops out as the most thoughtful, useful to me. Do I follow/subscribe to brands from those results? Rarely. This is the big change from me. I follow brands now based on referrals. i.e. you or Brendan Hufford in Slack Pro, or an email from someone I trust featuring that brand.
The SEO world has changed, and I loved your video. Listicles are absolutely dead. What I'm seeing work in numbered lists with quality are numbered lists of marketers / creators / publishers / resources to follow. We have had more traction on those than at any other time. There are ways to frame your content and topics to go after, if you continue to position yourself as a trusted source in SERPs (key - and you won't do this through spitting out AI content day after day), that WORK bigtime - more than ever.
1000% great insights Julia!
Great thoughts. As an agency owner, I've been marinating on these ideas for a while. I see the SERP results and think "this is just some SEO a-hole like me ranking this and this content is not worthy of actually ranking." The challenge for me has been how to educate clients but also have them understand that a multi-channel (or omnichannel) approach needs to be adopted and that it's going to cost them a whole lot more to do marketing to get the ROI they were used to from SEO alone just two years ago. It's a hard pill to swallow for most small businesses and big businesses alike. Adaption is the key here, completely agree, great video.
well said, thanks for commenting!
And I thought I was the only one who thought this way!!! Thank you! A note - have SEO in mind - there are some "best practices" that can still be recommended even if "the SEO" is not the first channel.
💯
I can`t recall the last time I didn't skim through a 15min SEO YT vid in 1min, but watch the whole darn thing. This is so spot on it's not even funny. Great point as always Ryan 💪
Glad you enjoyed it!
Outstanding video! You brilliantly described an accurate and current snapshot of SEO right now 🎯 A lot of small website owners don't care about SEO at all. I can see how a better deeper client market analysis is required to understand if I should bother selling SEO services (to my clients who mostly acquire customers from social).
Glad you enjoyed it and thank you for adding yoru insights :)
I remember you had a video about how you turned a shoe blog into a shoestring company, but I can't find it anywhere. I learned a lot from that video and would love to see it again. Thank you.
It's here: th-cam.com/video/0KfP6-HkSkc/w-d-xo.html
@@NOTRyanStewart The sound does not work :(
As a CEO of a bespoke software development company, I've struggled in getting more customers so I setup a whole SEO team to promote my company and get more customers in - the principle is to genuinely produce quality content. Now the customers I'm talking about here are not $1k or $2k valued buyers, the ticket size is at least $20k. What I learnt, after investing time and money, completely complements what you mentioned. Fact is that Google has been polluted with keywords and irrelevant content, no matter how hard Google tries but the content pollution is above the head and it will get difficult and difficult to get right authority (as you mentioned) in your quality content.
agreed, SEO is still impactful....when done right
No lies told, thanks for another great video Ryan
Glad you enjoyed it
Nailing it as usual Ryan. I love your videos.
Glad you like them!
How does this change your offer and niche of seo for lawyers Ryan? Do you anticipate replacing seo at some point for that niche?
Our primary focus is driving more leads for attorneys. As of right now, SEO is still one of ways to do that (combined with paid search). But we're constantly re-evaluating that and we're completely open to doing that
Google Business Profile Optimizations are important for most law firms...anyone who serves local customers.
Absolutely superb video crammed with usable information. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Branding is the key.
it is
What's your opinion about local SEO like service-based websites real estate, lawyers, plumbers, photographers etc. Is SEO worth it or google Ads are more powerful?
When you do them together, thats the best
This is why I offer Google Business Profile Optimizations. It almost seems to me like the most important thing to focus on.
Very Interesting. What channel would you recommend for creating demand for SAAS though? I doubt Tiktok would do it.
youtube, linkedin
Thanks for sharing your experience an insight. 👍
always!
Hey, Ryan! Provided what you have said in the video, would it be worth it to start an SEO agency?
i think an SEO agency is still a great business, i own and operate an agency and its a great model. you just have to be smart about it
In terms of eCommerce it would mean competing with Amazon and eBay. In terms of SaaS it would mean competing with G2 and Capterra. However in other niches like plumbing, dentistry, solar roofing, pest control - SEO still has benefit especially for GMB. Despite this now nearly any industry has some sort of listing website so it would mean competing with those for the transactional keywords - however decent longer tail keywords can still be targeted.
id agree with you on that
Interesting stuff. I like your rapidfire presentation, too!
Glad you enjoyed it
The fashion people on Tik Tok have the same reason for sharing that content as the people writing the articles with product placement. They both do placements. Just one is video.
eh idk about that
great insights - this video deserves 10x more views.
thank you! share with friends? :)
Hi Ryan. Do you think this will impact affiliate marketing as well? I rarely purchase any product after reading a long listicle type article on an affiliate website. Would love to know your thoughts.
Yes, absolutely. I think affiliate SEO has been under siege from Google for years, it's so much effort for such little return.
..so would I ...
Do you think for small blogs it's a better idea to focus on putting content on places like Tiktok and Pinterest trying to get people to the website so they can get the attribution where possible?
Sorry you pretty much answered my question
i do
Thanks, Rayan for this! but I have clearly observed that a ton of Saas companies use SEO as a base foundation for their business module and they are killing it!
because they invested in it years ago. if you try and do it now, you won't have the same success.
@@NOTRyanStewart what marketing channel you recommend for saas?
i don't think there is a big difference between Tiktok search results and affiliates sites results as most of Tiktok fashion models getting paid to offer specific products
thats your opinion, altho i dont think most younger folks would agree with you
@@NOTRyanStewart - Yeah the content, experience, and nature of the search are all fundamentally different.
Hey Ryan! Any course you could recommend for a beginner in this industry?
Yes! we have a training company (The Blueprint Training), check out some of our free stuff: th-cam.com/play/PLPGwiV2m4cH90YEj9PcdWYkhf1vzZamr5.html
Just bought your book.
Great video Ryan
thank you Ruan!
Great insights, thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Love your approach. Well done !
Glad you liked it!
Good stuff as always! 🙂
Thanks again!
This video is so intelligent! Thank you.
thank you!
I found interesting things to do on my trip to Miami from Tik Tok and it was great. I own my SEO agency.
agreed
What is a business owner to do i get so confused on this stuff i just need to br found locally for services
find good talent and pay them well
I also don't think SEOs destroyed content marketing. The industry (digital marketing) is lazily copy-paste. Holding onto past trends instead of adapting to omnichannel environments.
eh i think we can agree to disagree on that
Curious since you brought this up. Will there be updates on the course regarding stuff like tiktok etc?
there wont, instead the updates in the course are focused on RE focusing your SEO agency to attack the right parts of the market
I was under the impression that after a certain amount of engagement on tiktok you could put direct links to products ... so people go on tiktok, see something they like, then go to google and buy something different... there is a lesson for tiktok... but that is like ebay and amazon anyway
you can
Somewhere Rand Fishkin is crying tears of joy.
lmao well said
Great video 🎉 what’s your take on Ai for many of these steps?
thank you! i think we're starting to see AI adoption for content writing, i think in 2 - 3 years its going to flood the market and change a lot of things for marketers
Depends on the niche. Most are not spending 2k on a portable generator from watching a tiktok video or two. Same with a SUV, or a kitchen remodel. Search will always have its place.
dont disagree with you
what about new bloggers ?
focus on social media
what's really frustrating as a user, if that if i cannot find what i am searching google for on pages 1-3 the odds rapidly decrease that i will ever find what i am looking for on google. it's like pages 1-2-3 'relevant'. then... nothing. i find that very bizarre
agreed
Do you think SEO is worth if for a small mortgage brokerage?
if you do it right, yes. but if youre on a limited budget investing into social media will be far more impactful for you
can someone please point me to one or more courses that detail exactly what kind of niche sites i should start or buy. i don't want to waste my time on SEO training until i get the first step right. thank you
theblueprint.training
@@NOTRyanStewart thanks!
What tools can I use to find keywords and search volume for TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest? It seems most of the top SEO tools Iike Ahrefs, Semrush and Moz focus mostly on Google.
those are less about direct searches, and much more about understanding the type of cotent you need to create to stop ppl's scrolling
In 15 mins, you said more than many will learn during their whole careers ...
thank you :)
Good one
Thank you! Cheers!
One of the best videos I've watched in a while. Saw it on LinkedIn first.
Wow, thanks! Glad you enjoyed it :)
wait i'm confused you said to NOT do content marketing and instead focus influencer marketing?
i dont think i said that...
Articles like those have been around since the beginning of time. Hasn’t changed.
🕵
What would you do for products that largely affordable and bought by over 50's.... especially in Europe? Bing Ads?
without knowing exactly what the products are, its difficult to say. FB Ads re effective for that age range tho
What makes you think that a TikTok creator can be considered an authority when writing content for SEO? Maybe they are just incentivized by the money, exactly like affiliates and product placements websites.
not sure what you mean...did i say that tiktokers are expert content writers?
@@NOTRyanStewart no directly, but you did recommend hiring a TikTok influencer. Then you also said to translate the TikTok content into blog posts by hiring someone who is an expert in the industry, because of authority reasons. TikTok content is really bad, I wouldn't advise brands to work with influencers. But that's just my opinion.
Why did you do a different search in TikTok than you did in Google, your original Google search was summer suits for men, but your TikTok search was around fashion ideas. They are clearly different searches with different intent.
im generalizing to make a broader point about the role of search and how its changing
Brilliant
:)
Well you left out an entire, giant sector of business - service businesses, especially utilitarian service businesses - trades & health care. Google has made a mess of this space too. Their algorithm makes all kinds of mistakes here. They favor big corps which is exactly not where the best service is delivered in most cases as the “C” suite and admin gobble up the profits and kill the quality.
agreed, thanks for adding that in David!
GOLD
thank you!
Some people won't believe this
lol im aware, you should see the comments on LinkedIn
preach
I get what you are saying people are using social media to “discover” instead of Google at the top of the funnel and then going to Google to research and buy. For e-commerce they may go to Google to research and then buy on Amazon. SEOs are spamming content without a branding and marketing strategy, an actual expert with experience writing the content, a skilled copywriter, a well designed website for conversions, no knowledge of the sales funnel how to get that to convert, and no Followup using email marketing or retargeting to get more conversions. What I didn’t like about this video is how it was designed to get a reaction out of people leaving out the nuance. You didn’t say specifically what it is that SEOs could do better you just criticized what they’re doing wrong to get a reaction out of the SEO community. Also I’m Gen Z and don’t use TikTok I think it’s Chinese spyware and poison for the mind. I don’t know a single other Gen Z that uses TikTok. In fact I only know Millennials that use it. I think TikTok is not nearly as popular as the media makes it out to be and if you look at the revenue it tells the true story.
i think theres a lot of conjecture in your statement, but thanks for commenting!
@@NOTRyanStewart where is the conjecture? I was not aware you know me better than myself?
I thought you were Karim Benzema. Lmao
not sure who that i...
@@NOTRyanStewart one of the best football players lool
Bro you keep cutting off the sentences in your edit and you already speak fast. Please ....
Sorry for that, i will keep that in mind
@@NOTRyanStewart Give thanks for all your efforts. 👍🏻
wait... if i push my ACME Ace Razor Blades on TikTok... and users Google ACME Ace Razor Blades... then i should put the keywords ACME Ace Razor Blades in my content? but wouldn't the keywords ACME Ace Razor Blades already be in my content? what i'm hearing is that SEO is worthless because of SEO pollution, so i should just focus on pushing my brand at places like TikTok and forget about SEO
no you should do both, but you just have to understand your customer. wherever they are, thats where you need to be