Decoding the Search Engine Mysteries: Insights from an SEO Expert

Join Anthony Karls and SEO expert Nick Perow in this episode of Revenue Roadmap as they delve into the essentials of search engines and SEO. Learn how indexing works, the importance of ranking for revenue-driving keywords, and how to avoid misleading SEO practices.

00:00 Introduction to Revenue Roadmap
00:11 Meet the SEO Expert: Nick Perow
01:40 Understanding the Black Box of SEO
03:41 The Evolution of Search Engines
08:45 The Importance of Ranking and Revenue
13:44 How to Evaluate Your SEO Strategy
17:51 Conclusion and Contact Information

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#DigitalMarketing #Sales #BusinessGrowth

Transcript

Anthony Karls: 0:03

All right, here we go. So this is Revenue Roadmap where we talk about sales and marketing for local entrepreneurs. I'm Anthony Karls, president of RocketClicks. Today I'm with Nick Perreault. So he is our resident expert at SEO. He also leads our development team. So we're going to be picking his brain for knowledge today. We're going to be talking about search engines at a really high level, what they are, what they should be used for, how they came about, Nick's overall experience in them. Just like in every episode, we're going to discuss why this is important for driving revenue online and how you as a local entrepreneur who may not know anything about this topic can know whether or not it's being done well or if you're getting sold a bag of goods from a snake oil salesman. So, because we want to help you avoid that. So before we jump into that, so Nick, thank you for joining me. Um, what, so what's your history with search engines and SEO and like, kind of, how did you, how'd you get into this stuff?

Nick Perow: 1:04

Yeah, well, uh, first off, thank you for having me, uh, I'm excited to be here and talk SEO, um, at a high level. I got into SEO because, I mean, truthfully, it's so, it's so big, the, the scale of the, the problems to solve an SEO, the fact that it is, it appears to be a black box, um, I'm, I'm a problem solver. and I love having that big problem to tackle.

Anthony Karls: 1:37

Nice. Yeah.

Nick Perow: 1:40

um,

Anthony Karls: 1:40

a little bit about, talk a little bit about the black box. Cause there's a very paid media is very different than SEO. And like, you kind of just hit on a, an interesting thing, the black box. So what does that mean? Like, why, why do you call it a black box?

Nick Perow: 1:53

well, the, if, if you are not engaging, uh, if you're, if you're not in SEO consistently keeping up with the changes and monitoring the changes, the impression is, oh, this is a system that no one knows the rules. No one knows why any, anyone ranks higher than anyone else. No one knows, Google doesn't tell us it's, it's a secret.

Anthony Karls: 2:18

Yeah. So it's a game without rules.

Nick Perow: 2:21

It's a game without rules. And, and, know, Google does guard it as a secret, but that doesn't mean it, it is actually a game with no rules. It very much has rules. Um, part of the problem scenario there is, is figuring out, Hey, what, what are they truly, and how, how can we

Anthony Karls: 2:43

So how long have you been in the space? Cause I think that's pretty apt description of kind of the game, quote unquote, that SEO is. So how long have you been, how long have you been playing this game? Right in your own rule book.

Nick Perow: 2:58

Somewhere in there. So a, about a decade of Google algorithm updates under my belt.

Anthony Karls: 3:05

Um, so why did you, so why did you get into marketing as a career specifically in SEO, you talk a little bit about who you like, your problem solver, like game without rules. What about marketing generally?

Nick Perow: 3:15

Well, I, uh, in a, in a previous life was a small business owner. So there's just sort of like being in that mindset of like. help small business owner, um, make money. And I, I just, I love, I love behavioral aspect of marketing. I love connecting with people. So it's just, it's a natural, it's a natural space for me. Well,

Anthony Karls: 3:40

Awesome. All right. So our topic, so what, what are search engines? So SEO is obviously applied to search engines. So like, what are search engines generally? How did they,

Nick Perow: 3:54

so the, the, the problem is, is information and, and searchability of information. Basically we needed a library system. We needed a library system to the web as it was expanding and growing. We need to be able to find things on the web because I mean, prior to a decent search engine, you're relying, you're relying on people tipping you off that there's a, there's a cool website over here. That's not, that's not efficient. That's never going to fly.

Anthony Karls: 4:28

yeah. I mean, that's kind of how the internet was like way back when, right. We had different page boards that had a whole bunch of links that would What you just said, the information prior to a search engine that worked.

Nick Perow: 4:40

yeah, it was, it was all very accidental. Like, like whether or not you found something was a complete accident and the need popped up to index the web, which is to say, like, we need to categorize that the web, we need to put it into, put these websites into categories. We need to be able to find them some way that is valuable, without you knowing what they're called. And, and, and based on, based on the way people search, which is for, you know, to answer a question to

Anthony Karls: 5:16

So like how, what's the base level information that you think about as it pertains to like how that problem was solved? Cause it's, it's a, it's an engineered solution. They didn't like, they applied something that was like, how did they go about solving the problem? I guess that's a good, that's a better question. Yeah. So

Nick Perow: 5:33

off, they hired a lot of library scientists. So when I think about the web as we currently know it and, and Google, as we currently know it, these, the, the, I mean, Yahoo at its inception, not currently, but like Yahoo, they took a different route and it's worth. Telling they literally had librarians manually indexing the Internet and qualifying what, what should be ranking higher in Yahoo search. Like it was a manual process. They hired librarians, librarians to index the web. novel solution was that they, they figured out how to algorithmically index the web. And sort of the state, the current state of search now is, is really driven by an algorithm, which is just for ranking websites. They get categorized and then ranked. And that math is, is the heart of the black box.

Anthony Karls: 6:37

you said it's from, they hired a lot of library scientists that Yahoo did. Um, and then they were manually doing this and then Google, Google, Google, Google. Took that, took that idea and made it into a Algorithmic process. They engineered it. So,

Nick Perow: 6:54

it into, uh, an algorithm called PageRank, which is not technically what it is now, but is still the, the heart of the system. A

Anthony Karls: 7:05

so for all of us, for all of us that grew up before the internet was like the most important thing in the world. We used to do a decimal system. How, how relatable is that to, to what they engineered?

Nick Perow: 7:20

hundred percent relatable. To what they engineered with categories for types of information or types of searches. They are, they're deliberately categorized and then that library is curated by the algorithm. And, I, I mean, like I think about search the, the search results pages as being a card catalog. literally think in terms of paper and ink card catalog, somebody sat down with a typewriter Punched it in, how I view the categorization of the

Anthony Karls: 8:00

Yeah.

Nick Perow: 8:01

internet. And it's

Anthony Karls: 8:01

So why is that important?

Nick Perow: 8:03

Oh,

Anthony Karls: 8:03

Oh, go ahead. Go ahead.

Nick Perow: 8:05

it's, it's important because really tells you that some very key things are important. If you want to get on the board, if you want to get in the index. You need to do some very specific things. doesn't, we haven't even touched on quality yet. Just getting in and that's 60 percent of the battle. Just getting where you, you intend to be. So if each page on your website is a book that needs to be indexed. And enter into this catalog, do very specific things and you'll be there and now you can have fun.

Anthony Karls: 8:44

Yeah, so hot. So why is it important? Like, why do you, like, I know you believe this, like, well, I know I believe this, but like, why is it important for SEOs to understand what we're talking about? Like, how does that help them? And how does like not entering the world from that vantage point hurt them?

Nick Perow: 9:03

Um, if you don't have the, the base, if you don't, if you don't start from, from the understanding of what is this and how should it work from like, uh, like a library science engineering point of view, um, You can, you're, you're really subject to a lot of magical thinking. I'm just like a lot of random spaghetti at the wall. You, everything is. It's very random.

Anthony Karls: 9:33

Yeah.

Nick Perow: 9:34

Maybe it'll work. It depends. Um, you, you'll probably hear that a lot. Um, and, and I think beyond that, uh, you're more apt to trust every soundbite from Google. Uh, from, um, SEO or proclaimed SEO experts from, um, brands selling you something, you're just more likely to trust everything you're being fed, and it's not really grounded in any sort of, you know, Logic, like you need that, you need that, that frame of reference. And then it's, it's like, it is simple. I don't, I don't like to think about the web as the, like this big complex, not like impossible to understand thing. I like simplify it. simple at its root. And, um, now, now I have a, I have a way to judge, um, to judge a test before I run it.

Anthony Karls: 10:42

And like, so the, what's interesting about that is if we think about library science and how libraries have cataloged books and information. That's really old. That's really, really old. So it's basically applied, applied information architecture from an engineered perspective, but like using a lot of the same rules and principles that exist in libraries that we still have in our local communities today. I haven't been to a library recently. My guess is they probably don't still have those big stacks of cards where you can go look up.

Nick Perow: 11:17

I think it's, it's unlikely, but, but if you are. using like a counting cat or like

Anthony Karls: 11:24

Yeah.

Nick Perow: 11:24

those library systems. They are small internal search engines and they function on the same principles.

Anthony Karls: 11:35

Yeah. Awesome. So, all right. So let's answer the big question. So why is this important? Why is it, why are search engines understanding what they are and what SEO, what SEO is because SEO is essentially like helping the internet understand, um, helping the, the indexing portion of the internet, understand what your book is about. Um, why is it important for you to, why is it important for you to understand this so that you can drive revenue online?

Nick Perow: 12:08

well, it's important to understand it because like, if you are, if take a moment here with that, important to understand it. if you are making random decisions about your search strategy that aren't grounded in, is, does this page rank for the right keyword? So the, the, what I intend to sell or what I'm positioning to sell, if it's a service or a product, does it rank where it should rank? I need to be making decisions about The content on my website to say, does this support that page? Does it, does it influence the positive ranking of that page? Does like every decision can be tied back to, does this rank where it should, and as high as it should. Um, and, and if you're not making decisions through that lens, you're likely not making money,

Anthony Karls: 13:09

Yeah. Cause you're probably not ranking like, and if you're not ranking,

Nick Perow: 13:13

or maybe you're ranking for, um, how to tie your shoes. If you sell shoes, you should be first, maybe concerned that you rank for shoes for sale. And

Anthony Karls: 13:30

makes sense. Um, all right. So you seem really smart. That's what our audience is going to think. I'd be like, Oh, well, this, this smart man's telling me lots of smart things, but I don't know what he's talking about, which is fine. Um, so like empower me to understand, like, how do I, how do I know whether or not I'm being serviced well in this area? Uh, what should I be looking for? Like, what are the things that I should be. Hearing in conversations. If I'm working with someone on my internal team or I've hired a freelancer, I'm working with an agency. Like what are, what are the things that I should be hearing? What are the conversations we should be having? What should those look like if, if they're not going well, what do those sound like as well? So like, what are, give me some things to think about.

Nick Perow: 14:18

well, I, I think the step one is revenue, like no have a baseline for revenue and be tracking revenue across all sources, but. Organic sources specifically. Um, ranking, if you're not talking about ranking, um, you're likely, likely getting sold, uh, um, uh, the snake oil, so to speak, ranking is incredibly important, so you should be moving up, but not just generally moving up, you should specifically be moving up on your product. Pages that sell something. So if it's a service page, is your service paid for your service keywords? Are you ranking above your competitors? That is key understanding. You need to be talking about ranking on the right keywords. it's not every keyword on your site is not equally valuable. Um, so if it's across a small subset of keywords that you use to track your overall health your marketing and your marketing team, just make sure Keep, keep focused on the keywords that matter. They matter because they drive revenue.

Anthony Karls: 15:31

Makes sense. So I should be really looking at, do I, A, do I understand what those keywords are, am I getting updated on where they're ranking and what the progress is, is over time. Um, if I'm hearing, what are the, some of the things that I might be hearing if this isn't going well? Like, what would I be, what would I be hearing in those scenarios?

Nick Perow: 15:52

if it's not going well, rankings not being discussed, I can almost guarantee that, um, maybe you're hearing about impressions, but without ranking, if you're hearing about those things, kind of with one without the other impressions and ranking, there's likely. Not value. Um, you are, hearing about, uh, blogging, but again, without, without the context of your, of your revenue driving pages, if you're just hearing about, we need to do more content, but there's never a tie back to support the pages that drive revenue, you're likely getting sold a, you know, a blogging. Content for content's sake is, is low value, in my opinion. Um, should have purpose. Uh, ultimately if you're hearing nothing, if you cannot, if you don't understand the words that are coming out of your SEO's mouth and, and they're not explaining well, or, or slowing down to explain what they mean, um, if it's all jargon, if it's, um, it worked really hard to not use the jargon, but if it's, it's. If it's SERP and, and, um, I can't even remember. Um, yeah. Um, yeah. If, if it's all acronyms, basically, if it's alphabet soup, you should, you should be asking questions about revenue and

Anthony Karls: 17:28

Yeah.

Nick Perow: 17:28

ranking.

Anthony Karls: 17:29

So something I could ask as the business owner, local entrepreneur is how does this help me achieve my revenue targets? So if I ask that of my SEO, that's probably a good question. And if they can't connect that, I might have an issue.

Nick Perow: 17:47

Yeah. A hundred percent.

Anthony Karls: 17:49

Cool. Awesome. Well, appreciate, appreciate you spending some time with us, Nick, and giving us some nuggets of info. Um, people have questions on, on SEO or anything. How could, how should they. Look to reach out.

Nick Perow: 18:05

Um, rocket clicks. com. just, uh, fill out a form.

Anthony Karls: 18:11

Nice. So and I know you'll be there specifically on a web dev project and some of our SEO Clients they might see you and they'll get a celebrity in her introduction. So appreciate it. Thanks Nick

Nick Perow: 18:24

Thanks for having me. Yep.