Shane Griffiths is an SEO and WordPress expert based in Seattle, WA. He is the co-founder of Clarity Online, a boutique SEO and WordPress development agency. By creating or rebuilding websites for SEO from the beginning, Clarity helps clients rank in Google and generate leads faster with less investment. Clarity uses a collaborative, data-driven approach to problem-solving to achieve quick wins aligned with long-term strategy.

• CEO Hack: Staying disciplined, writing a daily checklist and to-do list
• CEO Nugget: Don't make SEO now, show up for people and search engines
• CEO Defined: Deciding what your company stands for

Website: https://clarity-online.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clarity-online/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/clarity_online
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clarityonlinemarketing/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clarityonlinemarketing/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKvlNaSbOlpP4XHoa4RKX3w?view_as=subscriber

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FULL INTERVIEW

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:30.10] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Shane Griffiths of Clarity Online. Shane, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:39.79] – Shane Griffiths

Hey. Thanks for having me, Gresh.

[00:00:41.79] – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Shane so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Shane is an SEO and WordPress expert based in Seattle, Washington. He is the co-founder of Clarity Online, an SEO and WordPress development agency. By creating or rebuilding websites for SEO from the beginning, Clarity helps clients rank in Google and generate leads faster with less investment. Clarity uses a collaborative, data-driven approach to problem-solving to achieve quick wins aligned with a long-term strategy. Shane, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:17.70] – Shane Griffiths

Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:01:18.90] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to kinda go back in time and and hear more about what I call your CEO story. We'll let you get started with your business.

[00:01:27.90] – Shane Griffiths

Cool. Yeah. So I'd say my CEO story started out when I was quite young. So my dad was an entrepreneur. So I grew up working for him, you know, in kind of a machine shop type of environment. So I kinda learned the ropes from him. And, when I was thirteen, I actually started my first business doing computer repair. So that's kinda when I got my toes in the water per se. From there at nineteen, I started my second business doing kinda creative graphic design, web design, and any kind of marketing stuff I could kinda teach myself how to do.

And that was kinda fun because I kinda learned how to you know, how business works, how to work with people, contracts, pricing, like, deliverables, all that stuff. That was at nineteen. And then a few years ago when I was twenty-six, I moved to Seattle and started, my current business, Clarity Online, with a business partner. And what we do is SEO mostly, SEO and and web design. And, yeah, I couldn't be happier out here. Lots of opportunities, and I've really been able to grow my business and grow myself professionally.

[00:02:44.30] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. It's great to kinda hear, that you have that entrepreneurial bug, so to speak, and sounds like it it claimed through the bloodline, and and you are able to kinda build and grow and see opportunities. But it also sounds like, you've been able to kinda do it from your, I guess, your talents, your expertise, and your interest, it sounds like as well.

[00:03:04.00] – Shane Griffiths

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, it was cool kinda starting out, just doing whatever I could figure out how to do. But over time, I learned, you know, the saying, jack of all trades, master of none. Mhmm. And I also my latest venture, I really learned how to specialize, and that's when things took off for me.

[00:03:21.90] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. So I know you touched a little bit upon, you know, what you're doing with clients. Could you take us through that, what that process looks like, and how you serve the clients you work with?

[00:03:31.69] – Shane Griffiths

Yeah. So, at Clarity online, we work with all different types of businesses from, you know, small retail, like, hair salons and, and local service area businesses to larger, like, nonprofits and, enterprise companies. We use a data-driven approach, so we're very insight-based. We analyze and crunch a lot of data from, clients' websites and competitors to kinda figure out where the holes are. And then from there, we develop a strategy to fill the holes and then outperform competitors. So we offer services ranging from SEO consulting where we work with, like, an in-house team to kinda like we do some, they do some very collaborative approach to a hands-on. We do a strategy implementation, everything. And, basically, like, our goal is to deliver value and help grow, grow a company.

[00:04:30.30] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that, and I love how you have those different options because, I'm sure that you have experienced, you know, clients that have different needs, and being able to kinda be, I guess, flexible would be the right word to what the client needs to be able to help them hit that goal and, of course, you know, achieve that value that you reference as well.

[00:04:49.39] – Shane Griffiths

Yeah. Absolutely. Flexibility is key. Yeah.

[00:04:53.89] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. I would say, definitely in this industry, but obviously in all industries and in technology especially has, you know, changed, and obviously, so many other things that are happening as well. So, truly appreciate that. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, and it could be for yourself personally or your business. But what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:05:17.00] – Shane Griffiths

So I'd say our secret sauce is we look at SEO as a platform or as a foundation. So there are a few different ways to look at SEO, and it can be kinda difficult to differentiate it if you don't understand it. But if you look at some of the most successful companies, and websites on the Internet like Amazon, Yelp, and Zillow, they all used SEO as a foundation for their business. So they started with SEO and then designed the product around that. By doing that, you can do leaps and bounds more successfully than your competitors, as opposed to doing SEO afterward. So that's kind of what we try to do. We either build websites from the ground up or rebuild websites from the ground up with that SEO foundation and platform in place so that everything else the company does is going to be successful.

[00:06:16.30] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. And I don't know if this is why, but do you feel like because when you have that foundation or you're taking that approach with that foundation in mind, you're also more cognizant of it? Because how you talked about it before, how sometimes people will say, oh, we need to do SEO, like it's kind of an afterthought. It becomes an afterthought in everything you're doing with the business as well.

[00:06:37.60] – Shane Griffiths

Exactly. Yeah. So SEO isn't isn't just, you know, having somebody go on and add keywords to a page. It's really a mindset. So by, like, instilling that mindset in the entire organization, you can just be incredibly more successful than taking other approaches.

[00:06:57.30] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. No. I love that perspective and that and that mindset as you talked about in that mentality, understanding, you know, how integral it can be. As you referenced, some pretty successful companies had that same mentality and have been able to blossom as a result. So definitely appreciate that, secret sauce. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:07:26.39] – Shane Griffiths

Yes. So I'd say my my CEO hack is pretty old school, but it's all about staying disciplined because that's been what's what's really made me successful individually and as a business owner. But my biggest tool to do that is pen and paper and writing myself a daily checklist. So every single day, I make a list of what I wanna get done today. I prioritize it. And as I go through the day, I cross it off. And doing that just keeps me focused on the task. It lets me know what's important. And then before I go to bed every night, I make a new list for the next morning. So that way I'm prepared to wake up, know exactly what has to be done, and can just stay disciplined and and focused.

[00:08:13.39] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I and I think, I don't know if you find the same thing, like, when you're running a business especially, you often want to have that kind of bookends at the end of the day and the beginning of the day because a lot of times you can start going through your day, putting out fires, and doing a bunch of different things. But if you have that kind of quote-unquote North Star, or you have that checklist of this is what I wanna accomplish, it helps you to direct yourself, helps you to get back focused. And I think it also helps, you know, teams and and and and people as well to be able to understand, like, what page you're on and what you're actually executing on.

[00:08:46.29] – Shane Griffiths

Yeah. I agree.

[00:08:48.29] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It could be around SEO or around, WordPress development, or it might be something if you were to hop in a time machine, you would tell your younger business self.

[00:09:04.50] – Shane Griffiths

Yeah. So this is, kinda similar to the secret sauce, but, my CEO's nugget is don't make SEO an afterthought. So organizations even before the Internet have been doing SEO, and those that have have been more successful than those who haven't. So if you think about the days of the Yellow Pages, you know, you'll see so many businesses that were ABC plumbing. Right? AZ Locksmith. The reason they do that is that, well, when people wanna find a plumber or locksmith, they open the Yellow Pages, and that's the first thing you see that's left listed alphabetically. So with SEO, it's kind of the same thing.

So if you think about your website, I'd say the worst thing you could do is have one page called services. Right? Because nobody searches for services. If you're a window company, they're gonna search for, you know, window replacement and then a city, or they might search for a brand of windows. So whatever specific services or products, your company offers, you wanna have a page for each one because that's how people search. And on top of that, the buying journey has changed a lot where previously people might call you and ask you a bunch of questions to kind of vet you as a company.

Now they they use Google to find all those things out. So if you're, like, in a sales role and you commonly talk to leads or prospects and they have, you know, a certain set of questions they tend to ask you, those are all questions that people are actually googling. So they're gonna Google to find those answers. And if you don't have them, if you don't wanna list your pricing or you don't wanna answer those questions on your website, they're gonna keep searching till they find someone who does. So the best thing you could do is answer those questions preemptively on your website, and that will kinda close the, you know, help them complete their research and see you as a credible source and then likely, you know, become a lead.

[00:11:08.79] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I absolutely love that, and I love, you know, you mentioning that, the people are doing SEO before the Internet, and I think so many times, we might hear our people reference SEO not really understanding the kinda, like, the psychology of it, which is what I love that you went into because you're trying to basically be where somebody is searching for. So once you understand that, you're able to kinda, like Wayne Gretzky says, skate to where the puck is and, skate to where the puck is gonna be. So if you understand where the puck is gonna be and you're there by not having that service page, by having the Windows service page as your reference, then you have that opportunity to be where your potential clients are gonna be.

[00:11:49.50] – Shane Griffiths

Yeah. It's all about showing up when people are searching. So, yeah, definitely just analyze the psychology, figure out what the intent is, and reverse engineer it from there.

[00:11:59.79] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. I love that, obviously, you guys do that, and definitely on a deeper level, you've been able to kinda teach us as well too. So now, I wanna ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So, Shane, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:12:18.20] – Shane Griffiths

Being a CEO to me means getting to decide what your company stands for. So your company can stand for just about whatever you decide it to. I decided that my company should stand for quality, good service, and transparency. So as a CEO and as a leader, I practice those. Those are values, that I appreciate in other businesses I work with. And by leading by example, I get to make my company, essentially practice what I preach, and all of the employees and and contractors and everybody who works with my company all kinda share the same mindset, and, therefore, that's what my company becomes.

[00:13:06.29] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. And I think so many times we forget that kind of, like, the mindset or the culture of, you know, your company kind of starts with you and what you hold true. And especially when you're your founding CEO, you started a business or an organization, when you realize you want certain, principles or values and you hold them to be most important, you have the ability to do that. But not only that, you start to attract those same people that do have them or sometimes push away those people that don't have them because they don't align, whether that be clients or customers or obviously, team members as well. So I love that perspective and that definition because it's holistic, and it starts where a lot of things start, which is with us and what we wanna accomplish.

[00:13:48.89] – Shane Griffiths

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Getting everybody aligned is super important to delivering, you know, a consistent brand, a consistent message, and then keeping that throughout the longevity of your company.

[00:14:00.29] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. No. I appreciate that so much, Shane, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional. You can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you guys are working on.

[00:14:16.60] – Shane Griffiths

Sure. Yeah. I'd say, when it comes to SEO, just don't make it an afterthought. If you're gonna build a new website, please bring in an SEO consultant or do some research yourself before you start that because you will save so much money as opposed to having to go in and try to, you know, fix it, so to speak. Like, SEO is really a foundation of a house. It's not an addition you put on at the end. So, yeah, with that in mind, just do some research, and you should be much more successful by getting people to your website for free as opposed to having to pay for advertising afterward. If you wanna reach out to me, you can reach me at clarity dash online dot com, or by email at Shane, s h a n e, at clarity dash online dot com.

[00:15:08.50] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much again, Shane. We will have the links and information in the show notes, but I appreciate you for hammering that home too. SEO is definitely, you know, that afterthought is an integral part as a foundation, as you said, to everything that you're doing. And I think when you approach it more like that in so in terms of, like, building the house, as you said, and that foundation rather than kind of, like, the cherry on the top, so to speak, I think you can have a lot more success and see a lot more of, desired results, which is what we all wanna do.

[00:15:36.29] – Shane Griffiths

Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:15:38.29] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, and have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:15:39.89] – Shane Griffiths

Cool. Thank you, Gresham. You too. Thanks for having me.

[00:15:44.20] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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