How To Use SEO In Your Content To Rank Higher on YouTube and Google

[00:00:00] Also, I can optimize for YouTube. So if you do have a YouTube channel, I can optimize your content by really doing keyword research for YouTube and then figuring out what keywords are the best, incorporating them in different areas like the title of your YouTube video. Very important. The description has to have those keywords, the tags, the file name before you upload it to YouTube or upload it to images or audio, wherever you upload to the internet. If you name that file name with keywords, that really helps out. And just doing all these little things to help them better read and understand.

[00:00:30] And know what that content is about. The more you spoon feed them, the better.

[00:00:43] What up, potty people? And welcome back to Clipped. As always, I'm Eric, your host. And Clipped brings you the tips, resources, and people to help you crush your content goals. Today we're talking about SEO. I've got my buddy, Brandon Lebowitz on, founder of SEO Optimizers. And we're giving like a high level overview of what SEO is and how it relates to your content. And so, I'm going to be able to help you out.

[00:01:06] And a few things that you can do to improve your SEO, to boost your content across Google and YouTube. And you know, one of the coolest things I learned in this interview was that the file name matters when you upload to YouTube. I'm talking about like the actual file that you name the video.

[00:01:24] That should have keywords in it related to what the video is about. YouTube does take that into consideration. And so, I thought that was rad. I had heard that before. I think on a podcast or like in like a vertical short on social, someone talking about it. But file names do matter, guys. And that's just one of the cool things you're going to learn in this interview.

[00:01:44] You're also going to want to stay tuned to the end because Brandon has a special offer, how you can work with him and his services just for listeners of this podcast. So, stay tuned to the end and you'll hear that offer from Brandon.

[00:01:56] And before we launch into that, just got to mention that this show is sponsored by Riverside. Riverside.fm is my favorite place to record video and audio online. And this interview was actually recorded with Riverside.

[00:02:09] And they've also got a bunch of rad AI tools where you can generate transcripts, show notes, and short video clips for your content with basically the click of a button. So, if you want 20% off any individual plan, head on over to Riverside.fm and enter promo code CLIPED, C-L-I-P-P-E-D at checkout. All right. So, SEO folks, let's give it a go.

[00:02:45] Brandon, welcome to the show.

[00:02:47] Thank you for having me on.

[00:02:48] Yeah, I'm glad to finally get a chance. We were talking offline, just we've exchanged a bunch of emails and you actually wrote a blog post for me, which is much appreciated. But just to kick things off, and I ask everybody this, but where are you originally from?

[00:03:02] From San Pedro, California. So, South Bay, Los Angeles. And it is tough to leave LA because got that perfect weather or California has that perfect weather and beach, the mountains. And so I live in Venice now.

[00:03:17] Oh, cool. You live in Venice. Okay. Yeah. I'm born and raised in LA too, in Burbank specifically. And I live in Granada Hills now, which is almost San Pedro to Granada Hills almost extends the entire LA County.

[00:03:31] I guess you could Santa Clarita and Valencia is still LA, but we are close yet far. But yeah, I like to ask everyone that just because it kind of gives everyone just a background and like a little bit of a vibe of like who you are and where you're from.

[00:03:45] So, Brandon, just with the most basic way to kick off this interview, what is SEO?

[00:03:52] SEO is search engine optimization, which means ranking websites on the different search engines. Doesn't matter if it's Google or if you're searching on Amazon or Yelp or anywhere where you could search. Essentially, there's ways to rank you higher. But SEO is primarily for Google, but it can translate to almost any platform. And it's just a way to help you save money so you don't have to spend money on paid ads.

[00:04:14] And I do want to get into that, the different platforms and social media, and especially now because a lot of things have changed in the last few years with AI. Tell us a little bit about your background, even into getting into SEO. Like what stood out? Why did you get into it? How long have you been doing it? And kind of give us just a high level overview of the journey into starting your company, SEO Optimizers.

[00:04:41] I just fell into SEO back in 2007. Didn't know about it. Never heard of it. Graduated from college, got my degree in business marketing. And one of the first jobs that I was offered was doing SEO. And I didn't really know much about it. They said, don't worry, we're new to this as well. So that was kind of interesting. And they said, we're going to learn with you and take you to classes and workshops and seminars and decided to give it a shot.

[00:05:04] And after working there for a few months, just kind of realized that everyone's probably going to have a website in the future. And that digital marketing is not going to go anywhere anytime soon. So I should probably stick with the digital marketing.

[00:05:15] And back then I was helping out with their social media, doing paid ads, doing email marketing, writing product descriptions, their e-commerce website. I was taking pictures of the products, kind of doing it all.

[00:05:26] But I just focused more on SEO over the years because I thought, who doesn't want free traffic? SEO is just a way to get free traffic from Google. And who wants to spend money when you could get free traffic?

[00:05:36] And that's really what I focused on over the years, working at different advertising agencies as a director of SEO and before work and after work and all my lunch breaks. I work on my freelance work, building my own company up and eventually built that up to where I was able to quit my job and been doing this ever since, just helping people really tap into that free traffic from Google.

[00:05:57] Wow. Okay. So yeah, you've been doing it for a while. When did like technically you start your company, like officially?

[00:06:03] Probably within the first couple months of working at that first job, they took me to a couple seminars. And one was this seminar where all these people were speaking about digital marketing and everyone would go up and say, I have 20 different websites. I'm doing dropshipping and affiliate marketing and all this stuff. And it got me thinking. I always had the entrepreneurial spirit. I had like a skateboard company I started in high school. So always knew I wanted to do something on my own.

[00:06:29] And once I heard those people speaking about having all these websites, I realized I could probably do this freelance because I was working at a company. They were making 3D lenticulate products, very, very niche, very specific, not much competition. And I realized I could go to like a doctor or a restaurant nearby in my city and see if they needed help with SEO because I'm not a direct competitor.

[00:06:51] And just kind of got me going pretty much right when I first started doing that job. So in 2007, I think I bought the domain name SEO optimizers. I know how to build a website. So I posted on Craigslist at the beginning offering my services. And one person found me who we bartered where he built me a website and I did his SEO.

[00:07:10] And he was ranking higher than the government for supplemental insurance back in 2008 and 2009. And that was a good trade. And that got me started on my journey of just picking up freelance clients here or there.

[00:07:25] But I was happy to have a full-time job after graduating from college because I wasn't trying to jump ship right away.

[00:07:30] So I slowly built it up over the years where I just worked full-time and then get a couple clients here or there just to make some extra money.

[00:07:37] But after a while, I realized I should probably just go all in with this SEO and just really focused more on my company and was able to quit my job after doing that about eight years ago.

[00:07:47] Cool, man. I've never bartered on Craigslist, but I, years ago, got some of my first audio gigs, like audio production gigs, super low-paying, kind of sketchy on Craigslist.

[00:07:58] Still, once in a while, sell like a musical instrument or something on Craigslist.

[00:08:02] Tell me a little bit what it was like back then because like the whole like niche website thing, I've dabbled in that.

[00:08:08] But I feel like from what I hear, it was way easier to rank back then, right?

[00:08:14] Like compared to now, was that your experience?

[00:08:17] Sure, there's more tools now and probably a lot more knowledge.

[00:08:20] But, you know, I've heard that, you know, even as of like 10 years ago, people are saying, you know, niche sites, way easier to rank.

[00:08:29] Yeah, no, it was much easier back then.

[00:08:32] Less competition, right?

[00:08:34] Yeah, that's the main thing is now everyone could, you could build a website in a few minutes with WordPress or Wix or Squarespace.

[00:08:40] So anyone could build a website and the more competition, the tougher it is to rank for those keywords because now everyone's fighting for those top spots and you have to do more than your competition for SEO.

[00:08:52] And also Google changed a lot too.

[00:08:54] Back then it was a lot easier, less.

[00:08:57] They weren't really as sophisticated.

[00:08:59] Now they've gotten much more on top of things.

[00:09:02] But even now, I mean, there's always ways and loopholes to game the system.

[00:09:05] But those are things that you want to avoid at all costs because you don't want to try to trick Google because if you get caught doing anything that Google doesn't want you to do, they're going to instead of rank you higher, they're going to drop you down those rankings.

[00:09:16] And that's the last thing to happen to anybody.

[00:09:18] Totally.

[00:09:19] And just to kind of touch on one more basic concept, the concept of keywords.

[00:09:23] And for our audience who is unfamiliar with that, what do you mean by keywords?

[00:09:28] Keywords are words that you search.

[00:09:31] It could be one word.

[00:09:32] It could be five words.

[00:09:34] Whatever you search, that is a keyword.

[00:09:36] So it could be one word.

[00:09:38] But usually you want to focus on what are called long tail keywords, keywords that are two or more words.

[00:09:42] The more words in a keyword, the more buyer intent.

[00:09:46] Someone just searching a one word keyword, it's probably just looking for a definition of that versus something where it's more specific.

[00:09:52] So maybe you sell dog food and want to rank for the word dog, but how many of those people are actually looking for dog food?

[00:09:58] All those people that go to your website are going to hit that back button.

[00:10:01] That doesn't look good to Google.

[00:10:03] That tells Google maybe you're not the most relevant either website.

[00:10:06] So you don't want to just rank for these broad keywords.

[00:10:08] You want to rank for more target keywords like dog food.

[00:10:11] Much more specific.

[00:10:13] Less people are going to be searching for it, but the people searching for it want dog food.

[00:10:17] But then you can even take it one step further and go like organic dog food or whatever you want to put in there and make that keyword much more longer.

[00:10:24] Less competition because someone searching for organic dog food.

[00:10:27] They know what type of dog food.

[00:10:29] They want organic specifically and dog food.

[00:10:31] So they're ready.

[00:10:32] They're lowering that funnel, ready to make that buying decision.

[00:10:35] And when people are creating content, whether it's written or video, shorts, whatever kind of content they're creating.

[00:10:47] In your opinion, and there's no wrong answer, but do you think people should be creating content around specific keywords?

[00:10:55] And if so, should they research keywords to see if those are being searched for a lot or a little?

[00:11:01] Tell me a little bit about what you see and what you think when you work with clients, the kind of advice you give.

[00:11:07] Now, you should always do keyword research before putting keywords on your website or writing content because or even after you write the content, you could do keyword research and just figure out which keywords get the most search volume.

[00:11:19] That way you could try to focus on that because a singular and a plural of a word is going to get a different amount of searches.

[00:11:26] And sometimes it could be a big discrepancy.

[00:11:28] So there's tools like the Google Keyword Planner, which are free from Google.

[00:11:33] And I'll show you how many people search for your keyword every single month.

[00:11:35] That way you could focus on the high search volume keywords.

[00:11:38] One of my clients, their personal injury law firm, they want to rank for personal injury lawyers.

[00:11:44] Plural, which is a good keyword, got 20,000 searches every single month.

[00:11:48] But personal injury lawyer singular gets 200,000 searches every single month.

[00:11:53] Just by removing that one letter, you're going to get 10 times more traffic.

[00:11:57] And you could get it right.

[00:11:58] Or I mean, you could guess and you might get it right, but you also might get it wrong.

[00:12:01] So using the tools like the Google Keyword Planner doesn't take that long to use.

[00:12:05] It takes a few minutes just to do keyword research, find those high search volume keywords, and then incorporate those into your content or your audio, your video, whatever you're putting out there.

[00:12:14] That's interesting because I've actually noticed that too, that like, yeah, plural or singular, or just if it's long tail, like just phrasing it slightly different does show a lot different volume.

[00:12:28] Let me segue here a little bit into AI.

[00:12:31] So like tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity or Gemini, how have you seen that impact your business and just SEO as a whole?

[00:12:41] I mean, AI is just changing how a lot.

[00:12:46] We'll have to keep seeing what happens because it just changes every single day.

[00:12:50] We're going to have to keep staying up to date with it.

[00:12:52] But we'll have to see if people start using ChatGPT more to search versus Google.

[00:12:57] But ChatGPT is owned by OpenAI, which is part of Microsoft, which is Bing.

[00:13:02] So it's really just Bing search results being served to you essentially for the most part.

[00:13:08] And it's all just search engines.

[00:13:10] So as long as people are searching, it doesn't matter where they're searching.

[00:13:13] If they're going to be on Google or they're going to be on ChatGPT or whatever platform, we've just got to optimize for that and just do content that's going to be relevant to the way people search.

[00:13:24] So you have to just figure out how people search on each platform and create content that's going to best respond to those platforms of wanting to rank you.

[00:13:32] But we'll have to see what happens because it's so new.

[00:13:35] And a lot of people are probably using ChatGPT much more than Google.

[00:13:40] But we'll have to see if does that stick or are people going to eventually just go back to Google because ChatGPT is kind of like a featured snippet.

[00:13:48] Like Google has these featured snippets that they show in the search results, which is kind of like AI.

[00:13:53] Now they're showing AI in the search results as well.

[00:13:55] And we'll have to see what happens.

[00:13:57] But it's definitely shifted things up a lot.

[00:14:00] Yeah.

[00:14:00] And, you know, I still use Google to search, you know, but the more like as time goes on, especially like the last year, year and a half, like the podcast I listen to or just people that I follow on LinkedIn and YouTube.

[00:14:11] They're saying that like, yeah, the AI search, ChatGPT and perplexity and all this is going to overtake Google.

[00:14:19] But I just I don't know if I could see that human behavior.

[00:14:22] Like people are so used to Google.

[00:14:23] I can't imagine me personally.

[00:14:26] Like I do use ChatGPT, but I don't really use it to like search.

[00:14:30] And then I've also heard and I don't know how true this is, but like apparently like a little bit of the like more Gen Z.

[00:14:36] They're searching like TikTok and Instagram to find like restaurants or like instead of using like Google defined.

[00:14:45] I personally, I can't imagine really doing that.

[00:14:48] I mean, maybe once I found the restaurant on Google and I'm like going on vacation and planning, maybe then I would go on Instagram and like look at pictures of the food and stuff.

[00:14:57] I don't know.

[00:14:58] I just I don't see a world where at least anytime soon where like the AI search engines like overtake Google.

[00:15:07] I mean, I don't know.

[00:15:10] You know, it's just it's just more of a comment than a question, I guess.

[00:15:13] But what are you seeing?

[00:15:15] Like are your are your clients like, oh, we need to optimize for the socials because that's where people are searching and the AI.

[00:15:22] We got it.

[00:15:23] Or is it still mostly Google focused?

[00:15:27] It's primarily Google, but it's all about knowing who your audience is and where are they.

[00:15:31] Because like I do SEO.

[00:15:33] I'm on social media, but not many people are going to Instagram or TikTok to look for SEO because it's just not the most exciting thing.

[00:15:41] But a lot of people will go on Google, find me on Google and then check me out on social media to make sure I'm a real legitimate, trustworthy business.

[00:15:49] So it's that social proof.

[00:15:50] But if you have some I mean, I've heard a lot of like restaurants and stuff going viral on social media.

[00:15:57] But it's just a different way.

[00:16:00] And yeah, but I feel like most people are probably still going to stick with like Google or Yelp looking for a restaurant.

[00:16:05] I don't see TikTok overcoming them, but it's just another way that people find stuff.

[00:16:09] But it's tough to get that virality.

[00:16:11] You have to like get on a really popular like influencers page and then they have to talk about you.

[00:16:16] And that's how those restaurants and they kind of just take off and get shared across the web.

[00:16:21] But it's interesting how things are just shifting.

[00:16:24] But Google still runs the show for now, but we'll have to see how long they can hold on to it.

[00:16:28] But they're going to do whatever they can to hold on to it.

[00:16:30] And that means adapting and adjusting and putting AI in the search results or whatever they need to do.

[00:16:36] Yeah, I guess that's a good point.

[00:16:37] Like you're saying meet your whatever your business's needs are.

[00:16:41] Like, yeah, if you are a restaurant, I guess, yeah, the images and the reels on Instagram probably would benefit you.

[00:16:48] But like you said, you're SEO based.

[00:16:51] And so a lot of people searching SEO stuff or searching like written content because they're reading about it or maybe a YouTube video as well.

[00:16:57] Like I work with a lot of lawyers and investment companies.

[00:17:05] They're not probably really – yeah, of course, they want to grow their social media and you have to have a presence there.

[00:17:11] But that's not really their target audience is like people consuming social media.

[00:17:15] Those are more, quote unquote, like a sophisticated person that's not looking for investment advice on Instagram.

[00:17:26] Oh, yeah.

[00:17:27] So I think that's important for just people making content out there.

[00:17:29] You got to kind of think about like what niche you're in and where people consume information about that.

[00:17:38] And when it comes to YouTube, because they say that's the second largest search engine, right?

[00:17:45] I could see YouTube has its more like a little – even if it's short form or medium form, it's a little bit more in-depth than like just scrolling through reels mindlessly all day.

[00:17:57] Have you seen – like are your clients and yourself as well like doing a lot of work in like the YouTube search optimization space?

[00:18:07] Because I know that that is going to continue to just grow.

[00:18:11] So yeah, YouTube is not going anywhere anytime soon because Google owns YouTube.

[00:18:16] And sometimes when you search on Google, you'll see videos that appear in the search results.

[00:18:20] And the majority of the time it's going to be YouTube because Google doesn't want to promote Vimeo or Facebook video or TikTok.

[00:18:27] I mean, you'll see them occasionally, but the majority of them are really going to be YouTube.

[00:18:29] And I always tell people if you could get a presence on YouTube sooner than later, it's just going to help your business.

[00:18:35] But a lot of people don't want to get on camera.

[00:18:38] And that's the tough part.

[00:18:39] So getting my clients to do a YouTube channel, not the easiest thing.

[00:18:43] And I mean, it doesn't always work either for every industry, but I always tell people if you can do it, it's going to help out.

[00:18:49] So I do my own YouTube channel, put content out about SEO.

[00:18:54] But yeah, also I could optimize for YouTube.

[00:18:56] So if you do have a YouTube channel, I could optimize your content by really doing keyword research for YouTube and then figuring out what keywords are the best,

[00:19:04] incorporating them in different areas like the title of your YouTube video.

[00:19:07] Very important.

[00:19:09] The description has to have those keywords, the tags, the file name before you upload it to YouTube or upload it to images or audio,

[00:19:18] wherever you upload to the internet.

[00:19:19] If you name that file name with keywords, that really helps out.

[00:19:22] And just doing all these little things to help them better read and understand and know what that content is about.

[00:19:27] The more you spoon feed them, the better because they struggle with images and video and audio.

[00:19:32] They're getting much better at it, but they still need you to give them as much information as possible.

[00:19:36] So if you put a video up on YouTube, you could transcribe it.

[00:19:40] Put that in the description.

[00:19:41] If it's like an hour long podcast, maybe don't transcribe it, but timestamp it and write a summary because all that really helps out.

[00:19:48] The more they really feed off text.

[00:19:50] Google, all these platforms, they love text.

[00:19:53] The more text you're able to squeeze in all these areas, the easier it is for them to read and understand and know what that content is about.

[00:20:00] Now, there's one thing that just blew my mind because I think I've heard this.

[00:20:04] Maybe I heard it in a YouTube video.

[00:20:06] I don't remember.

[00:20:06] Or maybe I'm making it up that I heard it.

[00:20:08] But the file name, because I tend to name my files just the dumbest names sometimes,

[00:20:15] especially if I'm editing a lot of stuff and it's like version one or version two.

[00:20:21] So that does matter.

[00:20:22] The file name should reflect.

[00:20:25] And we're talking about the file name is what you save, like the video on your desktop, like that file name, like what you call that.

[00:20:34] Yeah, because images and videos and all that really gets stripped down to your text URLs.

[00:20:39] And they look at the file name of the audio or the video.

[00:20:43] So making it keyword rich.

[00:20:45] So, I mean, you don't want to spam it, but like if you upload this video for say, you could say like Brandon Leibowitz, Podcast Haven, SEO strategies or something like that.

[00:20:56] Something like where it hits on all the words, the variation, what this is.

[00:21:00] Basically, you want to offer value and like provide information to the search engines of what this image or video or audio is about.

[00:21:07] So describing it, don't just throw a bunch of keywords in there because that's a little spammy and it wouldn't be the best, but like five or 10 words max, just short, concise and just be descriptive.

[00:21:18] That's a great tip for all you content creators out there because a lot of people that follow this podcast, yeah, they're either on their content journey or they're thinking about starting it.

[00:21:30] But so file names are key.

[00:21:32] So don't be like me and name it something stupid just because like sometimes I'll name it something stupid just so I like recognize it.

[00:21:40] But that's good to know.

[00:21:41] Do you think, and maybe you know or maybe you don't, but this is just interesting to me.

[00:21:47] So hopefully interesting to the listeners as well.

[00:21:49] But do you think the same goes for the file name for like the audio MP3 that I upload or people upload to Apple, you know, the audio version of the podcast for Apple and Spotify?

[00:22:03] Do you think that that's probably true as well?

[00:22:05] Yep.

[00:22:06] Audio, video, images, especially images.

[00:22:10] Very, very important.

[00:22:12] Let's talk about images a little bit because like when I'm writing a blog post and I don't know if I even still understand this, but like the alt, what is it called?

[00:22:22] The alt, like on WordPress, there's the description, the caption and the alt.

[00:22:29] Yeah, like it's so, and sometimes I'll publish something or I'll be about to publish something and Yoast will tell me that like I don't have, I don't have any of that information in my images.

[00:22:40] And that I should add it.

[00:22:42] And so let's talk a little bit about that.

[00:22:44] And say the name again.

[00:22:45] It's called alt text or alternative text.

[00:22:48] Alt text.

[00:22:49] Yeah.

[00:22:50] So that's, it's my understanding that that's a lot more important than I thought.

[00:22:55] For images, a file name is very important.

[00:22:58] And then second is alt text because Google wants to make the internet accessible to anybody.

[00:23:04] And if your images don't show, then the alt text will show.

[00:23:07] And for people that are visually impaired, if they, they have screen readers that read the text on the website or whatever you're on.

[00:23:14] But once they get to images, they can't read the image.

[00:23:17] So it'll read the alt text out.

[00:23:19] And that's where you just have to make sure that the alt text is really just matches the file name.

[00:23:24] Just describe what that image is about.

[00:23:26] If it's a bunch of people smiling, just put like happy people dot JPEG.

[00:23:29] You don't want to just throw keywords in there like happy people, SEO company.

[00:23:32] That's a little weird, but just make it descriptive.

[00:23:35] And eventually you're going to have images of your business.

[00:23:37] And that's where those keywords will be incorporated into those images.

[00:23:40] But just really try to think for a user point of view, what's going to help make the web accessible to everybody?

[00:23:46] And what's going to help make this image accessible to people that can't see this image, but instead read it?

[00:23:51] And it's just all these like little things you have to do to like add up to like get Google to, you know, say that, oh, this is the most like optimized version of this, like of this video.

[00:24:04] This is the most optimized way or this blog post.

[00:24:07] Tell me a little bit about, and I should have studied the definition of it, but like the Google is recent.

[00:24:15] I think it's recent.

[00:24:16] And if I'm not, correct me, but the EEAT guidelines.

[00:24:20] And also, if you can touch on some of these, like just like a simple level overview for our audience on Google's like helpful content updates.

[00:24:29] Like what is that and how do we make sure our content is in line so that Google like wants to rank it?

[00:24:39] The helpful content is just making sure that your content is helpful to the reader, offers value, and really is accurate because it's AI.

[00:24:48] You could write content pretty quickly, pretty easily, but AI does AI hallucinations where if it doesn't know the answer, it'll just make it up and it won't tell you that.

[00:24:57] So a lot of people just go on chat DVD and say, write me an article about whatever, like dog food.

[00:25:03] And it's going to be really generic and it's probably going to have incorrect information in it.

[00:25:06] So Google said, and Google last year said, we can't tell the difference who writes the content anymore between AI and human.

[00:25:13] That's why they're really doing this.

[00:25:14] And they said, we don't care who writes the content because we don't know who writes it.

[00:25:18] We can't tell the difference.

[00:25:19] We just want to make sure it's accurate.

[00:25:21] And so that's where the main thing is just throwing content out there to throw it up there.

[00:25:25] Don't do it.

[00:25:26] But if it's offering help or value to the reader, that's what Google wants to see.

[00:25:30] That's number one.

[00:25:31] So always write for the reader and then try to sprinkle those keywords in throughout the content, but really write for people first.

[00:25:37] Google secondary, because that's really what Google wants.

[00:25:40] It's just good content that people are going to want to read and hopefully stay on your website and want to learn more about your services or products.

[00:25:48] But the EEAT was just part of Google's algorithm.

[00:25:52] That one stands for experience, expertise, authority, and trust.

[00:25:56] Because Google just wants to make sure that you have all those signals on your website.

[00:26:00] And usually those come through by getting what are called backlinks, getting other websites to link out to you.

[00:26:06] Builds that trust, that credibility.

[00:26:08] Usually hits on all of that EEAT.

[00:26:12] Yeah.

[00:26:12] And that EEAT, has that been around for a long time?

[00:26:17] Or is that like a fairly new thing that they created?

[00:26:21] No, that's been around maybe like 10 years or so.

[00:26:25] It started off as EEAT.

[00:26:26] And that was really for Google just trying to crack down on anything that's finance or money or investing or health-related searches.

[00:26:36] They want to really make sure that you are giving correct information because they don't want to give out misinformation about health or finance.

[00:26:44] Or like you search on Google, like what stocks are good to buy.

[00:26:48] And then there's some like shady website that ranks and takes all your money.

[00:26:51] Then you're like, Google, why did you show me this website?

[00:26:53] This is not a trustworthy website.

[00:26:56] People aren't going to use Google.

[00:26:57] So Google really looks on the health and the finance.

[00:27:00] And that's where that EEAT first came to play.

[00:27:03] But it's part just in general, every website should have those trust signals.

[00:27:08] So it's just more focused on those health and finance type of websites.

[00:27:13] Makes sense.

[00:27:13] And let's talk a little bit more about backlinks.

[00:27:16] So you mentioned, yeah, it's when someone, another site like links to your site and their content or somewhere on their site.

[00:27:24] What are some strategies for getting backlinks from like reputable publishers?

[00:27:30] And then this is kind of a two-parter.

[00:27:31] Like let's say you're primarily like a video creator.

[00:27:35] Like YouTube is like your channel.

[00:27:39] What's the best way to get people to link to your video?

[00:27:43] Or is that even a thing?

[00:27:44] Would people do that?

[00:27:46] They could embed your video too.

[00:27:48] So they could link out to your video saying like, hey, check out this video.

[00:27:51] But it would be best if they just took the embed code from YouTube and put the video on their website.

[00:27:57] That way they could watch it.

[00:27:59] So if you have a, let's say you take these podcast episodes, you post them on your website.

[00:28:04] You could take that Google embed video and embed the video on your website.

[00:28:08] And then anytime anybody reads that blog post and then watches that video, those views all get attributed to YouTube.

[00:28:14] And that's going to help your YouTube channel versus just linking out to YouTube.

[00:28:18] It's okay, but it'd be both are good, but the embed is a little bit better.

[00:28:22] Oh, so the embed is stronger.

[00:28:24] Yeah.

[00:28:25] And you get those views that attributed to your video.

[00:28:27] So because getting people from a blog post to go to YouTube, not the easiest thing.

[00:28:32] People are on your website.

[00:28:33] They just, it's getting, it's tough getting people off of your website.

[00:28:36] Or you don't want people leaving your website either to go to a YouTube channel.

[00:28:40] Because on YouTube, there's ads, there's a lot of distractions.

[00:28:43] It's easy to get lost.

[00:28:44] Like once they're on your website, you want to keep them there as long as possible.

[00:28:48] Does YouTube value, like you said, okay, so the embed, that's number one.

[00:28:52] But they also kind of look at backlinks in a similar manner that like Google does.

[00:28:56] Like if I do a product review video on a microphone and some massive like audio blog,

[00:29:04] like links to my video, YouTube will see that as like link juice.

[00:29:09] Like it'll see that that, a reputable site either embedded or backlinked.

[00:29:15] And that will help like the YouTube algorithm.

[00:29:17] Does it work like that?

[00:29:18] Yeah.

[00:29:19] Well, Google owns YouTube and Google, they're similar.

[00:29:22] I mean, they're different algorithms or yeah, ranking signals and factors, but it's

[00:29:27] kind of similar for the most part.

[00:29:29] So like title, keywords, and just building trust because, but a lot of trust from YouTube

[00:29:35] comes through like watch time.

[00:29:36] So if your video is 20 minutes and you get a thousand views, but they all watch it for

[00:29:41] 30 seconds, not a good sign.

[00:29:43] If you get 10 views, but they watch it to all 20 minutes, that's much better trust signal

[00:29:48] or signal to YouTube.

[00:29:50] So that really helps out a lot.

[00:29:51] Is how long do they watch the video, the likes, the comments, the shares, engagement?

[00:29:56] What do you say to people that like, cause yeah, I've heard that as well.

[00:29:59] I think, um, people listening, I've probably heard that as, as well too.

[00:30:04] What do you think of like people that like purposely, like not hack, but like purposely

[00:30:10] make like, you know, four to five minute videos on YouTube because someone's more likely

[00:30:15] to watch the whole thing than like a long form, like 40 minute, um, video.

[00:30:19] Like, should that be part of your strategy?

[00:30:21] If you are doing long form content, like long podcast conversations like this, um, should

[00:30:27] you also maybe like, instead of just clips that are like 30 seconds, should you do like

[00:30:34] a five minute, like medium format or sorry, five minutes?

[00:30:38] Yeah.

[00:30:38] Like a five minute medium format.

[00:30:41] Cause then people are more likely to listen to it or watch it, I would think.

[00:30:45] And then that would help the algorithm per se.

[00:30:49] Yeah.

[00:30:50] I mean, everything is shifting to short form video, like YouTube shorts and everything,

[00:30:55] but some people still like that long form content.

[00:30:58] So it was just putting content out for your audience, but it's great to test cause you

[00:31:03] never know what's going to work to test it out because I would really look at your competitors.

[00:31:07] So if there's other people in your industry that are similar to what you're doing, I would

[00:31:10] see what type of content they're putting out on YouTube and then see how much engagement

[00:31:14] are they getting is a full audio or full podcast episode, getting more engagement than the short

[00:31:20] form version or vice versa.

[00:31:22] But you never know until you test it.

[00:31:24] And even if one's working better for your competitor, it might be completely different for your audience,

[00:31:29] but it is good to check.

[00:31:30] Cause with SEO, same thing, like kind of look at your competition, kind of spy on your competitors,

[00:31:34] see what they're doing.

[00:31:35] Same with YouTube or whatever platform you're on social media, like trying to figure out like,

[00:31:40] should I be on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter?

[00:31:42] I try to look at my competitors and see where are they active.

[00:31:45] And I try to have a bigger presence on those platforms versus the ones that don't get as

[00:31:49] much engagement.

[00:31:50] I think testing is key.

[00:31:52] Like you said, it's a lot of work to always be testing stuff, depending on your resources

[00:31:56] and the size of your team, or if you're more of like a solo operation.

[00:32:00] But I have seen people and it seems like for them, it's working successfully with like the

[00:32:04] podcast where they'll post the full interview, like long form.

[00:32:07] And then of course they'll do, you know, shorts of it for YouTube shorts, Instagram, TikTok.

[00:32:14] But then I'm also seeing, yeah, like, like a medium form content on their, on their page

[00:32:18] too, where, you know, maybe it's like a four minute clip.

[00:32:21] So then you've got like the shorts covered, the medium form content covered and the long

[00:32:26] form.

[00:32:27] So I guess, you know, there's in a perfect world, there's an audience for each type of

[00:32:31] content.

[00:32:31] So I think that's something to consider.

[00:32:33] It's something I've considered that, you know, I might start, I do the shorts and I do the

[00:32:37] long, but maybe cutting together like a medium form and trying to strategize there.

[00:32:44] But I like what you said.

[00:32:45] And for people listening, like testing is key because you never know, you might think it's

[00:32:48] going to work and then you try it and you're like, no, this isn't working for me.

[00:32:52] Same with, same with written content, which I want to talk about a little bit.

[00:32:58] Like, is blogging still viable as like a career or now because the world has changed.

[00:33:07] If you want to be a blogger, you also needed a YouTube.

[00:33:10] You also need a podcast.

[00:33:11] Like if you just want to write, like that's all you want to do.

[00:33:15] Like, is that still viable?

[00:33:17] Yeah.

[00:33:18] But unfortunately with AI, a lot of the writing is just been replaced with AI and yeah.

[00:33:24] Writing content and all that stuff.

[00:33:26] It's still important.

[00:33:26] Like if you could, I still would rather have people writing the content, but I have a lot

[00:33:29] of writers and fortunately most of them are using AI and I have to let them go.

[00:33:33] Cause I'm just like, I'd rather have people write the content, even though Google said we

[00:33:36] don't care who writes the content, but still feel like they put a little bit more preference

[00:33:40] on human written content.

[00:33:42] But yeah, content is still one of the most important things for Google, but we'll have

[00:33:46] to see what changes in the future.

[00:33:48] If everything shifts to video, but I feel like for search, people want text for video.

[00:33:53] So that's what I think for search, people want text.

[00:33:57] I, but I guess I'm being proven wrong.

[00:33:59] Cause it seems like it's starting to, I may, or maybe I'm just stubborn and I'm trying to

[00:34:03] fight it.

[00:34:03] You know, it seems like so much more work and video.

[00:34:07] I mean, I'm an audio guy.

[00:34:09] So the audio side of comes easy to me, but when I had to switch from like an audio only

[00:34:14] podcast to like audio and video, I was like, damn, it's, it's just a lot of work.

[00:34:18] You know, that's what, that's, what's kind of a bummer about the whole thing.

[00:34:20] It's like, you want to be a business owner, whatever it is.

[00:34:24] Let's say like you manufacture like bicycles.

[00:34:26] I'm looking at my bike in the garage right now, or like whatever you do, like, let's

[00:34:31] say you sell like, um, insurance, like you're an insurance broker.

[00:34:36] It's like now you want to start that, like that's your entrepreneur journey.

[00:34:39] You either manufacture or you provide a service.

[00:34:41] It's like, now you also have to become a content creator.

[00:34:44] You can't like just have like your company.

[00:34:47] You have to like also put out all this content and it's written.

[00:34:51] And then it's the audio goes to Apple and Spotify and the video goes to YouTube.

[00:34:56] And it's like, you can't just focus on like making bicycles.

[00:34:59] You got to be like this content person too.

[00:35:01] It's like, it's exhausting really.

[00:35:04] And it's kind of a little bit of a bummer, but I guess that's just the world we live in.

[00:35:09] You know, that is what social media did.

[00:35:12] I feel like is just, and having cell phones that have cameras or really good quality cameras

[00:35:18] now has given everyone a way to just get in front of people quickly, easily.

[00:35:24] And that's changed everything a lot the past couple of years.

[00:35:27] Well, it's really since like 2007 when the iPhone came out.

[00:35:30] Now everyone, people are throwing away old iPhone 10s or 12s because they want to get

[00:35:35] the newest iPhone.

[00:35:36] And it's made the barrier to entry much, much lower for people to get a phone and connect

[00:35:40] to online and that, and people want to see your face too.

[00:35:44] Like people want to build trust and build credibility.

[00:35:47] And that's what social media really was back in the day is social networking, or it was a

[00:35:52] way to put a face behind a company because you could buy off Amazon.

[00:35:56] But there's also Joe's like TV shop that might've been around for a hundred years and they built

[00:36:01] a website.

[00:36:02] You're just like, I don't know who Joe's TVs are.

[00:36:04] I don't trust you.

[00:36:05] But social media was a way for you to interact with these businesses and message them and they

[00:36:10] do status updates and things like that.

[00:36:12] So that's really how it's evolved over the years.

[00:36:15] But social, I feel like has been the big pressure of that.

[00:36:18] Just putting the face behind the company.

[00:36:21] Some other like podcasters or I don't know, people I follow.

[00:36:25] Yeah.

[00:36:25] They're saying that like having that video and having your face on it builds that trust.

[00:36:30] And as AI becomes more and more popular, it's like if you have content with your face out

[00:36:37] there, it kind of differentiates you from the AI.

[00:36:41] Yeah.

[00:36:41] You're probably still going to use the AI and that's still going to be popular.

[00:36:45] But people being able to like tie a face to your brand, it's going to give you like more

[00:36:50] credibility.

[00:36:50] Because like you said, they're going to know that you're like a real person, not just like

[00:36:54] in this computer driven world.

[00:36:58] And then the other thing I think that you said that's important too is while I'm over

[00:37:02] here complaining, it's like, yeah, you got to be, you want to sell bicycles, but now you

[00:37:06] got to be some charismatic like person on camera and doing all this content, which it's good

[00:37:14] and bad.

[00:37:14] I think there's pros and cons to that.

[00:37:16] But like you said, the barrier to entry is a lot lower.

[00:37:19] So while you might not want to do that or you don't think you're good at it, at least

[00:37:23] it is a lot easier to get started.

[00:37:27] You know, by a USB microphone, you can use, you know, your iPhone.

[00:37:32] Nowadays too, the built-in laptop cameras are getting pretty good as well.

[00:37:36] So it's like you can for, you know, a couple hundred dollars, probably, you know, I don't

[00:37:42] know, but it relatively inexpensively, you can get started.

[00:37:45] So it's almost like there's no excuse.

[00:37:48] But then it's like, yeah, then it's like hard to compete though.

[00:37:52] Cause like then maybe if you're a company, you got to like budget out.

[00:37:55] If you can't do it yourself, like you got to get like people, production people, social

[00:37:59] media people.

[00:38:02] And it's all that to say, it's just a, it's just a grind, but it, it, the, the entry point

[00:38:08] is a lot easier than it ever has been.

[00:38:10] And it'll continue to probably get easier.

[00:38:13] Yeah.

[00:38:14] And the more people are doing it, the more competition.

[00:38:16] So the tougher it is to get you to stand out nowadays, which makes it a little trickier.

[00:38:21] It's good and bad.

[00:38:22] It's good and bad.

[00:38:23] Yeah.

[00:38:23] And I think it depends on like what generation you're from as well.

[00:38:28] In a weird way, I think potentially like I'm a millennial, I guess potentially millennials,

[00:38:33] but even more so like Gen Z, they kind of have a leg up cause they're so used to like the

[00:38:38] social medias and the cameras.

[00:38:40] And for, so for them to kind of like hop on, start their own podcast or something, maybe

[00:38:44] little less intimidating.

[00:38:47] But Brandon, tell us about your company.

[00:38:49] Tell it as we're starting to round home here about what you offer and where people can get

[00:38:55] in touch with you.

[00:38:57] I actually created a special gift for everybody.

[00:38:59] If you go to my website at seooptimizers.com forward slash gift, that's S-E-O-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S

[00:39:10] dot com forward slash gift.

[00:39:11] You can find that there.

[00:39:12] Along my contact information and classes I've done over the years, I've thrown up for free

[00:39:17] so you can see step by step how to do a lot of stuff that we talked about.

[00:39:19] And also if they want a free website analysis, I'm happy to check out their website from an

[00:39:24] SEO point of view and they can book some time on my calendar there for free as well.

[00:39:28] Awesome.

[00:39:29] Appreciate that.

[00:39:30] And guys, we will put that in the show notes, YouTube description, all that good stuff.

[00:39:35] Brandon, is there one last piece of advice when it comes to SEO?

[00:39:39] If there's one thing people should be getting right, if some stuff is over their head, but

[00:39:43] they want to start growing their Google presence, their YouTube presence, like what's like one

[00:39:49] last piece of advice?

[00:39:50] If all this goes over their heads or they don't care, what should they do?

[00:39:54] Just don't get discouraged if you don't see those results because SEO does take time.

[00:39:59] It takes time for Google to trust you, to rank you, and don't just give up because a lot of

[00:40:04] people just, they don't see the results and there's like, what's going on?

[00:40:07] I'm not ranking.

[00:40:08] And it takes about six months on average.

[00:40:11] Could take more time, could be shorter depending on the competition, but just be aware that the

[00:40:16] more competition, the more time it's going to take and you just have to keep building it up,

[00:40:19] building it up.

[00:40:20] And you're going to slowly, surely see that traffic increase over time by just working at it.

[00:40:26] Brandon, thank you for coming on the podcast.

[00:40:28] Thank you for having me on today.