Dean Emerick is an expert in digital communications, organic SEO and all facets of online marketing. His technical background in the Film & Television Industry made it an easy transition into Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing processes in the late 1990’s.
Dean is a thought leader and innovator in digital communications, quickly grasping the need to create audiences and give them what they require in order to move them through the sales funnel process. He uploaded his first video to YouTube in 2007 and shortly thereafter created The Shotgun Show, an engaging online interview series that took place in a car, years before Jerry Seinfeld launched his now famous online show. His results were equally impressive with over 500,000 views and 15,000 subscribers to his channel.
Since then, he has worked mostly with small and medium enterprises, helping them outperform their competition in local search. Dean currently is focused on using exciting new technologies to drive digital transformation within organizations on behalf of his clients. He is also teaching entrepreneurs how to leverage Optimization through his private Facebook group, Easy Traffic Tricks for Small Business Owners, where you can get a better understanding how search works.
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[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Umar Hameed 0:01
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone. My name is Umar Hameed, I'm your host on the No Limits Selling Podcast where industry leaders share their tips, strategies, and advice on how you can become better, stronger, faster. Just before we get started, I've got a question for you. Do you have a negative voice inside your head? We all do, right? I'm gonna help you remove that voice and under 30-days guaranteed not only to remove it but transform it. So instead of the voice that sabotages you, there's one that propels you too much higher levels of performance and success. There's a link in the show notes. Click on it to find out more. All right, let's get started.
Umar Hameed 0:41
Hey, everyone, today I've got the pleasure of interviewing a fellow Canadian from Ottawa, Canada, the nation's capital. Dean Emerick, an expert in SEO Welcome to the show.
Dean Emerick 0:50
Thanks, Umar. Great to be here. How are things?
Umar Hameed 0:53
Excellent. It's a gorgeous spring day today. And in the winter wasn't that bad, but just with COVID being stuck inside, it just feels like an awakening for the entire country.
Dean Emerick 1:04
No, it absolutely is. We have the same thing here. Everyone's getting their jobs and getting trying to get back to normal as quick as possible. Hopefully we can do it this summer and get a little slice of you know, something good going on. So glad to hear it.
Umar Hameed 1:20
Brilliant. I was telling my mother-in-law to Gracie, You know, when you go in she's 96. Demand your shot in your butt she would not go for us. So when we're talking about SEO, because SEO is something that I think people don't know what it is, or they have the wrong idea of what it is. So could you define what it is for us? So we have a good foundation to start a conversation.
Dean Emerick 1:46
Sure. Well, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. And basically, what happened was that before Google came along, there was a lot of confusion, search engines were not very good, it would take you a long time to find relevant results. And that's what it was about. It was quicker to go to the yellow pages where that my monitor was sitting on and look something up. Google came along, the algorithms started to give results that were relevant. So, that made them into the you know, the monster that they are today, they capture 90, over 90% of the search market online. And search engine optimization is just optimizing your website for search to move you up in the organic results.
Umar Hameed 2:36
By organic community. If somebody put best lawyer near me that in Ottawa, Canada, some scoundrels would show up that were actually the best.
Dean Emerick 2:45
Yes, and they would absolutely be scoundrels. Certainly. I'm sure one of them would have an eyepatch. So yeah, that's exactly it when Google first started, you know, working and people started started using and started to catch on and grow. There was only there was no paid, you know, results, there was no classifications of different things. It was no local search, there was no anything that was just the organic search. So if you were working, if your website was telling the algorithm what it wanted to hear, then you would be at the top of search. And everybody knew that when you're at the top of search, you've got basically about 70% of the clicks. So it works that if you're in number one, today, it's if you're in the number top three organic positions, about 45% of the clicks go to those.
Umar Hameed 3:36
Makes perfect sense. So the question is if take my website, no limit selling, and it's all about the mindset and selling. And so for me, it's very challenging, because no one is looking for mindset and selling. So I could rank for this thing that nobody's looking for, or I could be more strategic about it. So tell me why trying to rank for mindset and selling is not a good idea. And then what should I be ranking for to actually be found?
Dean Emerick 4:05
Well, the simple answer is down to one word, chiropractor.
Umar Hameed 4:10
I knew it. I was gonna guess that you had you asked me Yes, that I was said, chiropractor.
Dean Emerick 4:14
It took a second but I can see the wheels were turning there and it clicked in. So I had a chiropractor friend of mine is a chiropractor. His father was a chiropractor.
Umar Hameed 4:23
By way not that cracked up what they think they are, but please go home.
Dean Emerick 4:29
But um, cue the hi-hat and cymbal crash. So they definitely aren't, and they are more than they actually present themselves as. So he was sort of wanting to get into the digital zone. And he wanted to rank for chiropractor. And I said, Well, why would you want to do that? He said, Well, I'm a chiropractor. I said yeah, but who's searching for a chiropractor. He goes well what are we searching for you well other chiropractor yeah and himself. Basically But I showed them okay, well, here's the word chiropractor. 1000 people a month were searching in his area for chiropractor, right. And then I showed him back pain 20,000 people in his area were searching for back pain. Then I showed him neck pain. And there were about 30,000 there. But then I showed him sciatica. There were over 100,000 people searching for sciatica in his region at the time every month, which is an those are enormous number. And what he was doing was he was not finding the right words, he was not going where the intention was, the traffic is focused on attention or intention. Sorry.
Umar Hameed 5:42
That makes perfect sense. But when you're close to your profession, I'm not sure if you noticed this Dean, no matter who you're talking to, they think they're the best. And they think they know the best. But it's not about you. It's about what people are looking for. And so how do you figure that out? So take my, by the way, folks, as you're listening to this, I'm trying to get free consulting here. So taking me as an example. So people are looking for probably closing or sales, looking for overcoming call reluctance, but how do I figure that stuff out? Like, go where's a good place to look? What's a good strategy and kind of uncover that hidden realm that actually makes the difference between, you know, being the world's best chiropractor that no one can find, or somebody that's kind of fully booked in is hiring other chiropractors to work for him?
Dean Emerick 6:30
Exactly. So when we go back to your reluctance, mentioned there, I'm not sure anyone ever has put the word reluctance into the search bar, to be honest. But to really good word, it's like a $3 word, you know, it's got a lot of syllables in it. So basically, we find this information out this information is there. I mean, Google has 2 billion searches a month, easily. And they're all made with words. And it's all collected, and it's been collected since the day they started. So they know a lot about people's intent. They know a lot about what people are actually searching for. And that data is out there, you just have to find it, and you have to correlate it. And there are some places that do this for you. But basically, you have to dig around, and you have to do a bit of a deep dive and really figure out, you know, you're ready.
Umar Hameed 7:28
I'm gonna pause you right there. All of those were lots of words. So give us an example of either my one or a chiropractor in terms of or some other group, you're helping, that how you uncover that hidden realm of actually what's going what people looking for. So give us a real-life example.
Dean Emerick 7:46
Oh, my God, you want me to work now? Okay. You didn't tell me I was gonna have to work on this podcast. That wasn't fair.
Umar Hameed 7:53
Like no one would come if I tell them.
Dean Emerick 7:57
So. So basically, Google makes that information available, anyone can access it. So it's available through Keyword Planner, with Google. And essentially, you can go in there and start noodling around and trying to figure out what your keywords are. The big problem is, is that you get you end up getting a lot of data, and you end up getting a lot of conflicting data.
Umar Hameed 8:21
Alright, pause right there. So all this little nebulous still, I want you to think about a past client and say, I was working with a midget wrestler, and this is what they were looking for. So give us something that you use keyword tracker, and this is how I used it to find the gem.
Dean Emerick 8:36
Right? Okay, so I have a client, they do homemade soaps, Jen and Jen. And they essentially, were not they were getting traveling. Yeah, they were cleaning up on business for sure.
Umar Hameed 8:51
Please, go ahead.
Dean Emerick 8:51
He's submitting its dad humor, his dad. So, So essentially, they were you know, not getting that much traffic, they had these little these, this bath, these bath bombs, which are also like bath balls, and they explode in your bath and make it all great, and a lot of people are looking for them.
Umar Hameed 8:57
So what do they have on their website that was giving them mediocre results that made sense to them? that were giving them mediocre results. And what did you uncover and how did you uncover it that really found traffic?
Dean Emerick 9:24
Now you're getting into the technical details, details? Because it's the best.
Umar Hameed 9:28
Keep it in English? Yeah,
Dean Emerick 9:30
I try. I know, I try to dumb it down and I try to make it simple. I've been doing that for years. And it's really like it's not easy to do. Here's a minor yours. Here's the thing. Search engines are looking for specific things. So once you know what the keywords are, or you get an idea of what they are, then you start blending them into your website in a natural way so that it looks natural. It sounds natural. You use them in specific places, like titles and descriptions and those sorts of things. And that's how you get found is you use them, but you don't overuse them.
Umar Hameed 10:12
Alright, so let me pause you there. Again, Dean. So again, you're talking.
Dean Emerick 10:15
You gonna have me any easy questions on this show.
Umar Hameed 10:19
Specifically, come like the freeze that you uncovered? Like, what do they actually put in to be found under like, soap? Because what were they using before? And what did you help them find? Because I think that would like she would take all the things that you're describing, and people go, Oh, I know exactly what Dean's talking about. Because that makes sense. So give us like a couple of phrases. Yeah.
Dean Emerick 10:39
Okay, so let's go back to bath bombs,
Umar Hameed 10:42
Yes.
Dean Emerick 10:42
So, there are 1000s of searches for bath bombs. 10s of 1000s of searches for them, like they're actually a really, you know, sought-after commodity amongst a certain niche market. But what they were so basically bath bombs was a key target area, and everyone like all their competitors were competing for bath bombs, right. And now all their competitors were ignoring bath balls, bath salts, bath, this and that, you know, things to put in my bath, things to make me relax in the bath, you know, all these different things. These are all niche markets that were around it. So basically, I uncovered more traffic in the niche markets around it than there was in the primary market. And the competition levels were a lot lower.
Umar Hameed 11:30
Alright, so that's actually very, very specific. And it kind of illuminates What's going on? Because I think part of the problem is, there's this like, target fixation. Like, I am a sales mindset guy. So I'm going to put down you know, I'm going to be the best found site in the world for sales mindset, but no one's looking for that. So then we start looking, I guess, we start talking to my customers, so you went to Umar? And what did he help you with? Then? They're hardly gonna say sales mindset, they're gonna say, Well, I felt.
Dean Emerick 11:59
Offering?
Umar Hameed 12:00
Up the phone, or I gave up too easily, like after the second thought, and they would start using those phrases. That was what they were looking for. And if I start putting that down, I start finding that kind of stuff. So if I get a couple of test phrases, how do I use a keyword tracker to actually illuminate how good that traffic? It is? And does it give other suggestions?
Dean Emerick 12:22
So yes, it does give other suggestions. Once you find your product, you know what your primary market is, right. But that's everybody's primary market that does what you do. So essentially, you're in that's a high competition, key phrase, we call it well, it's, it's called a long tail. So if it's more than one or two words, it's longtail if it's a one word or two words, it's a short tail keyword. So the bread and the money is in the long-tail keywords. Everyone's competing on the short tail, and you've got to be there and be in it anyhow. But there are many niche markets around those primary keywords that are long-tail where the competition low competition area is very low. So it's very easy to dominate in those areas, and you can pick up the intent is completely different. Do you understand what I mean by intent?
Umar Hameed 13:16
I do. Absolutely. It's
Dean Emerick 13:18
Are you sure you understand my intent?
Umar Hameed 13:22
So when I go into Google, and I search for, I may search for tennis pro when I'm looking to hire a tennis pro, but it's more likely, like just the other day, I just say, you know, how can I improve my serve? And then a bunch of people popped up that specialize in that survey area. And guess what, every single one of them either had a course or was a tennis pro, and I got a better sense of who they were and what they did from that. So the first one was, I needed tennis pro, which I've not actually ever put in the search engine, but how to improve my serve. All kinds of amazing people popped up and there's one guy you know if he lived close by would hire him. So my intent was to improve my serve versus find a tennis pro.
Dean Emerick 14:02
Exactly. That is intent. And in those all those little the sidebar, non-primary, the competition levels are much lower, because people are they haven't, a lot of businesses haven't done very good keyword research. They haven't done very good search engine optimization. And there's actually tools out there, I can look at competitor's website and go, Oh, well, they're not doing this, you're not doing that they're not doing this. So why don't we just take all those keywords and we'll focus on those and grab, you know, hundreds of people with different intent with real intent. They're not just kicking tires, they're not just like looking around whimsically. They are much closer to the bottom of the sales funnel, which means they're closer to being ready to buy.
Umar Hameed 14:50
So you know, let's forget about SEO because this will probably never catch on. Just kidding is it's critically important to be an element of your sales strategy marketing strategy. Let's talk about businesses. You work with a lot of businesses. And outside of the SEO, you're probably seeing some things that businesses do really well like some of them, you think, Oh, well, they're doing this brilliantly. But there's also common areas where businesses continually miss what they should be doing. So from your experience, what are some of the areas that people that are in sales, people that are business owners that are also you know, card-carrying sales, people that have to help their businesses grow? What are some of the common mistakes that they're making outside of SEO? That if you could wave a magic wand and fix a lot of those things, they would actually make things a lot better for them?
Dean Emerick 15:36
Well, it's, it's about flow. The internet is about flow. It's a flow of information. But when it when we sort of started out, like, I started doing this stuff in the late 90s. So the world was,
Umar Hameed 15:50
Very early days.
Dean Emerick 15:52
Yeah, I was. Yeah, that was like caveman days. So essentially, so much has changed then, but user experience has grown immensely. So people have expectations now. So when you say, oh, I've got something over here that's grabbing your attention, you should, you know, have a look at it, and people click on it, and they go through to a site or a landing page or whatever. There's process there that's missing. So they have expectations that when they land there, they're going to get more of what they're looking for. And they can have a deep dive, or they can, you know, depending on where they are in the sales process, they can get information that they need, which takes them to the next step. You don't necessarily have to just take them right to the sales page and go Okay, time to buy. No, you have to walk them through the steps that makes them comfortable, and makes them go Yeah, you know what, you're right, this is me, you are talking to me, I am the person who wants that or needs that service. So there's a whole process that you can do there.
Umar Hameed 16:54
So again, back to that human psychology of my babies, the cutest baby ever. And it's like I've got the solution, whatever it happens to be from being a chiropractor to a plumber. And we think soon as they find us, our customers, that they're going to want to meet my mother so we can get married. And that never happens. It's like a Hey, let's have a coffee. So recently, I started dating again. And the first day was calling you was calling me on zoom, we had an hour and a half zoom conversation, we hit it off really well. And then from that, we had dinner together. And from that, we had coffee together. And it was a seduction to get to just be close. And the same thing is true with a buyer's journey that you just can't like, get them to find your site. And it's like, hey, meet my mom, and you can call it we tend to do that, right? If we were asking a friend or friend was asking us, should I do that? We'd say no, no, no, don't do that. But we fall into that trap ourselves. So what are some questions that people could ask themselves that would allow them to examine if they're in the flow or not?
Dean Emerick 17:56
Well, first of all, the reason that we just jump right to, you know, jump right to marriage basically, is because we don't know better like we haven't been taught when it comes to the internet, where it's still in its infancy. And it just has consuming so much of our lives and processes and changing things. So it's not a surprise to me that people aren't, you know, that are there missing the steps, because nobody's really taught us to do that. So some of the things in there are, it's just, it's the same as face to face sales, you got to build the relationship, you've got to have interaction, you got to meet in different places under different circumstances and give them things from different angles. So a lot of companies are missing those steps. There's There's even upsells and down cells in the process, right? So that you can walk them through it, but Oh, sorry.
Umar Hameed 18:51
New phrase. I've not heard of down-sell. I've heard of upsell and cross sell, what is a down-sell?
Dean Emerick 18:57
Okay, so when somebody clicks on your thing, say they land in your yard, they're on your landing page.
Umar Hameed 19:04
What did they click on? Give us a hypothetical, they saw this, they clicked on this. And then it came to the give us a sense of their intent, which will kind of make it a whole holistic kind of answer.
Dean Emerick 19:14
You want the whole story? I can sense this. Okay, we're going deep. So basically, they see, let's just say it's an ad, right? Or even a Facebook post. They go, Oh, you've attracted them, you've got their attention with a quick little line. Maybe you're not saying anything, maybe it's a picture, maybe it's a video, whatever you use, there's many different things. They go, Okay, I want to know more. They just can't stop and they click on it. Boom, it's either takes them to off-site to a landing page, somewhere on a site that you own, or it takes them to, say a Facebook group or something. Anyhow, when they get there. They essentially are looking at you you're going to present them with more information of what they were looking for their original intent, their original interest. So you're going to present that to them. Yeah, in text, video images, you're going to hit them with the whole story. And you're going to hit their little key moments of things that they are generally looking for. Right? So then they're like, oh, okay, but I've only known this guy for, you know, three minutes. But you know, he's ticking boxes. He's saying all the right things. It looks good, they look presentable, they look respectable, whatever, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm warming up to them. But then you go for the Oh, click here to click here to buy. And it's like, No, they're not ready to buy. They're, they're only at like the stage two of the four-step sales process, basically the funnel, so they want more information, sometimes they want to go away and get more information and come back, right? So essentially, when they say, No, you're ready to buy. And they pop it in front of them, they go, they're not ready. So basically, you go to a down sale. So you try and sell them instead of selling them the 15 $100 solution to the problems, you know, oh, you know why you can do this. And then we have this installment plan for, you know, X amount of dollars per month. Or maybe you need the downgraded version, if you just want to start out slow and get X, Y, and Z, but not the ABC D, right. So So essentially, you're down selling them, they're not ready for your big-ticket item. But they might be ready for your down-sell, which means that if they pick that up, a you make the sale, and be you have someone in your funnel now that you can upsell to because you know as well as I do that it's easier to sell to someone who's already bought from you then to go and find a new cover.
Umar Hameed 21:51
Someone that already trusts you someone that has a relationship with you, and Dean, we can clearly see you're an expert in your field, how do people get ahold of you? How do they connect with you?
Dean Emerick 22:02
My main site is leadslocalseo.com. Essentially, that's where I'm connecting with everyone. I also have a group on Facebook, where I'm actually giving away a lot of this information for free so you can get some ideas. I do reviews actually have people's websites there too. And just give them an idea there for free. Give you an idea of what you have and how it's laid out. So can we put a link in there for him or?
Umar Hameed 22:29
We're gonna put it in the show notes, all your social media links, plus all the links and offers, and in a short bio, a very photoshopped photo of you so you look handsome, er and thank you so much for being on the show and really learned a lot and I'm looking forward to our next conversation.
Dean Emerick 22:47
Fantastic. Thanks for having me on Umar, it's always a pleasure to chat with you.
Umar Hameed 22:51
Cheers.
Umar Hameed 22:57
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. And if you're looking for more tools, go to my website at nolimitsselling.com. I've got a free mind training course there that's going to teach you some insights from the world of neuro-linguistic programming. And that is the fastest way to get better results.