Paul
Alright. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of marketing guides for small businesses podcast. I'm Paul Barthell, and I'm joined by Ken Tecker of Changescape Web and Ian Cartel from Outsource Marketing. And today, we're talking with a true SEO expert. Manick Bahn is the founder and CEO of Search Atlas, which is an all in one SEO platform, and it's used by agencies and enterprise brands like Shutterfly and LinkGraph, which is a SEO mission driven SEO and digital marketing agency.
He's been working in the SEO space for over a decade. He has built eight figure SEO companies, and he recently launched the first SEO AI automation tool of its kind, Auto SEO, which is awesome. He's a public speaker with past experience speaking at Brighton SEO Ad World and the traffic conversion center or summit. He presents on all kinds of topics, including SEO, software development, and AI among other things. So, Monique, let's let's jump in. So first, I guess, I'm gonna go right to the point. What is your secret to outranking competitors in local SEO, which is different?
Manick
You're going right in for the good stuff. So okay. In in local SEO, the secret to local SEO that I've learned is that it's holistic. And what a lot of people don't fully appreciate is that the same ranking signals that Google's using for web, a lot of them are at play as well in the local, maps as well. So things like building backlinks are actually a ranking signal for the local. Things like what you do on your website, specifically, we actually ran an experiment where we didn't touch the GBP at all. We added NLP information, schema markup, and optimized the home page, which was linked to from the Google business profile, and we saw a massive ranking agreement. That was interesting because not everyone fully appreciates that. Obviously, the website is one of those data sources that Google's using for for local rankings. Right? So what we do to the website does influence the Google Maps. So, I mean, I I shouldn't say it's a secret, but because I've been preaching this and teaching this for for now many, many years, but, I call it the exact holistic SEO framework, and it stands for x as user experience and behavior, a, authority, c, content, t, technicals. When you just kind of optimize all four of those key areas, together, you'll see massive improvement. And with auto, we're able to do that kind of in a very turnkey way.
Paul
Now building on that, if I can ask real quick, how important is it to link between your Google business profile and content on your website through post and things like that?
Manick
I would say in the posts, specifically, the linkage between the post and the website, not important. It is important though that you're publishing posts that include the keywords you're trying to rank for. We actually published a case study, I think, last week where we did nothing besides GBP posting, q and a optimization, and the answers from reviews. But, primarily, it was the GBP posts, and we saw massive improvement in rankings. But what's interesting is that we've actually learned that not all local businesses rank the same way. There are different ranking signals for different types of businesses. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. A lot a law firm in Google Maps doesn't rank the same way that a coffee shop does. And this blew my mind. You know what, guys? What we did about a month ago, I told my team, let's load up, like, twenty, twenty five businesses, and let's check their heat map rankings every hour for two weeks. And it was a huge geogrid. Okay? So we were tracking the rankings every hour for two weeks straight. So that's a lot of updates. We did it in, I think, like, ten different cities. And each city we selected, I think, around five businesses in different verticals. Like, some some were pharmacies, some were coffee shop, pizza, law firm, roofer. And guess what we found out? There is a massive volatility to rankings in maps, and it depends on the time of day, and it depends on the day of the week. And I I have all these charts now, guys. I can I'm gonna publish them very soon. And what that what that taught us is that ranking in maps is different depending on your business and depend depending on your market. And to that point, what we've noticed is the GBP posts, they work really well for certain businesses like dentists, like service businesses, more so than they do for businesses like roofers. So that was pretty interesting. And and you might, like like, ask yourself a lot. Okay. I focus on x y z niche. Maybe I focus on, like, dog groomers, right, for for dog people here. Well, dog groomers, what are the ranking factors for dog groomers? I can't tell you. I I don't I don't know. So you know what I do? Is I hit it over the head with everything. I I just I would just deploy the full holistic framework on every local business because even if those ranking signals change in a month or two months, we don't wanna be following outdated methodologies. We wanna be delivering the full holistic punch. And because, honestly, we can. We might as well do it. Right? Because we can hit all the signals at the same time. And so even if there are differences between one business type to another, we can still deliver the exact, you know, framework and and optimize all of those all of those, needles that Google has.
Manick
Yeah. Because my I know I saw some stuff recently that, you know, they're they're thinking that open hours is becoming a big factor for Google Maps rankings. I don't know if you saw that or not, but, you know, if you're if you think about it, you know, for, you know, for pizza or for food related things, obviously, you know, they're gonna get probably juiced up during their peak hours. And and Google tracks when people, you know, when they're normally busy. Right?
Manick
So Yeah. Ken, I'll send you I'll send you the raw data. I think you'll find it fascinating. Yeah. Found is that pharmacies, for example, and and this, you know, pizza shops in New York City, like, that kind of thing, they were super susceptible to being open and closed. But the roofers, we tested roofers in law firms as well. They actually had almost no impact to whether they were open or closed. So Wow.
Ken
Yeah. Awesome.
Paul
You know, one thing I've wondered I don't know if you know if you would have the answer to this, but does Google in their local rankings, do they differentiate between a business that people go to and a, like, like a brick and mortar and a business like a service area business that goes to the customer? Hundred percent.
Manick
Yeah. You hit the nail on the head there. That is really important. I I think foot traffic actual people foot traffic is behind a lot of the ranking differences, and that's one of our our theories. And I'll be honest with you, gentlemen. I don't have all the answers, but I'm trying to learn just through through testing and experiments. And Yeah. What we learn, we share so we can contribute to the enhancement of the overall community in the industry and move the whole thing forward. Because what I like to say, and tell me if you guys agree with this, if SEO was a pool, it would be a kiddie pool and it would be bright yellow. It's been pissed in by so I'm sorry to say, but it's been pissed in by so many people that are just they make shit up and, you know, it's hard to know what's real and what's not real. I'm just I'm I'm at in a lot of SEO communities, and I see people preaching stuff. And and sometimes I'm like, that's cool. I've never seen that thing before. It's weird. I don't know why it would work, but they claim it does. And so we have an experiments team. We spend over twenty thousand a month on testing.
Manick
We bring that in and we test it, and then it fails. And then I do it fifteen more times just to make absolutely sure that it fails, and it fails every time. And we're like, alright. This is it. We're not. This is done. This has been myth busted. And so I think one of the challenges that we have to overcome as as practitioners of the art and the science of of SEO is how do we how do we elevate ourselves above the people out there that are are are actually like the charlatans. And That's why I'm so focused on case studies because case studies, the proof is in the pudding. Yeah. You can see the results, the before and afters. Yeah. If I know what I'm doing, you should be able to take my technology and replicate my case studies. And if you can't, that's on me. Right?
Ken
Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like there'd be a good, YouTube channel is, myth busting SEO.
Manick
So plenty of it. Yeah.
Ken
Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of fake fake facts out there about it. You know? You go to the Moz blog, and it's filled with this, like, old like, basically, like, the like, the Google the Google book on how to do SEO, which is, like, totally not the reality of it. You know?
Ken
Yeah. So, one thing that I wanted to touch base with you on and and see what your thoughts are, is around the zero click, you know, what's going on. Rand Fishkin just released an article, I think, July first that talked about the fact that only thirty five percent of people click on organic search results. And and and there are zero click everywhere, you know, for for the other searches, which leads me to the question, you know, I mean, which which I I I get. I mean, I agree. I I've got that same behavior. Maybe not in those same, ratios, but, to me, it seems like if you're a local business, it's critical that you're gonna rank in the Google Maps, and you've tried to you've gotta try to to win, you know, in the in the knowledge graph and, you know, in the rich snippets if you can. So what are your thoughts about that, and how can a local business take that on?
Manick
Yeah. So the first thing is I respect Rand. In in my early days of my SEO career, I was learning from his research and what he was sharing. But I'm also very skeptical about the data, like, that that is being used for these studies. I wonder how many of those clicks are are bots versus not bots? How many of those days that traffic comes from the rank tracking software that's going to Google searching for the keyword and looking to see, who's ranking where. In Search Atlas, we've got five billion keywords. We pummel Google daily with millions and millions of of of requests to get the data. Is that being included in these studies? If it is, it's gonna inflate the zero click behavior. Right?
Ken
Yeah. And we can actually see that traffic in Google Search Console, and that's why we have to filter it out when we provide our data and search outlets to get rid of all of those bots that are hitting Google and showing up in our analytics. So but that said, I think Rand is right that the user behavior that Google is trying to lean us toward is not having to click into the websites because that requires more, cognitive load, right, than just getting our answers from, you know, the home page the overview page of of Google and the SERPs. And I think that's the natural evolution of searches to deliver more of those experiences and not have to force users to go and read the individual sites. And that experience is really taking place on informational keywords. Because if I wanna know what's the capital of Alaska, I need to click on a search to know the answer. I just need my I just need a quick answer.
Manick
And so for sites that built their businesses on informational keyword search, I think that's where if you're looking at your analytics, you're gonna see a drop. But I think we have to also remember that that the buying journey is not just about the click. It is about it's an omnichannel experience. It's about building our brands, and it takes sometimes ten touch points or more before people will activate. Right? And so it's okay, like, if they don't click. But if they see my brand and I'm the originator of that information and you see our logo, you see our brand there in the AI overview, that's still a part of of the search experience. It's still part of reaching our audience with our message. Right?
Paul
That and Google loves Google.
Manick
Google. Yeah. They obviously their incentives are not aligned with ours. Right? They're just in it for themselves, of course. And so, like, when we're building our house of houses, we're building the business we care about, It's important to kinda know where the puck is going, and I think that's that's why we're talking about this stuff. But I I expect in local search, like, Google Maps is gonna be it's unique and special for many reasons. One is that Google has the best local data of any online company. I don't care if you're Dun and Bradstreet or your Apple Maps or whatever it is. Google has the best local data. And and Google Maps because the business owners on the GMB, Google always have the most authoritative first party data around, like, local search and Google Maps experiences. So I don't think they're gonna have a lot of contest around the search behavior around local. And and I think for local businesses, they're relatively insulated from some of the changes that are happening to the AI overview experience. There are AI reviews in in Google Maps coming, but they're still pretty much the same. It's just a UI tweak. It's still the same thing. You know?
Ken
Yeah. Yeah.
Ian
Hey, Manick. You you shared some, case studies or some research that you've been doing. Can you share some more success stories with us about experiments you guys have conducted in relation to local SEO? And thanks for working in a hockey phrase there.
Manick
You bet. I'll see if I can keep keep some color coming there. Well yeah. You know? So every day every day, our team is publishing, new case studies every day. We are conducting, what I think is one of the largest SEO experiments ever conducted. There are over five thousand sites that have our technology installed on them, and our technology being installed allows us to to run these kinds of experiments, crazy case studies at a a scale that no one's really, I think, ever done before in SEO. And what we're seeing now, what we want what when I I built all of it for myself for our agency first and foremost, and then I gave to the community. And before we made it public, we had over a hundred agencies using it and testing it on their clients. And we didn't wanna release it until we were supremely confident that you could take our technology, you could use auto, and you could replicate our case studies. If you couldn't do that, we were not ready to launch it because I don't believe in peeing in that kim pool. Right? I'm like, that's not what we're gonna do here. Yeah. So, so what we did is is we we had all these agencies take our technology and replicate the case studies. And we're we were seeing so many people able to replicate what we're doing. I'm I'm I I at this event that I'm at, it's a mastermind in Miami. For agencies, a large percentage of this community uses our technology. People keep coming up to me. Yes, sir. I had Daniel Barrera come up to me and said, we had a local business. It was, it was on maps. It it was a kind of a zombie business. It's got no leads. He installed the technology, and one week later, there's over five calls coming into the business per week, and then that grows to ten to twenty. But Adam McChesney, and he installed it on on one of his sites. It was, like, a seventy, eighty percent lift to the Google business. Like, insane stuff. So we're we're getting more and more cases. I think at this point, we've got over a hundred and thirty case studies of auto working, and a lot of those experiments were us trying that one factor. Because the way that we test guys is, like, we don't throw the kitchen sink at it. Right? Because then you don't know what part of what you did actually move the needle. And so if you just throw everything at it every time, you don't learn anything. So in order to to learn, you gotta take test sites that are static. Nothing going on on these sites. And you change one variable, and then you observe and you watch and you learn. Right? And you do that enough times with each of of the different strategies and components, you can figure out the the the power of any given strategy and the impact that it can have. And so we've been doing that for for seven years now. Right? That's led us to know what works. And and I think that's the reason why the case studies are are so repeatable because you're you're doing the exact same thing that we tested in the lab, but you're doing not just one thing. You're hitting with, like, twenty five different strategies that we know work. And it's not something like fairy dust, guys. It's not like, you know, mnemonic's magic, like, Peter Pan fairy dust. It just make you think happy thoughts and the site starts to fly. Like, that's not what it is. Like, it's taking the SOPs that we've created at our agencies that that involve all of the fundamentals of SEO. And and and some other things that are more innovative too as well, like semantic SEO and knowledge based trust and smaller stuff. And we're just executing it, like, in an automated way, super fast and doing it right. And and that's why it works. It it's not it really isn't, like, rocket science. It's just applying the fundamentals properly, you know, Make your decision too.
Ian
I'm so glad you brought up the point about, moving one lever at a time. A lot of times when clients are in distress, you know, it's a new client, they're in distress, they're not getting a lot of leads, they're like, switch everything, you know, or or if they see, you know, that their local rankings go down a little bit, they they sometimes jump ship, and then they start switching too many things, and they actually cause a swifter decline than they would have experienced if they diagnosed what the actual issue was and and just fix that one lever.
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Manick
Yeah. That's so spot on. Especially, I saw with the helpful content update, the sites that were impacted by that, some of them just they literally panicked so much that they were like, we gotta redesign everything. We gotta change all this stuff. They got wrong advice. And and one thing I wanna say, if anyone watching this, you have a site and it's it's in decline, the traffic is falling, you may be tempted to throw vacation sync at it, like like you're saying, and change a lot of stuff. If you're gonna change anything, one thing do not change is totally redesign your site's templates. Okay? Do not do that. If you change the HTML content of the web pages in a dramatic way and Google can see that the pages are so different, they basically reset the historical data for that URL, and it has to earn its position in search all over again with new clicks and new measurement. And that means you're falling out of of the first page of Google, and you have to work your way back into it. And if you do that, your traffic will fall a lot, which is why anytime we see that we redesign a website, typically, it's the case that for at least a week or two, there is a drop in traffic because it it has to re earn, like, its place in Google. Does that does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah.
Ian
I was gonna ask you, does that is that true, or have you noticed that being true as well when you're just reskinning a a site? Like, even using the same, back end technology, but just, you know, subtly changing the look and feel of the site, do you find that to be true as well, Monique?
Manick
I think with with, like, subtle enhancements if you're elevating or let's say, like, under I I don't know what the percentage is. It's some percentage change. Maybe it's less than twenty percent change to the HTML. If you're making, like, a smaller percentage delta over what they had indexed before, then for them, it's it's just like like, maybe you added a new content module or maybe was a comment box that has new content on it. That's not an HTML change. That's just more content. That's okay. But if you're going in there and you're wholesale switching up the themes and changing the modules and moving the layout around like crazy, Google's gonna look at that page and say, this isn't the old page. The old data doesn't apply anymore. We gotta reset. Yeah. I don't know what the percentage is. I I wish I could tell you the exact percentage, but I'm just not there yet. I don't know. Yeah. We'll figure it out, though.
Paul
Cool. So, Manick, you kinda touched on this before, but what are some of the biggest or maybe most dangerous misconceptions? Dangerous as in if you do this, it can really hurt your local rankings that people have about local SEO.
Manick
Misconceptions. I think misconception, I would say, is for a lot of people today still, there's, like, two things that I see people really over index on. One is citations. They get, like, super, super into citations, and they're like like, hey. Am I am I getting fifty citations or or a hundred citations? It's like, bro, please. Like, it's not about the count of citations, guys. Like, even citations as as far as the ranking signal are so much muted, relevant to where they were before. I'm not gonna say they don't play a role because we've seen that they do slightly, but we tested literally every citation vendor, and I can share the results. We tested BrightLocal. We tested Aggregator Networks. We tested this company called Citation Vault, which I would not recommend, to be honest. We tested WhiteSpark. We tested all these different platforms. And we tried to figure out which one had the bet the best punch and and how much it moved the needle. To be honest, guys, it didn't really move the needle that much. So I would say people thinking that local SEO is very citation heavy. They're moving in the wrong direction. That's one. The other one is reviews. Reviews are are certainly important, but I I think that some people really over index and focus on just, hey. If we just get more reviews on our g GMB, we're gonna see our rankings go up a lot, and it's really not like the case. You do need reviews, and you should get them. It's not that you shouldn't. But by all means, if you're just trying to figure out a good local SEO program for that GVP, I would be focusing on the automations around the website and the Google My Business and the posting and the optimization of the content of the Google My Business and the content of the website. And and, like, building, like, building backlinks. We we've seen this with Signal Genesys, which is a great press release distribution service. SignalGenesis includes the Google My Business in the press releases, and we've seen from from running that on hundreds and hundreds of businesses that the rankings improvement can be absolutely incredible. We we saw a map that was ranking an average, like, position four, a lot of, like, one like, twos and fives in the map. The entire map went to once after after a press release. And it doesn't happen on every one, but we've seen massive impact from that. A lot of people don't think about backgrounds as part of the local SEO program. So just and and that's I I I I'm also I I should also say, I'm asking for the service because we've used it, and it was so effective that we acquired the company. And now we bought them, and now they're a part of Search Atlas Group.
Ken
Oh, okay. Did not know that. Alright. Awesome. Cool.
Paul
So is that gonna be incorporated into Search Atlas at some point, or is it gonna remain a separate platform?
Manick
it's gonna be both. SignalGenesis is staying exactly as it is. We're not gonna change pricing. We're entering from the existing users. We're just actually elevating the product. We're making it better. We're doubling the amount of distribution, and we're also adding some new features which are are gonna, I think, get better results. And we're also bringing it into auto. So if you've got auto on a website, you'll be able to one click generate and submit a press release for the business. It's fully ad generated. It's submitted to all the distribution networks and and automatically index as well, so you don't have to do all of that by hand. It's just a a fluid process and and, like, quite cheap. Like, press releases for under fifty bucks. That is, like, super cost effective.
Ian
Yeah. Awesome.
Ken
Yeah. Yeah. We've had Layne on our podcast in the past. So
Manick
Lane's the man. He's actually becoming our CMO now. So he's a part of the leadership team. Yeah. And that as well. Amazing. We actually we probably saw him in the background. He's walking around.
Ken
Okay. Alright. Well, tell him I said hi.
Manick
I will. Alright.
Ken
So, you know, in terms of, local search, which we're really kind of focusing on today, you talked about omnichannel, which we love because we're huge fans of omnichannel. How how do you see local SEO kinda playing with, other things like, you know, Google pay per click ads or even social media, you know, are there drivers that you're seeing from people doing paid ads that are providing any uplift for local SEO, you know, whether it's social posting, whether it's, having, you know, a stronger profile on Yelp, for example, or HomeAdvisor or whatever. You know? Ian, you can probably provide a a good source for, you know, dentists. What do you see there?
Manick
Well, I think, like, what I'm seeing is that so one really interesting vantage point that I get is we serve agencies first and foremost to then serve the businesses. And so we've got agencies that specialize, and they focus only on dentists and only on lawyers and only on, you know, tree cutters and dog groomers and kids' dance studios and everything else. Right? And each one of them designs a slightly different program, a marketing program for their, local business. And those marketing programs teach us something, which is for that particular kind of business, where their audience lives and how we can reach them. Right? That make sense?
Ken
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Manick
So for the law firms and how the law firms reach their clients, we see that that is, like like, there there are many channels there where they can successfully attract and bring their ideal customers to their their messaging on their website and convert them. And for other businesses, it's just different. So there's no I wouldn't say that there's a there's a a single source of truth for all businesses, but we've seen every marketing channel work for for pretty much every, you know, with with different businesses. And local service ads is one that I've seen work for a lot of businesses because it's it is native to the Google platform. And Google, as you guys know, the intent behind search is the highest intent for something. If I go to Google and I type in dog groomer, I want a dog groomer for my dog probably today or I want I want it now versus when you're surfing on TikTok or or on any other platform where you're kind of passively consuming content in a four u curated feed. That is just not the same level of intent. And that changes the entire equation. Right?
Ken
Yeah. Definitely. Do you, do you see anything with I'm just curious because, we're we're actually a Yelp advertising partner. And Yelp carries really strong intent as well because if you're using the Yelp app, you're looking to make a buying decision. So Yelp SEO is a, you know, completely different animal, but it also Yelp tends to rank pretty well in Google searches, you know, with the top lists. And it's also a pretty powerful directory site overall. So are what do you see, if anything? I don't even know if you've even really looked at, any impact of y'all. But if if you can share anything, I'd love to hear.
Manick
I I honestly, I haven't I haven't focused on that area in SEO, and that's why it's great that we're having conversations like this because we're all teaching each other and bearing light on on elements and aspects of this that are search is too big for one man. And even as much as, you know, as I can do, I'm I'm I'm level
Ken
Yeah. Well, what's interesting is, you know, a lot of platforms deliver Yelp local data over Google local data. A lot of in car navigation systems, a lot of voice search. Amazon and Apple tend to deliver that. Apple Maps historically has delivered Yelp local data, not Google local data. And so it it you know, it look. Google's the eight hundred pound gorilla and then some. I mean, it's like ninety two percent of all searches are coming through Google, you know, between YouTube image searches and and and traditional Google search. So but, you know, it's interesting that there are still some opportunities out there for some secondary channels that, that might you know, for particular niches might be, very, very powerful.
Manick
For sure. And, you know, the other thing, guys, like, that's a great observation. I also I just I always come back to the power of the brand because, ultimately, businesses are trying to reach humans. We're trying to connect with people. And, and the way that we do that is it's it really is it's a it's a way more interesting and intricate story than just appearing in a a single SERP or in a single ad. You know, the power of the brand and the power of building something unique that tells a story, doing something even different. Right? A lot of things that I see in marketing, like, there's the general rules of thumb, but then there's always the exception to it that breaks the entire wheel. Right? Right. You know, the standout success stories in their businesses like, you know, Krispy Kreme. You know, you're like, these guys, this wasn't a search story. This was a brand story. Yeah?
Ken
Yeah. Definitely. Alright. Awesome.
Ian
Hey. And and, you know, we've anybody that's done a holistic approach to marketing understands that, SEO, when done properly, is like planting a tree. It grows and grows and grows over time as long as you're investing in it, and it bears lots of fruit. And that fruit continues to grow in capacity and as well as return on investment. At least that's what we find, and and we found that very consistently with our clients. But, do you have a particular approach, or would you recommend a particular approach, Monique, for local businesses to keep ranking higher? Like, just to to view, what should they be doing from a long term perspective, even with all the algorithm changes and different factors that, you know, continue to make it challenging to to continue that course?
Manick
For sure. The one thing that I see that I think local businesses on under index on is that they don't produce enough new content or new landing pages and try to attract more of audience and expand their their reach. Right? A lot of them will will they can do the technical optimizations and whatnot, but there's an there's an important equation I call it's just the Google the simplified Google ranking equation. Organic traffic equals ranking potential times ranking signals. Ranking potential comes from having content that Google can show you on Google search for for different keywords. If you have zero pages, your organic traffic is zero. If you have one page, your organic traffic is low. If you've got more pages, organic traffic can be higher. So one thing that every business needs to do is to actually figure out its audience on search, creating content to put in front of them. So one thing that we're always trying to do to empower people using auto in search hours is how do we get you to make it easier to publish content to the site, whether it's a blog cook blog content or new geo targeted landing pages or new service pages for the website. We gotta push more content onto that website. And by doing that, we show up for more keyword search that boosts our ranking potential, but it also boosts our ranking signal. And part of the ranking signal is our authority, and Google actually has a way of measuring that that has nothing to do with backlinks reviews. It's what what they call knowledge based trust. So let's say it's, like, a plumber. By creating content on our website about the plumbing niche, about emergency plumbing, about the different kind of gaskets. I don't know. I'm not I don't know enough about plumbing. Yeah. But, you know, you guys know what I mean. If you can master the niche with your content, you boost your knowledge based trust, and you will actually be able to see there are sites that make in the page one of Google, the topical authority alone with no backlinks at all. Actually, one of my case studies I published last week is a client that we did that for. By just building topical maps, deploying local topical maps for that that brand, we were able to get from the page one of Google with a Doctor of an hrefs to d r of, like, one. Right? Which means, like, almost no backlinks. Yes. You know, it's pretty crazy. Right?
Ken
Yeah. Wow. So what do you see as, I mean, importance in terms of local content for local search? You know, location pages, you know, information about, you know, local charities that you're working with or public events or, you know, anything like that. I mean, obviously, we're we're also huge proponents of creating more and more content, but I think one of the things that's typically overlooked is local content that needs to be added to the website.
Manick
Local content is, I think, some of the easiest content to rank because most of the content out there is general and intended for a large audience. But if you're creating localized content about you know, here I'm in Miami. So if you're looking for, like, Miami roofers, but even more specific, Miami commercial roofing, Miami siding, whatever, the more local you get with those keywords in those pages, the more likely you can show up and people search for those keywords and get that traffic. So I think, like, you know, to your point there, Ken, getting those local end pages, those local service end pages, getting those on the website, we've actually seen like, if you drop the heat map and you you look at the rankings in a large area. So if we're in Miami, we're able being able to look as far north as, like, Boca Raton or as far south as, you know, I don't know, Key Largo or something. If you have those service pages on the site that include those cities, you will see your rankings will go will will improve in those parts of the heat map, which are really far from the center of your business. You can actually boost the rankings by having that content on the website. So strategies like that, strategies like building a glossary of terms. A lot of people don't talk about it, but glossary of terminology is a really powerful way to add the vocabulary of your niche to your website. And the way the way that we've approached it is when we figure out what the keywords are that you're trying to rank for, what we try to do is rebuild the knowledge graph of information around around that keyword that Google has and take that knowledge graph of terminology of what they call entities is their term for it Yeah. And put that as a glossary on the website. And by putting that on the website in a factual way, we can really, really amp up the knowledge based trust of the website, and it will rank a lot better in maps and on Google search. It's it's kind of a hack,
Ken
that it works. Yeah. Awesome.
Paul
So we we talk about holistic approach, and you talked about a holistic approach to ranking and SEO and marketing. So do you have a definitive list of preferred tools and software to help with that?
Manick
Well, yeah. I mean, pretty much the only tool that that we need to use for this anymore is just search Atlas and Auto. Every important component of the holistic SEO framework, that we identify, like, we've got a huge engineering division, so we just build it into the product. We used to once upon a time, we were users of of Ahrefs and SEMrush, and we're using Surfer SEO. We're using the pitch box for outreach, and we're using, Screaming Frog and all these advanced, like, expensive crawling tools like Spotify, which are, like, twenty five, fifty thousand dollars a year. And our total tech stack for all of our tools and I'm not including, like, HubSpot, which we were paying five k a month for just for that. Right? Just the SEO stack was was, like, probably, like, almost five to eight thousand dollars a month. Right? And and, like, yeah, like, we paid it because it gave us an edge, and we were able to get better results, and we were using it to deliver a more holistic framework. But as we kept going with it every time our team grew, we were having to upgrade this account to the enterprise plan. They just gouged us. So that's why, like, basically, five years ago, we started building our platform for ourselves first. And and now, to be totally frank and I I I wanna be authentic and and real with you guys, but we really only use Search Atlas now. We don't need to use any of the other tools because for the ones that actually matter, like, Ahrefs is actually a really good platform with their backlink data and their authority scoring system. Moz domain authority, we have the API and we use it, but it's terrible. And Semrush, their site authority scores are garbage. But Ahrefs domain rating is very good. And and Majestic has also some really interesting metrics like trust and citation points. So we actually use those datasets from those companies and include them in search practice. But we don't need to actually use the platforms themselves. We just use those specific metrics that we found are important.
Ian
Yeah. It's getting rowdy over there.
Ken
So so one of the one of the things that, you know, with with the rush of AI that's been happening is that I'm I'm starting to hear a lot of people talk about their tools and even SEOs are saying SEOs now set it and forget it. I think that's really dangerous. I think there are components, there are objectives that you can accomplish with, you know, to a large to to a large extent with that. But can you talk about what your thoughts are about the set it and forget it mentality that's that's I think it's, again, I think it's, you know, pissing in that kiddie pool.
Get a 7-day trial of Search Atlas by visiting: http://localleads.me/sa
Manick
Mhmm. Yeah. There's a lot of like, AI plus SEO tool. There's a lot of companies that need that messaging of, like, we're the AI plus whatever. And a lot of these tools are are are, like, they're not great. And a lot of people claim that, hey. This is like an AI SEO system, but it's not. Some solution is just like a it's a hack, and it doesn't even really work. And it's hard to know what's real and what's not real. And so what I would advise people to do is is follow a community of people that's pursuing excellence in this field of study. Don't and potentially follow multiple communities, multiple people that are sharing real case studies and real research. If someone is talking about, you know, like, for example, people for a long time thought local SEO and Yext, all you gotta do is just buy Yext and that's local SEO. Right?
Ken
Right.
Manick
Right? And Yeah. And, like, that's that's, like, five per three percent of it or less. Right? So it's it's dangerous to your point. It's dangerous. And I think there's a big education gap between the people that really understand it and the ones that don't. What I would say is if you if if you have if you have a digital marketer or an agency that's following a reductionist approach, Desio, that's not doing all of it right, they will always be out and competed by the guys who are putting in the effort and taking a more comprehensive, more holistic, more advanced, more, delivery oriented approach to SEO. I'm a big fan of what what I'm calling dynamic SEO, which is it's not about AI actually. Right? It's not. It's really not about AI. It's about automation, and it's about innovation through a new paradigm of SEO, where we're able to change the website dynamically using technology programmatically every day or every week. But that's not an AI story. That is a, that is a unlock about how the algorithm works and how we can improve our websites for Google. And AI is a part of how we get there, but it's not it's not the whole thing. It's not it's not about AI.
Ken
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, AI is not a hundred percent accurate, you know, nor are humans. You know? So I think I think it's it's still really healthy to have people with strong deep SEO understanding evaluating you look. AI is helping you get there a whole hell of a lot faster. And it's giving you ideas about things that you never even would have uncovered because there are just too many distractions in the world. So it's it's a massive productivity gain and it's, it's actually liberating really good SEOs to work on more important things. I I
Manick
I I think that's exactly right. It's not about some people think that, like, it's about replacing people. It's it's not really, really about replacing people. It's about up leveling them. It's about allowing them to think and function at a higher level, to be more strategic, to be more creative at at the agency level to communicate with our clients, to talk to them more, and to also, step into that strategist role where we're we're looking at their business strategy, their business model, the overall comprehensive approach they're taking to search, and advising them at that level, not manually updating manage descriptions and titles and, you know, going in and fixing image alt text and copying and pasting content, loading, and seeing this all this stupid, you know, painful drudgery. You know? It's like you just you wanna gouge your eyes out doing this kinda work. It's about eliminating that type of stuff and just allowing us to be more creative.
Ken
Yeah. Which that that work is important, but if you can get it taken care of very efficiently with the right tool set and oversaw you know, having somebody oversee that that's actually being done properly, you know, is huge. So yeah. Okay.
Manick
I was gonna say just that it's it's like it's like a spaceship or, you know, it's it's a Lamborghini. But the Lamborghini doesn't move until you sit down in the seat and put your finger put your foot on the accelerator and grab the wheel. Right? There's gotta be someone in there who understands what they're doing, and there are levels to that as you guys know.
Ian
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Still need a good operator to make the tool work well and to get the most out of it. Right?
Paul
Yeah. Yeah.
Ian
So so, Manick, this leads really well into, the next question, which is, pull out your crystal ball, you know, which is really just looking at the trends that you're observing. What are your expectations for the future, whether it's near future, a year down the road, five years down the road, which might be too far out as we all know. But, what are what are your expectations for the future of local SEO?
Manick
I think local SEO will probably change less than other aspects of SEO and digital marketing. Given that I I think the the local maps experience already pretty dialed in, the product doesn't really need to change. You know, the the experience is already really good. I think what we'll see, what we're gonna see is Google's gonna be a fast follower. They're not gonna be an innovator. They're not gonna be the tip of the spear. Other companies like Perplexity AI, ChatGPT, Claude, like, the ones that specifically, ChatGPT and OpenAI, they wanna move into the search direction. They wanna build a search product. But and a lot of people out there are are very, like, fatalistic about this. They're like, oh my god. Like, Google Google's not gonna be the dominant search engine. People are using Chat Sheet. They can't send Google. Wrong. Like, if you look at user behavior, actually, the amount of people using chat GBT is, like, down by, like, forty, fifty percent versus where it was. It's like any shiny penny. Like, things have their course and, you know, hype wave, and then people, like, come back to to their senses. So I actually don't don't see, like, Chachi, when you're really competing with Google over search, I think Google also remember, like, they've been vertically they've perfected vertical search for, like, hotels and travel and every, like, niche of search that they could. They built a unique experience to to make it better and to make it faster and easier. And they've been doing that, guys, for, like, what, twenty, thirty years? So, like, David, they put the time in. Chativity, like, they they've got they've got the data that Google now has that they're servicing and serves, but they don't have the specialization in each of the verticals. And they also don't own the market. Ninety two percent already owned by Google. So I think we're gonna see companies like that, like, try to to say, hey. We're the next Google. We're the next big thing. But to improve and evolve upon the question and answer experience, which is what Google fundamentally is, is a UI UX tweak, and Google will simply take what other people are doing and and seems to be working or seems to be good or better than what they have. And they will replicate it. But they will be fast followers and not the the ones that are radically recanibalizing the search experience. I'm not gonna do that because they don't need to do that. Yeah. So I I actually don't think that too much of that is gonna change. I do think that SEO, people are gonna be more focused now about how do we get our content into the large language models because that's not an automatic thing. And so figuring out how how does SEO also now include more than just Google or or Bing or DuckDuckGo, but, like, how does it also encompass the LLMs? That's gonna be a really fascinating new frontier of search is how do we also create visibility in the large language models.
Ken
Yeah. Cool. Absolutely.
Paul
Yeah. That's that's gonna be interesting to see how that evolves. But, yeah. So, you know, we've talked about this holistic approach that needs to be taken in automation. And I think something people need to understand, and we've kind of talked about it in other podcasts is a lot of business owners don't they'll go find some free tool and they're gonna do something that sells. It's like, first of all, if you're using a free tool, it's probably not that good. And second of all, you have to understand the data that comes out of there. If you don't have an understanding of the data, you're gonna make bad decisions.
Manick
For sure. So Yeah. I don't use any free tools, to be honest, because you're right. Like, part of the economic equation is by by creating value for users and charging for it allows you to reinvest and keep innovating. If Search Owls is a free tool from day one, we would never have been able to get here. Right? So you do kinda get what you pay for. Right?
Ken
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. No doubt.
Paul
And then you had to take the time to learn the platform as well and and understand what it's telling
Ken
Yeah. I mean, you know, it it's amazing, you know, when you look at everything that's inside a Search Atlas, you know, I mean, all three of us on this podcast and Jeff, who's normally with us but couldn't be here today, You know, we we all have been doing this for dozens of years. And, you know, the the it it's awesome to have a tool that brings it all together. You know, and and I love what you guys are working on to create that all in one experience because it it's so needed. You know? I mean, HubSpot HubSpot started it, you know, with just a digital marketing platform, overall, which which was revolutionary. And it and it brought about this whole rush of, you know, digital marketing becoming so important. And even if people weren't using the tool sets, they're like, oh my god. We can actually finally start getting some of this stuff working together. You know? And then you've got, you know, tools, you know, that provide CRM and operational experience and and and whatnot, like, like high level. And now you guys are coming, you know, coming on strong have been strong for the, you know, the all in one SEO, so that's fantastic.
Paul
Yeah. It is. Appreciate you saying that. No more jumping between software platforms. Oh, I gotta go get a place to do this over here, and I have to do this over here. And it yeah. It's it's great that it's all in one place.
Manick
Yeah. Guys, that's that's amazing feedback. Thank you for sharing that with me. That's the kind of feedback that really inspires me and the team to keep going. And just so you guys know what our North Star is. Right? Well, our North Star is we're trying to make search a channel that more people can become successful in and make it more productive and more efficient and easier to to get things done. Because at the end of the day, the way that we should measure our success as operators and marketers and agency owners is how many businesses can we change the lives of that person? How how much of an impact can we have on our local community or on the people we care about through our craft and our work? And the only way we can have an impact is if we can drive positive ROI. Business already gives us one dollar. We're able to create ten dollars of value for them. If we're charging ten dollars and they're getting one dollar of value, obviously, that leads to churn, and we don't keep that client around or that business. You know, we hurt that business when we do those things. That's why the the kiddie pool is bright yellow because people have been doing that for a long time. So way I see it is is what we're all here to do is we're here to help those businesses become more successful by using our creativity, by using our tools, by using our marketing systems. And what we're just trying to do here is we're just trying to say, we we figured out we figured out a lot of stuff in search that we can make turnkey and and simple and easy. And if you follow this simple simple solution, this simple process that really anyone can do with with the right focus and the right care, can learn it, and we can also now go forth and change the lives of these business owners. Like, my personal goal, why I'm doing this. It's not for me, it's really about money or I like to call it purple or whatever. I'm doing this because I'm trying to, like, impact a million businesses. That's our big, hairy, audacious goal. That's what we want to do. And the only way we can get there is we have to build a solution that can drive results and actually verifiably create a case study machine for every single person that uses it, that they can all be as successful as we were deploying, creating this technology so that they can go and be the catalyst to get those million business owners in the world to use this, to see the gains, to get results, to then positively impact their families, their lives, their communities. That's that's why we're doing it.
Ken
Yeah. Love it.
Ian
Yeah. One thing fantastic. Search Search
Paul
Search Search chat listen, auto has helped me do is even if I spend the same amount of time on a particular client, I get more done because I'm not jumping between platforms. It's all right there.
Ken
Yeah. Well, and you're not having to spend time on really mundane tasks like we talked about. You know? Like, oh, I've gotta update the meta description here. You know? It's like, you know, it's a piece that needs to be done, but, man, you know, why why suck up somebody's intellectual capacity with something that, you know, really is low hanging.
Manick
So Yeah. I mean, is this been, like, a big theme? Like, we're all hearing tons and tons about about automation and robots taking over, you know, certain types of jobs and certain type of work that we were doing. And our goal should always be to become the highest versions of ourselves, the most creative, the most visionary, the most productive, the most capable, and and not spend our time. Like, if you're if you find yourself if you're listening to this, you might you know, yesterday, I spent seven hours doing this really mundane work, right, to to deliver results for my clients. I wouldn't say don't don't deliver like, don't not do that, but, like, find a better way to do that. Find a system that you can deploy and implement that will get them the results without you doing that that monotonous, like, really, really tedious work because, like, we're in the new era of digital marketing. It is upon us now. And the automation technologies that are leveraging AI, Searchallis is is one of them and and GHL is another. And I think if you put these two these platforms together, DHL is a phenomenal activation platform, so powerful at activating and retaining. And I would say if you do a bit if you install DHL on a business' website, you have done them a great service because now they're gonna grow. Right? Yeah. Yeah. If you install auto on a business' website and you operate it, you've done them a great service because they're gonna grow.
Ken
Right.
Manick
So it's about us, like, kinda moving into that world, I think.
Ken
Yeah. Well, you know, if you if you're getting more results, more people hitting your website because of your SEO efforts, you still have a leaky bucket. You know, you're not really ultimately solving the problem. So, yeah, you're right. I mean, the the two technologies hand in hand, you know, are just, you know they're massive.
Paul
Yeah. Absolutely. For sure.
Manick
Yep. I think we're also gonna see like, there's a there's a company that is waiting to be born in the space right now, the next Salesforce of digital marketing. And what that company is gonna do is it's gonna understand how to build technology around the business at the epicenter and really understand that business, its search space, its opportunity online, and it's gonna automate the performance marketing system around that business. And that is I'm I'm I'm working very hard with our team of people every year to make to make sure that that's us so that we can deliver that product and service. SEO is is just the beginning of where we're going. Obviously, it's where I I love SEO. It's been a big part of my life for a long time, and I know you guys too. You guys love SEO as well. Right? Yeah. But PPC, like, you you talked about the local ads. That's another powerful way to create positive outcomes for businesses where we can really help them grow fast. We're already working on auto PBC. So that will be coming soon. And Wow. Importantly, like, if you guys have have run Google Ads, you know, you know you when you get a call from your Google Ad rep, what are they gonna tell you? They're gonna say
Paul
Increase your budget more.
Manick
Yeah. Spend more. Increase your CPCs. Well, like, if you're limited by budget, like, add add another couple hundred dollars to that daily budget. Right? That's all they do. And they're they're not even employed by Google. They're employed by third party firms. They're reading from a script. You can't give the keys to the fox, right, to let to let them into the, you know, hen The head house. Whatever the expense house. House. Yep. Exactly. So we we gotta have our own technology, right, that that we know serves and optimizes for the business at the center, and that is never gonna be the marketing platforms. It's gotta be a third party platform that cares and optimizes the equation for the business and not for Google and not for Facebook and not for YouTube. You know? It's got optimism in the business.
Ian
So Looking forward to it, Monique. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Paul
Google Ads are a pain. For sure. But, no. This is a great topic. Mike, thanks for being here. Really appreciate your insights. Any final thoughts from anyone?
Manick
Final thoughts, I would just say, guys, you know, just remember remember the why behind why you got into this business to begin with. Work toward building a a better business for yourself and for your clients every day. Don't get lost in the sauce. Don't, like, over index on the wrong stuff. I would say focus on building a better business and having a bigger impact in the businesses you serve. And if that's your gold star, I think you're gonna see the greatest success coming in the next one year where the automation technologies and the AI are gonna be, like, the win win in your sales if you have the orientation. So that would be my my advice, and I would be to give anyone listen to this.
Ken
Awesome. What's what's the best way for folks to get a hold of you?
Manick
I'm an easy guy to to get in touch with. Find me on Facebook. Add me on Facebook. Manick Bahn, easy to find, or Instagram. Yeah. And and I also answer all my own messages. So if you if you connect with me, I'm gonna it might take me some time, but I will get back to you.
Ken
Yeah. I can vouch for that. Alright. Awesome. Thank you.
Paul
Awesome.
Manick
You guys rock. And, thanks for doing this. You guys have, a great community. You guys have a great show. And thanks for empowering businesses and and digital marketers to become a little smarter with what they do. Especially tell the local SEO story because it's gonna be so important over the next couple years here. So keep doing what you're doing.
Ken
Alright. Thanks.
Manick
Yeah.
Ian
You're taking
Manick
that note, Paul?
Paul
No. I'm gonna let you do that. You do that.
Ian
Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, thanks, Manick for being our special guest today, even when you're at a live event. So that's awesome. We really appreciate that. And you got great noise cancellation on your headphones there, so good job. And, thank you to our listeners and our viewers for joining us today. Tell your friends, your colleagues, other businesses about this so that we can start to spread the word even further. And, until next week, guys. Keep calm and market on.
Manick
Thanks. Love it.
Mastering Local SEO with Manick Bhan, CEO of Search Atlas
In the ever-evolving world of SEO and digital marketing, one aspect that is expected to remain relatively stable is local SEO.** While other areas may undergo significant changes, local SEO is already well-established and doesn't require much improvement. However, there are still important strategies and techniques that businesses need to be aware of to effectively optimize their online presence in local markets.
Creating Localized Content and Expanding Reach
To succeed in local SEO, it is crucial to focus on creating more localized content and expanding reach. Building dedicated local service pages that cater to specific locations can greatly boost search engine rankings. Incorporating location-specific keywords in the content helps search engines understand the relevance of the website to local searches. By tailoring the content to the needs and interests of the local audience, businesses can establish a stronger connection and increase engagement.
The Power of Branding and Storytelling
In addition to localized content, the power of branding and storytelling should not be underestimated. A strong brand identity helps businesses stand out in a crowded market and build trust with potential customers. By telling compelling stories that resonate with the target audience, businesses can create a deeper emotional connection and foster loyalty. It is important to prioritize brand building and incorporate storytelling elements into the marketing strategy.
Dispelling Misconceptions about Citations and Reviews
There are some misconceptions about the importance of citations and reviews in local SEO. While they can contribute to a business's online reputation, their impact is often overestimated. It is important to avoid the misconception that simply having numerous citations and positive reviews will guarantee high rankings. Instead, businesses should focus on providing excellent products or services and delivering a positive customer experience. Genuine customer satisfaction and word-of-mouth recommendations are more valuable in the long run.
The Danger of the 'Set it and Forget it' Mentality
One common pitfall in local SEO is adopting a 'set it and forget it' mentality. This approach can be detrimental to long-term success. SEO requires ongoing monitoring, analysis, and adjustments to stay ahead of the competition. A comprehensive and holistic approach is necessary to adapt to the ever-changing search landscape. Businesses should continuously evaluate their strategies, keep up with industry trends, and make data-driven decisions to achieve sustainable results.
The Role of AI in Local SEO
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a valuable tool in automating processes and improving efficiency in various industries, including SEO. However, it is important to note that AI should not replace human expertise. While AI can assist in tasks such as data analysis and automation, the strategic and creative aspects of local SEO still require human input. The future of local SEO lies in leveraging AI to streamline processes and enhance the work of SEO professionals, allowing them to focus on more strategic and creative aspects of their work.
The Future of Local SEO
Looking ahead, the future of local SEO is centered around automation and innovation. All-in-one platforms and automation technologies are becoming increasingly important in streamlining marketing efforts. Companies like Search Owls and GHL are leading the way in developing comprehensive solutions that optimize the performance marketing system for businesses. The focus is shifting towards building a better business and making a bigger impact, rather than solely relying on platforms like Google or Facebook. Local SEO will continue to play a crucial role in the coming years, and it is essential for businesses to stay informed and adapt to the changing landscape to maintain a competitive edge.
In conclusion, local SEO remains a vital aspect of digital marketing. While it may not undergo drastic changes like other areas, businesses must stay proactive and implement effective strategies to optimize their online presence in local markets. By creating localized content, prioritizing branding and storytelling, dispelling misconceptions, avoiding the 'set it and forget it' mentality, and leveraging AI, businesses can position themselves for long-term success in the ever-evolving world of local SEO.
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