Hey Campers! In this episode, we’re joined by the remarkable Jason Barnard. Get ready as we delve into the dynamic world of SEO’s impact on content creation.
Discover how search engines have evolved into answer engines. Jason shares strategies for crafting content that resonates with your audience and captures Google’s attention. Plus, he introduces his SAAS platform, KaliCube, enabling marketing agencies to enhance client experiences profitably.
Learn about managing your online reputation and optimizing content for Google. Unleash the potential of generative AI and align your brand with both Google’s understanding and audience expectations.
Get set for insights that transform your content game!
Featured Guest:
Jason Barnard
Website: https://kalicube.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmbar…
[00:00:00] Molly Ruland: All right, good morning. We are coming in hot with another episode of Camp Content and I’m sitting today With Jason Barnard of Kalicube, and we are going to talk about SEO and building brand authority on Google and answering all the questions and correcting me in all the things that I am getting wrong about SEO. So strap in. This is gonna be a good one, kids. Thank you. Welcome to the show, Jason. How you doing today?
[00:00:38] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Thank you very much, Molly. I’m delighted to be here to talk about SEO and how it isn’t as scary and geeky as it used to be.
[00:00:45] Molly Ruland: Well, I love scary and geeky. That’s a good combination. So let’s jump right in.
The Brand SERP Guy’s Extensive Digital Journey: From Early SEO Ventures to Pioneering Brand SERP Strategies with Kalicube
[00:00:51] Molly Ruland: So let’s talk a little bit about Kalicube first and talk a little bit about the history and like how long have you been in this digital space of SEO and all this stuff of work that you’re doing right now.
[00:01:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Well, I’ve been in the digital space, SEO, for 25 years. I set up my first website and optimized it for Google the year Google was incorporated, so I’ve been growing up with Google, digitally speaking, and I’ve been working on this particular aspect and this approach with Kalicube since 2015. So that’s eight years working on Brand SERPs, which is the search engine results page. SERP is search engine results page for your brand name or your company name or your personal name for 13 or 14 years now starting with myself and then I built a business around it.
Navigating the Ever-Evolving Landscape of SEO and Social Media: Adapting to Change and Embracing Fundamental Strategies
[00:01:40] Molly Ruland: You know, it’s interesting. That’s how a lot of these things start, right? Like I got a job doing social media for like a bar. You know, like a million years ago, right? 15 years ago. I don’t even know at this point. But it starts with the curiosity and then you start to learn and you get really good at something. And social media is a lot like SEO because it constantly changes. I would say SEO is actually even more volatile. It’s like lava. It’s just constantly changing the way that it works, right? Like I just said. Domain Authority to you and you promptly corrected me as you should. But you know, everything is just evolving constantly and changing constantly and what works and what doesn’t. And it feels like you could be an SEO expert and six months later you could be out of date if you’re not really on top of things.
[00:02:29] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right but I think one really important thing is to take a huge step back and say what Google is trying to achieve has not changed for 25 years. So from that perspective, the techniques might change, but the overall strategy is always the same. It’s to make sure that Google recommends your solution as the best for the subset of its users who are your audience, that’s it.
[00:02:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): They’re trying to get their users to the solution to their problem as efficiently as possible, because when somebody searches on Google, they’re expressing a problem to which they’re looking for the solution or a question to which they’re looking for the answer. All it wants to do is get them there as efficiently as possible. So that global approach should not have changed from the beginning 25 years ago when I started to right now.
Shifting Perspectives: Placing the Customer as the Hero in Brand Strategy and Messaging
[00:03:18] Molly Ruland: Well, it really kind of boils down to like brand design and brand strategy, right? Because at the end of the day. I talk a lot about Donald Miller. He comes up a lot with the story, the guy who wrote StoryBrand, and he talks about how the customers, the hero of the journey and you’re just the guy, and a lot of people lead. They’re like, oh, we have this much experience and this is what we do. And this is what we, we, we, we, we, we we, we and people aren’t searching for I want SEO expert with 15 years experience, they’re like, I want to rank on Google. I want to do this. It’s about their journey and their story, and a lot of companies don’t really have that profile, right? That brand profile of who it is they’re looking for, they’re more focused on what it is they do versus solving a problem for the potential client.
[00:04:09] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, 100%. That’s a really, really good point. Google’s looking to see, do you have the solution and can I recommend you? And from that perspective, you’re right, the I, me, mine, I call it. The I, me, mine approach is me, we, us, what we have, what we, how, why we’re wonderful. And people are saying, okay, that’s great, but just tell me what you can do to make my life better. Because the person opposite you is I, me, mine too. So you’ve got two I, me, mines. It’s like magnets maybe, is that they will throw each other apart. And you need to be, you, you, you, you, you, you while they’re thinking I, me, mine, and as you said, your client or your prospect is the hero of the journey.
Decoding Brand SERP: Unlocking the Power of Brand Identity in Search Engine Results Pages
[00:04:51] Molly Ruland: So tell us, what is a Brand SERP? Can you explain that a little bit more?
[00:04:57] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): A Brand SERP is the search engine results page for your brand name, and I’m the only person in the world that I know of who focuses on that first.
[00:05:09] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So the first thing we do with our clients at Kalicube, when we’re implementing what we call the Kalicube process, which is a full digital marketing strategy based on brand, marketing, SEO, in that order. The first thing we do is say to them what appears when your audience googles your brand name? Is it what you expect? Is it what you want? And if not, we need to correct that because if it’s not what you expect and what you want and what your audience needs, it means that either Google’s misunderstood you, in which case your SEO will never work. Or it means that your digital marketing strategy is hitting all the wrong notes and you need to correct that. So we use that brand SERP, the search engine results page, for your brand name to understand where you’re going right, where you’re going wrong, and we start correcting based on the brand, by building your marketing strategy, where it needs to be built, where Google is looking, where your audience are hanging out. And then we apply SEO as simply packaging that marketing and that branding for Google. That’s how you win the game.
Unveiling the SEO Journey: From Simple Beginnings to Reverse Engineering Success
[00:06:21] Molly Ruland: I mean, it sounds so simple when you say it like that. You know, it seems simple.
[00:06:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It feels very simple to me, but yeah, I get it. It isn’t necessarily simple, but I’ve been in the weeds for 13 years.
[00:06:33] Molly Ruland: Well, it’s reverse engineering, right? It’s like start at the beginning, like what are people looking at? What happens when you Google your own company name and we build websites for people. And in the beginning we were just building websites. And then I started to realize, wait a minute, there needs to be some SEO in here. And that’s kind of what started the journey because a lot of web designers and developers, especially if you’re not working with like an agency or a bigger company, are just going to build you a webpage.
SEO Transformation: From Neglected Web Pages to Strategic Optimization and the Human-Centric Approach
[00:06:57] Molly Ruland: They might not even written the metadata. They might not like, they didn’t connect it to anything. It’s just literally like, here it is now you go connect everything. And I think that’s more common than not. And so we’ve really kind of dove into what is SEO and started to really optimize these pages and have built-in things to set people up to make sure that they can see their analytics and they have that data.
[00:07:20] Molly Ruland: And there’s some sort of optimization SEO tool on there to make sure the metadata and the metatags are written correctly and all of that because I think so many businesses, it’s just like podcasts. It’s like when was the last time you listened to your own podcast? I promise you, you’ll get better if you listen to yourself. And so it’s the same thing. Google your business, right? And see what’s coming up. Makes sense.
[00:07:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): 100%. And all of the SEO techniques that you just communicated, which are perfectly good, interesting, helpful, valuable are actually just the way you package this for Google. So you’re making the marketing content based on your brand for your audience, and then packaging that up for Google, which is where you get the Google bonus, let’s call it. Whereas a lot of people today think, well, I’m just going to create content for Google, which is the wrong way to go, because you’re creating content from machine. And that machine is actually simply an interface between two human beings, me and my prospect, or my client.
Shifting the Narrative: Redefining SEO Strategy by Prioritizing Human Connection Over Search Algorithms
[00:08:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So I need to create content for the person on the other side of that machine and simply package it so the machine transits my content to them. And that’s a different perspective on the same problem that we’ve always had. And whereas we’re used to be able to cheat with all the simple techniques ’cause the machine was quite stupid, it’s not stupid anymore. So we need to understand what we’re creating for whom, when it will be useful. And the SEO is the techniques and tactics for packaging. The strategy is getting through that machine to the subset of its users, whom my audience, and getting its recommendation. So it keeps putting me in front of them over time.
[00:09:10] Molly Ruland: That makes a lot of sense. I mean, I definitely fell for the trap of writing for Google and then realized the people who are going to read this article are not my clients. Like, if you’re looking up how to start a podcast, you’re not my client where we do podcasting as a business development tool. Like none of my clients have ever looked on the internet to see how to start a podcast because, they’re going to pay a production company to do that. You know what I mean? So that’s not who I need to write for. It doesn’t matter if that’s the highest search term on Google every single day. That’s not my audience. I’m not trying to solve their problem. So that makes a lot of sense because I definitely fell for that trap when I got into the little SEO world. I was like, oh, okay, let me write what people are searching for.
Understanding the Three Pillars of Knowledge, Recommendation, and Generative AI
[00:09:51] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. And that’s exactly it. Everybody falls into that trap and I’m on a one-person and one-company mission to stop that happening for forever. To get people to say, well, what’s your brand? Who’s your audience? What are you trying to get across to them? What are the marketing materials that they need? And where can you place those marketing materials? So you’re standing where they’re looking across the entire digital ecosystem. Then how do you package all of that stuff you are already creating that’s already profitable for you because you are pulling in clients and prospects with the marketing materials that make sense for them. And how can we then look at that and say, let’s turn it into a bonus with traffic from Google. But whether it’s Google or your audience, they’re all looking at brand. They’re all looking at solutions and they’re all looking at credibility.
[00:10:39] Molly Ruland: Alright, so what do you mean when you say Google’s search results are split into knowledge, recommendation and Generative AI? Because that’s a whole thing right there that I definitely need to understand. Then we’ll talk about AI in regards to the machine.
[00:10:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): That’s a whole kettle of fish which actually sounds complicated, but simplifies everything. Because Google is trying to recommend the best solutions to the subset of its users who are your audience. And you’re looking, from my perspective, what content should I create? So on the left hand side, it shows recommendations. This is what I recommend to be the best content for this person in this situation with this search query.
The Future of Search Interaction: Converging Knowledge, Recommendations, and Generative AI for Seamless User Engagement
[00:11:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): On the right hand side, on desktop, it shows knowledge. So it will show you what it thinks it has understood as facts about the topic you’ve searched for, or the Entity you’ve searched for- the company, the person, or the product. And then what happens, or what is happening now is Generative AI is coming to search and Search Generative Experience is the chunk at the top where it will summarize that whole thing.
[00:11:51] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It will start a conversation with the user and say, here’s what I’ve summarized of about the query that you’ve got, which is my facts, plus my recommendations mixed together. What’s the next step you’d like to take? And it proposes, suggests follow-up questions. And so it’s going to lead your audience down the funnel from the search, and that’s where the future lies.
[00:12:17] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): That knowledge and that recommendation coming together in the machine’s brain to actually become an interface between you and your customer. You’re not going to get your customer onto your website as quickly as you used to. They’re going to have a conversation with the machine. And once again, that machine is simply an intermediary between me and my prospect.
Conversational AI in Action: Enhancing User Engagement through Interactive Search Experiences
[00:12:38] Molly Ruland: So are you talking about when you Google something and you’re like, what’s the best thing to give my dogs, and then it’ll then have all those other dropdowns where it’s like, what’s the worst thing to give your dog and what is the best that you like? Is that what is that the Generative AI?
[00:12:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. Well,it’s like if you heard of Bing Chat and Chat GPT?
[00:12:58] Molly Ruland: Yes, of course.
[00:12:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s that. It’s the conversation that you’re having with the machine. And then the question as a digital marketer and an SEO expert is, how can I feed the machine with the information it needs to represent me in a conversation with its user? Because it’s no longer going to send it to my website, it’s going to have a conversation with them, and I need to make sure it’s got the material and that it’s got the understanding. And it understands my credibility in order for it to converse in my place with my audience. That’s huge.
Demystifying AI in Google: Shaping a Learning Child for Improved Digital Interactions
[00:13:38] Molly Ruland: Dogs are barking for a second. Yeah, I mean, it’s really interesting to see what, what’s going to happen with AI and everything that’s happening in that space.
[00:13:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I think one thing is that people are scared of AI and I understand why they’re scared. I’m scared of AI in its general sense, in the sense that, it could take over the world and it could be a total disaster, and it could be the end of humankind. But in terms of AI in Google, you can actually look at AI as being this small child that doesn’t yet understand enough about you and you need to educate this child so that it understands who you are, what you do, which audience you serve, so that it can converse, as I said earlier on, with the prospects on the other side. So if you look at it from that perspective, it’s a stupid machine. It’s a small child and it’s up to you to educate it. And the way you educate it is by creating the content that it needs to better understand who you are, what you do and who you serve.
Crafting Authentic Content: Balancing Self-Promotion with Audience-Centric Messaging
[00:14:49] Molly Ruland: Which makes a lot of sense. But then that’s a slippery slope because it’s like you’re making content about who you are and what you do and who you serve. But without sounding like, I, we, me. So that seems difficult. How do you navigate that landscape?
[00:15:05] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, I mean, for example, who I serve, I can just talk about the audience we serve, digital marketing agencies. If you are a digital marketing agency, Kalicube could be the solution for you. We have a SaaS Platform that will allow you to offer additional services to your clients at hugely profitable margins. So that’s a mixture of the two. I’m creating a team there by mixing we and you and giving them the benefit that they will have, which is offer additional services to your clients at hugely enormous profit margins. And then if I talk about for example, we build Knowledge Panels. The Knowledge Panel is the thing on the right that superstars and TV stars and sports stars have.
Google is presenting me this way because I’ve made the effort. So here, I would say your credibility faced with your audience is dependent on Google’s representation of you.
Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy)
[00:15:49] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if you search my name, Jason Barnard, I look like an A-List celebrity, but I’m not, I’m an E-list celebrity, but Google’s presenting me that way because I’ve made the effort. So here, I would say your credibility faced with your audience is dependent on Google’s representation of you. Take control and ensure that Google represents you the way you want your audience when they’re researching you. Kalicube can offer you a process that gives you that control. So I’ve talked to the client, I’ve talked about Google, and I only mentioned Kalicube at the end, and I just made that up. And I’m not sure if that’s actually a very good sales pitch.
Evolution of Search Paradigms: Unpacking Search, Answer, and Assistive Engines for Enhanced User Experience
[00:16:36] Molly Ruland: No, that sounds pretty good to me. I love it. I love it. Okay. So what’s the difference between search, answer, and assistive engines?
[00:16:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. And this comes into the same kind of conversation of Generative AI. Because the search engine is when what we’ve known for so long and why people are stuck in that is because we’ve known it for 25 years, is Google or Bing offer you a list of 10 links and you choose the one that you think is the most appropriate, and it gives you a prioritized list. So it starts with the one that thinks is the best, but you can choose the 10th. But 25 years ago, you would go on to page four or five because it wasn’t very good. And then an answer engine is saying, well, I actually think I have the answer, so you don’t need to go through those 10 links, and here’s the answer, or here is a choice of three answers. So with a search engine, there are 10 opportunities for marketers.
[00:17:29] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And an answer engine, you’ve got one to three. Because if it chooses you as the answer, you get the visitor. But if it chooses your competitor, your competitor gets the visitor. And an assistive engine is an engine that will predict what you want. So Generative AI is doing that is that you search for one thing, it gives you the answer, and then it says, here’s a selection of questions that you might want to ask next. So that’s assisting you on your way down the funnel. So we’ve been in search, we are now in answer, and we’re moving towards assistive.
Assistive Engines: Guiding Prospects Down the Sales Funnel for Informed Decision-Making
[00:18:04] Molly Ruland: Interesting. And that’s probably that longer haul for somebody to get to you, but if they do get to you from one of those assistive answers, it’s probably going to be exactly what they’re looking for, right? Like it’s going to be spot on if they make it down.
[00:18:19] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I was chatting to Fabrice Canel, who’s the product manager at Bing who is building this stuff, and he said, that’s exactly, what you said is exactly what they’re trying to do. They’re saying people are going to be using search and answer engines, but the assistive engine is going to bring them down the funnel and when we pass them over to you, they should be ready to buy.
The Role of Featured Snippets and Assisting Queries in Streamlining Information Retrieval
[00:18:40] Molly Ruland: I mean it makes sense, right? Because I was looking up something recently like what medications or what side effects do they have? And then it started putting all these other questions that I didn’t know I had, and it was like, well, what other medications have least less of these side effects? I was like, that’s a great question to ask. And so it really did lead me and gave me a lot more information than I would’ve asked on my own. I was like, oh, I do want to know that. Let me click that, and I love that it’s just a dropdown, and then you can go into an article and instead scrolling aimlessly to try to get an answer and being in the wrong place.
[00:19:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): That’s a good point you’ve made is that if you look at the featured snippet or you look at the answers that they actually put, the stuff they put in the SERP, what they’re trying to do is reach into the content and pull out the answer and put it in front of you. Then suggest something you might want to know next. Because from a being efficient point of view, as a user, I don’t want to go into the website and scroll through an endless article. And I think marketers forget that they forget to put themselves into place of the user and they forget that it frustrates them enormously to sort through all this content to find a very simple answer to a very simple question. And search engines have moved into answer engines to try to solve that problem. And then assistive engines, they’re building your funnel, so you have to show them what your funnel looks like so they can build the funnel the way you want it to be built.
Structuring Information for Google: Building an Extensive FAQ Section to Enhance Clarity and User Value
[00:20:03] Molly Ruland: Where’s the best place to put that information? Is that blog posts, is that in the metadata? Is that on your actual web pages? How do you convey that to Google?
[00:20:14] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I would advise everybody without exception to start a huge FAQ section that answers every single conceivable question about yourself, your products, how you serve your clients, what they can expect from your service, your products, and your customer service. Because that is a) valuable to your clients and customers, b) we are doing this at Kalicube and we’re realizing that it makes us better understand what it is we’re offering. And our offerings are becoming much clearer and we are not overdelivering or underdelivering excessively. We’re saying, this is what you’re going to get and that’s what people get.
I would advise everybody without exception to start a huge FAQ section that answers every single conceivable question about yourself, your products, how you serve your clients, what they can expect from your service, your products, and your customer service.
Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy)
Optimizing FAQ Content: Crafting Individual Pages for Each Question and Answer to Enhance User Experience
[00:20:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So it’s hugely helpful to us. And then it’s also hugely helpful obviously to the assistive engines, the Generative AI to bring people down the funnel. And it works in SEO, so it will work for the search engine too. So if you’re going to do one thing after this episode, starting at all the questions that your audience, your customers asked, answer every single one in an FAQ section. One page per question answer, not the accordion system, because the accordion system creates that horrible experience you just described, scrolling through endless questions, trying to find the right one. Nobody wants that.
[00:21:26] Molly Ruland: So break that down to me. The FAQ needs to have several pages?
[00:21:31] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s going to have one page per question answer. So I have a client and they’ve got a thousand pages. We’ve currently got about 700 or 800, so yeah.
[00:21:43] Molly Ruland: Okay. Mind blown. Mind blown, because I was just about to write down, make an FAQ page and I was going to do the accordion style, but that changes everything.
Streamlining FAQ Accessibility for Quick and Relevant Answers
[00:21:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, well, I mean, you can answer multiple, very closely related questions in one article, but who wants on a mobile phone to go to that page and have to scroll through the whole thing to find the specific answer they want? A person wants to come directly onto a page, find the answer, and go and do something else. And from that perspective, you can also think about how is anybody going to land on that page?
[00:22:17] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The solutions are a link from another site that’s somebody’s asked that question on Quora and then somebody’s linked through to it. So they come onto the page, they just want to see the answer. They’ve searched on Google that specific question, they just want the answer. Or they’ve been searching on your website and they just want the specific answer because they searched on your website. Nobody navigates an FAQ section. Nobody goes through all of your FAQ questions, just reads them all because we all want one specific answer to solve one specific simple problem right now and get on, do something else.
Refining Your Audience: Leveraging FAQs to Identify and Attract Ideal Clients
[00:22:55] Molly Ruland: That makes so much sense. And now I have so much work to do. I’m like, we have to go. I have to go now. Jason, I have 700 pages of content to write. I will talk to you soon. Man, that makes so much sense to me and especially in my business, there’s a lot of questions that people ask. I would imagine that it all probably is also helpful to qualify who’s not your ideal client, right?
[00:23:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes. Absolutely. We started our FAQ and we’re looking at it and saying, well, why am I talking to this person, because, for example, they don’t have a marketing team. If they don’t have a marketing team, we can’t serve them with the Kalicube process when we coach them. So it’s immediately pointed out to us, well, we shouldn’t be talking to that person or that person, or that person. What human resources do I need to implement the Kalicube process is a question typically people ask once they figure out what the Kalicube process is, and the answer is you need three or four people in your marketing team. That immediately puts some people off, they jump out the funnel and they go do something else. And that’s absolutely fine.
Targeted Communication: Utilizing Red Flags and Clarity to Streamline Client Matching and Conversations
[00:24:01] Molly Ruland: Which is fantastic, right? It’s like red flags in dating. You’re like, thanks for letting me know. I appreciate that. You know what I mean? So especially if they put it right on a profile and you know, it’s not the right fit. But I think that’s very relevant because in any business there’s people that you serve and there’s people that you don’t like we are a podcast agency, we produce podcasts as a business development tool. So if you want to have a podcast about hockey or your favorite TV show, we’re definitely not the right agency to call. There’s other people who will be the right fit for you, but it’s not us. And so I think that matters because there’s nothing worse than awkward conversations or wasted time when you’re barking up the wrong tree.
[00:24:40] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Nice turn of phrase, given the dogs. Barking at the wrong tree.
[00:24:45] Molly Ruland: Speaking of barking, don’t jinx us. We’re doing so good, you know.
Tailoring Formats to Suit the Nature and Complexity of Your Offerings
[00:24:49] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I think you’ve just made a very good point is that creating an FAQ means that you are identifying very clearly who you are and what you offer, and to whom, to yourself, to your audience, and to Google. And that’s huge. And most of us never done it.
[00:25:09] Molly Ruland: That’s like an exercise in life and in business. You should do it for your business and then you should do it for yourself, right? We do a little life coaching in here. Do an FAQ. Well, I do women’s retreats and so I have an FAQ page that’s in accordion. But I think in that situation, if people probably do read them because it’s like, what airport should I fly into? Should I rent a car? But what it did is it made me think about, okay, well if I was going to another country for a women’s retreats, what questions would I ask? And it was super clear because it was such a simple product. It’s a women’s retreat in Costa Rica. This is the questions people are going ask – what’s the weather going to be like? What kind of shoes should I bring?
[00:25:47] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): That is a very good point, is that I shouldn’t be so emphatic and absolute about the accordion system, is there are circumstances where an accordion system does make sense and we’ve got to be a little bit intelligent and I’ve got to be less emphatic, but I’m fighting against the accordion system. But here you do need it.
Strategic FAQ Creation: Putting Yourself in the Shoes of Your Ideal Clients to Generate Relevant Questions and Answers
[00:26:04] Molly Ruland: Well in that particular situation, but that’s not most businesses, that’s an event. That’s really not a business. It’s an event, right? And so, that’s a totally different thing. But what it did is it made me think about, well, what would be the questions I would ask? And so that seems like a great exercise to, Okay, pretend you’re the agency. Like, who’s my target audience? Like agency owners, VC companies. What questions would I ask a production company? That’s a really great place to start your FAQ page list and it’ll really make you think about what questions you should be asking yourself, right? And then how you would actually answer them to that potential client.
[00:26:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): For example, if I was looking for production company, I’d be asking who looks after hosting? Do I have to host it myself? How many episodes in a series are optimal? Should I do a weekly show? I don’t know, I’m making it up.
[00:27:03] Molly Ruland: Exactly. These are all the questions, you know what I mean? Will you help me write the script? How do I find guests, right? Like all these, all these are questions that we get out. So I would ask you then, what would you prioritize in an FAQ set of pages? Like if I write down like 20 different things, what’s the best way to prioritize? What should I focus on first?
Maximizing FAQ Impact: Streamlining Sales Calls and Enhancing Client Understanding Through Tailored Answers to Common Inquiries
[00:27:24] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I would answer the 20 questions that you are most commonly asked on sales calls, because those are the ones that are going to convert the bottom of funnel. So if you start with those, you’re immediately onto something that’s going to help people understand better what you offer, and then either not get on the sales call in the first place because you don’t suit, or when they are on the sales call, they don’t ask you the uninformed questions and you can get right to the point of actually what you can do for them.
[00:27:58] Molly Ruland: Which makes a lot of sense.
[00:27:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, it does. And it then also saves you the time, the effort, and it’s a huge, huge time saver. And I think people fail to notice that.
Quality Over Quantity: Leveraging Brand SERP Insights and Addressing Targeted Questions for Effective Lead Generation
[00:28:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The second thing I would do is to look at my Brand SERP and see if there are questions on that. And from an SEO perspective, start answering those because those are the questions that Google sees as being most relevant to your business and to your audience relating to your business. So looking at People Also Ask in the Google search results for your brand and for your market are also hugely good targets. And it doesn’t matter about search volume. Don’t worry about search volume, because that’s not the point. If only one person searches for one term and they then jump on a sales call with you, job done.
[00:28:49] Molly Ruland: Right. And I think we live in a society of more is more, but it’s not always more right? Like how many deals do you need to close to impact your bottom line? And you couldn’t get a thousand new deals tomorrow. I couldn’t close a thousand deals tomorrow. Probably bankrupt my company, frankly, right? So, one closed deal makes a big difference. One’s a sales call, a warm lead, an incoming lead is worth a lot. So, it’s definitely worth the time spent and the effort spent to be thoughtful about that for sure.
Navigating the World of Generative AI: Accessing Kalicube’s White Paper for Insights and Reassurance
[00:29:18] Molly Ruland: Well, Jason, before we go, can you talk to people a little bit, because I know you have a great white paper here, The Content Creation for Search, Answer and Assistive Engines in a World of Generative AI. And so, curious how people can get their hands on that because that sounds pretty good.
[00:29:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. But if you visit Kalicube.com, we’ve got a lot of free resources. There’s a downloads page with multiple PDFs like that, and the idea of that particular one, which is facing up to Generative AI, both as somebody within a company, but also in terms of search is not as scary as you think. You’re not going to lose your job. There’s a lot of things that are left to be done. Generative AI doesn’t replace everything. What it does is shift where the focus needs to be and the white paper is aimed at reassuring, educating, and bringing people to a new mindset where they can actually make a career creating content that works in Generative AI. And we’ve got a second version of that white paper coming out soon, which is for business leaders.
[00:30:27] Molly Ruland: Excellent.
Embracing Generative AI: Preparing Your Business Mindset for a Shifting Digital Landscape
[00:30:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So it’s not because Generative AI exists. It’s not because the funnel is now going to be moving more and more towards Google and Bing. That your business is going to collapse, as you said earlier on. The purchase still needs to be made, it’s just a question of how do they get there? And you just need to change your mindset today so that in two years time when that becomes a reality, that we’re all living, you are in the right place, and people are coming to your website and not your competition’s website, buying from you and not from your competition.
[00:30:58] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No need to be scared.
[00:30:59] Molly Ruland: Amen. Jason. Amen. Well said. Thank you. That’s super helpful. I hope anybody who’s listening is getting some value out of this because I feel like you did a really great job of distilling things in a way that makes sense. And if people have companies and they’re interested in Kalicube and you have a marketing department, you heard you got to have a few people in your marketing department to be a good fit for Kalicube, which is a great distinction, head up Jason. He’s a superstar on Google. You shouldn’t have any hard time finding him. And we definitely have all the links in the show notes and everything else.
A Valuable Conversation on SEO and Content Strategy with The Brand SERP Guy, Jason Barnard
[00:31:31] Molly Ruland: So, Jason, thank you so much for coming on the show today. This is a great conversation. I definitely am going to go work on my FAQ pages right away. I got some serious gold right there. So, thank you for that information and I look forward to seeing you and chatting with you again sometime soon.
[00:31:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, that was absolutely brilliant. Thank you for having me, and thank you for asking all the right questions, Molly. That made that an incredibly smooth experience. We went through so many different things and it all made sense and it all knotted together, woven together beautifully. Thank you.
[00:32:06] Molly Ruland: Thank you. I appreciate that. My mom would be proud. So on that note, have a fantastic day and thank you for tuning into Camp content. We appreciate your time.
[00:32:16] Molly Ruland: If you found this content valuable, please tag me on LinkedIn. Let’s, let’s chop it up, hit the website. Let’s talk about starting a podcast for your business in this quarter so you can see some results next quarter. And until next time, kids. Be excellent to each other.
[00:32:36] Molly Ruland: All right. All right. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Camp Content. This is Molly. And this is Matt. And we are Heart Cast media, aka Camp Content, and we appreciate all of your support. If you found this content valuable, please comment on social media, LinkedIn, wherever you find us, and we’ll make sure to comment back and be sure to go on and subscribe and like on your favorite platforms: Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, you name it. Leave us that subscription. Leave us that good review. We’ll love you forever. So until next time, be excellent to each other and we’ll see you next week.
