Avoiding SEO Scams Part 1

From Ordinary to Extraordinary

Website Link: http://o2epodcast.com/

Article Link: http://o2epodcast.com/how-to-be-an-entrepreneur-yusuf/

Everybody welcome back to the From Ordinary to Extraordinary podcast. This

is your host Victoria Caldwell. And I have another exciting guest today.

Actually he’s a little bit different than some of the other guests, and his name

is Yusuf Chowdhury. He’s a professional Digital Marketing Consultant,

business coach, and instructor, with the combined 15 years of experience in

the field of Marketing Research.

He’s given lectures at colleges and universities, both nationally and

internationally over topics such as social media, SEO, creation of WordPress-

based websites, video marketing, blogging and mobile marketing. And if

you’ve ever been privileged enough to hear Yusuf speak, or teach, or train,

then you’ll know why I’m excited to have him on today. When I had him at an

event of mine, which he’s come to almost all of them, all of the guests were

just scribbling and taking notes because he just lays it all out on the line and

just gives you so much value. And he’s definitely an expert in his field, so I’m

really excited to have him on today.

Victoria: Yusuf, how you doing?

Yusuf: Thank you so much Victoria. I’m so, so excited and I really appreciate

this opportunity, very, very excited.

Victoria: Well, good! I’m glad. So I know you have an appointment, so I just

want to go ahead and jump right in. And I know I’ve known you forever and

we’ve been calling you the ‘SEO Guy’ for how many years. And you’ve

obviously branched out way past SEO now, so you’re just the

‘Online Marketing Guy’ right now, so no matter what comes up…

Yusuf: Absolutely. Well it’s funny because one of the new tag line that if you

notice, either I call myself or somebody calls me the ‘Optimization Guy’. And

there was a story behind it because one of my awesome happy clients,

whenever he referred me to their friends and business associate, he always

tells them, ‘You need to talk to this OG’. And I’m like, ‘What do you mean by

the OG? I’m not original gangster’. He said, ‘No man, that is the ‘Optimization

guy’.

And this client, he had a deep voice. So he was like, ‘You need to go to the

optimization guy’. So from there, I took that name and it started another

YouTube channel where I basically share all the tips and advice on all the

marketing in general. Bbut it was amazing. I mean, if I really, really go back,

let’s say back in 2005 and 2006, if I started helping one of my friends Bro. Ali

Ardekani with the Ummah Films and different projects, and this is how it

actually started. I fell in love with some of his projects and I started to work on

these amazing tasks. And from there, that hobby eventually became a

business venture.

Victoria: I didn’t know that was when you got started with that.

Yusuf: Yes, this is how it happened. I mean, it was hilarious because Ali was

producing all these amazing videos and one day he asked me, ‘Hey, can you

help me out?’ I said, ‘Sure!’ And I got into this blogging, the world of blogging

and in Myspace, the social media, everything was just like trial and error. And

when the website grew, and we generally had lots of fans, and attended so

many conferences, then the small businesses started to approach us and tell

us, ‘How do you use blogging for business? How to use videos?’ And from

there of course, you know Bro. Ali. He’s always helpful and also I love to help

anyone that ask any question. I love to help them. I guess that’s just part of

how I was raised. And Alhamdulillah from there, there you go. The rest was

history.

Victoria: I knew you were doing it but, yeah you are definitely always helpful, I

know. Every time I have a question or something you know, I pipe right in.

When did I start in this business? Probably 2002, teaching myself SEO. Yeah,

that was when it wasn’t even in the industry yet. It was just from Andy Jenkins.

Yusuf: Oh my God!

Victoria: Yeah, and Andy is old too [laughter]. Yea Andy Jenkins taught me

how to set up my first site in 2002. That’s when I set up my first site, and I

bought his book, e-book. Yahoo Store Profits. And then I was all excited, I’m

like, ‘Now my store’s up.’ And then my next problem was, ‘How am I going to

get people to this store to buy?’ [laughter]

Yusuf: You now this is amazing. Because when I started learning SEO later

on, because I would technically say I started in social media rather than SEO,

like you know, the videos and the blogs and content. Later on, around like

maybe at the end of 2007, I knew of the SEO I wanted to start to get into it

deeper. Unfortunately, all the SEO knowledge that I gained mostly were Black

Hat, you know, Black Hat SEO.

So I was thinking like, ‘Oh this is cool! I can rank the website. I can look at the

previous project that you know, let’s say that worked on Ummah Films and

whatnot, and how it brought me traffic. I remember when, for instance, Bro. Ali

used to post those videos. I’d take those videos and upload them to like 50

video sites manually.

And from there, some of the different blogs and whatnot, so I thought ok this

could be the right thing to do, and it worked back then. It really worked. So,

when I started to learn a lot of these so called SEO from the so called internet

gurus and whatnot, I really found out that most of them actually not a good

practice and it will cause a lot of problem. So I start to join the WebMaster

Tools community found within Google. Then I started to learn more in there

from what is that actual or the correct way of running the SEO from

Moz.com and previously it’s used to be called SEO Moz, search engine LAN

and all these other so called white hat. Then I actually fell in love more

because now I know both, I know that so called Black hat or the Gray Hat and

also the White Hat. And the reason I like it because, imagine if you start a

business and you want to gain customers and you want the customers to find

you, so the search engine is the way to go, organically of course. And if you

want to get some sort of fast results, then you have to honestly try the online

advertising which is the Google Adwords, and Bing, and Amazon, and

Facebook, and whatnot.

Victoria: Exactly. I never got into the Black Hat, just because I knew, actually

it’s how old apparently I am. But when I got started, it was really just a new

field altogether. Google was new. They weren’t the big player in the search

engine market to begin with. It was more the Yahoo and Overture. And

Google was just really up and coming in that market. So we were doing pay-

per-click ads with Yahoo rather than Google ’cause their platform was really

primitive. And when they did come up, clicks were like 5 cents [laughter], like

good luck with that now.

Yusuf: Oh, forget it.

Victoria: You get clicks for 5 cents and that’s how I started learning to do

some PPC and SEO. And really, there was no provider industry at that time

and everything was just online entrepreneurs trying to do them. Of course, it

took off later when people started. But really, when I was in that space at that

particular time, no one was really trying to start an agency. They would just try

to market their site. And now, it’s a totally different world.

Yusuf: You’re absolutely correct because that’s why if you go back 10-15

years ago, a lot of these great web designers or specifically web developers

that can build an awesome website, but the majority of them don’t know the

in-depth of SEO. They might know the basic, just like the title, and the meta,

and the schema, and that’s about it. But they don’t know how to strategize or

anything like that. So that’s why you got these so called agencies that only

specialize in SEO. And some of them that are built on the web development,

and they add that service as well because if you look at it, with so many

trillions of web pages out there, having a nice looking website is not enough.

So you have to make sure that the website does its purpose.

For instance, it gives the user a better user experience, gives them what they

need, and it’s fast, and it’s searchable, so it’s becoming really…Especially

with all these crazy updates from Google.

Victoria: Yeah Oh my God.

So that’s another thing. It’s good and its bad because, it’s good because that

keeps our business up and running ’cause we can tell the client, ‘Hey look, I

didn’t make the change.’ This is all kind of change, so we need to change the

strategies based on the algorithm. So it helps, but sometimes it might sound

negative to some customers. Especially those unfortunately that did not know

how to use it the right way.

Victoria: Yeah. I don’t know if you cross this, and I know you do because I

don’t think you can be in this space and not do it. With clients, they come or

they come from other companies or other like you said, so called experts. I

caught that. And they come from these companies and they’re not doing what

they’re supposed to be doing. They’re not keeping up with the updates from

Google. They’re telling them what to do, and this stuff is banned. I mean,

these are practices… I had one guy emailed me something and say, ‘Hey, can

you do this on my website and everything? I have a consultant to tell me to

add these stuff.’ And so I looked at the email and it was basically keyword

stuffing.

Yusuf: Oh my God!

Victoria: And I said, oh my God! So I replied to him and told him that you

know, Google banned this 4 years ago. I sent him the video, and I sent him

the link to the video and explaining that this video is from 4 years ago. And

Google specifically banned this practice 4 years ago. So whoever your

consultant is, you might want to change this consultant. And he replied, ‘I’m so

glad I have you.’ Because the guy wasn’t trying to take him down or anything.

He was trying to help out but he didn’t know what he was talking about.

Yusuf: Wow. I was wondering the same thing. I was wondering why some of

these so called agency still use outdated tactic.

Victoria: I think they just don’t know. You know what? I figured, this is my

own thinking, they figured that SEO is so hot, is in high demand. They can get

a little person here to do this, that and the other. And as long as they can sell

SEO, they’re okay. They don’t worry about actually keeping up with the rules

and the guidelines, and all of Google’s changes. They don’t worry about that. I

don’t know if they even know, but if they do know, they’d decide to ignore.

Yusuf: You know what? You actually just reminded me because with growing

my business. What I do right now, I associate or collaborate with other

agencies. And I found out, some of those big agencies that run an SEO is not

an in-house. So they outsource with somebody else. And they themselves

don’t know whether those tactics are okay or not. That was one problem.

The second problem, I’ve seen, unfortunately this is kind of sad because there

are some folks that know that they actually use Black Hat but they don’t care.

Because the customer doesn’t understand how it works. All they care about is

charging money.

And the third situation I noticed, some businesses will charge you monthly

SEO services from like I think a couple of thousand dollars, which is the

typical price. But even then, they only implement onsite. So why would you

charge monthly for onsite SEO? Because onsite SEO’s only done once. The

offsite SEO, well you have to do it on a monthly basis. You know, like

something on weekly blogging, content marketing, videos, quality link building,

or that kind of stuff. So I’ve seen different crazy scenarios and it’s really hard

to find a really, I mean there are actually some few good companies that I

know that are really, really good when it comes to search engine, but they are

very few that do it the right way.

Victoria: Exactly. They’re very few and far between. Like I know you, you

know, if there’s something that I don’t handle, I’ll shoot it over to you. And it’s

one of those things that I just have not….. every client that just about that

came from a referral had come from a company that had scammed them.

And one of those companies contacted me one day. Of course I didn’t know.

They contacted me to outsource their web design portion. And so I took on,

but he didn’t know that I knew SEO. And so what happened was, I never told

the client, but it was very transparent that I was a totally different company

and they had my website and everything. So what they would do is they would

go check out my website. And they will come back to me. So while I’m

building their website, they would ask me certain questions because they

couldn’t get answer from their original company. And so I would explain to

them what this particular term meant. ‘Cause they just had a feeling that they

were just getting a run around.

You know when somebody’s trying to take you for a ride, just in your heart but

you can’t really tell. So I would explain it to them. And eventually some of

them thought, ‘Well why the heck am I paying him for this?’ And they would

leave because they just couldn’t get through. Once they signed their contract,

…everything. And I saw some of this. They would send me some of the stuff

they’ve done, and it doesn’t matter. You could be a small business. Well, they

wouldn’t talk to anybody who couldn’t pay at least $1,500. But you could be a

small business or a 20-million dollar company, it didn’t matter. And actually,

one of them that came to me was a 20-million dollar company. And they had

been bamboozled out of 6 months worth of SEO payments. And finally, the

CEO started thinking, ‘Hey what are we doing over here?’ And I was just

dumbfounded because I didn’t realize they had been paying this guy, they had

been dealing with this guy for 2 years.

Yusuf: Oh my God.

Victoria: I came in just to re-do their website, and it was atrocious. It looked

like something a 6-year old had done than what they had presented to him.

And I said, ‘This website is horrible.’ He said, ‘Yes! But you don’t have to tell

them that.’ I said, ‘He could see it!’ This guy, you don’t build a company like

this and you can’t look at this. I said, ‘You guys actually presented this to the

client?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, but don’t tell them that.’ And that’s when I really

started knowing what I was working with. And I finished up my projects that I

was working with because I had committed to those clients, and I got out. But

it was just terrible. He even tried to sell the company. And the guy who was

looking into buying it found out there was a lien against it. I mean, these

people are just gorillas. They just don’t care.

Yusuf: Yeah, and you know? It’s kind of really bad because right now, well on

one side you have the consumer or the customer getting jacked out of this.

Secondly, you have to explain to them right now, because that’s a bad

experience. Now you have to spend some time to educate them and convince

them. So those kinds of companies make our job, for the one that I’m doing

right makes it a little bit difficult.

Victoria: Yeah, it makes it so hard. And I had a philosophy. It’s that the

reason why there’s so many of them, one it was an easy business to start.

And when you’re buying or when you’re hiring an SEO agency, you don’t

know what you’re buying. You really don’t understand the product. And that’s

what I tell the clients, you don’t understand the business in order to buy it

properly. So that’s what I’ve been doing my training.

So you don’t understand it, so now you don’t know what you don’t know. So

on top of that, my thing was when I started in this industry. I never intended to

go into it as an agency. I never looked at it that way. I only started it because I

had to, because people kept asking me to help them out. And then when you

know, people start asking. You start to have to make things a little more

official because then it just becomes all unorganized and it just gets messy.

So I started it for that reason only. And my philosophy is that by the time the

people who are really good at SEO learned it, why would the go and start an

agency and just set up a whole bunch of websites online and just do it

themselves? So all of the good people don’t want to be bound by having to

start an agency and go out and search for clients. When they can just make

their money online and make a whole lot more of it and not be bound to those

rules. That was just my philosophy on it.

Yusuf: Interesting. Because of this situation, you probably know that I started

a local meet up 2 years ago. And the purpose of the meet up was, since I

noticed that specifically the small businesses have all the majority that I

explain with don’t have a clue. What is digital marketing in general? Or what is

online marketing? So I started this meet up locally because the majority of the

small businesses that I experience with. Most of them don’t know or don’t

understand what does digital marketing means, or online marketing. I had

noticed that in Austin, Texas, they have tons of amazing meet ups, lot of

networking, tons of start ups and big companies. But in San Antonio, which is

more like a blue-collar city and it’s actually growing right now. We have so

many tech industries that are coming in and few start up are getting off the

ground.

So I decided to first, look for any meet up that talks about online marketing

and there was one person who is a teacher of SEO, but he left and there was

nobody else. So I started this San Antonio Online Marketing group for the

hope to get all the online marketing in San Antonio to get together and learn

from each other and help everyone else.

So eventually, this meet up ended up being a place where now I provide 6 to

8 classes every month. And this one seminar per month, where I do my best,

in most cases to explain everything to the small businesses you know, what is

digital marketing? What is SEO, or social media, or Facebook, or YouTube.

And sometimes, I bring guest speakers who are in the same industry that can

give back to the community you know, pay it forward, and educate them and

help them. Because this way, now they can make a proper decision who are

they going to hire, or what kind of right questions they are going to ask and

then they aren’t going to hire anybody.

So it’s been really amazing experience and I love just giving it back. And I can

see how some of these small businesses that you know, some of them turn

into my customers, and some of them go and hire somebody else that do an

excellent job on the business. So this made me like, ‘You know what? I guess

this is the way that I can change. If I can look at all that negativity of what all

these other agencies are screwing some customers.’ You know I can

complain about it but that’s not going to do anything. So it’s best to go out and

focus on providing that value, and I believe that can definitely change.

Victoria: Yeah, exactly. It’s something you have to do. And I know your

meetup is a very large meet up, and you have a really large following. But you

always give so much quality information, and even at our last event. And

everyone was listening to you, and I’m looking around the room and people

were just scribbling because they were trying to get all of the stuff you were

talking about because you talk pretty fast because we had a short time frame.

And you packed so much into it, and they were scribbling and looking, and

scribbling and looking, and I said, ‘I think this is going pretty well.’

Yusuf: Right. You see what happened. I used to attend these so-called

seminars and whatnot. And one of the frustrations I always used to get, that

most of them don’t teach, even I would say 50% of the basic. They teach very,

very simple stuff. Then at the end of course, they always want to sell

something, okay? So I was just frustrated because you know, you drive, you

want to go learn something at least one nugget. But it turns out something

like, it’s not even worth it. So I decided again, the concept of ‘Don’t complain,

just do something about it.’ So then I started to, ‘You know what? If I’m going

to share something, I will share everything.’ And I don’t care what people

think. I will share everything, because I know for a fact, most businesses don’t

have the time to do everything.

Victoria: If you are doing it correctly, yeah.

Yusuf: You’re correct, because you are taking your experience over all these

years and putting them on the table. So when somebody come and say, ‘Yes,

I can do it.’ You know, be my guest. But the reason I do this, to explain to

them, ‘Look, this process, you can see it, the solution is here. It might be

simple but it takes a lot of work.’ And you are a business owner. You should

focus on your business. But if you want to take it by yourself, there’s nothing

wrong with that, in fact, one of my friends and client from California, on the

landscapingandconstruction.com, Mr. Joe Johnson. I mean, he is amazing, he

learned all the online marketing, all the SEO, the social, and he’s very good.

So, people like him are, like not too many.

Victoria: Yeah, yeah. And it does take a lot of time. Like I told them, I said,

‘You know, you have to either spend time or money.’ But the problem is, when

you spend the money, you have to make sure you spend it at the right place.

And I’ve seen some who tried to bring it in house. And I don’t know about your

experience, but those I’ve seen go kind of sour a little bit too, because they

hire inexperienced people.

Yusuf: Yeah, I can definitely remember that. Because what I realized, when I

was doing SEO myself, there’s no way whether it was an SEO or any kind of

business. And this is one of the things that other company, any start up, or

any freelancer that wants to start their agency that it is impossible for you to

take more than one customer in one month. It’s not going to work. So I tried to

follow the rules of the 20-80%, right? Do 20% of the work, produce 80% of the

result, so how to sacrifice your things?

So the first thing, I had to sacrifice my prices. That means if I make 3,000 on

web project by myself, I had to take half of that and send the other half or

even 2,000 of those to somebody else because I don’t want to spend too

much time with it, a couple of friends that are into the same web development

niche. And for some reason they can’t get out of that circle of mindset. It’s like

some sort of ego, right? They told me, ‘No man. This is my design. That’s how

I want to do it. Nobody else can do it.’ I’m like, ‘Well then you know what?

You’ll end up being an employee to your business.’

So I decided from day one, I had to think of different ways to run the business

and not be an employee of the business. So, I remember back long, long time

ago, when I was learning Dreamweaver and Firework and all those, from

other verification like Microsoft, and IT, and whatnot. I realized, telling myself,

‘Man, all these expensive certifications. And there was an issue of expensive

and they change every few months. And I’ll end up just paying for them and

just learn them. So I decided, ‘You know what? If I ever start a business, I got

to start hire somebody smart and let them do the work. So that’s what

happened. So, to do everything myself was not easy. So I have to look for you

know, outsourcing somebody local or overseas. So locally of course, the price

is a little bit high, which means if I get a client, I have to match up the price,

when I start to look for overseas, and thanks to Bro. Ali for helping me and

coaching me on that. We hired several people through Elance. Anybody from

you know, India, Bangladesh, or Middle East, or Africa, or even South

America, my experience is specifically with hiring folks from India. I have

nothing against them, but it was extremely horrible, okay?

Victoria: Yeah, yeah. I was waiting for that one to come out.

Yusuf: I don’t want to say this, but it was like extremely horrible because

they’re too laid back, they don’t understand customer service. And believe it or

not, only last year, I hired one company from India. I had to like, ‘Go back to

help this company online marketing.’ Because I saw that they were doing

some projects for like Lexus, I have their company call me. So I said, ‘You

know what? I’m going to give it a try.’ Then I have a couple of companies from

Philippines and from UK, and you know, of course Russia, and South

America. What I decided to, instead of just having a individual freelancer, I’d

rather focus with agencies. Because just like any web agency or online

marketing agency here in the States, it’s the same thing overseas. They want

to make sure that they provide the best service and they always get

customers, and they have a system in place. So that’s what I ended up

having, is to hire and work with those agencies.

Victoria: But you know how to do that, because you know what they’re

supposed to be delivering. And that’s where the education part comes in.

Because if you try to go out and do that, ’cause we all get these emails from

agencies offering us SEO for $99 a month and we’ll do this, and we’ll do that,

and from India or God knows where they’re from, and they target agencies.

But for the one who has no experience and don’t know what they’re doing, or

they just want to sell the service, like a lot of them do, they’ll hire one of these

guys and have a huge mark up on it, but they don’t do anything.

Yusuf: You’re absolutely correct. I mean it was very difficult. Honestly, it was

very difficult to find a good agency. I did that for a couple of years, I would say

like 2 or 3 years to find a good one. It was very hard. ‘Cause every time I hire

one, they end up doing stuff that is either outdated, or they do some shady

stuff where they hire also to somebody else. It was very chaotic. So I ended

up, thanks to you because you did recommend me one. But I did some

research and found out they were great. And I have one, like I said one

another big company from Philippines and one from India. Now, I also have

agencies here in the States. But of course, those agencies from the States are

of course, pricy. So if I get a big client, I’ll see if I can get along with them first.

And if the budget doesn’t match, then I will switch to the overseas.

So I decided to put a system in place where I have access to everything. So

instead of competing, now I collaborate. So collaborate with other agencies

and start helping each other. So amazing that when you’re so consistent, and

work very hard, always come with a solution, you’re going to find it. So right

now, you can technically say I have an agency, because I have everything. I

mean from graphic designers to account managers, or web developers, SEO,

social, mobile apps, everything.

Victoria: Yeah. And it takes a long time to really pull that team together. I

mean, we build our teams different ways but it took a long time to build these

teams and to build these relationships, and if I can’t help someone, ’cause we

just have different niches, and we have differentiation aspects. And if there’s

something that I know that I think you know, Yusuf would be the best one to

handle this, and I’ll shoot it over. No big deal. Because as long as I’m getting

them to someone that I know is good, and I know is going to take care of

them, then I’m ok. I’ve done my job.

Yusuf: You know, it’s amazing how I give several classes on outsourcing to

small businesses, telling them exactly what thing do to avoid the mistake that I

made. And right now, if you have any project that you want to start, it will take

me only like 10 minutes to hire somebody because of the experience that I’ve

been through. For me it’s very easy how to find the right person and how to

hire them. And even though I did several classes locally, and they’re still

having an issue and I told them, ‘Well, you got to be consistent in the right

person to help you out.’ And funny, because I showed them everything. Like I

told them how to look, where to look, and how to engage with them, especially

don’t treat them like a staff. Don’t call them staff. Treat them like a team.

Consider they’re a part of your team and be so good to them, like you know,

pay them very well. And this is another thing I don’t like about some of these

so-called online marketers. Well, they always say you go ask somebody

cheaper. Cheaper doesn’t mean always good. Does that make sense?

Victoria: And a lot of times it doesn’t mean good. That’s the problem with

that. You get what you pay for, that’s what I tell them. You get what you pay

for. If you get somebody at $3-$4 an hour, then expect $3-$4 an hour of work.

Yusuf: Absolutely! There are exceptions to the case, yes, there are few folks

that yes, the might do it for $4 or $5, because they still don’t realize their

potential. So what I do, I make sure that all my team gets paid very well. Like

you know, 15, 18, 45 and up. Why? Because I want to make sure that they

live nicely, whatever they’re living at, and feed their family without having a

second thought. If you take care of them, they will take care of you.

Victoria: Yeah, yeah. Actually when I hired my first, well he’s my lead

designer right now. And his skills over the past he’s been with me for so long,

and calls me mom. But I recognized his talent very early on. And again, I was

hiring him for me. And my agency was mainly very new, but I was hiring him

for stuff. But I wanted someone that can specifically do one particular thing

that was a very unique skill. And I had so many people applying. And I said

you know, I wanted to see their portfolios and I could tell, I wanted someone

who, could customize the Thesis theme at that time. And they would send me

sites that weren’t you know, there was no Thesis to begin with, waste my time,

or they would send me sites that were in Thesis, that were quoted with Thesis

but they didn’t design them.

Yusuf: Interesting,

Victoria: So they had put in their portfolio other people’s sites. But I know this.

I knew it, but someone else wouldn’t have known. And I knew who designed

some of those sites, because I’m in the forums, I’m on the sites, I’m on the

blogs, I’m in the forums, sometimes I’m communicating with these people.

And I’m like, you realize these people here, they just listed all of these sites

and they’re not sites that they’ve done, they just wanted the job.

Yusuf: Yeah, and it’s crazy and you have to be very careful. There’s so many

strategies like when you hire somebody for instance, if you post a job for you

know, let’s say for mobile app or whatnot, you have to mention to the post

that, ‘Do not reply to me until you answer the 3 questions on this post.’ And

you put 3 questions in the middle and if they reply to you with the answer,

then you would know that they actually read the whole thing.

Victoria: Exactly. And most of them, 75% of them don’t.

Yusuf: Don’t even read, yeah.

Victoria: It’s so funny. They all say they read the post.

Yusuf: Right. That’s why there’s a way to get the right person. There’s so

many different ways to get the right one. And this is an advice that I really tell,

not just at any freelancer, even here locally when I coach locally and I tell

them, ‘Look, if you want to start this in this kind of niche, eventually you have

to outsource. You have to delegate. Otherwise, you can’t run the business.’

And right now people ask me, how come I give all these classes, how come I

can do everything? And I tell them because you know, my business is running

by itself. I don’t have to worry about it. Does that make sense?

Victoria: You have to have a team. You have to have a team ’cause it’s a lot

of work. I tell myself this, I can tell you what to do but you either have to do

this, or run your business. You can’t do both. You can’t do both and really,

really maximize. And I’ve had some that actually would, and I know this is a

totally different interview, but this is something I feel is so important, because

everyone especially if they start out are going to get to this topic.

But I had one, several who got so frustrated with a scam artist or whatever,

and the con artist and they would bring it in house. But then, they will bring it

in house, and some of the ones that I knew, they would bring people that they

don’t know themselves. So they would like, ‘Yeah, I had a few people( Just

because they know me personally) who were like, “Yeah, I just got hired as an

SEO person. I’m going to be calling you for advice. “And I’m like, “’No, you

won’t.” Why do you take a job if you don’t know how to do it? And think you’re

going to spend my time for me teaching you how to do it, while they’re

paying?’ No! That’s not going to happen. And I’ve had 2 or 3 that have done

that. I’m not broadcasting myself. These are just people who happen to know

me and happen to take jobs. Imagine how many people are in this position.

They’re hiring people that don’t know how to do the job they’ve hired them for,

because they don’t know how to hire somebody who knows how to do the job.

It’s a catch 22 because they’re hiring people in house to try to protect their

business and it still doesn’t really protect them and yet it keeps you from

getting conned because you still got someone who doesn’t know what they’re

doing.

Yusuf: You know what? You just give me an idea. I’m going to have to

write an eBook on how to help agencies to find the right team.

Victoria: That’s what I’ve been doing. And we’ve talked about this. I just

finished an eBook, but I’m still doing, you know we talked about doing a video

training just to get it out there to as many people as possible. And you know,

from then on they can decide, at least they know how to hire someone. And I

have it right here. It’s ready to go.

Yusuf: This is amazing. Yeah, absolutely correct. Due to the meet up that I

was giving locally, that’s how I get approached by other agencies. Because

they attend the class several times, they see what I’m teaching. They can see

the proof. They can see the work. And I think this is going to definitely help.

Victoria: Yeah, yeah, it will. Hopefully, my whole thing was hopefully it will at

least put some standards in our industry.

Yusuf: I don’t know about some standards. I mean, that’s a very excellent

point.

Victoria: Some standards in our industry and at least empower the business

owners to where if they’re empowered to do it, then they don’t have to worry

about being taken advantage of. And then hopefully we can eventually weed

out the ones and bring in good agencies. ‘Cause I know several good ones.

And it’s just that we’re not willing to lie and mislead. And we don’t sound quite

as sexy to them when we’re telling the truth. And my other thing was I said,

‘This is what is going to happen.’ And every single one has come back. But

now they’ve come back after they’ve wasted a year or two. And one said,

‘What should I do?’ I said, ‘You need to start listening to me. I know it sounds

good, I know it sounds like a pipe dream, and that’s what they’re good at.

They’re good at telling you what you want to hear. The good ones are not

going to do that. They’re not going to lie to get your business, ’cause they

already know. They have some integrity there. But it’s just not going to sound

the same.’

Yusuf: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that, let’s say this is maybe an

advice to the listeners. Like if you want to find out which company that knows

online marketing, you have to ask. First you have to know basics, you so have

to know it. Because if you don’t know how can you select, which is the good

one or not. So any company that comes and tells you for instance, and to see

if they have some sort of red flag, if they tell you, ‘We are going to rank you on

the first page of Google organically within 24 hours.’ That’s a red flag.

Victoria: Or if they tell you that period.

Yusuf: Yeah, to go to run. You got to run with your horse, I’m going to run

with my camel, but you got to run. So that’s the first thing. Secondly, if they

always talk about ranking only, that’s not a good sign. Because search engine

optimization is not just about ranking, but it’s more about user experience, it’s

more about conversions, if they talk about conversions. Sometimes, your

website could be in the second page, on the third page, and guess what? You

might still get leads. You might still get phone calls. So you have to focus on

those kind of information. And you can ask them what is a Black Hat SEO,

what is a Gray Hat, and what is a White Hat, or what kind of website do you

follow to learn? Specifically myself, I love moz.com, M-O-Z.com. That’s one of

my favorites. Then you also have searchengineland.com,

searchenginejournal.com, searchengineroundtable.com, and I believe SEO

books. These are the one that you can actually trust when it come to this you

know, like specifically SEO or the online marketing general.

Victoria: Yeah, absolutely. I think we got to do another call. I brought you on

for that, we got to do another one. Where we just sit out and do a Q&A. I’m

going to set that up probably in the next couple of weeks, we just do a Q&A

and just really let people just come in and online.

Yusuf: That would be awesome.

Victoria: Yeah, so that was one I was putting together just this week. And

really just letting people get it out there. ‘Cause it just really, wow, wow.

Yusuf: You know what? Even if the idea of online marketing, digital marketing

and right now you have mobile SEO and whatnot, it’s actually not that

difficult. But like you said, it is just time consuming. It is very time consuming

and its so important for you see the result. But if you start any business, this

sort of information should not scare you, but you have to be open to learn.

You have to understand how these type of strategies can actually help you

because technically, if you do everything by yourself, initially, you don’t have

to spend tons of money if you don’t have it.

Now, I’m not saying this to make you think you know, like the cheap mentality,

I don’t like doing to tell people you know, be always, all the time cheap. No,

you have to invest in the business. And if you have sort of budget in your

place, you can use some of those money and invest it back. If you don’t, do

your best to learn, and whatever you learn, apply it.

And the reason I’m saying this is because online marketing actually changes

very fast. I mean, look at social media, it changes very fast. And SEO, it’s with

this all these new algorithms. So don’t try to be too cheap. I mean do your

best, do you understand? And don’t confuse bootstrapping with being cheap.

Bootstrapping basically means, if you can find ways if you can do it by

yourself or within your budget, you will do it. So spend wisely and be very

smart. One of my favorite quote that I just read a few days ago, by Kate Buck

Junior, she is one of the social media experts. She’s from Austin, Texas. She

built different programs, teaching new businesses. Like let’s say if you want to

get into social media business, she has a course that teaches how to start.

And one of the statements that I love, she said, “If you can’t afford to invest in

marketing your business, then you do not actually have a business. You have

a side project, a hobby, a hope and prayer that you make it this month.” Which

is true, sometimes you have to invest in business even for a few money, you

have to get into the mood. You know what? In order for me to succeed, I have

to invest. I can’t be free all the time.

Victoria: Yeah, especially in this industry, when they don’t know what this

stuff cost or entails, you don’t have a frame or reference. Because my

personal favorite is the hosting companies that have their SEO. And it just kills

me because this is not SEO. Or it’s content marketing anyway. But everyone

is like, ‘Oh, SEO.’ So when they see this, ‘This is only $50 a month.’ And they

don’t know what that garbage is. They’re thinking they got an SEO and it’s

like, ‘No, you got something that they’re calling SEO, that you’re paying them

$50 a month for nothing, pretty much.’ But if you don’t know that upfront, you

can’t make that decision.

Yusuf: You’re absolutely correct. Because the only time you can pay SEO

service for like $500 a month, really is if its from overseas. Because for them,

that $500 is a lot of money. But if you know the actually work that involves in

the SEO, it’s a lot of work. So it’s impossible to give them 50 bucks. That is

like, ‘I’m going to build a car for a dollar.’

Victoria: That’s a good analogy, ‘I’m going to build a car for a dollar.’

Yusuf: Yeah, because when people tell me that this is $50 or 90 bucks a

month, or some of them right now I noticed, some of them come and say, ‘You

know what? I will rank you on the first page and you don’t have to pay

anything until it’s ranked.’

How do they do that? I mean, unless you have numbers, you have enough

money, then yes, maybe he can do it. But other than that, I sometimes

question it because the reality, if you just go to Google and type ‘SEO pricelist

MOZ’ I’m going to do a quick search here. If you go to Google and do a

search for ‘Prices MOZ’, you just out the word moz. And Moz wrote a blog

post on this topic, it’s called SEO pricing 600+ agencies, share cost of

services.

And the research done like in 2012 and explains the prices that SEO

consultant and SEO experts charge, anywhere between 75 to 120 an hour.

And they talk about from different projects, I mean. So if you understand the

reality of the work, it is impossible to do SEO for like 50 bucks or a couple of

hundred. So they need to realize that.

Victoria: Yeah, that’s an excellent point in giving them that. And right now,

especially least the way I do things, you need to include social media and

other things. And you made an exact point that I took. You don’t have to rank

now to get traffic and to get business from the search engines. You don’t have

to rank on the first page. But that’s the mindset, that’s how they’ve been

taught and pushed over years. Their mindset is all on rankings. I would ask

some of the clients, they said, ‘Yeah.’ to this guy because they wouldn’t go

with me. And they would say at first, they said,

‘He said he’s going to rank me at the top of their search engines for my

keywords.’ And I said, ‘What keywords are those?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ I

said, ‘So you’re going to pay for something you don’t know what the keywords

are?’ And so I would explain to them, I said, ‘Look, he didn’t even tell you.

First of all, he promised you something that he can’t deliver. And that’s a red

flag.

Second of all, if he promised to rank you at the top of the search engines for

your keywords, then they’re going to be keywords that nobody’s going to be

searching for anyway.’ ‘Cause they don’t know that there’s traffic and search

volume and all of this stuff. So they’re like, ‘Well, he got me to the top of the

search engine.’ For which keyword? Yeah, this is the only time that it’s cut off,

but.

Yusuf: I think Skype just couldn’t handle our call. It’s too much information.

Victoria: Yeah, I think we got people listening in over here. But, so I gave

one, and I know you got to go. I gave one five keywords, and he came back,

he’s like, ‘I met some guy at my chamber of commerce meeting, he’s going to

get me 10 keywords.’ So I said, ‘Send me those keywords.’ I kid you not, 6 out

of the 10 keywords had no search volume.

And out of those 6, some of them had no search volume, and some of them,

they were totally irrelevant to his business, and they were just ridiculous. And I

said, ‘Have you even looked at these keywords? Some of them had nothing to

do.’ And so I showed him, I said, ‘One of my keywords, just one of my

keywords, was more than three times all three of his ten, in search volume.’ I

still had the other four.

And that’s why it was an eye opener for him. Thanking like, ‘Wow! He gave

you ten, I gave you five. But my search volume was more than, it’s probably

four times his total, out of his ten.’ It was ridiculous.

Yusuf: This is amazing because they don’t realize that with all the changes in

algorithm, right now, actually, I don’t want to say Google don’t look at the

keyword. They do, but they focus more in usability and also content. Like how

many content you’re writing and are those content are dead, out there like

really valuable, are people sharing it. So things are changing, but like you

said, I still see some folks that talks about these something you know,

outdated stuff and whatnot.

Victoria: They don’t know and they know that this is what the customer is

looking for, because the customers or the clients don’t know. So, they’re like,

‘All they care about is getting ranking, that’s what I’ll sell them on.’ Because

they don’t care and it’s an industry that’s changing so quickly and so fast. This

was years ago, when that that particular thing happened. But over the course

of years, there’s just been so many of these situations that I get a headache

just thinking about it.

Yusuf: Yeah. And I tell a lot of businesses that really, when you look at digital

marketing, I mean right now, SEO is just one part of the online marketing.

Which means you can’t just only focus on that. It is essential, so you have to

focus on let’s say, social media is part of it. When I say content marketing,

basically I’m talking about blog, podcast like this show, YouTube,

Infographics. So things are really spreading out there, right? And officially this

year, April 21st, this is the year where Google basically said that everyone has

to be a responsive based design or mobile friendly. And if it’s not, Google

might not show that website on the mobile devices if it’s not mobile friendly.

So that’s why businesses really have to be following up with all the changes,

because their biggest competitors are big companies are able to spend tons

of money to make sure that they are digitally visible.

Victoria: Yeah. And you need someone to keep you up on that. That’s the

other side of only doing the work, staying up to date and keeping up. Its wow,

it’s a lot to just stay, keep yourself educated and keep yourself on top of the

change. It’s a responsibility on us, if we’re not compliant, then our clients are

non-compliant. They hire us to protect them and make sure they’re okay.

Yusuf: Right, and for that reason, it’s in the process that I’m planning to start

a monthly membership. Where agencies businesses can you know, it’s going

to be very affordable so they can log in. And it will consist of everything, from

online marketing strategies, SEO, social media, crowdfunding even,

everything.

So they can just kind of Google it or log in and learn. And I’ll also create a,

probably community for the members so in case they have a question, they

can just drop their question and I’ll help them. Because I think this is the

problem, and the solution is to provide this information. Even though these

information are available for free, you can find them in Linda or Udemy or any

other website. What makes me different is I’m going to simplify them.

I’m going to do my best to simplify because a lot of those courses. And

sometimes, a tech person or a knowledgeable person, they might be good at

what they do best, but when it comes to like teaching and trying to take that

message, it’s a little bit challenging. And having all these classes that I’ve

been doing locally to small businesses, now I understand how I can explain to

them, and how I can simplify it in the hope for them to understand it better.

Victoria: Excellent. And for everyone listening, I’ve been after him for so long

to do this. But he’s busy, he’s a busy guy. You know, he’s in high demand,

he’s a busy guy, and I said, ‘Look, can you get this up? So we can actually

educate and make sure that the business owners, at least they know.’ Some

of them are higher agencies anyway, but they know. Some of them are going

to have to bootstrap and do it on their own. So yes, yes, yes, and now you’ve

heard it directly from him. So we have him on the hook to actually get it done.

Yusuf: Right. And here’s another tip, and it’s really sad. I’m going to give you

this simple tip. And I don’t know why people don’t follow it, but I appreciate

and I hope that listeners will do this. When you do online marketing, there are

like hundred ways on doing things. If you want to build traffic, there are also a

hundred way of doing things. So what you do, it is better for you to do

something little, than not doing anything at all, right?

So that being said, the best thing to do right now is at least blog once a week.

If you can just blog weekly, update the content or be active in the social like

let’s say, one post a day, and you’re consistent, eventually you will see some

result. That’s it. That’s all I ask for you guys, okay? Then just do that and

make sure Google analytics installed to your website and the Google

webmaster tool, then you will see what’s happening. And when you have

enough let’s say, if you generate some income through selling your service

online, or selling product, then make sure you put like 10-15% of that income

invested back in marketing. So look in to Facebook advertising, which is

becoming very popular because it’s very affordable, and it brings good result.

Or you can try Bing, or Google, or MSN ads to get more conversion to your

site.

Victoria: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And look, we’ve already been here an

hour, and this topic could go on. I’m sure we going to have to do an encore

one day, ‘cause we didn’t even get into the whole journey, but I did it

purposely because this is such an important topic. And especially we’re

talking to people now who going to want to, there’re entrepreneurs or

wantapreneurs and they want to start, this is a topic you’re going to have to

face eventually, and getting in this business, you going to have to market it.

So this one, I’ve decided to, well let’s just talk about this and all of the

craziness that goes on in our lovely industry. But we’re definitely, I think we’re

going to have to have an encore and we’ll be in touch especially to get more,

to get those calls out and everything. I’m excited about it. And again, how can

people find you?

Yusuf: You can Google my name, Yusuf Chowdhury, okay? That’s C-H-O-W-

D-H-U-R-Y, and first name Yusuf, Y-U-S-U-F, of course. My own website just

started this year, yusufchowdhury.com. You can connect with me on

Facebook, Twitter, any social media site. Just when you connect with me tell

me why you’re connecting with me because I don’t just accept anybody. What

do I mean by that. Don’t give me a call because I don’t know you. Tell me,

‘You know what? I listened to you in this podcast with Victoria, or I saw your

blog on somewhere else.’ That way, I will definitely connect with you and I’d

love to help. What I mean by that, I’ll do everything what I can to answer your

question and guide you, okay? So please connect with me.

Victoria: Absolutely, and you won’t be sorry. And your Yusufied series it’s on

your LinkedIn. And you know, this is the guy. You know, if you’ve got

questions, Yusuf is definitely the one to, he’s to go to. He’s the OG.

Yusuf: Right. And I think all the listeners today, you’ve all been Yusufied

approved. So, there you go.

Victoria: Everyone’s been Yusufied. I’ve been Yusufied. You’ve been

Yusufied.

Yusuf: One of the business coach asked me, ‘How can I get Georgefied?

Since you’re Yusufied. How can that happen?’ I just told them, ‘Go to my

place and I will coach you too.’ I better start my own line of certification, you

know, Yusufied in different levels and Yusufication of certification.

Victoria: You do that, in your membership.

Yusuf: Right.

Victoria: Yeah! It’s got to happen in the membership. When they get to this

level, then they’ll be Yusufied, Yusufied Silver, and then Gold, and then

Platinum.

Yusuf: Wow, now you’ve given me another idea. That’s awesome.

Victoria: Yes. Yes, that’s awesome. Let’s do that.

Yusuf: Actually, there were couple of businesses when I refer, I do tell them,

‘You need to contact this moving company or this graphic designer, by the

way, they’re Yususfied.’ So when they call the company, ‘Hi, Yusuf told me

that you’re Yusufied.’ So I’m building my own brand here locally.

Victoria: Yeah, that’s awesome. We’re going to make sure that everyone

here is Yusufied, or everyone here is at least can find people who are

Yusufied. This has been too much fun. I know I kept you a little long. You got

to go. But thank you so much for being on. If we have to do another one We

did change the format a little bit. We didn’t get as much into your story or in

your journey, but hey we can always catch that on another one. I just really

wanted to. I thought this was such an important topic. And to have you come

on and talk about it, we can go on forever. So let’s do it again. But for now,

thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of your wisdom. And let’s

see how we can do it again.

Yusuf: Thank you, Victoria so much. I really enjoyed it. And I’m so excited to

look forward for the next episode.

Victoria: Okay, everyone have a good day. If you’ve listened to this, write in

our site, it’s o2epodcast.com. That’s O as an orange, and 2 is the number,

and E as an elephant .com. And just Google Y-U-S-U-F or SEO and this

podcast will come right up. And we’ll go from there. Thank you. Have a good

day.

Yusuf: Bye everyone!

Website Link: http://o2epodcast.com/

Article Link: http://o2epodcast.com/how-to-be-an-entrepreneur-yusuf/