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Brandon Leibowitz: Magic of SEO in the Sales World

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About Brandon Leibowitz: Brandon Leibowitz, the Founder of SEO Optimizers, a Digital Marketing Agency that focuses on helping small and medium-sized businesses get more online traffic, which in turn converts into clients, sales, leads, etc. Brandon got his start in digital marketing in 2007 after graduating from college with a degree in Business Marketing. In his first job, he handled the marketing aspects of an e-commerce website. In 2008, he realized that most businesses would need a website to stay competitive in the future. Having a website is only one piece of the puzzle. Ultimately, they need someone to help market their website to bring in traffic that will, in turn, convert to clients. And this was the beginning of starting his own company. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Brandon.

In this episode, Nancy and Brandon discuss the following:

  • Why is SEO so important as it relates to sales?
  • Is there any way SEO can drive prospects that are within your target audience?
  • Brandon’s unique idea makes him different and sets him apart.
  • How does Brandon optimize his website for conversions?
  • How important is video marketing these days? Brandon’s experience in this.
  • An interesting story for the audience.
  • Something, in particular, you would want me to spotlight?
  • How do you get Google to trust you?
  • Fun fact about Brandon.
  • What SEO strategies are recommended in 2023, and how are they different perhaps in the past years?
  • How long in your experience does it take for SEO to really start working?
  • “Keeping a positive attitude and mindset is what will drive success”, why is this important to Brandon?
  • Is the SEO industry agnostic or does it work more in certain industries than others?
  • Something that is true that almost nobody agrees with you on.
  • What are backlinks? And how do you get those backlinks on the other sites?
  • How can my people reach you?

Key Takeaways: 

  • SEO is all about just doing keyword research, figuring out what keywords people search for, and then incorporating those into your website.
  • You want to make sure that all your printed information is at the top of your page, so ensure that whenever someone gets to your website, all the important information is at the very top, so they don’t have to scroll down because the majority of people don’t scroll down on a website.
  • Video is good because people’s attention spans are short.
  • If you can have a presence on YouTube or any of these video platforms, that’s going to really help build trust.
  • Making sure that you’re targeting the right keywords and then writing them for those keywords can change your business.
  • You have to build trust with Google and with people when you’re doing digital marketing.
  • The more websites that talk about you, the more trust Google is going to give to you.
  • Once you get to that first page of Google, you’re pushing someone off that first page and they’re not going to be happy about that.
  • They’re doing something right and if you can incorporate what’s correct into your own website, that’s going to make Google trust you in a similar way.
  • SEO is pretty much industry agnostic, but the less competition, the quicker it’s going to result in more rankings.
  • You don’t need to be everywhere. You just need to be in front of where your audience is looking for you.
  • Backlinks are clickable links from other websites that point to yours.
  • It’s not immediate, so if you’re looking for immediate results, paid ads are going to get you that immediate traction, but SEO is a more long-term play, where you build it up and build it up and build that trust up over time.
  • You just got to keep showing Google that you’re relevant and trustworthy, and once they start trusting you, they’re going to start ranking you, but you must build that trust up because Google just doesn’t rank anybody without your trust.

“SEO is a way to bring in traffic. So, when people search on Google, there are ads at the top. Those are all paid ads, but right below the paid ads are the organic results. And SEO is about getting you in those organic results, so you get that free traffic. So, when people search on Google for your keywords, you show up and you capture that free traffic. So, they go to your website, and hopefully on your website, you could convince them to become a sale, lead, phone call, email, whatever that conversion goal is.” – BRANDON

“Traffic is just half the battle. And once you get people to your website, how do you get them to convert? And that’s where I try to figure out what we do to your website to make it optimized for people. That way they become a lead, a sale, or a phone call because a lot of people just focus on getting traffic, but they don’t focus on what happens after that traffic gets to my website. How do I make sure that they actually stay on my website, that they go from a visitor to actual, a lead or a sale? And that’s how I try to focus on that. ” – BRANDON

“If you don’t have that positive mindset then you get distracted and frustrated because SEO does take time. It’s not immediate So if you’re expecting immediate results, then you got run paid ads but for SEO It’s more of a long-term strategy where over time you’re going to build yourself up build your credibility and trust up and that’s going to just bring in more traffic, but it’s all about patience with it because it is not immediate unfortunately.” – BRANDON

Connect with Brandon Leibowitz:

Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/

Connect with Nancy Calabrese: 

Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.

Nancy Calabrese: Hi, everyone. It’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time again for Conversational Selling, the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it always starts with the human conversation. Today, we’re speaking with Brandon Leibowitz, the founder of SEO Optimizers, a digital marketing agency that focuses on helping small and medium-sized businesses get more online traffic, which in turn converts into clients, sales, leads, and more. In his first job, he handled the marketing aspects of an e-commerce website. In 2008, Brandon realized that most businesses would need a website to stay competitive in the future. Having a website is only one piece of the puzzle. Ultimately, they need someone to help market their website to bring in traffic that will in turn convert into clients. And this was the beginning of starting his own company. And in one of his interviews, Brandon said that keeping a positive attitude and mindset is what drives success. And I totally agree. Welcome to the show, Brandon. [1:27]

Brandon Leibowitz: Thanks for having me on.

Nancy Calabrese: So, as I told you before we jumped on, I know very little about the world of SEO. And why is it so important as it relates to sales? [1:44]

Brandon Leibowitz: SEO is a way to bring in traffic. So, when people search on Google, there’s ads at the top. Those are all paid ads, but right below the paid ads are the organic results. And SEO is about getting you in those organic results so you get that free traffic. So, when people search on Google for your keywords, that you show up and you capture that free traffic. So, they go to your website and hopefully on your website, you could convince them to become a sale, lead, phone call, email, whatever that conversion goal is. [2:14]

Nancy Calabrese: Is there any way SEO can drive prospects that are within your target audience? How do you go about doing that?

Brandon Leibowitz: You put the right keywords on your website so that when people search for you, that you show up in those searches. So, it’s all about just doing keyword research, figuring out what keywords people search for, and then incorporating those into your website. That way when people are searching for your product or service, that you pop up and that you’re able to capture that traffic and bring them into your website. [2:44]

Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, so, you know, I want to share your unique idea that is different and sets you apart. What would you say that is?

Brandon Leibowitz: I focus on the whole cycle where not just focusing on getting you traffic, but making sure that traffic converts into sales, leads, phone calls. Traffic is just half the battle. And once you get people to your website, how do you get them to convert? And that’s where I try to figure out what do we do to your website to make it optimized for people? That way they become a lead, a sale or a phone call, because a lot of people just focus on getting traffic, but they don’t focus on what happens after that traffic gets to my website. How do I make sure that they actually stay on my website, that they go from a visitor to actual, a lead or a sale. And that’s how I try to focus on that. [3:30],

Nancy Calabrese: So how do you optimize your website for conversions?

Brandon Leibowitz: You want to make sure that all your printed information is at the top of your page, so making sure that whenever someone gets to your website, all the important information is at the very top, so they don’t have to scroll down because the majority of people don’t scroll down on a website. So, you want to make sure that you have your call to action at the top of your website. You want to make sure you have the value proposition, maybe some bullet points or a video or something where it’s easy for people to kind of quickly skim and understand what that page is about. Then lower it down and you can have more details. But initially the top, it’s called above the fold, whatever you see on the screen is above the fold. Once you start scrolling, that’s below the fold. So, above the fold, you want to make sure that there’s everything that needs to be there because the majority of the people will not scroll down and if you make them scroll down, then you’re already losing a majority of your traffic. So, have everything at the top of the page, make sure it’s easy to understand, offer value, talk about benefits, promote yourself and that’s going to really help out a lot. [4:30]

Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, so how important is video marketing these days? What’s been your experience? And video on a website?

Brandon Leibowitz: Well, video is good because people’s attention spans are short. So, instead of reading an article or blog, a video makes it so they could just sit there and it’s right off to them. And that works very, very well. People are going towards video. If you look at all social media, it’s really gone towards video nowadays. And if you can have a presence on YouTube or any of these video platforms, that’s going to really help build trust too. It puts a face behind the company. It shows that you’re a real business and that you’re a person that’s there to help out. [5:10]

Nancy Calabrese: Right. So, is there a story that the audience would find interesting?

Brandon Leibowitz: I’ve helped out lots of companies over the years, making sure that they show up on Google. So, worked with clients before where they weren’t showing up for any keywords. And then by going in and doing the things that Google wants to see, by putting keywords in the coding, and then building trust up from Google, that they started to rank for their keywords. And once they started ranking for their keywords, they saw their traffic just shoot up, and then they also saw sales, it’s kind of followed suit. So, making sure that you’re targeting the right keywords. and then write it for those keywords can change your business. Because I saw this one client where they sold automotive leases. [5:56]

Nancy Calabrese: And is there something in particular you would want me to spotlight?

Brandon Leibowitz: It would probably be that you have to build trust up with Google and with people when you’re doing digital marketing. So, it’s very important to get Google to trust you and also to get people to trust you because you need Google to trust you so they rank you for your keywords. But then once you rank for your keywords, you want to get people to trust you. That way they actually make a purchase off of your website. So, it’s kind of two-fold.

Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, but how do you get Google to trust you? [6:27]

Brandon Leibowitz: That’s by getting what are called back links, getting other websites to talk about you. The more websites that talk about you, the more trust Google is going to give to you. And then they look at those keywords on your website, but it doesn’t work the other way around. If you don’t build back links, Google is not going to trust you. A back link is a clickable link from another website that points to yours. So, let’s say you’re reading an article on the NewYorkTimes.com. And in there it says Brandon Liebowitz. If you click on that and it takes you to my website, then I’d be getting a back link from the NewYorkTimes.com. The more websites that talk about you, the more trust Google is going to give to you. [7:02]

Nancy Calabrese: Okay, so let’s just change it a bit. Tell me a fun fact about you.

Brandon Leibowitz: I like skateboarding when I’m not working.

Nancy Calabrese: Skateboarding?

Brandon Leibowitz: Yep.

Nancy Calabrese: Now I have never tried it; I don’t think I ever would. What’s the fascination with it? [7:22]

Brandon Leibowitz: Just the freedom that you get when you’re going down the hills or cruising around the streets and It’s just that freedom and it’s fun.

Nancy Calabrese: Well, I mean, believe me, I’m in a minority, but I’m just, I figured I’d go on it and hit my head and that would be the end of it.

Brandon Leibowitz: No, that’s not the freedom we want. We want the freedom of just the feeling of just going down a hill and just rolling down, feel the wind in your face and it’s a fun experience. [7:49]

Nancy Calabrese: Right. So what SEO strategies are recommended in 2023, and how are they different perhaps in the past years?

Brandon Leibowitz: They don’t really change too much for today. Google is just cleaning up spam for the most part. So, it really comes down to good content on your website, good quality backlinks. And now Google is looking at user experience, how people behave on your website. So, if people just go to your website and then hit that back button, that tells Google that maybe you’re not the most relevant and you shouldn’t be up there. So, user experience is very, very important nowadays, making sure that people stay on your website and don’t hit that back button, just like we were talking about earlier, how to keep people on your website because that’s a big part of Google’s algorithm nowadays that they’re really pushing. It’s called the user experience. [8:36]

Nancy Calabrese: How long in your experience does it take for SEO to really start working?

Brandon Leibowitz: It depends on your keywords that you’re trying to rank for and how much SEO has been done to your website versus the competitors. So, it’s not really a one size fits all. It really depends on how much SEO you have done versus your competition, because we’re not trying to be Google, we’re just trying to be your competitors. I mean, you look at who your competitors are, how much SEO have they done, and how can we do a better job of it? So, on average, it takes about six months, but it could take more, it could take less. It really varies. It’s not really a one size fits all. [9:10]

Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, and I’m guessing that you really have to keep it up, right? Otherwise, you can lose your standing in SEO?

Brandon Leibowitz: You have to maintain those rankings because there’s only 10 spots on that first page of Google. Once you get to that first page of Google, you’re pushing someone off that first page and they’re not going to be happy about that. They’re going to look at everything that you’ve done. They’re going to look at your keywords. They’re going to look at your backlinks and try to outrank you by doing a better job of those backlinks and keywords, which is the way I rank websites is I look at who’s on that first page of Google, look at everything that they’ve done and try to incorporate what’s working onto my website or my client’s websites and that’s how to get Google to trust you in a similar way because if they’re ranked on that first page of Google for your keywords They’re doing something right and if you can incorporate what’s correct into your own website, that’s going to make Google to trust you in a similar way [10:00]

Nancy Calabrese: As I introduced you, I quoted you saying keeping a positive attitude and mindset is what will drive success. That obviously triggered me because I totally agree and that can be applied to anything that we do. But why is that important to you?

Brandon Leibowitz: If you don’t have that positive mindset then you get distracted and frustrated because SEO does take time. It’s not immediate So if you’re expecting immediate results, then you got run paid ads but for SEO It’s more of a long-term strategy where over time you’re going to build yourself up build your credibility and trust up and that’s going to just bring in more traffic, but it’s all about patience with it because it is not immediate unfortunately. [10:47]

Nancy Calabrese: Is SEO, I guess the purpose of SEO, is it industry agnostic or does it work more in certain industries than others?

Brandon Leibowitz: It’s pretty much industry agnostic, but the less competition, the quicker it’s going to result in more rankings. So, the less competition, the better off it’s going to be, but it works for pretty much any industry. It’s always going to be the same strategies. It’s just changing keywords around and changing little tweaks like that, backlinks around to make them more relevant to your niche, but for the most part, the strategies remain the same. [11:25]

Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. And so, I’m guessing that we have SEO in place, but what other channels do you see out there are important to increase, I guess, people coming to you rather than you going out?

Brandon Leibowitz: Well, you just got to know where your audience is and be in front of them at the right moment. You got to take a step back as a business owner and think, if I was looking for my product or service, where would I go? That’s where you need to be. You don’t need to be everywhere. You just need to be in front of where your audience is looking for you. So that’s where you just got to think. If I was looking for my product or service, would I be going on Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn or Pinterest? Where would I be going? And that’s where you need to be. But it all works. Social media, email marketing, paid ad, SEO, they all work together to help you have a holistic digital marketing strategy. [12:22]

Nancy Calabrese: So, tell me or share with the audience and me something that is true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

Brandon Leibowitz: What am I going to say? I’m not too sure. But a lot of business owners don’t know about backlinks. So, making sure that you build backlinks is very, very important. But I feel like most SEO people agree with me that it’s very important, but business owners might not know about it. So, trying to educate them about the benefits of why they need backlinks, how they’re important, how they rank websites, and how we get Google to trust you with those backlinks. [13:02]

Nancy Calabrese: Sure, so I’m going to ask you what are backlinks?

Brandon Leibowitz: Backlinks are clickable links from other websites that point to yours. So, let’s say you’re reading an article in The LATimes.com and in there it says Brandon Leibowitz and you click on that and it goes to my website I’d be getting a backlink from the LATimes.com. So, the more websites that talk about to you the more trust Google’s going to give to you and the higher they rank you. [13:25]

Nancy Calabrese: And how do you get those backlinks on the other sites?

Brandon Leibowitz: There’s tools that will show you your competitors’ backlinks. So, you can look at who your competitors are that are ranked on that first page of Google for your keywords and using tools like Ahrefs or Moz or SEMrush, you have to pay for them. They’ll show you all of your competitors’ website backlinks and then one by one you can start reaching out to those sites because if they’re linking out to your competitor, they would more than likely link out to you. You just got to get creative and figure out what do they do. Do they write an article? Do they do an interview? Did they give out a free product as a review? Or did they sponsor an event and you can pretty much see their exact strategy by using those tools. [14:04]

Nancy Calabrese: Right. Wow. Yeah. You know, as I said, going into this, I’m like a neophyte with SEO. So, that’s a good suggestion. And we’ll talk sidebar on that. I guess lastly, what is the one takeaway you would like to leave the audience with?

Brandon Leibowitz: Just to be patient with all this stuff, because SEO does take time. It’s not immediate, so if you’re looking for immediate results, paid ads are going to get you that immediate traction, but SEO is more long-term play, where you build it up and build it up and build that trust up over time. Google’s going to start ranking you higher and you’re going to start seeing that traffic come in more, but just be patient with it all. It takes time, and once you start getting Google to trust you, they’re going to get those rankings moving up really quickly. [14:51]

Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, you know, I don’t know of anything that is a silver bullet. And I find, and I don’t know if this is you, but setting expectations is sometimes a challenge with clients, you know, just to allow it to happen. In our business, one call doesn’t necessarily lead to an appointment that leads to new business, right? It takes multiple attempts. I’m sensing with SEO you just have to keep feeding it with the right information to get it to a point where it is going to pay off. Is that kind of, correct? [15:29]

Brandon Leibowitz: Yep, you just got to keep showing Google that you’re relevant, trustworthy, and once they start trusting you, they’re going to start ranking you, but you got build that trust up because Google just doesn’t rank anybody without you trust. [15:40]

Nancy Calabrese: All right, folks, well, how can my people reach you?

Brandon Leibowitz: So, for anyone that wants to learn more, I create a special gift for them if they go to my website at SEOoptimizers.com. That’s SEOoptimizers.com forward slash gift and they can find that there along with my contact information and a bunch of classes I’ve done over the years I put up for free and also if they want to book some time on my calendar for a free website analysis, happy to check out their website from an SEO point of view and they can book some time on my calendar for free there as well. [16:12]

Nancy Calabrese: That’s awesome. And so first of all, I want to thank you for sharing your expertise. I know I’ve learned a lot. And people, take advantage of what Brandon has to offer. Reach out to him on his website. He’s got that free gift. And call him. He obviously is a world of knowledge in the world of SEO. So, everyone out there, thanks so much for listening. Brandon, again, thank you for joining me on the show and make it a great sales day.

Brandon Leibowitz: Thanks for having me on. [16:47]