Marketing Speak | Take Your Marketing To The Next Level

Google isn’t just one search engine. Google also operates a number of specialty search engines, one for news: Google News, one for images: Google Images, two for video: Google Video and YouTube, and many more. In this episode, we’re going to focus on optimizing two of these specialty engines, Google News and YouTube. One of your secret weapons for Google News optimization is press releases. If you think press releases aren’t news, I agree with you, yet for our guest, Greg Jarboe, he’s made plenty of money for his clients through the use of optimized press releases distributed via wire services such as Business Wire. Greg is President and Cofounder of SEO-PR, an award-winning content marketing agency and he’s the author of YouTube and Video Marketing. He’s also contributed to four other books including the YouTube Optimization section of my book, The Art of SEO. If you’re interested in boosting your visibility in Google News or on YouTube, there are plenty of practical advice to sink your teeth into.

When we plopped down in front of Netflix, we often forget how massive the video streaming revolution really was. It wasn’t long ago that TV watching was limited to whatever was being broadcast live over the air or on cable. If technology has taught us anything, it’s that change is the only constant. What will the next revolution in streaming video be and how can you capitalize on it? My guest for this episode is Damian Pelliccione. He is the Cofounder and CEO of Revry, which has been called the Netflix for LGBTQ shows. Revry focuses on content that has been overlooked by mainstream streaming services. Considering they have 21 million minutes streamed and reached over 50 million homes, it sounds like they’re crushing it. Damian is here to illuminate for us what marketers need to know about OTT and streaming, how to connect with Millennial and Gen Z audiences and the future of broadcast advertising and interactive content.

If you want to achieve long-term sustainable growth, then you need a system. Having been an SEO consultant for several decades, I can tell you that the same is true if you want to drive high-quality traffic to your website consistently. Creating a consistent income stream is one thing, but leveraging that income to attain access to your dream life is another thing entirely. Joe Fier and Matt Wolfe are the Founders of Evergreen Profits. They are the authors of The Evergreen Traffic Playbook, which draws on interviews with hundreds of online marketing experts and dissects their strategies and tactics to provide a roadmap to evergreen traffic. Joe and Matt not only advise their clients on growing their businesses, they also teach them how to create a balance in their lives and achieve more while working less. On this episode, we’ll not only be talking about systems and strategies for growth, we’ll also be considering how you can optimize your life to ensure you achieve all your goals no matter how ambitious they

Conversion is something we all want more of yet increasing your conversions can be tricky. There’s no magic bullet. No one size fits all solution to the conversion problem. One man who knows conversion optimization inside and out is Khalid Saleh. He’s the author of Conversion Optimization published by O’Reilly. Khalid is also Cofounder and CEO of Invesp, a company that has conversion optimized such brands as eBay and the Discovery Channel. If Khalid’s name seems familiar, it may be because he’s been on the show before, specifically episode number 44. On this episode, Khalid and I will be getting into the nitty-gritty of conversion rate optimization or CRO from A/B testing to conversion audits, copywriting and more. Even if you think you’re doing everything right and your conversion rate is amazing, I guarantee you’re going to learn some valuable stuff. This conversation is packed with practical advice that will help even the most advanced marketers win more conversions.

It’s a strange world we live in where it’s considered inappropriate to call without texting first. Isn’t placing unannounced calls exactly what phones are for? I remember the days where I could call my friends or even prospects out of the blue and it was totally fine. Regardless, the phone is often still your first touch point with prospects and their first impression of you. No one knows better how to capitalize on the opportunity of the inbound phone call than Jill Nelson. Jill is the Founder and CEO of Ruby Receptionists and my guest for this episode. She is an award-winning businesswoman who started Ruby in 2003 and had scaled it to a thriving company with over 500 staff achieving double-digit growth every year since its inception. She offers virtual receptionist services to business owners and so far, her army of 400 receptionists have answered 50 million phone calls. If you care about customer experience, then you’ll absolutely want to hear what Jill has to say in this wide-ranging conversation. She rev

Owning a portfolio of over 100 revenue-generating websites may sound impressive, but it can be more pain than it’s worth, especially if you put your trust in the wrong partners. There are so many details, financing options, manageability, scalability, performance metrics, valuation, negotiation and due diligence. Googling for the answers is not going to cut it. Doing adequate or even deep due diligence is the linchpin. My guest for this episode knows that better than anyone. At one point, Tom Shieh owned a portfolio of over 100 websites. He was making bank so much in fact that he was able to travel the world in Tony Robbins Elite Platinum Partnership, which is a six-figure investment per year. That’s where I first met Tom, by the way. Since then, Tom has lost nearly all of those 100 websites in an elaborate swindle. These days, Tom owns and operates Crimcheck, a company that does criminal background checks of potential hires and potential business partners. If you ever plan on building a portfolio of multiple

Have you ever dreamed of becoming a household name? What about a bestselling author or the number one expert in your field? Or are you simply looking to take your business to the next level? Whatever your ultimate goals in business and life are, it all starts with building relationships, not just any relationships but authentic relationships that will attract people to you and bring clients, profits, and notability. My guest for this episode used this exact strategy to go from a $42,000 a year salary to now running a multi-seven-figure business. Her name is Selena Soo. She's helped many dozens of clients crack the publicity code, connecting with powerful influencers, building fan bases, and forging lasting relationships with people that matter in their industry. What Selena does is much more than your average PR agency. In a world where having a social media strategy is no longer enough, her insights will help you understand what sets truly remarkable people apart from everyone else and how to attract and bui

Public Relations is a necessity for any growing business. When budgets are tight and there are other more urgent costs, hiring a glitzy PR firm can seem extravagant. The fact of the matter is most businesses probably already have all the tools they need internally to run their own PR strategy. This isn’t something I’m just making up. It’s the premise of a new book co-authored by Cameron Herold called Free PR. On this episode, I’ll be talking to Cameron about how he has helped thousands of businesses exploit free media opportunities and ditch expensive PR agencies. If you’re familiar with Cameron’s work, then you’ll understand that he knows what he’s talking about. By age 35, Cameron had created two $100 million companies. By age 42, he had taken 1-800-GOT-JUNK? from a $2 million company to $106 million company. You’ll also be learning a ton from Cameron in this episode about how to scale your own business. If you’ve always been curious about how the media works, wondered how you can get coverage and top tier

If you run a business, you know that branding is more than just creating a logo. When done right, a brand represents your principles, it stimulates loyalty and aspiration in your customers, and adds value in the marketplace. Above all, a brand is a promise. Many of you know that I'm a big proponent of branding done properly, yet this is only the third episode of Marketing Speak that we've ever done on this topic. My guest for this episode Re Perez, a leading branding expert and the founder of BRANDING FOR THE PEOPLE, an agency that helps entrepreneurs and small businesses leverage the power of Fortune 500 branding techniques. In this episode, Re will be a guide on our deep dive into the nuts and bolts of an effective brand strategy, from type faces and signifiers of luxury to integrating your brand into your company culture. You're about to gain an education in how some of the most influential companies in the world use branding to engage and inspire. 

We live in a digital world, but real relationships are still the bedrock of any serious business. Meeting the right people involves more than just turning up to the usual networking events. It's an art form. Forget elevator pitches and business cards. If you want to intentionally grow your network to open doors and get more clients and revenue, you need a strategy. My guest on this episode is John Corcoran. John understands the true power of relationship building and he’s guided many small business owners and entrepreneurs in leveraging their network to grow their businesses and achieve success. John began his career as a writer in the Clinton White House. He's the founder of SmartBusinessRevolution.com, and the co-founder of Rise25. He'll be explaining how to level up your networking and connect with highly valuable people who can open the door to bigger profits, industry recognition, and untold opportunity. As the saying goes, it's not what you know, it's who you know.

Imagine buying a failing company for $2 and not just turning around in a couple months, but growing it to the point where you have offices in San Francisco, LA, and New York, and an impressive client list that includes companies like Lift, Intuit, and more. That's the remarkable story of Single Grain, the agency owned by my guest, Eric Siu. Eric is an SEO consultant and entrepreneur who's developed growth strategies for dozens of noted brands. He also cohosts the Marketing School podcast with Neil Patel who has also been on the show. Eric is the creator of ClickFlow, a CDN or proxy server for SEO. It's an unusual idea and actually similar to Gravity Stream, an optimization platform that I had developed way back in 2003 and got sold with my agency, Netconcepts, in 2010. In this interview, we'll be talking about the secret behind creating a more powerful connection with your customers, how to harness multichannel marketing, and the process behind turning your website into an evergreen traffic machine. Since Eri

The great wave of automation is coming, whether you like it or not. Eventually, all of our jobs are going to be replaced by AIs and robots. In the meantime, you have an opportunity to leverage automation throughout your business and in your marketing. You have two options - ignore automation at your peril or embrace the opportunity and adapt quickly. My guest hasn't just embraced marketing automation, he's made it his business to help others use automation to their advantage. I'm talking about Brad Martineau, Cofounder and CEO of SixthDivision. You'll be getting some real insight into how to incorporate automation into your marketing strategy and even your overall business strategy. You'll also be getting some power tips on using Infusionsoft and how to build an effective customer journey that gets results. If you're serious about leveling up your business, stick around as Brad reveals the secrets to doing automation right.

If there's one thing we could all use more of, its leads. Not just any leads, mind you, I'm talking about quality leads, qualified leads who know exactly what's up and understand the value of your offer. If there's one man who has turned lead generation into a science, it's Tom Poland. He even has a name for it, Leadsology. If you're skeptical, remember that Tom has founded and sold many multimillion dollar businesses himself. He even wrote a book where he explains how to do it. If you're looking to crack the code on lead generation for your business, then you want to hear what Tom has to say. This episode is all about the nuts and bolts of attracting and qualifying leads, and more importantly, how to create replicable, delegatable processes that work; in other words, a scientific approach to lead generation. Keep listening because it's time to stop messing about with random marketing experiments and create a system for bringing the right people straight to your sales page.

People don't usually mention hip-hop and SEO in the same breath. My guest is not only an entrepreneur, digital marketer and SEO engineer but also an independent musician who began his career as a hip-hop artist. He's also been able to leverage his skills as a rapper to become an innovative and original speaker at marketing conferences around the world. Mike King is the Founder of digital marketing agency iPullRank. He's a veteran of multinational agencies like Publicis Modem and Razorfish. He's also the proud new owner of UndergroundHipHop.com, a highly respected twenty-year-old music blog. On this episode, we will be geeking out on SEO covering everything from Latent Semantic indexing or LSI to Markov models to term frequency and more. Also, you will want to read all the way to the end of this episode as Mike will be revealing some of his favorite SEO resources.

It's no secret that podcasting has gone mainstream in the last few years, but there's a difference between running a podcast out of your garage and using it as a springboard for success. Our guest did exactly that. On this episode, I'll be talking to Jeremy Slate. You probably know him from the Create Your Own Life Podcast which was so wildly successful that he now teaches others how to leverage podcast appearances to massive effect. If you're interested in how to craft a media strategy that gets your message in front of the people that need to hear it, stick around because we'll be covering everything from how to get more podcast appearances to the value of media training to getting published in the mainstream media. 

In this episode, we are going to peel back the curtain on marketing agencies, learning about how they handle scope creep, attribution and misattribution of their efforts, setting and resetting client expectations, retainers, performance-based pricing, leading and lagging metrics, dashboards, negative keywords, and a lot more. Our guest is Ken Jurina. He founded his company, Top Draw, in 1993. In the early days, Top Draw was a humble graphic design agency and he was the sole employee. When he realized he was going to face some pretty stiff competition in the graphic design space, he knew he needed to differentiate himself. That is when he recognized that the internet represented a massive opportunity to grow his business. Fast forward 25 years, Top Draw is now a fully integrated digital marketing agency with dozens of employees and an impressive client list.   These days, Ken is focused on business development and SEO which he has had the foresight to realize would give him a massive advantage over its competi

Markets move quickly and they're full of unexpected surprises. If you run a business, you have to be resilient. You have to keep up with new technology and emerging trends so you don't get left behind by your competitors. My guest for this episode is Jeremy Goldman. He is someone who's thought deeply about how to future-proof a business. He's the author of the books, Getting to Like and Going Social. He's the founder of the Firebrand Group and co-host of the Futureproof podcast. Our conversation is all about the next big thing. If you're curious about innovations like augmented reality, drones, AI, and cryptocurrency, and how they can help your business, stick around because we're about to take a wild ride into the future.

Split testing is typically a term bandied about in the CRO world, not the SEO world. In this episode, you're going to learn how to split test SEO. Running tests in parallel is not something that's easily done with SEO. There are plenty of reasons for that. Each page has its own link profile, making it hard to do head-to-head comparisons, not to mention, you don't want to create duplicate content. The copy on the pages need to be different, too. Nevertheless, there are workarounds which you are about to learn about. My guest is Will Critchlow. He's the CEO of Distilled, a company he founded in 2005 with Duncan Morris. Distilled provides online marketing services from offices in London, New York, and Seattle, hosts the SearchLove Conference series in the US and UK, produces the popular online training platform, DistilledU, and runs the SEO testing platform, DistilledODN. Will, welcome to the show.

China is a hot topic in the business world right now. It seems like everyone is looking East, but how many of us in the Western world really understand the nuances of the Chinese market? There are so many issues to consider - from censorship and government regulation to the wild world of Chinese influencers. The right advice can really make or break your success. If you're currently doing business in China or you're considering it in the near future, then you'll want to hear what my guest for this episode has to say. Nicolas Chu is truly a global citizen. He's the founder and CEO of Sinorbis, a digital marketing firm that specializes in helping Western companies access the Chinese market. He's also managing director of Sydney-based consulting firm, Altpure, an author, an international speaker, and an ex-lecturer in business at the Diderot University of Paris. Whether you're looking for advice on digital marketing in China or you're simply curious about the opportunities on the other side of the great firewall

I'm stoked to have the Founding Developer of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, on this episode. WordPress powers 30% of websites on the internet. WordPress isn’t just a blog software. It isn’t just a content management system or CMS. It’s an entire ecosystem and one that’s founded on the philosophy of open-source. If you come back through my blog posts and articles, you’ll see that I have been an advocate for WordPress since it was founded in 2003. It powers a great many of my sites to this day. To be a part of something that has touched so many people is an achievement in it itself. Matt is also an entrepreneur and the Founder of Automattic, who you may know as the creators of WooCommerce, VaultPress, Akismet, Gravatar and more. Any business would be proud of that staple of products, but Matt is not motivated purely by profit. He is a passionate advocate of open-source software and his work is informed by a unique personal philosophy that is more about making the web and the world a better place. If you love WordPr