Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Business Marketing and SEO with John Jantsch

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Business Marketing and SEO with John Jantsch · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff,
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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  Bolinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
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  Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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  Melinda Emerson.
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  Hi, everyone.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson.
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  Small bizlaney.
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  America's number one small business expert.
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  And I would like to welcome you tonight to small biz chat, our mission small business chat
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  is to end small business failure.
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  Now I created small business chat to give our loyal small business audience an opportunity to
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  see the guest, not just read all the great information that our guests have to offer.
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  So if you're ready to take your business to the next level, I have an amazing show for you
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  tonight, and my guest tonight is John Jantz, and he is a marketing consultant speaker best
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  selling author of the book duct tape marketing.
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  He's also written duct tape selling, the commitment engine, and the referral engine.
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  He's the founder of the duct tape marketing consultant network, and his latest book is SEO
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  for growth, the ultimate guide for marketers web deciders and entrepreneurs, and it's
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  changing the way the world thinks about SEO.
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  So I am so excited to have the opportunity to help you pick John's brain tonight.
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  So, John, welcome to small fish
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  hey.
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  I am so thrilled to be here.
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  I I just I can't believe it took 9 years for you to ask.
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  Now, John, don't make me start telling tales about you.
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  You know, we invited you years ago, but that's okay.
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  You know?
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  Time for us to get together tonight.
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  So I am so happy to welcome you.
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  So with that, you know, you have built such an incredible brand from duct tape marketing, and
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  you have just expanded your brand over the years.
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  But, you know, sometimes you gotta go back to the basics with marketing, and that's what I
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  wanna talk to you about tonight.
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  Can you tell me what is the best way to attract clients?
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  Well, you know, the funny thing about that is it hasn't changed.
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  The same way really to attract clients hasn't changed at all.
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  It is you have to have a product or service that somebody needs or wants and that solves a
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  major problem in their life.
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  Now I know that sounds simple, but a lot of times we think it's all about telling the world
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  that we do this and we're great at that, and our product has all these great features.
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  But what we have to do is figure out how to promise to solve a problem that's going on in
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  our ideal client's life.
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  And if we can do that, if we can connect our products and services to solving that problem,
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  because I hate to say it.
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  They don't want what we sell.
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  They want their problems solved no matter what it is that you sell us.
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  You've gotta connect your message of promising to solve their problem to what it is that you
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  do, and then they'll start listening.
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  But obviously, you've gotta know who those people are, and you've gotta hang out where
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  they hang out so that they can hear that It's really not much more complicated than that.
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  Well, how do you determine what those problems are?
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  Right?
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  Cause I built this thing, and I wanna sell this thing But how do I figure out whether people
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  need it or not?
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  Yeah.
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  And that's a tough thing because we wanna sell our thing.
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  And and so the way that I tell people all the time is ask them.
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  I mean, if you have existing clients today, you should be interviewing them about once a
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  quarter, a couple of them, and and just ask them, you know, why do you buy from us?
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  How'd you find us?
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  What do we do that other people don't do?
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  And listen intently to their answer.
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  Now don't let them say, well, you provide good service, you know, because everybody provides
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  good service, right?
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  So you need to get them to tell you a story about a time you provided good service.
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  And I can almost guarantee you're going to start hearing themes that address the actual
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  problem that you solve for them.
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  Now another great place, if you get reviews, Google reviews, which are really important
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  today, or if competitors get Google reviews, check those out too because people are saying
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  the things that you need to know, the things that you that they really love about you, about
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  your competitors or the things that they don't like about what you do or your competitors do.
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  So that's some great data point, great, obviously, for social proof out there in the
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  world.
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  But you need that data, and you need to start thinking about how to use it.
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  I'll give you a quick example.
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  We had a tree service that talks all about, you know, we've been in business for amount of
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  years.
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  That's their messaging.
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  We look under their reviews, and they all say they showed up when they said they were gonna
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  and they clean up the job site, you know, every time.
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  I mean, that's the problem that they're solved.
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  That's what you've gotta look for.
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  Now you mentioned social.
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  Let's get into what role does social media now play and attracting customers online?
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  Well, it it certainly depends.
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  I mean, a lot of times, if you're just getting started and you're just trying to find clients,
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  I mean, that might not be an important place for you because frankly, there's not a lot of
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  selling, selling, selling that goes on there.
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  It's what we'd like to refer to as top of the funnel.
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  You create awareness there.
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  People learn about you.
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  They learn to like you.
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  They learn to trust you.
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  They learn to start checking out what you do.
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  So that's a great place to build audience, to build brand, to build awareness, and to start
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  gaining the trust that allows you to have a sales conversation.
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  So it's an important place, but you have to understand where it fits in the customer
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  journey and use it appropriately.
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  Now there's so many things now going on with all these different marketing channels.
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  And a lot of stuff is changing.
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  Right?
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  You know, when I first started doing small biz chat.
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  We were on Twitter.
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  Now I'm on Facebook streaming live on YouTube and back on Twitter.
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  So how can a business owner keep up with all the changing marketing channels and networks?
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  Well, I'll I'll wind up you.
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  When when I started marketing, we didn't have the internet.
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  So a lot has certainly changed, but I I tell you that causes a lot of stress and you don't
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  need the you probably don't need to keep up on every little thing that's coming.
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  I mean, you know, we're we're streaming to 8 different places today.
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  And that may be great for your business.
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  In fact, it is great for your business, but that doesn't mean it's great for everybody's
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  business.
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  Where are your customers?
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  Where do they find companies like Where do they go to get their problem solved?
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  Stay as close to the customer as possible, and they'll tell you where you need to be spending
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  your time and energy.
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  Well, I I think that that's very fair.
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  You need to figure out who your niche target customers are and where those guys spend time
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  online, and that's where you need to be.
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  People out here doing 4 and 5 social media platforms, unless you sell social media
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  services, that is probably not converting for you very well.
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  Well, you can't you can't go deep enough in any of
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  them then.
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  Exactly.
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  Exactly.
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  And I tell people that all the time.
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  Now let's talk about your website because in my world, And I'm bet I know that this is true for
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  you too.
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  Your website is your number one sales tool.
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  So what are the three things that you have to have in order to have a great website.
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  Yeah.
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  There's no questions to become the hub of a business.
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  Even that business that does, you know, ends up taking the order across the desk, the website
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  is still the hub of their marketing.
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  So a couple of things have to be there.
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  It has to work.
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  And and by that, I mean, to load fast.
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  It has to look good on a mobile device.
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  60, 70% of the people are using that to look at your website now.
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  So it has to work in that regard.
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  But then it also has to you have to think about it kinda like a journey.
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  People need to come there and they need to see that bold promise.
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  That needs to be there.
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  What problem do you solve?
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  I wanna see that front and center, but then I need to see trust out.
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  Who else buys from you?
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  Who else likes you?
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  What associations do you belong to?
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  What, you know, badges of honor have you have you gained?
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  I mean, we need to see those cost elements.
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  And then the one that people miss all the time, Lots of calls to action.
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  Contact us for a free evaluation.
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  Get this free report.
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  You know, the it's okay to have 4 or 5 of those on your homepage because people are going to
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  take the journey down your homepage, you wanna make sure that you were asking them to connect
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  or asking them or giving them a reason to go deep.
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  Alright.
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  Now I'm gonna follow-up with you on that one.
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  What about pop up windows?
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  One of the thing that is a little bugaboo for me is I go to your website And before I get a
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  chance to read the thing that made me click on your website, here's this pop up window asking
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  me for my contact information.
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  Yeah.
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  Is this
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  the right way to go, or what's going on with all these topics?
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  Here's one of the challenges is you ask ten people and they and nine and a half of them
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  will tell you, I hate pop ups.
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  But, unfortunately, about 8 of those 10 will also say, but they work.
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  You know, I filled it out.
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  You know, if I was on the site and then and they had something that was really compelling,
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  Okay.
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  I'll take it.
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  I'll do it.
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  So I think you have to be very judicious about how you use them.
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  Control them.
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  I mean, may you know, there's nothing worse than going back to a page in a five times.
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  You know, make sure you're getting that done.
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  Make sure that I've been your website 3 or 4 times in the last 2 weeks.
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  I probably don't need to see that pop up.
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  And the and the technology is there.
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  You know, don't be lazy with these things.
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  Customer experience, the experience they have on your website is actually a ranking factor
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  for Google today.
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  They want to deliver a great experience and and how your site loads, what it does when it loads
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  is actually part of the the ranking factors that they consider.
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  I completely agree with you.
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  And one last question before we go to break, how can you really diversify the content on
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  your website.
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  There's a lot of people, like you and I, we've been blogging for years years years, but if you
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  wanna switch it up, what's the best way to do that?
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  Well, the good news is, the last couple of years, I've been telling people you need less
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  content, but you need better content, and you need to think about how you're going to use
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  that content.
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  And by that, I mean, people need different content at different points in the journey.
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  If they if they're just trying to solve what figure out what their problem is, You know,
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  they need content that really addresses them and their their world.
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  But as they start moving along and think, okay.
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  How would this solution work for me?
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  What's it like to work with you?
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  Those are different forms of content, and you need to think about all all those content, all
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  that content for every stage of the customer journey.
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  That's great.
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  That's great.
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  Well, John, that was truly helpful.
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  And you know we're on small, but yet our mission is to end small business failure and
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  knowing how to attract customers is really, really important to business success.
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  But when we come back, we're gonna talk more with John Jans about building your SEO roadmap
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  and his new book, SEO for growth.
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  Don't go away.
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  We'll be right back.
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  This is small biz chat pie.
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  Hi.
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  This is Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady host of the small biz chat podcast.
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  I want to serve you.
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  This pandemic has been so hard on America's small businesses and on just America in
• 10:36
  general.
• 10:39
  Boy, do I have a great offer for you?
• 10:41
  I am giving away 1000 copies of my best selling book.
• 10:45
  Become your own boss in 12 months.
• 10:47
  Over a hundred thousand people have this book.
• 10:50
  It has been printed in multiple languages around the world, and I wanted to find a way to
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  serve America's small businesses in this pandemic.
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  And so I am giving away a 1000 copies of my book.
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  All you have to do to get your copy is head over to beginmybiz.com/freeoffer to, you know,
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  sign up for your copy.
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  All you have to do is pay shipping, and we will mail one out to you I am so excited about this.
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  I wanna serve you.
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  Alright.
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  So welcome back to Small Biz Chat Live.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson Small Biz lady, and I'm here with John Jantz.
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  Mr.
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  Duck Take marketing himself, and it's time to talk about s e o.
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  Alright, John.
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  Now listen, when it comes to turning your website into a cash machine, You really do have
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  to understand SEO, but it's such a black hole for people.
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  And so many people have been swindled by all kinds of so called SEO purveyors.
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  Can you just explain to us SEO?
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  And then just talk to us about how to build that SEO road map.
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  And I well, I've got, like, 2 minutes, right, for that?
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  Well, you know, here's the thing.
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  A lot of people, and maybe it is SEO people, have actually maybe made it seem a lot more
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  complicated than it is.
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  I mean, the thing is you have to remember Google's never changed what their objective is.
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  Their objective is if you turn to a search engine type in a search term, they're gonna
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  return the results that they think are gonna be the most useful, most accurate to you.
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  That's never changed.
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  Now how they get to that is the only thing that's changed.
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  And that's the part that a lot of SEO folks have kind of gained.
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  So what you have to understand is that search engine optimization is such a crucial strategic
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  part of marketing today that you have to think about it when you develop your marketing
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  strategy.
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  As you design your website, as you think about your content, you have to have a SEO strategy
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  in mind.
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  And all that suggests is that you have to be producing content and displaying and amplifying
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  content that solves the problem that your ideal client is looking to get solved.
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  It's not really much more complicated than that.
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  I mean, we can get into some technical things, but that's where you have to start.
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  It's all about content and website design that goes into an SEO strategy.
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  Alright.
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  So let's say I understand that.
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  How do I build my SEO roadmap?
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  Well, it really starts with content today because, again, that is it.
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  And so if you are let's say you are an accounting service, then, you know, people
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  aren't necessarily.
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  There certainly are people that are out there saying, I need an accounting service.
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  I need my taxes done.
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  But there's also a lot of business owners that are out there saying, how do I manage my books?
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  How do I get, you know, myself to make more profit?
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  I mean, they're asking to do with finance.
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  So if you're in that accounting service, you should be designing your content around
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  creating something like the ultimate guide to outsourced accounting.
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  And that, you know, that would contain 8 or 10 blog posts maybe that would actually give
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  somebody a real roadmap about their world when it came to a counting, and that's gonna lead
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  them.
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  Well, first off, that's gonna be useful.
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  They're gonna share that.
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  They're, you know, Google's gonna reward you for that, and that's how you generate traffic
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  with search engine optimization.
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  It all starts with content.
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  Awesome.
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  Awesome.
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  Alright.
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  So now I know this.
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  I had someone tell me that blog posts are nothing more than addressed for your keywords.
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  So tell me if if keywords are essential for SEO work, How often should small business owners
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  change and update their keywords?
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  Well, that's one of the challenges.
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  That's one of those things that was kind of old school SEO.
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  Now when I talk about keywords and keyword research, all I wanna know is what are the
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  terms people are searching?
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  You know, in what volume, in what ways are they saying them and what related ways are they
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  saying them?
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  And I wanna make sure that I'm at least addressing the intent they have with those
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  searches in my content.
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  It's not so much about keywords.
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  The search engines have changed now to be much more about behavior and intent.
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  And so the rewarding company at first shoving keywords in their blog post, but but for
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  producing this kind of useful, you know, guide type of material, that does happen to have, you
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  know, the window dressing of some of the keywords, but it's not about changing updating
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  and scanning your system.
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  It's all about producing useful content that does address what they're searching
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  in SEO.
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  How much should they really plan from a budget standpoint to invest in SEO, like, per month?
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  Yeah.
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  Well, it's tough because you should never, in my opinion, you should rarely buy SEO services
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  as a separate service.
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  You should really be working with somebody that is building it into your being strategy.
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  And that doesn't mean that they can't have an expertise in that, but SEO, you you can't build
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  a website, do some content, and then SEO it.
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  It doesn't work that way.
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  It all has to really be done as an overarching marketing strategy.
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  And so there's no way to really give a cost to that.
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  But, you know, certainly if you're producing content and you need to then optimize that
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  content, you know, that should be part of the process.
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  I, you know, there are people that pay, you know, $500 to $5000, you know, just for that,
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  but it includes creating content, getting backlinks, you know, networking, working on the
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  structure of the website.
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  So it's it's tough to put a figure.
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  So you're saying that whoever's building your website should have that SEO capability?
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  Either that or they you should be working with a consultant who is orchestrating, you know,
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  all of those components.
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  Okay.
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  Okay.
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  Well, you know what?
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  That is excellent advice.
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  That's actually educating me about something I didn't even know.
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  Well, listen.
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  I appreciate that.
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  And you've written this great book called SEO for Grosso.
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  We want everyone to go out and grab a copy of his latest book because it's gonna give you
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  even more in-depth advice on building a website that you can turn into a cha ching cash
• 16:48
  register.
• 16:48
  So that's really what we wanna do.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small business lady, and the mission of small business chat is to
• 16:54
  end small business failure.
• 16:56
  I wanna leave you with this.
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  You never lose in business.
• 16:59
  Either you win or you learn.
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  We'll see you next time.
• 17:04
  Thank you for listening to the small biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 17:09
  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
• 17:15
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.