IAM2203 – The Importance of Utilizing SEO when Creating Content

Title: Transcript - Mon, 12 Aug 2024 03:32:16 GMT

Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2024 03:32:16 GMT, Duration: [00:16:50.63]

[00:00:00.40] - Gresham Harkless

Google already has data that shows that people are already searching for things. So before you hit enter and you see that there's a list of different, you know, questions or different things that you're searching for and it could be related to speaking, you probably have content related to blog posts that you can create based off some of those questions because a lot of people are looking for that. So those are just some, you know, quick and, you know, easy ways just by, you know, already knowing the questions that you have. But the whole idea of SEO is working backwards and saying, okay. I serve this client. They have this problem. How do I create the content to attract those people so that they know that I can be a solution to their problems?

[00:00:33.60] - Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast, and I wanted to share with you one of the episodes that I was a guest on for someone else's podcast. I always talk about how important it is to build a media company. One of the next best things you could do is be on somebody else's media company.

[00:00:48.29] - Gresham Harkless

So I had the pleasure of being

[00:00:49.79] - Gresham Harkless

a guest on this podcast, and I wanted to share a little snippet with you because it would help support the eight business pillars we've really been trying to focus on with a lot more of our content and a lot more of the solo episodes that I'm doing. So make sure, of course, that you subscribe to our podcast, but, of course, you take some time out. Check out the show notes to Subscribe to the podcast that I've been featured on as well too, and get to learn about some of those eight business pillars and how you can continue to kinda leverage and build that up so you can go from builder to architect to, of course, rock star and luminary. So this is Greg signing out. I hope you enjoy this I am CEO special episode.

[00:01:26.20] - Gresham Harkless

First of all, that got me out of my comfort zone, but I think it's also kinda reframing fear, reframe reframing the the the, I guess, uncomfortableness around, you know, public speaking or just any what your anything that your fears might be. And I took, like, kinda small steps towards, you know, facing that fear and realizing that the thing that I built up in my head wasn't as much as it seems. And even as you, you know, you sometimes you, you know, you might freeze at this point. Your heart might be beating like crazy when you're speaking and but you're still able to do it and you're still able to make an impact. It starts to, I think, lessen the the power of that fear. So I think, you know, to answer your question, definitely that public speaking class was a huge help. But I think just gradually over time, I just try to really face any fear that I might have, whether it be, you know, going to talk to a girl or, you know, just all those things that you build up in your head and you can't face it, that you start to realize that it's not as big as it seems, unless you, you know, you you go through and tackle it.

[00:02:24.40] - Philip Sessions

I like that. And it's so true that any fear you have, as long as you just go into it, well, you build it up so much more in our head. And I actually heard a little bit different story there, but, that I'm about to share on a podcast. Somebody was talking about that a lot of people struggle with visualization, but the funny thing is we visualize so much, especially in fearful situations of what's gonna happen. So we can't say that we don't know how to visualize on a positive perspective such as, like, what's gonna happen in our lives or how our life's gonna look in ten years from now because we can do that so well when we're thinking about, I've gotta have this tough conversation with my wife or, man, I just spent this money. Oh, man. This she's gonna do all these things. She's gonna kill me, all all sorts of stuff. And you're visualizing all this, so just totally different thought there. But, yeah, we just need to go ahead and go through with it because whatever we can imagine is gonna happen usually isn't as bad as what will happen. And this it's almost the opposite when we do overcome that fear and actually do that work, it's actually almost greater what happens to us than we think will happen as well, which is also interesting.

[00:03:37.09] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I'll definitely echo that and and say that's so true. And and, you know, there's I don't know what the percentage is, but, you know, we sometimes can have those negative doomsday thoughts and and, you know, if we can take that power and kinda push it towards something that can actually benefit us and propel us forward, then I imagine, you know, there's so many phenomenal things that we can all ultimately end up doing so much better.

[00:03:57.90] - Philip Sessions

Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. So I wanna get back to the how the transition from childhood where you were writing these things, and you said I guess you were actually selling subscriptions. So you technically were making money off of this, but how did you go from that, we'll call it little boy job to big boy job where you were actually making money from doing blog posts or things related around blog posts? Because I don't know if your blogs are necessarily making money or not. So you could share that with us if you if you want. But how did you go to using blogs to help you actually make big boy money in quotes?

[00:04:33.10] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it's definitely a lot of years, you know, between then, you know, that was, like, when I was ten. You know, I was in college, like, you know, facing those fears and kinda reframing those fears when I was around, you know, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, I guess you can say. And then it probably wasn't until, I would say, maybe twenty seven twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven or so that I started my business, so to speak. So Mhmm. I end up starting, a digital marketing company, Blue Sixteen Media, And a lot of that was just around realizing sometimes the gifts that you have, the things that you notice that other people wanna pay for. And I guess that big boy money, really started around then when I started to realize that, hey. People need help with things like creating content blogs and things like that. But, really, what was my kind of foothold in was actually SEO, which stands for search engine optimization. So it's really understanding what your target market is looking for and kind of working backwards from there. So the same thing that I was talking about when I was ten where I said I realized that, hey. If I said, hey. Tune back next next month to find out what's what happened with the squirrel that got into the grand my grandma's house were the same things that I started to realize that people were searching for. So if you have local businesses, they're searching for potentially, you know, what exactly you do, and they want you to kinda help provide a need a a service for what their their problems are. So that's the the kinda whole thing around SEO. And I started to really focus on that, and I met somebody in networking group, and that's when I started to, like, build that business. But along the same time, I was still doing the blogs, Seal Blog Nation, CB Nation, all those things, and really trying to understand more about business and entrepreneurship. And gradually over time, as I had two things that I was kinda holding on, I started to realize that part of, like, my marketing philosophy is around building your own media company, so to speak. And that's just really using content information. Just all these things we have at our fingertips to really connect you with your ideal clients. So that's where things started to merge together where the blogs, the podcast became a way for me to network, became a way for me to build relationships, to create content that could help serve the clients that I was also trying to do to provide digital marketing services for. So I I would sound, you know, better if I said that I had this grand scheme and idea, but I started to really just think that, hey. If I wanna really grow Blue sixteen Media, I would probably invest in, you know, an entrepreneur magazine or do these things to try to connect with my target market. And, oh, by the way, I have been interviewing people. I have been reaching out to them. So the the main, you know, driver for that has definitely been, you know, being able to build more digital marketing clients. But there's also other things like affiliate links. You start to realize that there's more opportunities down the line, you know, once you start to build something. And that's kind of, like, you know, where I've kinda transitioned towards making the the adult money, I guess you could say.

[00:07:39.00] - Philip Sessions

Yeah. Well, awesome, man. I mean, it's it's it's a great thing. And I wanna ask a question, and this is a little selfishly, but it will help other people as well. So say that I'm working to help people get on stage. That's what I'm doing is helping people find ways to get on stage. What could I do from, you know, SEO marketing perspective to help get my name out there without me literally talking to every single person in their DMs. Like, hey. You knew you wanna get on stage? How can I help you get on stage? So what are some things that I can do and others can do within their but I'm using me specifically just to have a specific example to be able to get that message out, to be able to get in front of the right people.

[00:08:19.10] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I think one of the best exercises and this is really, like, a really good way to figure out, like, sometimes what your content strategy will be, your content, calendar will look like, is think about the things that people ask you on a regular basis related to speaking. I love the intro question that you have for this show and just really understanding, you know, how people got over that fear because there's such probably a stigma, and you would know better than anybody around, like, public speaking. So I'm sure that, you know, people may not come to you and say, hey, how do I get over the fear necessarily? But they might search on their devices when nobody else is around, when they, you know, they're just by themselves knowing that this is is something that they wanna do, but they want to, figure out how to kinda get over that. So those questions, you know, what are the the different ways that I can get my name out there, you know, prior to public speaking? Do I need to have a book to to be a public speaker? Just all these questions that you probably hear on a regular basis, that's really, really great blog content because people are actually searching, you know, for that, specific, you know, information. And if you're able to create the content and attract people to those different blog posts typically that are gonna, you know, help you to to rank higher, but also to help people get the solution they're looking for. That's gonna be really great way to to kind of attract people. But another great, like, kind of, you know, insider tip is that if you ever go into Google, and I don't know if you go into Google where you're like, I'm looking for x y and z. You start typing in two of maybe the the seven words that you wanna type in, and Google completes it for you. The reason for that is because Google already has data that shows that people are already searching for things. So before you hit enter and you see that there's a list of different, you know, questions or different things that you're searching for and it could be related to speaking, you probably have content related to blog posts that you can create based off some of those questions because a lot of people are looking for that. So those are just some, you know, quick and, you know, easy ways just by, you know, already knowing the questions that you have. But the whole idea of SEO is working backwards and saying, okay. I serve this client. They have this problem. How do I create the content to attract those people so that they know that I can be a solution to their problems?

[00:10:31.00] - Philip Sessions

Nice. I love it. I'm over here, like, taking some notes real quick on that because, that's that's perfect. Definitely go and figure out what those questions that people normally ask, and that's actually why I put how do you get over the fear of public speaking because I wanna hear those different perspectives from people to let the audience know, hey. If you've got that fear, that's usually the very first question. How do I get over that fear of public speaking for people that have not been in in the public speaking sector at all? And, yeah, I like that. Go into Google and type in a couple of the keywords, if you will. And then looking at that list and really taking that list, and that's the note I put was take that list and create blogs around that, create around that because, clearly, Google knows what people are searching, which is kinda creepy, but also the cool thing, a good thing for people that are trying to create business online around that. So I wanna ask the the next question I wanna ask is around, HARO and everything, and that's how we met actually. One of my mentors in Apex, Ryan Steumann, he's the one that he always pushes for people to be able to build their presence is to get on get published on things such as HARO and obviously getting on podcast and being on social media and all that stuff. And we actually connected through HARO because of your CB CB Nation blog, and so I've been on your podcast. And we finally rarely get you on mine. We've both been very busy with that. But how does all that work? And I know you we mentioned offline about a couple other ones. So I'd love for you to share what HARO is, which is help a reporter out, and how that works and how that could help other people grow their businesses.

[00:12:06.89] - Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And, you know, part of, you know, what I talk about a lot is really, you know, building your own media company, and that's really, like, leveraging the different social media tools, podcast, blogs, whatever it is that you decide as part of your your your recipe to help you to get to, you know, whatever it is that you're trying to do. If you're a speaker, how are you going to really build up your brand so that you can, you know, be and attract people to come to you for these stages so that you can, you know, speak on. So in the same vein, I always say, if you don't decide that you wanna build a media company or or even as you're building a media company, jump on other people's their own media companies. And I say all that to say that's kind of like the whole impetus of and the idea behind HARO, help a reporter out. It's basically journalists who are creating content and are looking for sources to try to help it to help publish their content. So I've been using HARO basically on both sides. So I've been featured on sites, and I've also been, you know, a a publisher of content. So I've been on, you know, Fox Business News and, you know, all these different publications, Reader's Digest, largely because I've used HARO and I've submitted my expertise and been published by the writers that were looking for that content. So the really big opportunity is that and this also really ties in with SEO because it gets you high quality backlinks. It gets you that reputation. If you can say I've been featured on this place, this place, this place, and they're all reputable, that just builds your overall presence so that somebody's more likely to wanna invite you on their stage because you've been featured in, you know, a, b, and c in in in these different places. So the the really great thing about HARO is that there's different, journalists that are writing content, and they're usually from really higher ranking sites as well too. So you can't just join HARO typically by having and building a site and and saying, hey, I I I just posted a site yesterday. I wanna, you know, publish on HARO. What happens is there has to be a high and and I think it's over a million Alexa ranking. And all that basically means is that your site is not just any site. It's actually a site that has a high ranking, that has a a decent amount of traffic before you as a journalist can publish on, on on HARO. So I say all that to say that you will also have the opportunity if you're published to get published on higher ranking sites. So you just wanna really, you know, take the time to go through the questions, to to know your expertise, your knowledge, your genius, figure out what questions that you can provide answers to and how you can potentially get published, but you wanna continue to kinda do that. But it it's a tremendous opportunity and there's some other kind of, you know, clones or offshoots or or sites that I can mention that do that as well too. But Harold's one of the really big ones and the ones that I I've we've been leveraging for years.

[00:14:53.00] - Philip Sessions

I like that. And I'm just thinking for myself, and I'm sure a lot of audience is thinking like, hey. I probably could use this. This sounds like a great idea to be able to help get content out around my niche topic. But I'm not like CB Nation where I have that credibility. I have all those eyes on my website. So is there a way for us to start doing that to be able to get up to that point where we have the credibility to be a journalist source on something like HARO?

[00:15:20.79] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And absolutely. And and you have a way to join HARO in two different ways. You can join as a journalist or you can join as kinda like an expert or contributor. So there's essentially two different paths on the, I guess, the yellow brick road that you can decide which way you're going to go. So as a contributor, you don't have to have the the cache, so to speak. You don't have to have the level, the traffic, all those things to be a contributor. You can be a contributor right now and and today, and it's basically free to join. You just have to, you know, fill out and create an account, and you'll start getting at least three to four, I believe, emails directly sent to you that'll allow you to start submitting to these journalists. And these journalists, these sites typically have to have a higher rankings for you to be published. So you have if you have the expert, you have the knowledge and you know that you know x y and z, whatever that might be asked, then you can go ahead and start submitting today.

[00:16:15.00] - Philip Sessions

Well, awesome.

[00:16:16.29] - Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh again, and I hope you enjoyed that special episode of the I am CEO podcast. Just like I mentioned in the beginning, we're really trying to laser focus on these eight pillars to show you as a builder how you can leverage these eight pillars and really level up there so it helps to level up your business and organization. So hope you enjoyed this episode, and definitely please check out the show notes so you can learn more about the pillar, learn more about the person that I guested on their episode, and, of course, learn more a little bit more about us as well too. This is Grass signing out. Hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.