Latest / The Scene Projects / Brandon Leibowitz on SEO Strategies, AI Impact, and Building Online Presence

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Brandon Leibowitz on SEO Strategies, AI Impact, and Building Online Presence · The Scene Projects

• 0:22
  Welcome in to Real Biz.
• 0:24
  I am your host Bubba Starts, and with me today from SEO optimizers, Brandon Leibowitz.
• 0:29
  Brandon, welcome to the show.
• 0:31
  Thank you for having me on today.
• 0:33
  An absolute pleasure.
• 0:34
  We're gonna talk about some podcasting.
• 0:36
  We're obviously gonna cover, SEO and, your new book and all kinds of great stuff.
• 0:41
  But before we get into all of that, really just wanna give you an opportunity.
• 0:45
  Give us a little bit of your backstory, and then we'll pick it up from there.
• 0:49
  Yeah.
• 0:49
  Hi.
• 0:50
  My name is Brandon Leibowitz, and I first got involved with digital marketing back in 2007
• 0:56
  after I graduated from college.
• 0:58
  One of the first jobs I was offered was doing SEO, which I don't really know much about it.
• 1:03
  I told the company that, and they said, don't worry.
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  We're new to this as well, and we're gonna learn with you, taking you to different classes
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  and workshops and seminars.
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  And after doing that for a few months, I just realized everyone is probably gonna have a
• 1:18
  website in the future.
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  SEO is a way to get free traffic, and I thought to myself, like, who doesn't want free traffic?
• 1:25
  And that got me sticking with this SEO over the years working at different advertising
• 1:30
  agencies.
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  And before work, after work, and on my lunch breaks, I work on my own company and eventually
• 1:36
  built that up towards able to quit my job and been doing this ever since, helping people tap
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  into that traffic.
• 1:44
  Yeah.
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  Incredible stuff.
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  And, obviously, amplified even more now with AI, kinda replacing search engines or
• 1:51
  augmenting them.
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  I guess replacing them is pretty strong language, but it's kind of built into
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  everything that we do now when we search.
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  Can you talk about that transition?
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  Because it feels like it's happened rather overnight in AI, a huge hot topic of
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  conversation pretty much anywhere you go now, but I'm sure someone like yourself has seen
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  this coming over the last maybe three years at least.
• 2:16
  Mhmm.
• 2:17
  Yep.
• 2:17
  No.
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  It's AI has been around for a while, but it's just really picked up recently and it's not
• 2:24
  gonna slow down anytime soon because it just kinda gives you the answer right there.
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  It doesn't always give you the right answer, which is the tricky part with AI, with those AI
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  hallucinations, and it makes things up when it doesn't know the answer.
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  But it's changed how people search and people are wherever they're searching, we wanna
• 2:43
  optimize for that.
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  Whether they're searching on Google or ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever platform, we gotta make
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  sure that we are optimizing to make sure we get that visibility wherever anybody is potentially
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  gonna be looking and searching for you.
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  Well and without getting too far into the weeds, personally, I'm curious, and I'm sure
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  our listeners are as well, What has changed about the optimization now moving into the with
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  AI doing a lot of the searching and and finding of the information?
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  Most of the SEO best practices are still what helps you rank in the in the different
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  platforms.
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  So it's not much has really changed too much.
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  It's changed more of where people search, but they're still looking at the same same signals,
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  like doing keyword research, putting those keywords into the coding on your website in
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  different areas, adding schema, which is a programming language that was created about ten
• 3:45
  years ago and helps the search engines better understand your website.
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  It also helps the LLMs understand your website, having, like, frequently asked questions, FAQs.
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  But all that stuff has been around for over a decade, and it's just general SEO best
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  practices.
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  But one big one is building trust and getting backlinks or getting mentioned on other third
• 4:09
  party sites to help build that trust because keywords are great, but third party sites build
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  that trust to solidify that you really are who you say you are.
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  And just making sure that you employ all those best practices, and you'll start showing up in
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  the LLMs.
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  I mean, the only difference is really, like, the sentences that people search might be a
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  little bit different than, like, traditional Google searches are gonna be more keywords.
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  AI, if people are speaking into the phone, it's voice search, and it's changing the whole
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  search by adding prepositions and sentences and not just keywords.
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  So trying to target sentences that people might be searching, but all that has been around
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  since voice search came around in, I think, 2013, somewhere around there.
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  So it's nothing too new.
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  It's just now exponentially much more important than it was previously.
• 5:02
  Yeah.
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  I I love that.
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  It it really is not it's not a brand new system that's been introduced.
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  It's an evolution of a system that was already there.
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  Hence, why everything that you were doing before is still working.
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  You just may be adding to some of these things now because like you like you said, the the
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  place where people are going to search, we're not going to ask Jeeves anymore, right, as we
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  were in the early two thousands.
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  And and all of the, I think, all of the search engines at this point, Google obviously being
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  the the behemoth that it is, are all using AI inside of those search engines to to provide
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  the answers that the end user are looking for.
• 5:41
  Yep.
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  Now Google's been using AI for, same thing, over a decade.
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  Like, all this stuff is not new.
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  It's just ChatGPT, put it out to the public.
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  And once it's out to the public, then it slowly started to get more widespread adoption.
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  But AI has been around for decades.
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  I think even, like, forty or fifty years ago, people are working on AI.
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  So nothing new.
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  It's just now we all have access to it where we could tap into AI and start having it help us
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  out.
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  Whereas in the past, like, Google just kept it for themselves.
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  They weren't really sharing that AI or machine learning and how their algorithms are working.
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  Yeah.
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  If you were curious on how they rose to the level that they did, well, I I'd say that AI
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  was probably in the in the background of a lot of those advancements that were happening,
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  unbeknownst to the general public.
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  So not a lot has changed on what you're doing necessarily, but it has changed on, you know,
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  where you put it out there.
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  How important is it then?
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  And moving into, you know, the topic of your book as well is, you know, guesting on other,
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  building those backlinks out with podcasting.
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  How important is that to business owners and entrepreneurs now?
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  That part has always been important, getting published on other people's websites, but even
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  more so nowadays because getting published on a website, third party site is very important.
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  But the more sites that you're on, the better you're gonna be.
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  And in the past, search engines didn't really look too much at social media, but now they are
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  looking at social media.
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  So when you're a guest on someone's podcast, they'll publish that podcast episode on their
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  website.
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  They'll also share it on social media, on different podcast players.
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  So now your name starts to show up everywhere, and that's what the LLMs wanna see is that
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  you're not just on websites, but you're on all these other platforms that traditional search
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  engines weren't really looking at too much.
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  But now gotta be everywhere.
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  So guest podcasting is great because it taps into that.
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  You're on someone's show.
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  They're gonna share it on a bunch of different places.
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  I could also share the episodes that I was a guest on on my own social channels, my own
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  blog, and just gets more people talking about it.
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  And the more people that talk about it, the more trust you're gonna get, and that's gonna
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  help move you up those rankings.
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  Made me feel a little bit more important than I probably am, Brandon, but I I appreciate, you
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  know, you creating a commercial for people to be coming on RealBiz for now and well into the
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  future.
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  It helps out.
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  A lot of people don't realize the SEO value of being a guest on podcast.
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  They just look at being a guest as great visibility, get subject matter expertise, you
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  get content for your social media, but I like it because you get that backlink, getting
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  another website to publish you.
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  So I kinda went all in.
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  I had my own podcast in 2020.
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  And then six months into doing my own podcast, someone asked me to be a guest on their
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  podcast, and that got me to realize that being a guest on someone else's podcast is gonna be
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  great visibility exposure, but it's also gonna help me with an SEO backlink.
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  Then I kinda went all in, and I've been a guest on over 300 podcasts, And that's really helped
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  grow my business, get me all these backlinks, get me ranking higher, get me more visibility,
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  and that is then what I decided to write the book about, which I published a few months ago
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  called the power of guest podcasting.
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  And it kinda explains all that in detail, but it really kinda focuses a little bit more on
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  the SEO side of things, which a lot of people don't realize or don't look at it.
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  I show you how to make sure that every guest podcast episode passes on as much SEO value as
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  possible because sometimes they don't pass on SEO value, and that's where we gotta make sure
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  that they mention your name, mention your website URL, put you in the show notes or the
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  description or publish you on their website because sometimes these episodes gets published
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  without mentioning your website URL.
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  They might mention my Facebook page or my Instagram page, but I need them to mention my
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  website URL because that's gonna help my website move up higher in the rankings.
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  Yeah.
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  And it's a key, to all of it.
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  It may be something that I'm failing on right now as a podcast host and not being conscious
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  of some of the ways that I can be further helping the people that we're having on our
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  show every single day of the week.
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  So it's really, you know, a value to not just the podcast guests, but also the book, I think,
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  would be extremely valuable to podcasters as well to know how they're actually helping
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  people because you're opening my eyes to a lot of things that, maybe I have not been focused
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  on as much as I should be and delivering more value than I really even thought that I had.
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  The biggest low hanging fruit I feel like for most podcast hosts is taking every podcast
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  episode and putting it on their website as a blog post because each because blogging is
• 11:05
  important, and but blogging takes a lot of time.
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  And most people don't wanna write blog posts, so don't have time to write blog posts.
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  But every episode that you record can become a blog post that you publish on your own website.
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  And then if someone's searching, like, for example, my topic right now, if someone's
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  searching for SEO or guest podcasting strategies, that blog post that you publish can
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  start to potentially rank for those keywords.
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  But the bigger thing is if you publish me on your website, then I'm gonna then you after the
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  episode's recorded, you tell me, hey, Brandon.
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  Here's a link to where the podcast is live, and it's on your website.
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  It has the embedded player, the YouTube player, all that stuff.
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  All the player all the content is all on that one landing page.
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  Now instead of me sharing a Facebook or a YouTube video, I'm gonna share your website to
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  my audience, and I'm gonna help you get backlinks.
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  So it kind of works both ways because now instead of sharing YouTube on my Facebook page,
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  I'm gonna share your website URL.
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  So you're gonna get traffic.
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  You're gonna get visibility.
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  You're gonna get backlinks, and it really helps out exponentially.
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  Fantastic.
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  You're giving me a lot of homework here, Brandon, and I appreciate that.
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  You know, we started our podcast, rather on a whim because I enjoyed having conversations.
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  And I realized that the independent artist of which I really built the initial show and the
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  scene projects around just needed someone to talk to them, just needed to be able to share
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  their story.
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  And now moving into this year where we've started real biz, that I wanna be able to
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  provide the most value that I can for the small business owners and entrepreneurs of the world
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  that that need it just as bad as an artist does, that extra promotion.
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  But beyond that, the SEO and the AI SEO, right, that, is going into how the world runs right
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  now and helping them be seen online in the best not only the best light possible, but making it
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  more efficient for them to be found as well.
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  Yep.
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  That's an important part is being more efficient to be found.
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  And sometimes doing less, but doing more of the right thing is gonna be better than doing more
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  and just trying to do all these extra things.
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  But there's all this low hanging fruit and things that could just help move the needles,
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  and that's where I put them in the book.
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  But especially for podcast hosts is making those stand alone pages is low hanging fruit.
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  That's gonna help everybody.
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  And the more we help each other, the more we're all gonna win, and that's what it all comes
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  down to.
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  It's not just trying to help myself out, but making sure we all grow and we all get lifted
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  up and get more visibility.
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  Yeah.
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  Well and with a thousand episodes now under my belt, I've done some of this for some episodes,
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  but I got a lot of catching up to do, Brandon.
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  It could be a lot of work, and that's where I'm just picking and choosing and slowly doing it
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  or doing one a week or well, if you have a thousand, that's gonna take a while, but trying
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  to just little by little get them done, and then you're gonna start seeing your visibility.
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  Your traffic is also gonna start growing, and more people are gonna be going to your website
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  versus going to a YouTube channel or a YouTube player that has distractions and noise and
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  advertisements for other people in it that can distract from your ultimate message.
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  Well and maybe that's a great point to to kinda talk more about you your company with SEO
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  optimizers.
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  And and, obviously, you're working with, you know, businesses that are out there.
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  They're trying to rank on these.
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  They're trying to become, you know, using the search engines to build their authority and to
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  ultimately gain more customers.
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  What's maybe a a few easy tips for people who are doing their own websites to really think
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  about when they're starting out or or even if they're, you know, trying to, you know, revamp
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  an old website and and get it a little more current?
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  Keyword research is probably a good starting point that a lot of people skip over keyword
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  research, and it's one of one of the most fundamental starting basic areas of digital
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  marketing in general.
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  It's not just for SEO, but it could be for anything, for keyword research, for podcast
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  titles, or blog post titles, or any content you're putting out there.
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  Even my book, doing keyword research to figure out which keywords get the most search volume
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  and have good buyer intent and low competition.
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  And then finding those keywords using tools like the Google keyword planner.
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  It's a free tool from Google that shows you how many people search for your keyword every
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  single month.
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  So you could see if a singular or plural or a synonym or some other variation of a word could
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  get you more traffic.
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  One of my clients, they're a personal injury law firm, and they wanna rank for personal
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  injury lawyer, which is good.
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  It gets 10,000 searches each month in Los Angeles.
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  But personal injury lawyers, plural, gets a 100,000 searches each month.
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  So they're able to 10 extra traffic just by changing one letter on their keyword.
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  And that's why keyword research is really important that it doesn't take that long, but
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  it could significantly increase your traffic or decrease it.
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  If you are just guessing, you might get it right.
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  You might also get it wrong.
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  And taking the time to use Google Keyword Planner or another tool is gonna help
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  significantly.
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  Yeah.
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  I think a lot of peoples like myself, start with how it looks.
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  We want it to look good, but often and especially to these search engines and the AI
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  now in the background, they're not looking like we look as human beings.
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  They are looking for that metadata and the schema, and these keywords are much more
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  important than the pretty colors or the font that you choose.
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  Yep.
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  People build websites that look pretty, which is good for people, but pretty websites don't
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  really help too much with SEO because search engines and LLMs are looking at the code,
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  looking for keywords in different areas, and trying to associate relevancy.
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  But same with also for people.
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  Like, pretty websites are great for people, but they don't necessarily get conversions.
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  And when you build a website, you shouldn't just focus on making it look aesthetically
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  pleasing.
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  You gotta make sure it also converts and has a good call to action, a good funnel to get
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  people from your website into whatever you're trying to get them to do, whether it's call you
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  or email you or buy that product.
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  Incredible stuff, Brandon.
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  You're a busy guy, so I don't wanna keep you too long here.
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  Anything we didn't cover before I let you get out of here that you wanna make sure we get out
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  there?
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  I would say be patient with all this.
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  With SEO, it's not an overnight explosion of traffic.
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  We all want that, but it's slow, natural growth with the organic side of things.
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  Don't get discouraged if you don't just see your traffic start taking off.
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  Little wins are what you want.
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  So you just wanna see over time that it's increasing, and it's just gonna keep growing
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  and growing.
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  But stick with it.
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  SEO takes time, and that's the biggest thing is don't just get discouraged.
• 18:21
  Well, I appreciate you spending some time with us.
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  Everyone can check out his website, seooptimizers.com.
• 18:28
  You can find his book, the power of guest podcasting.
• 18:31
  That's on Amazon, and I'm sure you can search for it anywhere out there, and you're gonna
• 18:35
  find it.
• 18:36
  Brandon, thank you so much for spending some time with me today, giving me a little bit of
• 18:41
  homework as well and some enlightenment on the episode today, and thank you for being part of
• 18:46
  the scene.
• 18:47
  I'm glad to share my knowledge, and thank you for having me on.