Ep 248: More Content & More Links Is A Failing SEO Strategy with Rad & Raf

Jaryd Krause:

Are you still fighting with Google for traffic? Give it up; change your plan. Hi, I'm Jaryd Krause. I'm the host of the Buying Online Businesses Podcast. And in this episode, I'm speaking with Raf and Rad, who head up the Buying Online Businesses SEO Service and I ask them so many questions on how we actually work with clients and what it actually looks like from start to finish.

We talk about how somebody gets onboarded, how they get so much value for free by submitting their site to us, where we spend time looking at their site, and then have a conversation with them on things they can do to change the site and what needs to be done. We can get so much value and obviously we want you to work with us, but you can go away and implement some things that we chat about, even if you don't work with us.

Then we also talk about why each SEO strategy is vastly different from what you have been taught and why having more content and links is the wrong way to go about SEO. That's a terrible SEO strategy that's based on a very, very old paradigm of how people used to grow sites. We talk about why each site has a different SEO strategy.

We talk about why sometimes we need to pause accounts, pause our SEO strategy, wait for the environment to change and wait for our site to change based on the things that we have done to the site.

We talk about how much it can cost to work with us and how long it can take to get results. We talk about some of the things that the best clients do to get great results that you can mimic, use and do yourself as well.

And we just talk about how we work as being very, very different from a typical agency, being a non-agency, and why we share those ethics and morals in the work we do around things like not just producing an SEO audit with a bunch of things that are broken on your site and you becoming very, very worried, not knowing what to do and burying your head in the sand.

So we're providing you with something that's far more empowering, whether you have actionable steps that you can do-it-yourself or we can help you do them with our service.

So there's so much value in this podcast episode, and I'm sure you're absolutely going to love it. Without any further ado, we'll just dive straight on into it. With that said, there is a link to the BOB SEO service in the show notes, buyingonlinebusinesses.com/seo-services. You can go away and check that out. And yeah, let's get stuck.

Have you been lied to about how to increase organic traffic and grow your website? I too used to think that all you needed to do was add more content and gain backlinks, but this just doesn't work. More content and more links alone are not the answer. Nor do you need to butcher your website with generic SEO changes you picked up on some crummy online tutorial, leaving you with a Frankenstein website that's slow and clunky.

And because I got sick of seeing great people with great websites struggle to grow them, I decided to do something about it. I created an SEO service, which is not just about publishing content and getting links. Sure, we offer that.

But first, we give you quick wins, which are SEO tweaks. We can make you a website that actually boosts your rankings. And then we lay out a killer SEO strategy to acquire more traffic and revenue that outranks your competitors with less content and fewer links.

We've thoroughly tested this service on many websites before launching it and have achieved incredible results, which you'll see on our landing page, which I'm about to share with you. Now, you can finally buy a business and give it to us to grow it for you.

To check out our SEO service, head to buyingonlinebusinesses.com/seo-services and book a call to chat with us to see what the best growth strategy is for you and your website. That's buyingonlinebusinesses.com/seo-services. And a link will be in the description too.

Rad and Raf, welcome to the podcast, guys.

Rad:

Hello.

Raf:

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, Rad, you've been on here numerous times. I should let people know what episodes there are, because they're definitely ones to get back to. There is episode 239. There's another one. I have been on quite a few. So I think you've been on four now, Rad. But Raf, this is your first time. We finally dragged you in on the conversation. It's so good to have you here.

Raf:

Yeah, thank you very much. I hope I'm going to be a good addition to this conversation.

Jaryd Krause:

Definitely. You definitely will. I'll be grilling you at the start of this conversation, I think.

Raf:

Oh, there we go.

Jaryd Krause:

How does all this work? How does this whole SEO thing work? So for those of you guys who don't know, Rad and Raf head up the SEO team here. And everybody that comes through and does SEO work, once people buy sites with BOB, they just basically move on to you guys. Under our umbrella, BOB, the SEO service, you guys, head that up.

And we're also taking on a lot of people who haven't bought sites or already own their own sites that are just on our list. And they're like, “Hey, can you help us scale and grow these?” And we've seen some really good results. People can go away and check out our SEO services page and see some results. We've done some case studies on those. We released those. So we won't go through that too much.

But I just wanted to have this podcast episode to share how this whole thing works—how does somebody become a client? And then what's the process? What does it look like? Because some people are listening, they're new to buying sites. They're new to hiring an SEO service. And they're new to not knowing how it actually works, what they're going to get and all that sort of stuff, right?

And I think it's also important that we touch on how SEO isn’t what a lot of people have been taught in terms of... Yeah, so many people listen to podcasts and YouTube videos that are free from people that claim to be SEOs, or they do one strategy for their site and maybe they are an SEO and everybody else thinks this is what I need to do to grow my site. But it's very, very different between sites.

So first, I guess, let me ask, when somebody becomes a new client, what they do is go to the services page, fill in their details and there's a bunch of different things we can do, right? Like content, links, content packages, link packages, just technical order.

And then there's a mixture and a range, which most people go through. And we teach people that it’s not just content and link packages that you need. It's other stuff at different times.

More so, now it's quite timely that it's not just content anymore, guys. And has been for a long time. We've been mentioning that. We’ve been shoving it down people's ear holes for a long time.

So let's finally get to the question. When somebody submits their details, they go to a website and their email is put through. What then happens once they become a lead, guys?

Raf:

When will it land on my desk?

Jaryd Krause:

Yes.

Raf:

And usually, when we have a dropdown menu or when the potential client chooses what he/she needs, “I don't know,” because that's one of the options, and that's my favorite option because that's the option that is closest to the truth. So I'm seeing that very often.

So as a first step, I perform analysis either myself or with my team. And by analysis, I mean, we really spend time on this site, and we're not billed for this time. We spend an hour sometimes, or even more. And we just analyzed what this site is all about. What's the history of this site?

Because obviously we do have access to a number of tools when we can check the history, when we can check all the ups and downs, competitors, current rankings, etc. So we put together quite a document to start with because we also want to learn whether this site actually has the chance to rank and to what extent.

So within a couple of days, usually three days, three working days, we send back an email like, “Hey, we spent some time on your site. Have a look at what we came up with. Book a meeting with me. And I’d go through the document with you one by one.

So this is another free when I offer an hour of my time and you can spend the time with me. And I tell you exactly why I think this is a problem on your site and why you don't need any links,” for example, “or why I think you don't need any fresh content because you already have 1,200 articles and you just need to rebuild them,” right?

Because some of them from 2016 are still in the title, like the five best recipes for chicken in 2016, for example. And with all those new algorithmic changes in Google, yeah, this is something that you need to look at. And this is what we do as a first step—to look at how your content is performing and what kind of content you have on the site. a comprehensive analysis and then a free consultation. And this is a start.

Jaryd Krause:

I love it. So with this analysis alone, there's so much free value in the sense that somebody just submits their site. It gets analyzed by you, Raf. And then you have a call to sort of highlight: This is what your site needs. This is what it doesn't need.

Sort of helping people see through the smoke and mirrors of what they feel that they need to do or have been taught incorrectly by so many people. They can get off that call and be like, “Cool, that's great.” And they can go away and do a lot themselves.

Now, because that's so valuable. And when you highlight, hang on, it needs to be done in a certain way and all that sort of stuff. That's where typically people are going to say, “Hey, okay, can you help me with this?”

And then the next question would come up How do we work together from here? How much is it going to cost me? Also, how long is it going to take me to become a gazillionaire with this website? Let's sort of set the scene for what it typically looks like here.

Raf:

Yeah, just hold my beer. I can make you a gazillionaire with this website, no problem.

Rad:

Or another favorite quote from SEOs: It depends.

Jaryd Krause:

Yes.

Raf:

Yeah, very much so. Unfortunately, we would definitely prefer if that were a straightforward system and service, but it's not. So yeah, basically, I'm all about strategy. So answering your first question about what we offer every single time, it doesn't matter what your site is, whether you are just starting your site or you make $500 or $50,000 on your site.

We're saying, “All right, hold on. Don't pump the site yet. Let's spend a month on something that we call a strategic month or a discovery.” And this is a fully packed month when we spend around 25 working hours on your site, and we analyze it properly from every possible angle.

Starting with the technical, going through all the links that you have one by one, going through all the content pieces that you have, finding patterns, content that lost rankings, content that you lost to the new competition that is potentially slower and smaller than you, but you lost your rankings to them. Whatever you lost during the algorithmic changes in the past five years.

So the site is undergoing a very thorough analysis. But that's just the beginning. Once we learn what's working well, what's been abundant, and what's not working at all, we put together a growth strategy. And I want to emphasize the word “strategy” to everyone because, in SEO, it's all about strategy.

If you don't have one, then you're never going to win in the long term. Because obviously, we have the internet, so you're fighting with people from all over the globe, some of them with unlimited resources. So you just need to be smarter. And by smarter, I mean having a proper, proper strategy for your business and for your sites.

So the second part of the discovery, which usually takes four weeks, So this first month, first two weeks, we check all the elements that you have for your competitors and recent changes in Google.

And the second two weeks, we spent on actually putting together a growth strategy, which is not usually a strategy that you'd see in other SEOs' proposals when they say, “Okay, you just need seven links,” right? It happens; that might work. It's very rare, but it might happen that it's going to work. But usually you need something more, right?

If you spend some time on a site analyzing it, then you can put together a growth strategy that really touches upon not just some differences between you and your competitors, content link-wise or Core Web Vitals, for example. Because this is important, but this is just the start.

So what we're trying to look at is that we’re trying to put together a strategy when we say, “Hey, I think you need to repurpose your site or repurpose your content because you've lost 60% of your traffic to e-commerce businesses. You're not going to recover from that. It's no chance, right?

So we need to design a new site, basically. Don't write any content. We can use the content that you have. We're going to repurpose your content and create Amazon listings via programmatic SEO. That's going to grow your site because you have a very powerful link profile.

Your site has been around for six years. You've been ranking for a million keywords, but unfortunately, the situation changed in a very bad way for your site, for informational content, right? And those keywords are now commercial intent.”

That's just one of the examples that we had, right? We are not afraid to suggest, “Hey, all right, stop it now. Let's redesign it. And here are the reasons.” So we try not to guess as much as possible.

Because that's also the thing that I hate with many SEOs. Sorry, colleagues. But when people say, SEOs say, “Oh, we're just going to test A, B, C, and D for clients' money and we'll see what happens.”

And I say, right, yeah. SEO is a little bit about experiments, a little bit about guessing, and a lot about luck, right? But if you can limit those risks through proper analysis, going through competitors properly, going through intent properly, and limiting smaller risks around the project, then you can have a better strategy that’s going to work in the long-term and the money will be well spent.

So this is what we're trying to do. That's why we're using the discovery month. We've been hearing very often, especially at the beginning, from many, many clients and potential clients, “Hey, I don't need that. I just want to have some links.”

Jaryd Krause:

Some links and content, yeah.

Raf:

Yeah. Or some content. Or if you can fix Core Web Vitals, which, by the way, is not a powerful driver for rankings, like green Core Web Vitals, as people think. Because this is lab data, and lab data is just one of the elements. It’s a lot more complicated than that. And obviously important, but quite a lot of people overestimate that.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. I want to touch on that because this is what a lot of people think, and it's frustrated me for years and years and years. All right, to grow the site, you need a good amount of content, right? It used to be like 2,007 times what it was like to grow a site; you just need a rank for as many keywords as you can. And to do that, you need to put out as many articles as you can. And he or she who puts out the most pieces of content, volume wise, starts to win that traffic.

Now, I don't know how or why this has stuck around for so long. And so many people are fixated on you. You need content, and you need links. And I have a sense that it's from content agencies and just link building agencies alone that are like, “You just need to buy content and links.”

And this is why I want to start working with you, guys, is because with your link building agency, you're like, “Well, hang on a second.” I remember you telling me that you got really frustrated with people that wanted to buy links from you. And you said, “We can't give you links yet. We can't build links to this page because it needs all this other stuff first.”

That’s a big reason why I got you guys on board with my own sites. I'm like, that's amazing because you're not just going to sell me links just so you can make money; that’s easy. And my site doesn't get the ROI it would from that link building strategy, right? Or buying those links. First, there are so many other things that need to be put in place.

And that's why it's so critical, people. If you're listening to this podcast episode, hear out that it's not content. You don't need more content and more links. You need a better strategy. And you could probably do it by updating content and then regaining different links, rather than just buying more and more and more and slapping on top. And share this podcast episode with other people and put the message out that it's not about more content and more links. And it hasn't been for so long.

So I wanted to ask you how many people come in and say, “I just want links and links and content.” Is there a percentage of people that say, “Yeah, I just want links and content. I don't want your discovery month. I just want links and content”? Is there a percentage?

Raf:

Yeah, of course. I don't have super precise data, but I definitely say around 60% of people that come through the doors say, “Hey, I know what my site needs," which is sometimes true. But again, this is very rare.

You need to have a lot of experience to really understand what your site needs at a given moment. And you might be right, right? But I think it's always wise to use someone else's mind and have a conversation about it first, just for the sake of the process.

And when you were talking about agencies pushing content and pushing links for so many years, And your question was, Why do people actually think that they need content links? I think it's a combination of things.

And what's even funnier—to some extent, this is still true—is that you need content links, but in different shapes and forms than you ever thought about.

So I think it all started naturally with Google. Because Google keeps saying, naturally, “Hey, you want to rank? You need good content. You want to rank? You need good authority. You want to rank? You need good E-E-A-T.” So all those sexy things.

So Google was actually building a narrative around it for so many years. And obviously, content agencies, link agencies, or, better or worse, SEO agencies, built on it. They're trying to play the system a little bit and have clients on the other side. It's quite a complicated game. But it's quite difficult to actually change the way people think about their business online in general, right?

Because it got me thinking recently as well about what's the ROI on the content base. And I've been asking those questions around, “Hey, I know you want a full content writer, which, by the way, we do offer content writers to write or rewrite content for you.” But I try to understand what kind of ROI that brings for the business that we work with.

And I've been asking, “Hey, all right, fine, no worries, we can give you that. I think that's a good idea even looking at your site. But have you ever measured ROI on your content? You spent X, Y, Z and what kind of ROI on those pages, on this hub page or this cluster of pieces?” And I never heard, “All right, I think my ROI is...” or “I know my ROI is...”

It's general how people treat the business, like, “I'm spending 2k and I'm making 5k, that's a positive.” Or “I'm spending 1k and I'm making nil, that's negative.”

And I think this is an oversimplification. And I really would love to have people who are open to having a conversation about how to actually make the sites a proper business. So obviously, starting with SEO should start with the discovery analysis and proper strategy, but then thinking beyond ads, thinking just beyond simple things and thinking ROI, long-term, what I can push for this content, right?

And having this information, this analysis, and this state of mind, basically about business, will allow you, as a business owner, to not think between algorithmic changes, from algo to algo. When I'm going to survive this moment, am I going to grow and am I going to die next algo change?

Because if you focus on users, you should actually focus on your business, your site, investing in design, and investing in proper analysis, right? Not just pumping it for the sake of pumping it. Then you will definitely win a better ROI long-term.

And this is what I'm trying to have. These are the conversations I'm trying to have with many people, like, “Hey, yeah, let's have a conversation about it.” Because I'm kind of experienced in running and building businesses. I've had a couple of agencies before and a couple of other businesses. So the way I look at SEO, content sites, actually—

Jaryd Krause:

: Through the lens of a business owner

Raf:

Yeah, I'm looking, right? If I were the owner of this particular business, what would I do? I'm not looking at it only through my SEO eyes, because obviously that's the first site. Hey, oh, okay, SEO is good or bad. But the way I look at it is from a completely different perspective. And also, I add, that’s why I'm thinking about user experience and user interface, right?

I'm thinking beyond Amazon Affiliate. I'm thinking beyond Google Ads or Ezoic or Mediavine or Drive, you name it. I'm thinking, okay, can we create several pages that we can actually monetize through different systems? Something completely different than you've ever had.

Let's talk about this, right? So we're trying to expand our services in this area. And if anyone is open to having a conversation with us, we definitely want to hear. And we offer all the information that we know about how to actually monetize those sites in the long term.

Rad:

I think, just very quickly, if I could add to why this is so compelling to just focus on content links, I think it's just because it's so simple. And it used to be that SEO was just that. I create a new content piece, I throw two or three links at it, and it starts taking off, right?

So we tend to think in a linear way. So we try to process things, and this is very scalable. It's very simple to process. However, it's getting a bit more complicated to rank as well as you used to with just this simple approach.

So, yeah, I love what Rudolfo said in the previous episodes. I've said that a few times, you, Jaryd, and I, we said that a few times, that we think about your site as a business. That's really important.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. So, yeah, it's thinking in a different way. And you're right, it is simple. And I would like to say that I like simplicity as well. And I think, who doesn't? But at times we need to do some more strategic plays and out-of-the-box thinking to readjust ourselves to get to another simple path and a simple process that works going forward.

It could be a massive adjustment, changing so many things on a site to get to a point where it becomes simple again, but it's a simple strategy that you can keep working on for months and months and months until something else drastic happens, like an algorithm update, right?

So I agree with you; it's simple, and I think you guys probably agree. I don't think enough people have kept one simple strategy and then had a really good look, a really good thought, and a really good change of strategy to recreate another simple strategy for maybe six months to 12 months moving forward.

And that's where people have gotten caught out, right? Especially with all these algorithm updates that have been happening.

And what I really love about when people come and work with us is you guys getting on the phone. Well, particularly you, Raf, it's like there's so much—because it seems like to me, from the outside, when I speak to people and clients that have spoken to you guys, it seems like there's so much deconditioning and reconditioning that has to happen for them to understand why you're going down this SEO, this SEO strategy, this new way versus what they thought would work. And how that happens is by getting on the phone and educating them.

It seems like that is one part of the process that needs to happen for them themselves to grow in the business, to go, “Okay, cool, yeah, that makes sense now. Can you go away and do it?” Versus, “Just do what you need.” Because it feels like the biggest thing that holds people back is their ability to realize what needs to be done.

So I know, but for people listening, do you do calls per month? And how often do you speak to a client on the phone? And what does that sort of look like? And I know this might change depending on how much somebody is spending as well, because, hey, look, it's your time that's valuable. But yeah, so is that a big part of the process as well?

Raf:

It is, especially at the beginning, when we’re all learning about ourselves and how we want to be communicated about things. So we have a simple process, one meeting a month.

Jaryd Krause:

What's that? Sorry.

Raf:

One meeting a month.

Jaryd Krause:

One meeting a month.

Raf:

that lasts an hour. That's usually how we work. Like, “Hey, okay,” so we're just going to prepare everything by the end of the month, which is going to tell you what we've been doing for the entire month. What are the results?

What are the future plans? We also prepare a bit of a dashboard when we show certain keywords, when we show certain happenings on your site from Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4.”

And we spent an hour discussing this. And then obviously, bringing you ideas, again, out-of-the-box strategies, like, “Hey, maybe we're just going to modify this because we learned about X, Y, and Z.”

Because we run quite a number of sites, we also learn things on a daily basis. So we're trying to proofread them. And then, once they're proofed, we're just going to add them to our process in these micro changes.

Obviously, yeah, it depends on how much you're spending. If you can spend more, you’re obviously buying more of our time. Beyond other things that we do, you're buying our time. So we have clients that we are meeting biweekly. It's just a 20-minute meeting every second week. Every second Friday, for example, “Hey, this is what we're doing. Do you have any questions?”

And I think this cadence actually helps when we have a client that is active, and we have an investor that is actually active on the other fronts. Because I love to hear when someone says, “All right, I don't want this just to be on my passive income from now. I wanna learn about this.

What can I do?” And there's usually a lot of things that you can do, starting from mailing campaigns through social media, if you have any experience in that, that really helps, working on EAT and so on, and so on.

So once a month, at least/or biweekly. But obviously, just to add on that, we’re just a message away. It does not mean that we need to wait an entire month for someone to ask us a question. This is not what I'm saying.

We use our CRM. When you have your project, all the people working on it can drop us a message. You have a direct line to me as well. I might not always answer within an hour or two, but I always answer within 24 hours.

You have a direct ping to me or a direct ping to your project owner, who's writing your content rewriting your content or doing whatever. You can always ask this person a question.

So I think we're trying to be as transparent as possible, because I think trust is a crucial thing here, right? If you know us, if you understand what we do, and if you trust us and we trust you that you're going to pay on time, you're going to be open to having a conversation, then I think that's going to work best.

And again, with SEO, it's pointless to do SEO for two or three months, usually as a process, because that's a very long process, right? So you need to think for a year to actually run with the strategy properly.

Jaryd Krause:

Thanks for mentioning that or talking about the messaging and the contacts that you guys have. I think it's so important to feel like it's not just me paying money, and I hear it once a month, versus the ideology of people feeling like I'm working with you and you're my team, right? That's the sense that I get when I work with you guys. And that's the sense that I get that I'm working when I'm coaching other people, right?

So just for people listening, we have clients that are doing the SEO work with you, guys, right? They're SEO clients and then they'll do coaching calls with me. And yeah, I help them build out email marketing campaigns within their own content site.

I help them with the E-E-A-T. I help them increase their revenue in different areas. And it's a good blend. It's a really, really good blend because they feel held and supported. And that's why it's so important that you do have contact with the clients.

Now, I also want to talk about There’s a guy who bought a business with us. His name's Marcus, and he hasn't been on the podcast, and he's also an SEO client. And he messaged me about their discovery month, saying, “What's this discovery month? Is it just another audit? And there's a lot of SEOs that do audits.” And he was a bit skeptical about it. And I was like, “Look, it'll be valuable, and it's not just going to be another audit that some SEO does, and they give you a bunch of things, and you don't know what to do once you get the audit, and it's confusing, and you pay all this money.”

The discovery month is, I believe, very different from what most SEOs are doing, where you guys do an audit, a massive audit, but then at the end of that month, you have that call with them, you explain what they should be doing and what they shouldn't be doing, with actionable steps for them to go away, and either they can definitely pick it up and do it themselves.

And that's the fear that most people have. It’s like, “If I get an audit done by an SEO, how do I know how to do it if I want to do it myself? Because I spent X amount of money on it, and I need to do it myself.”

So tell me a little bit about how and why that is different, and tell me about the actionable steps that you give them.

Raf:

All right, all right. I think other SEOs are going to hate it again. Look, when we founded a non-agency, we said to ourselves, We’re not going to be an agency, as everyone understands it. Meaning, we're not just going to give people spreadsheets to go away with.

We're just not going to say to them, “Hey, you need to grow your site." We said to ourselves, me and Rad, all right, we're just going to treat those sites as our own. That's the first step. And it's a really mental change for former agency owners, right?

Jaryd Krause:

Huge, huge.

Raf:

It's difficult to scale, but it's very valuable. So the discovery consists of many things. One is an audit, obviously. But we are not presenting the audit in spreadsheet format only. They're saying, “Hey, you need to fix those 70 million meta descriptions.” We’re not to do that because we know that we have an investor or a client on the other side.

He's not going to do it anyway. So what's the point of the entire audit, right? What's the point? Is it a point to take like 2k or 3k? That's not the money I'm interested in that much—just having this money and contract ends.

So what we do and how we do it is that we do the audit for you. And we will implement this audit for you. And what you're receiving is like, “Hey, that was broken. We had eight hours in your package.” Because we have four, eight or 12 hours of development work in the packages. We had, for example, eight hours. So we fixed those things. You can check and validate those fixes here.

We weren't able to fix this one big thing, but we don't think it's super, super important at the moment. So we can put in a parking lot for three months and just come back and fix that then. And what you're actually getting is that you're not having just an audit done.

You've got your site fixed, and your site is faster. You have a strategy for content. You have your content validated. You have your links analyzed. You have your competitors’ overview. You have a link building strategy going forward.

And then you have a consultation. When I go one by one and say, “Hey, all right, this is what we've done. This is what needs doing. That's the direction for this site from my perspective.” And that happened with Marcus, actually. He was very hesitant to have this discovery made. And obviously I know why, again, right? Because we've been hearing that—

Rad:

What's the value of it?

Jaryd Krause:

Well, this is the thing that most SEOs are putting out there. It's like paying for this audit for 2k to 3k and getting a spreadsheet with a bunch of stuff that you don't understand and it's not actionable versus, “Hey, we'll do a portion of an audit, and we will spend our time as SEOs resolving the things that we can get to that are important.

We'll share with you on a phone call.” We're not running away from the audits, presenting an audit and saying, “Good luck, here you go,” and scaring people, right? It's more empowering than anything.

Raf:

Indeed. Because what's the point of actually doing an audit and having a spreadsheet presented when it lacks context? When you’re just like, “Right, you have this broken,” but okay.

Rad:

What do I do about it?

Raf:

I mean, for other SEOs, huge value, right? If you don't have a crawler or you don't have time and you are an SEO and you have someone doing crawls for you, segment the extra document and present the data for you. If you give it to me, I'll say, “All right, then no problem. I can do it.”

But if we have someone on the other side who’s not experienced in SEO, then pointless, pointless exercise. And Marcus and many other people that came to us with their audits done sometimes, a few months ago or whatever. And we're looking at those audits and saying, “Yeah, right.”

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I also really want to share more of Marcus's story because the growth that we've gotten from the site is pretty cool. Maybe we could put the screenshot, just cheekily put the screenshot right here of the growth of his site.

But I'd love to come back and if we could do another case study and what we've done to get the most out of that after the discovery month, that would be awesome. Because all of us three have talked about that off air and it's a really, really cool story.

So the SEO discovery month is huge. It's not really comparable to an audit, which most people would be paying for. Now, when people come in and they're like, “All right, cool. All of this is great. I can speak to you guys regularly.

You're going to actually do changes on the site, not just give me a scary Excel sheet of an audit. And you're going to give me a proper strategy, not just the same old from what I've been told, more content, more links. Hang on a second. How much does all of this cost?”

And not everybody has the same budget because not everybody has the same income from their sites. So can people start off with as little as $400 a month or $500 a month? And then what's the typical amount that people spend—five grand a month? Well, obviously, our goal is to get people to spend more money with us and stay with us by getting them great results, right?

That's like what you said. You're not interested in money from the discovery month. You're interested in working with people long-term to get them great results where they're super happy, where we can basically manage their sites. So can people start off at the lower end? And what would that look like if they were to?

Raf:

Well, difficult questions. No, but for real. Yeah. I mean, we're starting a full strategy, right? You manage sites.

Jaryd Krause:

Let me ask it in a different way, then. I do get this question regularly. If I'm spending one grand a month, what can I get for that? What goes into that? Most people are thinking, All right, if I spend one grand a month on my content site, I'm going to get X amount of pieces of content.

I'm going to use X number of links. But we've just shared that, “Hey, it's not content and it's not more content. It's not more links.” So if they're going to spend $1,000 a month, what would somebody get for that?

Raf:

It depends.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. It depends on the site. Because it's not going to be the same for everybody, right?

Raf:

Of course. I mean—

Jaryd Krause:

I love your laugh there, Rad, when he said, “It depends.” It's such an SEO thing to say.

Raf:

It's a trick, I think. Anyway, it could be content links if this is what your site needs, right? So when you have $1,000, that's not a lot for SEO these days. But we're trying to use it in a smart way, right?

So let's imagine a situation where this is a site that you're making, I don't know, 500 and you have 100 articles and 20 of those articles are actually producing some results. And you come into us, and you say you have one grand to spend on.

So we're not going to be pushing you to overspend. We're not going to be pushing you to compete with the biggest guns in your niche. Because that's not possible, try to be realistic about it.

So what we're saying is that “All right, let's do smaller, but still discovery, right? You have one brand that's going to give you a decent discovery and we're going to find elements that you can invest in.

So it might be the other 80 articles that we already have, but not performing. So let's put the content right on it for an entire month. Let's spend the entire grand on this, given this time to rework your articles.”

So it very much depends on your situation, right? It might happen that you have a large site, huge, and you have a quarter million of traffic, but something changed, right? And your income is slashed, and you don't have that much money to invest. Then we'd rather focus first on proper analysis. Why are you hurting? What happened?

So we're going to spend time on technical things, on analysis or actually understanding and learning what the actual problem with this site is because if you're ranking so high, it's not ranking anymore, right?

So we're going to spend time on this. I'm going to be always transparent and I'm always transparent with people saying, “Hey, I mean, that's going to give you those 40 articles redone, or that's going to give you five hours or actually proper analysis and some going forward plan.”

And we are actually having a lot of requests like, “My site is actually going down and it's been making 12k, but it's making 4k now. The best I can do is 2k, 3k to invest in next month to just put a strategy together.”

So that's also okay, right? If you believe in your site still, that's also a message to the business owners, especially to the new people in the SEO game. A change happened. Don't worry about it, right?

Even if your site is suffocated by the change, a correction might come. If not, and your site’s history's decent at least, so there are no bodies in a wardrobe, as they say, then the recovery will come.

But everyone needs to understand that these days, the recovery isn't about getting those keywords that you lost back on the first page. Because, as I mentioned today, intent and many other factors play a role.

So you might hear from us, “Hey, let's just kill this part of the site and build something new on this site.” And that's the very harsh message I need to carry across sometimes. Like yesterday, I said, “Half of your site needs to go.”

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. I remember you talking with me about one of the clients, like, “Well, okay.” It's a scary thing because what I think is like half the site's gone. But reality is that if you keep that, it could be holding it back as well. Versus like putting your resource—

Rad:

Literally gangrene.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. It's crazy to think that way, but I mean, cut it off. If it's cancerous, get rid of it. And I think that message is really good, Raf. And this is what I'm doing when I'm speaking to one-on-one coaching clients. So many people have been smashed by this, according to a recent update.

And I'll tell you what's really scary if the site gets hit by an update is if you don't have professionals helping you or working on the site. That's what's scary about an update. But if you do have professionals that have turned around many sites that have had these things happen, like we've shown in case studies, it's possible, and it gets done regularly.

Depending on the site, sometimes there's parts that we might need to cut off and do different strategies. But it's very scary if you don't have a proper professional team working on it when these algorithm updates roll around, right?

Raf:

Yeah. Basically, as we're saying about cancer and gangrene, yeah, having some medical problems and not being a professional around, that's scary. It's the same with SEO, right? You're not going to cure your cancer itself. I mean, I know some people claim it, but I don't believe that's going to work. Yeah, I mean—

Rad:

Sorry. I just wanted to go back very quickly to this question about the lower budgets. Because I have two perfect examples that put you on two absolute extremes on the scale of a low budget, what we did in it.

So we had this travel blog client join us on a very small budget, below $1,000. And what we did for this client within that budget—one month—was sit down with our head of strategy, Krzysztof, and strategize. Okay.

So what does this site need to be different from its competitors—better, more helpful? And I'm hinting at the helpful content update a little bit. Because this is what you should be thinking about—how to make it better.

And what we did using a programmatic SEO approach—using APIs that we've found, implemented, and automated And it's all sort of autopilot, but we have a table that specifies all the details about the country that each blog post regarding a travel destination is plus additional stuff that is interesting, like about this destination. And we rolled it out site wide. It looks awesome. It gives a lot of value to the users, and it just works great.

On the other hand, we had a client with relatively low authority. And as much as I know, it's debatable whether or not DR by Ahrefs is a measurement of authority, but I'll just put it out there to have it to add context to it.

The DR of this site was 1.2. So very low. Okay. And we were like, okay, so this site needs some strong links. So we used a budget, also around 1k, to get it six, but really strong, sweet, premium links to boost this DR up a little bit.

So this is just to show you that the approach, as Rafal said, depends on the site, but it differs because sometimes we go with crazy stuff because that's what the site needs. Sometimes we would go with something seemingly small, but that is also what the site needs as its highest priority.

Jaryd Krause:

I love that explanation. When I'm working with clients one-on-one and they're acquiring a site, they’re looking to purchase a site. Let's just say it's like an $80,000 site and it's making roughly two grand, or over two grand a month net.

Typically, what I like to tell them is that if you're going to buy an 80-grand site or if you've got a hundred grand to spend, maybe buy something around 80% of your budget.

And then once you purchase it, get a team of professionals to just really give it a good kickstart at the start, right? And have a look at the under the hood properly, get a proper audit done, get some SEO work done, clean up the tech stuff if that's what it needs and then give it its best chance at absolutely winning by taking that 20% of your budget and putting that into the growth of the site.

Because then you can not only put whatever it's making, two grand a month, for the first three to five or six or whatever months it is, into growth. But you can also put that portion of the budget into growth as well. So that's what I believe is going to set people up for success.

But I wanted to ask you guys, the people that do get really good results, what sort of people are they like? Is it because of their budget or is it because they're like, “Yep, go away and get it done”? What do the people who are getting the best results typically do?

Raf:

Oh, that's a very good question. Typically, I would say people are getting the best results by saying, “We trust you guys. We're going to stay for longer” or “I'm going to stay for longer with you. Whatever happens, let's put some goals in front of us. Let's be transparent about our goals, expectations, and potential results, and let's work towards those goals together.”

And however cliche that sounds, having a common goal with the agency or non-agency in this case is actually a fantastic exercise because your monthly regular meetings or bi-weekly meetings are not around, like, “All right, we've built seven new pieces of content” or “we have fantastic links” or “we rebuild those pages for you or X, Y, Z.” So again, we’re 7% closer to the goal. And this is what matters.

Because if you have a goal, like, let's imagine a goal of 100k traffic starting from 5K in a year, I love that. You need to have a budget to support it, of course. But if we have a goal together and we have a really significant level of transparency about where your money goes, then you know that we're working towards the goal. We're not working towards the next invoice, right?

And I think we still have quite a number of people that want to dictate what we're supposed to be doing, which is sometimes fine. Obviously, if you are a client, if you know what you want to do and if you just want to work with us by buying certain things from us, we will accommodate that, right? If you need that, sure. But we would rather have it if we're having a conversation about goals and the long term, right?

Because that's also a very common misconception that you're going to implement something on your site and it's going to reward you next month. Unfortunately, with a broken heart, seriously, that's not going to work like that. And I would definitely prefer SEO to be like, “Right, I’m just going to put magic code in and it's going to work next month.” Unfortunately, not.

So again, it is the people who have the best results for—long-term, goals and freedom, right? Those three elements are super important. But by freedom, I want to emphasize that as well. Because when I recently told someone that I needed freedom in a campaign, the client did not respond to my email for three months. It's not the freedom I'm looking for, right? I need a freedom that is kind of…

Jaryd Krause:

Trusting.

Raf:

Yeah. But trust and freedom in my moves but I want you to want me to explain.

Jaryd Krause:

Yes.

Raf:

Do you know what I'm saying?

Jaryd Krause:

Yes.

Raf:

I want you to want me to educate you about the steps I'm taking. And I want you to offer a critique because your point of view is different. And when we are meeting, we have a technical point of view, business/technical, my point of view, and then your point of view as an investor, right? So talk to me; talk to us.

If you offer feedback that's full of critique for certain moves, if I'm unable to defend the strategy, if I am unable to look in your eyes and say, “All right, that's the best strategy because X, Y, Z, and here is the math for it,” if I'm unable to defend that, then the strategy is wrong, then you're right. And we can rework it and think about it again, right?

So you probably see where I'm headed with this. SEO is all about long-term communication and trust between parties, right? If we have all those things with all those elements, you will be successful. We might not be hitting 100% of the goal every single time, but you're going to be successful.

And it's even with a size that are not content sites. We run some projects for medium, large service sites or e-commerce, right? It's the same thing. If they give us a significant level of trust, a budget that helps us actually deliver on the project, and very clear, transparent objectives, then they're successful.

Just one last word on this. Why is this kind of trust and transparency important, especially when something changes? And Google provides us with very rotten sandwiches a couple of times a year. So we need that kind of freedom to act quickly. So if we had an agreement, like, “Okay, this is what we're going to deliver to you,"

But something happened. If we have trust between us, then we'll just use this budget next month for completely different things. And we're just going to explain when we have a moment to catch up and we'll tell you why, but we're not going to deliver you those content pieces, or we're not going to deliver you those design changes or whatever because the system has changed, right? So we don't know, right?

So it's better to pause and just spend this money on analysis, on monitoring, and on understanding why we’re actually going in this direction with the site. So yeah, it's all about relationships. I think that's the final reward for us. If we have a good relationship and if you trust me, we trust you, then that's going to be a successful project.

Rad:

Yeah. I think it's also worth putting it in context. So when you work with us, you have your budget and you're buying resources with this budget. If you're dictating to us how to work on your site, then you're paying us to execute your strategy.

And then this element of our strategy during the discovery month might not get implemented because we're busy working on your strategies, burning the resources that we’re paid for instead of on the strategy that we designed, which we know is going to work.

So, like Rafał earlier said, we were happy to have a conversation with the client pretty much every day. But then, while we're having this conversation, we're using up the time that is delegated to your campaign, so we might not do something that is pretty important to the campaign.

And this is where this freedom is very important. We're happy to get an extra ask from you, like, “Hey, can you implement that content for me?” or “Can you change something small on our website?” We're happy to do that.

However, bear in mind that this is taking away from the campaign that we designed for you, and we're trying to execute it for your benefit to rank, right?

It's very important to look at it from this research perspective and that freedom ties with that extremely close. And at the same time, as Rafał said earlier, which might have sounded, oh, how come you only have one call with a client a month? It also ties with the resources.

We'd much rather spend five hours digging through your site and changing something or implementing some big programmatic thing, as opposed to, with all due respect, we love talking to clients, but we'd much rather get the stuff done than spend it on just talking.

Raf:

You touched on this, and it just got me thinking again about why we are not an agency. We do not have those frontline people only talking to clients and not actually doing the work. So when you work with us, you’re actually talking to the people that do actual work on your project on a daily basis, right? So we might have fewer conversations, but those are powerful conversations.

Jaryd Krause:

It’s very different.

Raf:

So I love what you just said.

Jaryd Krause:

It's very different from an agency that has one client-facing person who talks to all the clients but doesn't do the groundwork on the aid. They don't actually have their hand or any part of them attached to the campaign.

Rad:

Yeah. We've tried that before, and it didn't work specifically. Because the client-facing person doesn't always know what’s being executed on the campaign. And there was a lot lost in translation from the technical person, from the SEO, through the client manager, to the client.

There was a lot of stuff getting missed. And vice versa. Because sometimes clients are obviously a bit more technical or have another business in something, and conveying that message through a third person in the middle is not always working.

So we've been there. It didn't work that well. And we just have this connection line to the person who's actually there on your side working on it or managing the person who's implementing everything.

Jaryd Krause:

Cool. Yes, it totally makes sense. And it sounds like, through so much experience, you guys have come to this model and this way of working that actually gets results. Now, speaking of results, let's maybe set some expectations for people.

Like you said before, and you alluded to it before, Raf is like, “All right, let's spend some money this month.” And it's not that you're just going to see instant results. This is SEO. Most people know it takes some time.

But is there a typical sort of period where people will start to see some results or something happening from a campaign being implemented? And how long, roughly speaking? I know, and everybody else should know, that this is an average and every site's different and the environment of Google and other sites changes and it's very different.

But roughly speaking, when do people want to start seeing some results? And results can be different, right? Results don't just mean your traffic is going up and to the right. It can be very different from that. It can be authority and whatnot. But how do you answer that question when people ask you that?

Raf:

Yeah, that's a part of the conversation every single time. Fairly so. I mean, that's essential to talking about it. So when we have a future goal in front of the site and trust between parties, then we talk less about results on a monthly basis.

But we do have a number of clients with whom we talk about results all the time because we don't have those long-term goals. And when we've started having a conversation about when we're going to see results, I try to be, again, as transparent as possible and as open as possible.

So I'm saying, usually, and that's true, it depends again. And the way we understand results is that your ultimate result is your valuation of the site and the money you make on the site is going up, right? That's the ultimate goal, right?

But before that happens, we need to look at the site. What shape is it in at the moment? And sometimes the result might be that we need to have new content indexed. Because you have indexation issues and you've been losing traffic. Google was de-indexing your site.

So we had that situation when, actually, 70% of the content was de-indexed because it was poorly produced. So our goal was to analyze it and have 40% of this content back in Google search results, which means we rewrite the content, republish the content, revamp it generally and have this index. That's the result. And obviously, once it's indexed, it starts producing some traffic, and you start making more money from the site.

But to put this into a bigger perspective, on average, it takes six months to really see some tangible results. And I know it's quite difficult to be patient with that. But you have to, right? If you're investing in a site that's going to make money from SEO, you need to have that cool head, right? Talk about it, suggest, and critique if necessary, but you need to give that time.

Because I'm always saying, “Hey, if you produce some fantastic pieces or you redesign your site or do something major, we have discovery the first month; the second month we're just running up sleeves and trying to get into more and more changes on a site, whatever we do, and sometimes it's really significant, then you might see the effect two, three months later.” So you need to be armed with patience and like, “Okay, I'm just going to wait for this.”

And we had those situations almost every single time. The strategy was correct. The budget level was to fulfill the strategy. And we wanted to roll out the strategy quickly. Within six months, we had results. But worth mentioning, we are not blinded as well, right? So it happens that we have a strategy; we start running the strategy, but yet another algorithmic change.

And our strategy is not as beautiful as it used to be. But we're not crazy; we're not going to push this strategy forward, even though the situation changed. We’re, again, transparent people. So we sit down with you and say, “Hey, unfortunately, the change in Google is super, super, super significant and in your niche, especially.

So what we're going to do, you don't pay us extra for it. We sit down on this, we use the budget that you have, we add some of our own hours, and we rework the strategy to accommodate the change and whatnot.”

So this is what we do. And this is what you need from the specialist team working with you—not blindly following certain steps that they have written in the SOP by someone who's never seen an SEO, right? You need people who are actually living that on a daily basis, right? And if something's changing, then it's better to take a deep breath and pause for a moment. And we offer that, “Let's pause.”

We've been asked, and we were recording this somewhere in late October, right? And we've been asked many, many times about recent changes and when we're going to have recovery plans because some clients suffer. Or they're just coming to us with the sites being hit. And we're saying, “Let's wait till all changes roll out.” Because as we speak, the core algo update is still rolling up.

So I wouldn't say it's pointless for us to have a recovery plan at this particular moment. Maybe it's not, but the money will be better spent if we let the algo rollout finish, and then we put together a recovery plan based on what we find.

Jaryd Krause:

I really like that.

Raf:

That's how we go about it.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, I really like that. Because you mentioned that on one of my sites as well. It's like, all right, we've spent this money on this thing. And it's a change—a significant change. Let's just pause it for a little bit and see how it reacts in the current environment before we go away and spend money on what's actually going to work versus thinking about what's going to work.

Because I'm a big believer in inside-out growth and leaning more into what's working and doing less of what's not working. And to find out sometimes what's working after you've made a change, you need to wait and see what's working, right? So that's a change that can happen that you make to your site—maybe a pause or a change that happens in the environment as well, right?

Raf:

Yeah. Sometimes you're driving and there has been an accident on a motorway. You just sit in traffic, right? So you're not trying to squeeze between the cars; you're trying to get to the next exit ASAP. You just need to sit down, relax, get someone else to the job and clear up the motorway path. So this is another analogy here.

Rad:

Or maybe, on a little more positive note, there's a viewpoint and you just want to stop and admire the view.

Raf:

Always optimistic. But yeah, all right.

Jaryd Krause:

No, but it's true either way. Sometimes, I mean, patience—it's been something that's been really, really hard for me in my life. And the more patient I've become, really, the better things have been. I know that sounds kind of weird, but I don't know. It's just something I've noticed. And patience pays off. Yeah.

Raf:

Yeah, definitely. In life, in SEO, everywhere. But at the same time, you cannot just wait for good things to happen to you. You need to act on this.

Jaryd Krause:

Exactly, exactly.

Raf:

Act properly.

Jaryd Krause:

You need to have a good blend of them. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Well, guys, we've been chatting for well over an hour now. Is there anything that you guys wanted to mention before we wrap up about working with clients, SEO, and all that sort of stuff?

I'm sure we're going to come out with more case studies and stuff like that, which will be fun. But is there anything you guys wanted to mention that we may have talked about through this chat that you wanted to expand on before we wrap it up?

Raf:

I think we covered most of the things that we wanted to chat about. I can find that word to be, you can really expect us to be open, transparent, and knowledgeable about SEO. And if you come to us, there's no obligation whatsoever. When you come to us, you receive free analysis and consultation.

If you like us, we like you, and we both love your site, then we're going to work together on this. If not, you will already have a number of things that we can work with, with your current team, or by yourselves. Not a biggie. And you can always come back to us a month, two, or three later. Our doors are open. So that's the message I wanted people to hear for sure.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much.

Rad:

I think we said that earlier with regards to the discovery analysis and strategy month. But at the end of this month, and I'm sure Rafał, being more of a salesperson, probably hates me for that a little bit.

But at the end of the month, when you receive the whole strategy, obviously, we do invite you to work with us on the strategy. However, if you choose so, you're capable, or you have VAs to execute that, you can take that away and just do it yourself. We don't tie you necessarily to us.

And my point when we were designing this was to give the client what they needed. And it's funny, but I want to just go back to this auditing approach. If the audit doesn't tell you how to fix things, it just tells you what's fixed, and I know this is probably the definition of auditing.

You're looking at what's broken, not fixed. But our audits always, like Rafał said, take away and fix some things for you. But on top of that, what we couldn't, we tell you, “Okay, so this is it; this is how you approach that.”

And yeah, it's just a lot of value. Just a lot of value. We leave you with value. We're more than happy if you want to execute this strategy with us. It's great, but you're not tied to us.

Jaryd Krause:

I love that. I love that. Yeah, there are people who are getting things done by their assistants. You guys bring the strategy; you’re doing a portion of the work, and a portion of their assistants are doing the work, and it's like a blend. And they've got different people doing different things. And it works well for them and works well for everyone. So yeah, that adaptability is really, really good.

Now, for everybody listening, if you haven't already, go to buyingonlinebusinesses.com/seo-services. You should be able to see it on the main page. It’s bob.com, buyingonlinebusinesses.com, if you guys want to jump in and work with us. And yeah, thanks, Raf.

Thanks, Rad, for coming on and chatting. It's been really good to just hash out how it all works, set expectations for people and share with everybody what it's all about. And yeah, I really appreciate you coming on.

Rad:

Yeah. Thanks for having us.

Raf:

Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, it was a pure pleasure having a chat with you guys and talking about our business and the way we approach things. And yeah, I wish everyone good luck with the new algo changes. You need any help; reach out to me. I'm happy to share my knowledge.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for your value. Thanks for your shares. And thanks for everything you do for us and all the clients. And we'll speak to you soon.

Raf:

Thank you very much. Bye.

Jaryd Krause: Bye-bye. Hey, YouTube watchers, if you thought that video was good, you should check out this video here on the 2 Best Types of Websites Beginners Should Buy. Or check out my playlist on How I Made My First $100k Buying Websites and how to do due diligence. Check it out. It's an awesome playlist. You'll enjoy it.