S5E23
· 50:12
Hi. It's Matt. Welcome to Money Lab. Let's talk about SEO. I've been obsessing, for lack of a better word, over what SEO is anymore.
Matt Giovanisci:You know, if you look I mean, I I mean, look. The helpful content update came out in September, and, you know, it's really tough for me to admit, and it's also tough for me to accept, is that our traffic at Swim University is down. Now it's down significantly. Probably the worst it's been in 5 years, So that's pretty insane. That's pretty bad.
Matt Giovanisci:Now what does that mean, and what are what are my ideas to combat this? So when I looked at it, I'm like, okay. It's it's really hard because I can see from organic traffic, you know, and actually our traffic in in analytics, like, traffic is down. Now we are we are also in our lowest point of the season normally, but I'm always comparing our I'm always comparing our numbers to the previous year. And so, like, the other thing we have to worry we have to think about too is that the pandemic so from 2020 to basically 2022 was the best 3 years or best 2 years in the pool industry I think the pool industry has ever seen, and the hot tub industry, basically, the stay at home industry.
Matt Giovanisci:So what's nuts about that is now I am constantly the the, you know, the question is, am I back to normal? Because I'm not because if I'm comparing year over year now, we've had 2, you know, up 3 really weird years for specifically for my industry to compare it to. The same industry, by the way, that I also run brewcabin.com, which is a home brewing website, and we saw the same thing. In fact, there is such a ridiculous thing happening now in the beer industry, more prevalent than the pool industry. It's actually been reversed.
Matt Giovanisci:So let me explain. And this is just what I'm seeing anecdotally. I have no data to support this, but I'm just in these worlds and I see it. So what happens is, you know, beer is really popular pre pandemic, where we we had this new style of beer that took over, which is the New England IPA. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:The hazy IPA. All of a sudden, women start drinking this beer. People who don't like beer are drinking beer now because it tastes like juice. It tastes sweet. It's not, you know, it's not your granddad's beer.
Matt Giovanisci:So this this is happening. Then so we're having a huge boom in in home brewing. Right right not home brewing. Sorry. In beer.
Matt Giovanisci:Right before the pandemic. Pandemic hits. All of a sudden, all the breweries are closed. So guess what ticks up? Homebrewing.
Matt Giovanisci:Homebrewing sees a surge in popularity, obviously. K? Now the pandemic's, you know, essentially over. It's 2024. And what happened?
Matt Giovanisci:Two things. Homebrewing dropped like a rock. In fact, it was starting to drop last year in 2023. Dropped. People just not Homebrew anymore because now the breweries are open.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay? That's pretty obvious. But here's the other problem is that I you know, again again, this is anecdotally, but a lot of people just went you know, we're in this other sort of renaissance period of alcohol where alcohol, specifically beer, is not as popular as it was pre pandemic and during the pandemic. During the pandemic, coping mechanism, whatever you wanna call it, post pandemic, I gotta get my shit together. You know?
Matt Giovanisci:Dry January is huge this year in 2024. Right? So a huge dry January. Everyone's doing it. People are just stopping.
Matt Giovanisci:They're stopping drinking. NA beers are coming out. Seltzers are coming out. Not seltzer, not alcoholic seltzer, but just pop seltzer, flavored seltzer, things to replace the alcoholic beverages of the past. And people who really didn't like beer, like, I feel like I'm a different person.
Matt Giovanisci:I love all beer all the time. So when New England IPA came out, I'm like, great. I know their style. I also like it, but I didn't I didn't get I'm not tired of beer. A lot of people were like, oh, New England IPA.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm tired of this style because they didn't really like beer to begin with. So what happens is now they're like, alright. Well, I'm not really a drinker, so I'm just gonna drink nonalcoholic stuff. All the breweries now, the big ones, they were doing seltzer, now they're doing NA. Now that's the new trend.
Matt Giovanisci:So home brewing dropped like a rock, beer itself dropped like a rock. Breweries closing left and right. K? New era. Similar thing happened in the pool industry, but it took a different turn.
Matt Giovanisci:So, you know, pool industry has always been kind of like you know, it's fine. It's always been this thing. We had a really big year in 2004, and then before that, you know, I didn't really keep track of it. But 2020 and 2021, holy shit, because people were building pools. Because they're like, we don't know when this thing's gonna end.
Matt Giovanisci:And and they might be small pools. They could have been hot tubs. They could have been, stock tank pools, you know, those cowboy pools, whatever you wanna call them. But what regardless, like, so many pools were built in those years. K?
Matt Giovanisci:So many people stayed at home and took care of their pools. We saw a huge last couple years. Now I think that's very late to the game, but what we what I so I have a friend of mine who went to CES, which is the consumer electronics show in Vegas, and he's just texting me, like, look at all of these robotic pool cleaner displays at CES. And I'm like, that's 2 is too many. 2 is way too many.
Matt Giovanisci:1, I'm like, okay. Well, I know of one that's there. He's like, no. No. No.
Matt Giovanisci:No. There's, like, 10 of these motherfuckers. It's like, oh, okay. Wait. And this is all happening in 2024?
Matt Giovanisci:I go, I think they're all late to the game. So they're all inventing these robots with these pools because now there are more pools, but there's just, like, so much money going around in this field, but just, you know, people are back to normal. People are traveling. So here's my here's what I think is gonna happen. We could be in what is an overcorrection period.
Matt Giovanisci:2024 could be an overcorrection period. In the sense, let's think about beer. People stop drinking beer, they miss going to breweries, they're just like, I'm not having fun anymore. What's going on? You know?
Matt Giovanisci:So they start going back to breweries, and then people who dump their hobby, their home brewing hobby, or just gave up on it because maybe of health reasons, maybe of, you know, breweries open back up, whatever, they're gonna be like they're gonna feel less fulfilled, and then it's gonna come back. Not at its peak, like it was during the pandemic, for both for both industries. It's not gonna come back, but it'll come it'll restabilize to what it was, you know, pre pandemic, but we're in an overcorrection period. I think we are also in an overcorrection period for SEO. Chat gpt was all the rage 2023.
Matt Giovanisci:K? That's when Bard came out, Google's AI, and they're testing this. They're putting this Bard in our in our chats, which I which I was saying, well, you know, soon as I saw chat gbt, I'm like, what's Google for? And a lot of people in the SEO space went, wait a minute, Matt. Pump your brakes because, you know, Google's got a business model that they gotta you know, they're not just gonna dump a bunch of people.
Matt Giovanisci:Guess what they fucking did? Yeah. September 2023, they dumped a bunch of people. Okay? And all of a sudden, you start to see this rise in Reddit, Quora, all these, like, what the hell sites are are doing well, but these established sites are doing horrible?
Matt Giovanisci:What's going on here? And now people are just giving up. They're like, oh, SEO's dead. We're not this is not a thing anymore. Or that would be like me saying home brewing's dead.
Matt Giovanisci:No one's home brewing anymore. Beer is dead. No one's drinking beer anymore. No. We're in an overcorrection period.
Matt Giovanisci:The true players of this game will hold and stick the course, stay the course. It this is this shit happens constantly. Now it's been a long time since I've seen such a hit on the industry. We're talking probably all the way back in 2,007, 2008. It was, like, the last really big hit that we saw, and that was a that was a, that's the, helpful content update.
Matt Giovanisci:That's what that was. There was an overcorrection, and then a lot of people just stopped doing SEO, just stopped building their businesses because they relied 100% on this traffic as their as their lead source. That happened. That's happened many times, but it's but that one was the biggest one, 20 2007, 2008. We're seeing it again.
Matt Giovanisci:Overcorrection period, so it will come back. And that's the thing is that whether you're in in home brewing or in beer or in any industry that saw a huge surge during the pandemic and a huge drop when it was over, quote, unquote, you, 1, you better figure out your business model. If you, during those times, were just spending like crazy because times were good. Let's spend. Let's let's let's grow the business.
Matt Giovanisci:What you weren't expecting was the inevitable dip that always comes after a growth period. So here we are. Alright? It's really it's really easy and cynical to just say, I'm done. This is it.
Matt Giovanisci:SEO sucks. It's dead. Fuck Google, all the things you wanna say. You can have those feelings, but the true players of the game, the true investors in this world stay the course. In fact, they may even double down, which is exactly what I'm doing.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm saying, you know what? Instead of me cowering, instead of me going, I need to diversify. I need to stop relying on Google. It's, like, sure. You absolutely should have been diversified this whole time.
Matt Giovanisci:Why you were relying on one source, I don't know. Maybe you were just getting started. But here's the here's the here's the hard truth, is that that's that happened to me already. In 2007, 2008, I was 100% in on SEO. That was my entire focus, and then it hit, and I lost all my traffic.
Matt Giovanisci:And I went, well, what a lesson to be learned here. A lesson in you can't let the big companies dictate your business. That that sucks. Right? You can do 1 of 2 things.
Matt Giovanisci:You play the game, and you play the game for the long term, or you pay, meaning you pay to play their game, which is also fine, but you better have a business model that supports that. And I think in 2008 is when I shifted my business model. I went, you know what? I'm gonna start creating my own products because I can't rely on Google traffic. I need to have a product to sell people.
Matt Giovanisci:I need another way to get to get visitors. Alright? That's where we are. Now what am I doing in this post, you know, helpful content update world? One one, I'm sick of hearing about it because it happened.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? I had a tweet once that was like that somebody pointed me out because they had looked at my website and they went, if his website didn't stand the chance during this update, none of us did, which, yeah, I agree because my website was 100% written by human beings, me, not not me the whole time, but a lot of it was me. I'm the author. I have credibility. My website's super fast.
Matt Giovanisci:I have topic authority. I've been in the in I've been in the game. My my domain has been registered since 2004, 2006 under my name. I have that shit on lock for the next 10, 15 years. So I followed every white hat every white hat thing possible.
Matt Giovanisci:And yet, here's what's interesting about it. I wasn't penalized for the main keywords, and that's really interesting. When I look at because I keep track of my ranking for every keyword I rank for, every primary keyword, And I didn't really see a big drop anywhere. Like, I didn't see my visibility tank. I'm like, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:The the main keywords that I've always ranked for, I've I'm still number 1. So it's not like I dropped, but but what I haven't looked at and what I don't would be tough to to figure out is did I drop for all the long tail stuff? And I think that that's what happened is that I was getting a lot of traffic from the long tail, from the nuance. Right? The and what's happening with that is the more specific your question, I think the more Google's trying to figure out what's relevant there.
Matt Giovanisci:My content isn't relevant because it's not titled that. It's it's it's a it's a big piece of content, and that was always my strategy is it was my moonshot strategy, which was shoot for the moon, land in the stars is where it comes from. That doesn't actually make sense astrologically. But the idea being that you you try really hard to rank for the big keyword, And in the effort of doing so, you will rank for all of the small long tail keywords that are associated with it. I don't think that that game can be played anymore.
Matt Giovanisci:I think what you now have to do is you have to write you have to basically create the stars as well. So one article isn't gonna rank for a ton of keywords anymore. It's you're gonna have to come up with those individual keywords because here's the new reality. Any asshole can can go into chat GPT, type in a keyword, and say, write me a 25 100 word article on this topic and hit publish without editing or anything. And a lot of those sites are ranking.
Matt Giovanisci:And the thing is is Google doesn't know what to do with that yet. And maybe they do know, maybe they've already figured it out, but it's taking this system a long time to recalibrate. Whatever the case is, I'm speculating here. But, okay. So now anybody can do that.
Matt Giovanisci:Well, what's gonna happen is, which is I mean, this is why we have e e a t. That's why we added the extra e. The extra e is experience. So the first e, it was just e a t, eat. The first e was expertise.
Matt Giovanisci:And it's like, okay. Well, what's expertise? What does that mean? It it means, am I an expert in this? Well, how do you prove you're an expert in anything?
Matt Giovanisci:Well, now ChatGPT is an expert in anything because it's got the entire Internet at its fingertips. So it's essentially Google. So what makes you an expert? Experience. But how do you how do you tell Google that, hey, man.
Matt Giovanisci:I have experience. You literally have to say it, and you have to give proof. And I think there was this there was a study done. There was this article written a while back, which I loved, and I used to cite it all the time. It was on range ranker or something like that.
Matt Giovanisci:I forget. I believe the guy's name was Mort, who wrote it. Don't quote me on that. But the whole idea was Google had this profiler, and it probably still does. And the idea was it's like, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:Google can object like, look at your whole shit, your whole website, your whole brand, look at it all and go, what is this? Is this trustworthy? Is this good to go? What is this? Right?
Matt Giovanisci:And that was a new like, a bunch of different factors. If you were a human being and you were to look at a website, you could very quickly figure out that if this site was worth anything. You'd be like, oh, k. It loads fast. It's good branding.
Matt Giovanisci:They seem to know what they're talking about. There's an author. He's got experience, whatever it is. I it's easy to find stuff. Search bar worked.
Matt Giovanisci:This site's great. Thumbs up. Stick that in the vault. So, obviously, Google is not gonna hire a bunch of human beings to go and objectively look at a bunch of websites. They're gonna build what is essentially an AI that does that, which is their algorithm.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? Well, now what? So how would you know even as a human being if you went on a website and all the content, it might have been really well branded, but everything could have been faked, because how the fuck would you know? Well, Google's got the same problem. So they have to come up with different they have to come up with new more nuanced ranking factors to figure it out, and I think that's where my sight slipped.
Matt Giovanisci:K? That's why I got thrown under the bus. Because one of the things I never did in my in all of my years of of building Sun University was I was not somebody going out and begging for backlinks. I I never went out and tried to build my authority that way because I was ranked number 1 for all the keywords. I have the biggest YouTube channel in the niche.
Matt Giovanisci:Google, hello, like, use that. I'm on the fucking videos. I'm a human being. I'm not AI. Figure that out.
Matt Giovanisci:But the one thing I didn't do is I didn't build links because I didn't need to. Links were coming organically because a journalist would search for something, there I was, and boom. And I was so adamant about people would email me and say, hey. Would you do an interview? No.
Matt Giovanisci:I don't have time for that shit. Like, go on my website, figure out. Missed I think that was a mistake, and I think I've learned you know, should I have been begging for backlinks the whole time? No. I think that that, you know, guest posting a bunch, no.
Matt Giovanisci:But I didn't open myself up to allow it because I didn't have time to. And one of the reasons I didn't have time to was I was running other brands, hence why I'm going back to just doing Swim University, and 2, I didn't really put my face out there. There was nobody to contact, and I didn't I didn't make it known and I didn't try. So I think as much as I hate this, as much as I think this sucks, I don't see another path forward. I don't see how you can do the future of SEO without backlinks now.
Matt Giovanisci:Now, again, when I say backlinks, I wasn't actively, like, disavowing every link that came in. I just wasn't actively asking for links. I wasn't reaching out to websites and going, hey. Would you add Swim University to your list of resources? Or, hey.
Matt Giovanisci:Can I write a guest post on your blog about this topic? Or, hey, journalist. Like, yeah. I'm available for an interview, blah blah blah. Like, I wasn't actively doing any of those backlink building techniques.
Matt Giovanisci:Because, honestly, I thought that is a huge waste of time. Anytime that I publish something that was that was well written, it ranked. Why do I need a backlink? The backlinks were coming. They were coming organically because I was ranking for these things I was writing, but now that's not the case.
Matt Giovanisci:Now my backlink profile isn't bad, and my and my domain authority isn't bad, but it could be much better. And that's the thing is I'm thinking a lot more about SEO this way, old school, which is kinda weird. It's kinda weird. It's still it's still white hat, but it's a little weird. Now I'm looking for ways, and I've done episodes about this where I'm looking for ways to build backlinks, just basically opening myself up to more organic pursuits.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm still not gonna pay somebody to go out and email cold email a bunch of people exchanging links because that's happened. That happens all the time. No one wants that. That that looks poorly on me. There are more creative ways to do this, and it means getting myself out there and proving to the world and my audience that I am, in fact, a human being who knows what the hell he's talking about.
Matt Giovanisci:And I didn't do that before. I hid behind the brand. Yes. My face was on the articles, small. My face was on the thumbnails, but but and my voice was there and I was in some videos, but now I'm gonna be in every video.
Matt Giovanisci:And now I'm in every social media post, and it's my voice. I'm writing the articles in the first person now. We used to write the articles in the we in the third person. Why? Because we wanted to feel like a big company, but I feel like that's not what Google wants now.
Matt Giovanisci:Google wants human beings. Right? So how do you do like, it's the reason Reddit is ranking. But then again, that's my argument. It's like, yeah, Reddit's a big site.
Matt Giovanisci:But the people who are commenting and answering the questions, where's the vetting there? There is no vetting. So we're back to forum stuff. Again, I think it's an overcorrection because what's gonna happen? We go back to forums where people have to sort through a bunch of comments and figure out for themselves which comment is correct?
Matt Giovanisci:No. That's insane. I think you're gonna see a lot more stuff come out of Google once they figure it out. I think they're gonna see it this year. They're gonna give us more direction.
Matt Giovanisci:They've been vague about their recommendations. You know, they say, yeah, you can use AI, but it better be vetted. It's like, okay. Well, what does that even mean and how do you even know that? So some things that I'm I'm looking at.
Matt Giovanisci:I am looking at, for an from an SEO perspective, some changes that I'm making. 1, I am producing more content. We spent most of the pandemic not producing a lot of content. Maybe an article a week. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:Okay. That's fine. We gotta do more than that. It's the social media. It's a social media thing.
Matt Giovanisci:You gotta throw a bunch of shit at the wall, and it's gotta be good. Now so so more, I have to update my shit. Not you know, dates have been updated, things have been updated, but the feeling of the articles needs to change now. Again, they need to be written in the first person. They need to have more experience plugged into them, which is which is something that only I can do.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm the one with the experience. I can hire writers. They can interview me, and we can turn that into something. And that's something I'm certainly considering in order to just produce more content. But for at least the next 3 months, I am focused almost all of my time on writing articles and developing a super tight process.
Matt Giovanisci:Once that process is tight, then I believe I'll be able to have some help in that department. I will probably still be the person who writes the articles or at least dictates them and have someone else write and publish them. And then I will just be the person who over oversees it, over overlooks it, but that will save me time on what I have to do as a person, and then I'll be able to produce a lot more. So I'm probably gonna have to hire somebody who is like, I have to train a clone of me. I I don't wanna have to do that.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm hoping that this is why I'm giving myself, you know, pretty much the beginning of the season to go, alright. Are these articles that I'm writing that I'm improving the way that I think they should are they am I seeing change? Am I seeing growth? Are we coming back to life? And, again, will I have to wait until our our season kicks in?
Matt Giovanisci:Our season's not kicked in yet. And I and I'll get clearer answers as that happens. Right? I I believe that if we're publishing more consistently on YouTube, if we're publishing more consistently on social media platforms, we're promoting our new content, we're updating it, we're getting traffic ourselves without the help of Google. That will help Google.
Matt Giovanisci:And that just means creating as much content as humanly possible, and it's being smart about how to do that. We have a team of 3 people, and we are creating an insane amount of content right now, I think. I can I can personally I've been saying I can do 2 articles a week? I'm really doing 3. And that and that could be updating old articles and writing new ones, but I can do about 3.
Matt Giovanisci:New stuff, new images rewritten, re edited, adding personal experience, really thinking about the the the end user. Right? I'm I'm promoting those things on social media. We are we are creating reels, edited reels with a consistent brand. We're doing that every week, 3 times a week.
Matt Giovanisci:We're answering emails. We're answering comments. We're publishing YouTube videos. Like, we're the engine is moving, and I think the court's correction, you know, happened in September. By next September, I think we'll be fine.
Matt Giovanisci:We'll be back to normal. But the thing that I'm adding to that process that I just have to add, and I think I don't wanna do it, personally, but I gotta think of the whole site. I gotta think of the whole brand. What is it that I need? 1, regardless of of SEO, meaning Google SEO, I need customers.
Matt Giovanisci:That's how our business thrives. There is more than one way to get a customer. You know? We have our email list. That's ours.
Matt Giovanisci:We have all the social medias. We got TikToks. We got fake Facebook. We got Instagram. That's a new that's that's that's actually a new lead source for us.
Matt Giovanisci:We didn't have that last year. You know, we only started doing consistent, YouTube or sorry, consistent social media short form vertical videos, like, midsummer last year. And we've just con continually gotten better at it. And I think we're just gonna continually get better. We have ideas to test every month for the whole summer.
Matt Giovanisci:I would love to do even more. I would love to do a video every single day, and it is possible with our team. So that's a new to me, I'm looking at that. That's gonna be a new traffic source come spring, which is our big season. So that's that's gonna be new.
Matt Giovanisci:You know, we've always ran ads, but I'm getting better at it. And each year that I get better at running ads, you know, we'll be fine. The other thing I think that I have to play the other game I have to play, and, again, this only works if you have if you have customers and if you have if you get if your leads convert to customers, which is, alright, Google. You don't wanna rank me? I'll I'll pay to be number 1.
Matt Giovanisci:That's fine. It's fine. You know? If I'm not number 1 yet, organically, I'll pay for it. I don't know what other signals I gotta give them, but, hey.
Matt Giovanisci:If I, you know, if I gotta do it, I gotta do it. Not every article, obviously, but the ones that convert the best, yeah, for sure. Easy easy enough. Only because I know I could pay for it. And it also means making the site a lot more human a lot more human.
Matt Giovanisci:A lot of a lot of things we didn't do in the past. We were very much the the site that did illustrations. Now we do illustrations for our featured image, but I've been incorporating a lot more photography in our in our post, and this is something I mentioned about improving content. A lot more photography that we take that is that's exclusively ours. Well, you know, well SEOed, meaning the the JPEG name, the alt tag, all of that stuff.
Matt Giovanisci:More photos, more real world shit. It also means and I don't know. This is gonna be a tough one to figure out, but we can't do the review stuff anymore. We never reviewed products. Meaning, we never said, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:We're gonna do a review of this one product because we literally can't do it. By personally, I can't do it. But doesn't mean somebody on our team can't do it. So does that mean we're doing individual reviews? Perhaps.
Matt Giovanisci:Yeah. I think we have to. And we have a team now that's willing to do it. So it's like, okay. Let's let's start doing that.
Matt Giovanisci:But, honestly, that's only for affiliate money. That actually doesn't get us our customers. You know? Yeah. Affiliate money is fine, but it's not the best.
Matt Giovanisci:It affiliate money only really works when you have traffic. So if you don't have traffic, I'm like, well, I got other things I could do. You know? We have we have our we have our email list I can get. You know?
Matt Giovanisci:We can recommend things. They'll they'll trust us. Google doesn't have to trust us. Does that make sense? It's like, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:If I think that this cleaner is the best, because I've just been in the industry, I could just tell, I just know, and this is the one I would buy, I can send that email out and be like, this is the one I'd buy. And everybody would be like, okay. I I believe you because we're on your email list. We already trust you. So we don't have to go out and do that review, but we will.
Matt Giovanisci:But, again, there's other ways to get sales and traffic. And I think that's the the real the real thing here is, like, yeah, diversification for us, super important, and we have. And that's why we didn't get you know, that's why revenue wise, we weren't hit as bad. For the for those out there who were just relying on SEO and had ads on their, you know, on their website, and that was your only source of income, yeah, you're fucked. That was me in 2,008.
Matt Giovanisci:But that's not me in 2,024. We have a huge email list. We run we can we can afford to run ads. We can afford to hire a team to to create content not just in articles, but in everything else. One of the things I'm thinking a lot about is, again, like, looking at my backlink profile and taking that more seriously.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay. I have some ideas on how I build backlinks. One of those ideas we already talked about, which was let's make that about page pretty sick, which is what I'm working on this coming week. Let's make that about page sick. Let's make it easy for for any journalist to contact us.
Matt Giovanisci:Let's let's make a video so that we can prove that we're real. Let's take a picture of us with our plaque to prove that we're real. For the real deal, we are unbiased. We are we are not paid by any company to make any recommendations. We are completely independent, small family owned pool education company, water chemistry education, whatever you wanna call it.
Matt Giovanisci:Great. That's that's great. Maybe we'll attract some people. In the summertime, we use Harrow, help a reporter out. We do this in house.
Matt Giovanisci:So anytime a harrow thing comes in, we just see if anyone's asking about pools and hot tubs, water chemistry. If they are, yeah, we'll reach out. I'll and and then what I'll reach out personally. I'll take that link. Thank you very much.
Matt Giovanisci:Am I hiring somebody to go out and, beg for backlinks? No. But if I if I found a good process for doing that and it made sense and we could do it tastefully, I will. Because I think that me personally, if I had to do it, I could I could find the nuanced way to make it effective. I think when you hire a company to do it, they're just not it's just not them.
Matt Giovanisci:It's not you know, people know who I am. I have clout in the industry. So I think reaching out to certain pool, related companies, I can I can I can, you know, I can get through the door? My foot's already in, and I know exactly how what to say and how to say it to people without it feeling spammy, without making the ask immediately. So there is something there, and it might you know, there's there's there's a lot of other ways to to do it.
Matt Giovanisci:Now that's that's something. Another thing I'm thinking about, which will cost a lot of money, and I'm not really thrilled about it, but it's worth a shot, is I would love to do some PR, some digital PR. Meaning, I want some stories out there about us as a company or, you know, what what makes us an expert. And I think if we did that consistently, which means we do have to hire a service to do that, I think that would be really helpful. And, again, measurable.
Matt Giovanisci:So let's look at it. If if I go out and start paying for digital PR, and I haven't landed on a company. I I do have an I an idea. But if I go out and start doing paying for digital PR and we get really good stories and we get really good backlinks from really high, you know, high authority websites, and all of a sudden I see our traffic start to really go up without me adding too much content to the website, then I'm gonna be like, alright. Let's do that again.
Matt Giovanisci:Let's keep doing that. That seems to be worth that's it's like it's like spending ad money. Might be worth might be worth the effort. But, again, what's nice about ads and what's nice about doing digital PR or any of this stuff is you can just test it. And I think that that's the moral of, like, all SEO and all the things that I've done doing this year, which is every month, we're gonna try something.
Matt Giovanisci:And what's the goal? Ultimately, there's one goal in mind, and it used to be traffic. That was my ultimate goal was traffic way back in the day. I didn't have an email list, and the only way we really made money was if people visited the website because eyeballs on ads gets us money. But I'm not gonna run ads.
Matt Giovanisci:Although, I say that. And, man, wouldn't it be interesting if Google was only serving up sites that were that had AdSense on them? I'm not gonna go down that cynical rabbit hole, but interesting thought. But, yeah, I would I would that's that's one PR move is is do that just like spending money on ads. Okay.
Matt Giovanisci:What else can we do? Well, might not be it might lead to links. I think it would. Getting on podcasts. So there are companies out there that I could be like, hey.
Matt Giovanisci:I will you know, whatever it is per round or whatever, if it's a campaign or if it's ongoing for a month or 2, I would like you to pitch me on podcasts. And I think I learned this from Alex Hermozzi because I don't know. This is an old thing that he had mentioned where when he was doing content, he had hired agencies to help him with that content, and he would learn from the agencies on what they were doing. And then once he realized what they were doing, he could bring it in house. And I think that is certainly the way to do it now.
Matt Giovanisci:With agencies, when it comes to content, it's very different because agencies are just creating the content and publishing it on every platform that anybody can publish it on. But with a podcasting connector or a digital PR company, those companies have an asset that we don't have. We could build it, but that might just be something we don't need to do. And that is they have an asset of like, so a digital PR agency, their real asset is not the story writing because we could certainly do that in house. But their asset is the list of journalists that they can email once the story has been, you know, crafted.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay? Same with podcasting. It's like, hey. You know, I know how to craft a a podcast ask, you know, a guest ask. I could probably do it better than a lot of these companies just because I know I've been a podcaster.
Matt Giovanisci:I know what I want. I know what I'm looking for. The thing I don't have, though, is the list of all of these companies, of all of these podcasts who are actively looking for guests. Yeah. We could probably build that too, but it we don't have a connection with those people.
Matt Giovanisci:So we would be cold emailing. Whereas a an agency have probably have been in touch with these companies before, and they trust these agencies, and so that's helpful. But it costs money. Now it also costs money if we do it in house. And what the one of the things that I don't wanna do is I don't want more employees.
Matt Giovanisci:So if I don't want more employees, what are my options? I don't have to hire employees. I can hire agencies. So instead of trying to come up with my own process, you just hire a company to to get their process. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:And you pay them to do that work. And then the great thing about that is you can just stop. You know what I mean? You could just not do it. Okay?
Matt Giovanisci:Great. It's like it's like firing an employee, but without all the overhead and all the emotional stuff. And if it works, it works. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. Simple as that.
Matt Giovanisci:And it's not it's not dependent on, oh, is it the process that's fucked up in our company, or is it the person that's fucked up? And it's like, no. If you hire an agency and they promise a deliverable, well, then it's black and white. And if they can't do it, I'll find somebody else who can. And, again, it's easy to test.
Matt Giovanisci:You can just dip your toe in, try it a little bit. You know? If I were to put together a whole process, hire somebody, or or put or put somebody on my team or even myself, now myself is a little different because, yeah, I can just take that time and do it for a month and see what happens. Right? And if it's worth it, then, yes, I could pay somebody, but then I have to manage that person.
Matt Giovanisci:And that's the big problem is I don't wanna be a manager. I have things to do. I'm I wanna work in the company, not on the company. So in that case, yeah, the agency is definitely the way to go. So, anyway, those are the things I'm thinking about.
Matt Giovanisci:But I have I have honestly, I have faith, and I am pretty optimistic, to be honest. I've been optimistic. You know, it sucks to look at now. It feels like it feels like a kick in the nuts, but I've felt this many times. In this industry of making money online, especially with a media company, you get kicked in the nuts a lot.
Matt Giovanisci:And I think the the reason that I've been able to sustain the kicks is, 1, this is the only thing I've ever wanted to do, so I'm gonna do it. You know? And in times of economic turmoil, all it means is that it and then because we're a family business, we can have these conversations. It's like, okay. This isn't gonna be the year of prosperity.
Matt Giovanisci:Are we cool with that? We understand? We can't just be paying ourselves a ton of money? Alright. Cool.
Matt Giovanisci:So we're gonna hunker down for this year and ride the storm. In the meantime, we're gonna be proactive, not reactive, and that's that's really interesting to think about too is that I think a lot of these people, it's it's very reactive. It's like, oh, no. Our shit's fucked. Let's let's change everything.
Matt Giovanisci:And for me, I'm like, our shit's not fucked, but it could be better, and it could have always been better. So let's start to put those things in place to consistently make it better, and we will ride perhaps a 30 365 day storm, which comes bouncing back. Or, you know, even more pessimistic that the SEO game and Google itself has fundamentally changed and it will never be the same again. And if we take that approach, if we if we think down that road, that's fine because guess what? There are a lot of other things to get leads.
Matt Giovanisci:There are a lot of other ways to get customers. A lot. We haven't even exercised all of them. We've done 0, as an example, 0 cold calling. You know?
Matt Giovanisci:Hey. If push came to shove and all of our shit tanked for whatever reason, guess what I'm doing? Guess what guess what my new job is? Getting on the phone and pitching. Yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:Not something I wanna do, not something I'm good at, but, again, I am never gonna work for somebody, and I'm never gonna go back to just being a consultant or some finding some other way to make money. This is it, boys and girls and whoever. This is it. So, yeah, ride the storm again. I don't think we're in I don't think we're at a point of everything's fucked.
Matt Giovanisci:It'll never be the same again. I think it will be because, again, I think going back to that original tweet I said earlier in the podcast when someone was like, nothing's gonna happen to Google because they gotta make money, and if they fuck everybody over. Yeah, I agree. I agree. But they're figuring that out.
Matt Giovanisci:I think they have a you know, the algorithm has to correct itself. It takes time. People get hurt, but people bounce back. I think I saw this from, Glenn Aesop of of Viper Chill or else I forget how to say his last name. Glenn of Viper Chill.
Matt Giovanisci:I think he said something like, it'll come back. Something like, it felt nonchalant when I read the tweet, but I was like, alright. Cool. If he thinks that I'm I'm I'm you know, he's somebody I trust immensely when it comes to SEO stuff. In fact, if there's anybody I I look towards as a bellwether, it's him.
Matt Giovanisci:So if that's worth, you know, it's worth investigating if you don't know who he is or what go to details.com. I think he's viperchill on Twitter at anyway, that's my 2¢ about SEO and and sort of the plan that I'm coming up with or not I already came up with it. It's just I'm at it's a plan that I'm executing on. And, yeah, it's a lot of hats, but, you know, it's what I do. It's what I do.
Matt Giovanisci:And what's nice about all of this is, like, even the backlink stuff, it's it's content. It's what I do. You know? Yeah. Outreach for begging for backlinks, not content.
Matt Giovanisci:So I don't like that one. But digital PR, that's content, baby. That's what I do. Right? Being a guest on podcast, content.
Matt Giovanisci:Doing social media, content. Writing better articles? That's content. Doing ads? Content.
Matt Giovanisci:It is what I do, and it's what I will continue to do for the rest of my life until I die because it's just what I do. Anyway, hope that's helpful. If you got hit by the update, let me know let me know what your game plan is. Maybe you know something I don't. Maybe you have a good idea that I don't I didn't think of.
Matt Giovanisci:Email me, matt@moneylab.co. Alright. Bye.
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