Let's talk about the real, the raw, the updated
version of the Google algorithm. Because y'all, it has changed a
lot in the years. I used to work at a SEO agency, twenty five
years ago and or twenty years ago, and, a lot
has changed with our friend Google. And today, we're gonna talk all about that with
Lindsey Busfield. I'm excited to have her on the show to talk
about the myths and the magic behind our favorite
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membership. Lindsay, welcome to the
show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to
just be a little nosy because I'm like, how does this all work now?
I know the, you know, general SEO strategies, but
I'm excited to get into this this algorithm, the the the
world's number one search engine as well. But I wanna talk a little
bit about your background. How did you get into the world of
SEO? So my entrance into the world of SEO
actually started with a bunch of Amish chicken farmers,
which is about as far removed as you can be from the world
of SEO. My family started a pasture raised
egg business, and I, worked with the
farmers out there, but I also worked with the company and helped to get
it some traction, get it to grow, help with its digital presence. And
then as that took off and is now the nation's
largest organic pasture raised egg company, I decided to step
back and really focus on marketing a little bit closer to
home. So I went to go work for a law firm here in Raleigh
and started working with their digital marketing team, And
they needed somebody to help out with this SEO initiative that
they had just taken on. And I really wasn't all that savvy when it came
to SEO. I was still kind of venturing into marketing
and, you know, taking that on as a new career. But once
I became familiar with how SEO works, how that
Google algorithm works, and it became demystified, it actually
became a lot of fun. So I worked with this law firm
doing SEO for them and kind of learning the ins and outs of
that and fell in love with it. And then, happened to
meet my now business partner, Len, who had
an SEO agency that exclusively worked with law firms, and
it seemed like a dream come true. So about seven years ago,
I partnered with Lynn, and now I'm at Optimize My Firm, and I'm the
vice president here and doing my dream job of
doing SEO for law firms. Oh my gosh. From chicken
farmer to law firm SEO business
owner. I love I love it. You never know where life's gonna take
you. Life takes you. I have all the ups and downs. So for those who
are new to SEO, can you give us a quick definition? So SEO,
is search engine optimization. And usually, by the time I finished that
last syllable, people's eyes just kind of glaze over. So
really, in a nutshell, what SEO is, is I work with your
website to make it rank highly on Google. So if somebody
is looking for a law firm, somebody has just been in a car accident
and they search car accident lawyer near me, I work with their
website so that it shows up on that first page so a prospective
client can actually find that lawyer. And the same is true no matter
what business you have. So whether you are working, with
law firms or a pizza place or any
other type of of service industry or store. If you have a
website that you are using to attract clients, search engine optimization
is going to get your website to show up for the search terms that people
are using when they're trying to find a product or service like yours. Yeah.
I love this because I think a lot of especially local businesses
need need need to do this so that people can find
you. Hello. And I also think it's such a
powerful way for businesses to just be strategic
about, how people are finding them as well. So what what
is the first thing we should think about when we're when we're thinking about SEO,
when we're looking at our website and we're like, I want people to find me,
where do we start? So I think you have to start with thinking
about what is Google looking for. And people
think about SEO and, like, all this technical metadata and, like, alt
tags and descriptions and stuff and all that is quasi important, but
it really doesn't matter. What Google is looking for time after
time, no matter what algorithm change happens, they're looking for good
content. So they're looking for your website to have information
that is relevant for the people who want your product or service.
So having content on your website that is informative, and
accurate and reputable is what Google is after. So that's
80% of it. And the other 20% of that is
gaining a reputation for being an authority
in your market. And you do that by attaining quality backlinks.
And that's another one where people's eyes kind of glaze over. But in a nutshell,
a backlink is getting a mention to of your site from another
website. So it's like if somebody is quoting you,
then that is giving you a little bit more authority. So when another
website quotes your website and links back to it, that gives your
website more authority. So Google trusts it a little bit more, trust that
content a little bit more. And that's all SEO is. That's it. Oh,
yeah. I knew about the backlinks thing. Honestly, I get the spam emails all the
time where people are like, can I put links on your website? And I'm like,
I'm just deleting this. Is that bad for my website if you if I
do that? Right. Right. And there are a lot of websites
out there that do that, that they monetize their websites by selling backlinks.
And that is one way to get links. And there are, you know,
some other more organic ways to to get backlinks
that are a little bit more reputable, that actually give your website a little bit
more credibility than just buying links. But, yeah, there are a few ways to
go about doing that. But most of the sites that are either trying to put
a link on your website or sell links to you,
probably probably not something that you wanna engage with. Yeah. It feels like
those, those fake magazine sites too where it's like, oh, do
you wanna be an art magazine? We'll feature you on the front page. And then
you're like, yes. And they're okay to give me all your money. Like, you're like,
oh, never mind. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I totally see
that. I'm I'm curious now. Is there a way to
see how reputable your website is? Because this past year,
I was featured on BBC, and I was like, oh, the the bbc.com. I
mean or .co.uk. That's gotta be, like, a really
strong website. Right? Yeah. That's that's a decent link to
get. And, yeah, there are a few tools out there like Semrush,
and then there's Ahrefs. There are a few different places that you can go to
see your backlink portfolio, and those will show you what
websites have linked to your website. It'll also show you this
funky metric called domain authority, and that's something on
a zero to 100 scale of how credible your
website is. And a lot of people get hung up on this
metric
a lot of these backlink places will be like, I'm gonna get you a link
on, you know, 45 d a plus. And,
like, some of those are fine. Some of those are still kind of cruddy
sites. But for your own domain authority, what's
more important is how you rank in relation to the
other businesses that are in your geographic area if you're providing
a local service. On a national level, you wanna look at
the businesses that are your direct competitors on the national scale.
So it's not necessarily where you rank in terms of zero to a
hundred, but more so how you rank in relation to the other
websites that are competing for the same search terms that you are.
Yeah. I mean, basically, context matters. Right? I mean, I feel like
this is looking at any sort of report or data, I think sometimes
it's very easy to go, you know, oh, I'm number one. It's like number one
where compared to what? You know?
Okay. Cool. So I mentioned earlier that I used to work for this SEO
agency when I worked in Atlanta, Georgia, and I was, like, the the lowest
totem pole, basically, inter interning there. And my job
was to go around to local businesses that were, their
competitors are ranking really high and then basically pitch them,
like, we will rank you high. And I was the grant person, so I was
doing all this research, like, all of the surrounding cities, all of
the ZIP codes, and then would give the list to my boss. It'd get
approved. And then I basically just paste, like, a thousand ZIP codes and
city names into a web page. This was twenty years ago.
We can't do that now. Right? Like, this that's very dated advice. So tell me,
like, what what's the latest greatest updates when it comes to, like, how
do we speak the algorithm's language? So you're
right. Oh, man. Like, that I just that takes me back. So, I mean, you
know, fifteen, twenty years ago, you mean, really even five years ago, people
were trying all of these tricks. And so, you know, putting this putting
all the ZIP codes in or putting h ones in white text
on a white background that, you know, we're, like, trying to game the system.
And then there are, you know, the good old keyword stuffing where you
have, you know, all these keywords that are just kinda, like, hidden in the background
on the page and, you know, Google would see these a million times over and
start ranking you for those key those keywords. Google has gotten
so much savvier and, and, like, those tricks just don't work. And if Google
catches you doing that, they will absolutely tank your site.
So there are a lot of tricks that used to work
that just don't work anymore. And Google with
every algorithm update is getting more and more savvy. The big one
was was the penguin update. And then there are
some specific fields that are targeted more than others.
The big one that comes to mind is the health care field. So
Okay. Yeah, Google went through a giant
revamp in the health care field, because they know that it is so
incredibly important that people are getting accurate information.
So there are a handful of sites that Google will inherently
prioritize and rank over others. So, like, your WebMDs,
hospitals, government websites, which are
but a lot that historically have been credible
information sources, and they will rank those first.
And so if you have a local,
health care website or a blog that's about health care, it's gonna be
almost impossible to get those to rank because you are not a
trusted credible source. So Google did a huge revamp over the
the health care industry and has actually extended that to pay per click
ads. They have a lot of really strict regulations on what you can
and can't say with that. There are a lot of really strict regulations
on websites in general. So, for
aestheticians, there are some products and services that you
can't have on your website, or else Google will never rank your
website highly. So there are a lot of things that Google is trying to get
more savvy about, all with the intent of providing
accurate credible information. So to answer your
question, in pretty much any other field, having
that credible information on your website is the
best thing you can possibly do. And having more
in-depth information, that's answering questions that people
are asking, that is going to be the most helpful. And
then if you wanna get into some more depth there, looking
at topics within your certain sector
that haven't been covered a million times over by your competitors
is gonna be some low hanging fruit that you can use to
get people to actually come and visit your website because you'll automatically
rank higher if there's not as much competition. Wow.
Yeah. I mean, honestly, to me, this goes to, like, the
human experience of it all. Like, as a person who goes to Google and
types in, like, toddler dinner recipes, I
want the most reputable ones to hit the top and
not the person who's, like, trying to game the system, which is
interesting. So how how does AI play into
all this? Because I've noticed this cute little box at the top of
my Google that gives me the AI result. And, like,
as someone who uses Google, I'm like, oh, that's it. That's the answer I was
looking for last night. I was looking for, like, when when's the next, Leafs game?
Because they're in the playoffs right now at the time recording this. K? Oh, I
may regret saying that when this goes live later, but they're in the playoffs right
now at the time recording this. When's the next game? Gave me the answer. I
didn't have to click anything. I'm like, oh, great. As a user? Great. But then,
like, as a business owner, I'm like, oh, I just, like, stole website
traffic from, like, nhl.com or something. Like, they're looking at their
website results, like, what is happening? Is that this is bad.
Right? Or is it good? Oh, this is not bad at all. Oh, okay. So
no. This is this is actually a really great thing because you have to look
at the intent of a user search. So let's say you are
wanting to find out when the next game is and you type in when is
the next game? That's going to be an informational search. This
is some some information that you would have otherwise been pulling from another website.
That informational search isn't costing them any money because you weren't going to
another website in order to purchase a service or a product. So
you are directly able to get whatever information it is that you're
needing. And what Google is doing and how they're generating
that response is they're pulling from some of the most credible
websites out there. So this is information that's probably coming from the
first or second page of the Google search results, and they
are cross checking the answers against each other and pulling
this information together, synthesizing it, and presenting what they believe to be
the most accurate piece of information. It is not
always accurate, so I will put that put that in there
as well. Sometimes Google does just give really
bad answers because they're pulling from information that's not
always a % accurate. They can only pull from information that's available
on the Internet that, you know, is in line with what their algorithm is
looking for in terms of being inherently trustworthy. Also, there have been
some issues with, the AI hallucinating
answers. So sometimes it'll just make something up out of
thin air. And this has been really well documented and
kind of problematic. And we've we've seen this in the law
industry a few times and there have been some big issues.
But Google in that section is really just pulling from the
information that it has available on other websites.
Wow. I mean, I'm a huge proponent of AI. I love it,
especially as someone who use like, I use ChatGPT and Gemini
daily. It's, like, embedded into everything I do. But I
can't help but get a little nervous for the,
you know, the blogger who was, like, on page two
anyways. You know, what are the hockey results? Or, like, a hockey blogger. I'm
never gonna see that now. What does
that person do to try to still
get search traffic to their website? That's a
really good question. And I guess it depends on what the
purpose of their website is. So, yes, it could be
challenging if somebody is looking for the, you know, the time of the next game
would have otherwise gone to that website and said, oh, here's the
next game. By the way, let me continue searching through this website
and go down the rabbit hole and maybe, you know, click on an affiliate
link or, you know, some other monetizing feature on that
blog. And, yeah, that that could be problematic.
But my assumption would be is that for somebody who is looking
for that information and looking to go down that rabbit hole, they're
gonna get the information they need, and then they're going to still
look for a website that's in line with the type of article or information
that they're looking for. Otherwise, it's somebody who probably was just
looking for this information and will probably x out of it once they have it
anyway. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I think that is, again, the
human experience of it all is we kinda have to think about the human behind
the search. Right? Like, that person's experience, what is it like? This
reminds me of, so I mentioned recipes a few times because whenever
I go to, like, the recipe site, I'm instantly scrolling past, like, the the
story. Just give me the recipe. And I feel like that's really what it is.
It's like, just give me what I came to search for and, like, let's cut
out the fluff, which again, like, as the blogger, as the business owner, we
kinda wanted that, you know, for the for the for the person
who, you know, happens to click on something. But this really is
creating just a better user experience all around, the
hallucinations aside. I think it it could
be a better, thing all
around. But the other thing that I'm so curious about is
search within some of these tools like a
Gemini, like a ChatGPT. You know, people are saying now I
found a coach that way or I found you know, I bought a product because
that recommended it. Are there things that we can do
to enhance our rankings in
AI tools? Sure. And it is really looking at kind of the
same algorithm features that Google is already looking
at. So AI is only going to be able to
recommend somebody if Google believes that they're a credible source
in that particular domain. So the more that you can do to boost your
credibility by creating those backlink relationships, and the
more content you have on your website that
points to you as being an expert or source, a trusted
source for this type of information, then Google will be able
to figure out who you are, where it is that you're providing the
service, and whether or not you have the experience and
expertise to be able to be a credible source for the
people who are searching for it. And so this is the
true, you know, whether it is a a law firm that you're
looking for or the best pizza place in town, having
that content and having, the domain authority as
established by the backlinks, that's all gonna work together to
improve your odds of showing up as a recommended service provider
within AI. Yeah. Okay. Great. So so someone who's
listening to this podcast episode and they're like, I love everything that Lindsay is
saying. I wanna optimize my website. I don't know where to
start. Where do I start, Lindsay? What's one thing that I can do today to
help the search engines, help people find me?
Write content. So in your free time, just sit down and write
content. Write content about whatever it is that people
are using as a search term to find a
product or service like yours. So if somebody is,
let's say, a lawn care provider,
business. So about mowing or about stump
removal or about tree trimming, write pages
about all that different type of content. And one place that you can
go to find, topics to write about, one would
be AI, chat g p t. Another thing that you could do
is write in to Google lawn care service provider.
And then on that, search result page, there's the people
also ask. That shows questions that people are regularly
asking after they are searching for a lawn
care service provider or search terms that are really closely related to the
initial search term that that you plugged in. So developing
content that answers those questions is another way that you
can, develop content for your website that shows Google what it is
that you do and is going to make you eligible to show up for more
search terms when people are trying to find a product or service like yours.
Yeah. I love the people also search for thing. Because I think
sometimes we try to we try to just think up, like, what what are people
asking? But, like, you you could just literally go to the tool, and it'll give
it'll give you the answer. I love that. Will tell you what to
write. It's it's all right there. Yeah. Well, do you have an example
you can share of your your company or maybe a
client's where, you applied all of this amazing
SEO expertise and got a good result from it? I mean,
all of our clients. I and I know that sounds really biased.
But let's, let me think about this. There's a client that we've been
working with out in California for about ten years
now, And he started off his law firm with,
you know, him and a couple of other attorneys, a very small practice,
but had this ambition to grow and trusted the process
and invested in SEO, developed the content, built the
backlink relationships, and is now one of the largest personal
injury attorneys in the state of California just by
following these practices, developing that content, and really
nourishing those online relationships to give his
website and now websites more credibility so that Google
sees him as a trusted authority and shows up throughout the state
for, for personal injury. Oh, wow. I love
this. Ten years too. I think that that's something that people
always think, like, oh, I'll work on SEO today and I'll help my business tomorrow.
But, like, this is a long term strategy. Like, it's not just,
you know, do something today for tomorrow. It's do something today for ten years from
now. Like, we all want businesses that sustain us for ten years. I love that.
Such a beautiful, beautiful example. Absolutely. And then and it is one of those things
where it's like it's not like you pay for SEO for a month and, like,
boom, faucet goes on. No. It's it's a long term relationship.
It's just like investing in any sort of ad or
PPC or any any other marketing strategy. This is
a long game thing. And it takes a little bit
of time after you first get started because you need to develop that content,
and Google needs to see you as a trusted authority. So it takes time to
build that credibility and start to outrank your competition. And then the
other thing that you have to remember is that the other successful businesses in your
sector are also running SEO. So it's a
constant competition, constant battle for that top ranking
position for clients to be able to find you before they find your competition.
Yeah. Oh, gosh. Yeah. It is. And I think it's always shifting.
Right? Too. So yeah, you kinda have to stay on top of it. I love
that. Okay. So for everyone listening who's like, yes, I want to work with
Lindsay. Tell us about your company and how we can connect with you.
Sure. So my my company is Optimize My Firm, and we
just do SEO. We just do it for law firms, but I'm
happy to talk SEO with anybody who has questions.
You can learn more about our practice at,
optimizemyfirm.com. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Lindsey
Busfield. I am the only Lindsey Busfield, so so I'm really easy to find.
And, you can listen to my podcast, the personal injury marketing minute, where we
talk about marketing and business operations for law firms. I love it. Thank you so
much, Lindsey. I will put all of those links in the show notes, y'all. You
can find it at
onlinedray.com/36zero.
Lindsay, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you.
And thank you, dear listener, for tuning in to another episode of the Mindful
Marketing podcast. I've got more episodes coming your way. I've got Sam
coming on the show next to talk about how to get clients from
podcast guesting. It was amazing conversation. I can't wait till you listen to that
one. And hey, if you love conversations like this and you wanna go even deeper
in your marketing, come on in and join us in the Mindful Marketing
Lab. Coming up soon, we're doing our summer SPF
challenge to really help you streamline your marketing this summer
season, especially if you're like me and you got kids at home all summer. You're
gonna wanna come in to our SPF challenge in the lab, but you gotta be
in the lab in order to join us. Check that out at
onlinedray.com/lab. I'll see you there. Bye for
now.