How To Outsmart Google in 2024 & Beyond Ft. Jason M. Barnard – CONTENT IS PROFIT EP. #470

In today’s episode, we chat with our good friend and co-mastermind member, Jason M. Barnard.

He blew our minds when it comes to SEO, Google, Personal Branding and much more.

This guy has been outsmarting Google for 20 years, and he told us everything we need to know about it.

I could not stop taking notes.

This conversation made us rethink a lot of what we “know” about Google and how we show up online if we really want to create a positive impact in the world. Which, I’m assuming, you want to do!

We talked how this frameworks are so simple to put in place, you can do it today if you want to.

We discussed modern models of AI, and how they all suck when it comes to building your brand… yes, including Chat GPT…

And we wrapped up the episode with how you can get all these resources, for free!

It was so good, and actionable! We can’t wait to hear from you!

Timestamped Overview:
00:00 Google algorithm expert with superhero alter ego.
05:26 Incredible show and valuable insights shared.
07:34 Summarizing the text in 7 words: Discussing content organization and personal branding strategies
10:27 Jason and coach conversation on self-definition simplification.
13:27 Curiosity about unique marketing approach in SEO.
18:05 Social media algorithms keep users engaged.
21:20 Algorithms guide users through the sales journey.
24:32 Identifying content categories for efficient problem-solving.
29:31 Google search guides users through educational journey.
30:44 Sysdig engines recommend Biz Bros for B2B podcast production, guiding users through the buying process.
35:00 Focus on solving big problems through smaller tasks.
38:16 Content generating profit—pipeline platform, collaboration, tracking.
42:26 Iterative process using GPT 4 to generate answers.
46:14 Sharing knowledge freely, nature can’t be changed.
48:32 Consistent red shirt creates strong professional identity.
51:15 Wearing a red shirt can make connections.
54:39 Package branded marketing for search engines effectively.

Tune in and enjoy!

Introduction of Jason Barnard

[00:00:00] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Do we focus on keywords? Which is traditional SEO? The answer is no. We focus on intent, problem, solution.

[00:00:07] Luis Camejo: I feel like there’s this thought that we’re against the algorithm. How can we beat it, right? How can we go against it, in a sense. I feel like that’s the narrative instead of like, how can we help the algorithm?

[00:00:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I, Jason Barnard, Kalicube, as a company, have figured out the solution to Digital Marketing. It’s not. We think we found something that might help. We have the solution, full stop.

[00:00:30] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: How do we get Google to share us instead of the competition? How do we outrank them?

[00:00:38] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Traditional SEO is dying. SEO hasn’t died because SEO is just packaging content for Google. But traditional SEO, the way we used to work with word-counting and link-counting, is no longer relevant.

[00:00:51] Luis Camejo: Hey, I’m Luis and you’re listening to the Content is Profit Podcast. Guys, I’m so excited to introduce you the person that is on the other side of the screen right now. He educates Google knowledge algorithms, and by the way, we met on this amazing mastermind. You know, you’ve heard that before, but he has figured out how Google understands the world and how to educate it. He can amplify your online authority and credibility without zero additional PR. He sounds like a superhero. And he also played the role of a blue dog in a cartoon for kids that aired 25 countries. I had my theory of what cartoon that was. I was incorrect.

[00:01:36] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: Very great. Were you thinking Dora?

[00:01:37]: Luis Camejo: No, dude, a blue dog.

[00:01:39] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: Blue.

[00:01:40] Luis Camejo: Bluey, bro.

[00:01:41] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: I don’t know. I think Dora has a blue dog, you know? Actually, I have no idea.

[00:01:46] Luis Camejo: We’re being sidetracked.

[00:01:47] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: Sidetracked. Tangent.

[00:01:49] Luis Camejo: Tangent alert. He’s also a multi-award winning songwriter. Guys, I am so stoked and so excited to introduce. Please welcome the guy that has been outsmarting Google for the last 25 years, Jason. Jason M. Barnard.

[00:02:08] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: What’s up, Jason?

[00:02:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant. Lovely to be here, guys. That’s a delightful introduction. Excuse me. And blue dogs, they’re everywhere. It seems like this really weird idea, but they’re absolutely everywhere. And that’s a great point about Google and human beings is it’s ambiguous.

[00:02:28] Luis Camejo: That’s right.

[00:02:29] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): That is the hugest question Google has and that we all have a problem of ambiguity with things that are named the same. And that’s going to be a huge part of this conversation.

[00:02:40] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: I’m going to say. Is that why you included the M in his name right now? I know. That’s a good tip that I learned the other day. My brother was very excited to share about it, right? He made a post, obviously, when people search for Luis Camejo, I’m top of the search because I’m you know, the better brother. But you know, for him to distinguish it, he’s going to start putting the D in there. So when he actually said your name right now, Jason M. Barnard, I was like, that’s odd. We never say the middle initials, right? And immediately it kind of clicks. I’m sure we get into that piece in just a moment.

Mastering Personal Branding and Outsmarting Google

[00:01:37] Luis Camejo: Yeah, absolutely. Jason, you absolutely blew my mind the couple of hours that we spent together this week, you know? One was on your show. I was coming there. But you also gave me very incredible, practical advice. You actually showed up like my Google search on the personal brand side. And that’s something that, for me, honestly, I haven’t been, you know, aware of that or intentional about building a personal brand because we’re building a business on the side.

[00:03:42] Luis Camejo: But it was incredible. So I encourage every single person to go to your show, right, just linked right below in the notes and go and consume it because it’s incredible. And then also, then you make this presentation on our mastermind where you tell everybody, here’s the roadmap to outsmart Google and make sure that you are the first option when people search about you, about your company, and about your topics and the things that you talk about. And at the end of the call, you answered a ton of questions. And I was like, this is actually a lot simpler than I thought it was going to be. And I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. So obviously, you’ve been doing this for a long time. Where do we start? I’m like, tell me all the secrets right now, Jason.

[00:04:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, I mean, actually, you’ve already said most of what I need to say. Number one, you start by being intentional about it. We all have a personal brand online, whether we like it or not. We’re all public figures. If we’re intentional about how we communicate with our audience, we will be able to get these machines to understand us. And I say, these machines, it’s not just Google. It’s Microsoft. It’s Apple. It’s Facebook. It’s Twitter. It’s all of these machines. All of the big tech companies are trying to understand the world.

[00:05:03] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): They’re crawling the web finding information about you, me, the other Luis. And they’re trying to figure out who is who. And they’re trying to figure out who is who and who does what. And if they can’t figure that out, they will just exclude you from everything they do. If they can figure you out, they will include you in everything they do. And obviously they all have these huge audiences and you’re using them as a marketer in order to get in front of their audiences at the right moment.

[00:05:34] Luis Camejo: Yeah.

[00:05:35] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So you need to be intentional about educating these machines. They are AI. They understand the world like a human being, and it’s up to you to educate them like you would educate a child.

Harmonizing Human and Machine Understanding: The Power of Clear, Consistent, and Relevant Digital Ecosystems

[00:05:51] Luis Camejo: When you mentioned that you were going through an example, right, of like, hey, we’re putting all this content or the things that we’re saying into almost like a book format, right? Like of like, how do we explain this in buckets or pieces or things? Then that goes back into either your company or your personal brand as these content pieces or content pages, right? And then you basically put it out there for Google to be like, okay, here’s the page that says about me and who I am and what I do, and here’s the page of my service number one and my page of service number two. And let me tell you, we’ve been doing a lot of exploration on our service too, and trying to categorize it of capacity and things and what we do exactly. Obviously now with the podcast studio, and I had a question for you where it’s like, look, we have all these things like now, personal branding as well, but then we also have the studio. We have the service that has been very fluid. For a point there, when we first started, we had no idea how to categorize it or how do we sell it. And that conversation that I had with you allowed me to prep a document that explains exactly what the service does based on the information that you gave me. And when I sent it to the person that was asking, it was so clear to them that allowed the conversation to continue and move forward.

[00:07:11] Luis Camejo: So it was so so so so valuable. At that point, I’m like, wow, if we could do this with every single person or part of the business and put it out to the world and Google to read it and understand it, it’s going to be so much easier.

[00:07:22] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. And you make an amazingly good point there. I’m saying, let’s educate the machines by identifying the company, the person and each service. And each one has a dedicated page that simply explains what it is, what it serves, what problem it solves, or who they serve and why they’re credible. Google loves it. That’s how you educate Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, all of these machines. But it’s also what humans are looking for. So by pleasing the machines, you’re pleasing the humans. But also, by pleasing the humans, you’re going to be pleasing the machines. So it works both ways. And it’s so powerful for that reason. And we’re using the machines, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, as an insight into what we’re doing wrong for the humans. We correct for the humans. That rectifies what the machines are understanding and representing about us. But at the same time, the humans are getting this incredibly consistent message.

[00:08:26] Luis Camejo: Yeah.

[00:07:58] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So what I love is we’re using the machines for insight and as a KPI for how well we’re making that digital ecosystem clear, and consistent in terms of our audience. And relevant. Clear, consistent and relevant are the keys.

Simplifying Complexity: Educating Machines and Humans on Who We Are and What We Do

[00:08:42] Luis Camejo: I remember having a conversation with my coach right after the conversation with you, Jason. I was like, how related is my wife came to me one day and he’s like, hey, my coworkers were asking me, what do you do? And I have no idea what to tell them. Right? So it’s almost like, how do I define myself and what we do in a simple way that my wife can tell her coworkers what I do at a basic level, right? But that would trigger almost like, same thing, like telling Google exactly who we are and what we do, which way you say, and I didn’t see it until you actually put it in front of me. So I really hope that this conversation right now is encouraging people to see it and be like, wow, it’s actually not that hard. As content creators or people or marketers, I feel like there’s this thought that we’re against the algorithm.

[00:09:35] Luis Camejo: How can we beat it, right? How can we go against it, in a sense. I feel like that’s a narrative instead of like, how can we help the algorithm to show what they’re already wanting us to show to the world, right? Am I correct on that statement, or am I just saying weird things?

[00:09:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No, there are multiple things in what you just said. Number one is explaining what we do, whoever we are, to somebody who knows nothing about the industry we’re in, is a hugely difficult task because we don’t necessarily understand that the person doesn’t have the context. And we think sometimes they’re stupid, which is terribly rude, but actually they’re just uninformed. And you were talking about the blue dog earlier on. I’m going to bring the blue dog into the story.

[00:10:28] Luis Camejo: Yeah.

[00:10:29] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The blue dog was called Boowa, B-O-O-W-A, and his best friend in the whole wide world was a yellow koala called Kwala, K-W-A-L-A. And Boowa’s role in the cartoon, for children aged up to six years old, was to explain the world to Kwala. Kwala was super afraid of the world because she didn’t understand the world. And Boowa’s role is to explain and guide Kwala in a world she doesn’t understand. So Kalicube, which is my company, K-A-L-I-C-U-B-E, are here, and I’m here to guide and help and reassure everybody in the world that you can educate these machines, that you can bring context to the machines. Explain to these machines exactly who you are, what you do, who you serve, and why you’re credible by giving them a clear explanation with the context they need. So explaining to the machines is very much like explaining to the colleagues of your wife.

[00:11:35] Luis Camejo: If I get a bunch of pharmacists to understand what we do, we’ve won.

Collaboration with Algorithms: Changing Perspectives in SEO Strategy

[00:11:42] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: I’m curious, how did you get to this thought process, right? How did you… obviously you have a big story, engaging with the algorithm, seeing the evolution of Google, testing things. But when… because I feel like most of the message out there is to, like my brother said, against it, or you hear a lot of the message “hack”, right? Like you have this trick, you know? This is going to make you do X, Y and Z, rank better, but it seems like you have a different point of view, which in my opinion is obviously perfect for marketing, because people don’t just necessarily want new, right? They want something different, right? They already tried all these other hacks, you know? Let me go into somebody else’s article and, copy it and see how many words they have, and I’m going to write more words than they do. Who knows, right? All these other Google hacks that are out there? I don’t know. I’m not that knowledgeable about SEO, but I’m curious on how do you get to that conclusion of, I guess, collaboration with the algorithm?

[00:12:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, I like that question. It’s really well put. The point, I think, is that the algorithms are all trying to do the same thing as you are, which is serve the audience. And your audience is a subset of the users of Google, Microsoft, Apple, whoever it might be. So their aim is to serve the subset of their users, who are your audience. Your aim is to serve your audience. So we there immediately have Google, Facebook, Twitter, Bing and yourself having exactly the same aim. At that point, you can take a step back and say, well, how can I be empathetic to this machine and help it to solve its own problem, which is also my own problem? And that’s where I come in and say, well, if you look at the problems the machine is having, you can understand where you’re going wrong with your audience.

[00:13:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you can then correct that, get it right with your audience, the machine will see that you’re getting it right with the audience. It will understand, it will better serve your audience, and it will use you to better serve its audience because it has the choice of you or your competitors. If you’re the one who’s helping it serve the subset of its users, who are your audience, it will use you. It will recommend you. And that is the key.

Nurturing the Algorithm: Guiding it as a Child

[00:14:12] Luis Camejo: So good. As you’re explaining this, I’m imagining a situation where you have the dad and you have the kid, right? And you’re teaching your kid, I guess, how to be a good person. But let’s say you tell your kid to be a good person. You’re telling him, hey, this is how you are a good person. But then he sees you not being a good person. So then he recognizes that, and then he acts that way, which is not the way that you want your kid to act. Versus if you’re a dad and you show the kid how to behave and you behave correctly, and you show him exactly how to do it, the kid will understand how to behave, and then he’ll do exactly what you want him to do. Is that an accurate representation?

[00:14:56] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes. That’s a brilliant point and a brilliant way of putting it. The SEO outsmart the machine. Let’s trick it. Let’s beat the algorithm is I talk the talk, but I don’t walk the walk. What we’re doing is walk the walk, and the machine will follow you. And it’s, as you say, exactly like bringing up your kids.

[00:15:20] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So it is a child. All of these algorithms are children. They need you to set the example. They need you to educate them. You are the adult in the room. You are responsible for making sure these algorithms understand who you are, what you do, who you serve, that you’re credible, and that you have the right solution for the right people at the right time, in the right place. And if they can understand that, because you’re walking the walk across the entire Internet in front of your audience, you’ve won the game.

Educating Algorithms Across Platforms for Conversion Success

[00:15:17] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: Good. I actually have somewhat of a little argument in here that I’m a little interesting to hear your opinion, right? Most people, I feel like… like my brother said, they see the algorithm as the enemy, right? Something that they need to hack. Something that they need to be… And the main argument of them is, well, the algorithm wants to keep people in their platforms. And I’m expanding here a little bit beyond search algorithms, right? Obviously, I’m talking,

[00:16:22] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: I think, this is mostly representing social media algorithms that keep you looped in the scroll of doom. And the argument is that one, right? They want to hook you to keep coming back, to not leave the platform, therefore they make more money. So at least on search, how is that to the benefit of the company that owns the algorithm, right? Because I see this as two different point of views, right? I’m trying to play a little devil’s advocate and be like, yeah, I’ve said that before, the platform wants you to stay in the platform, but I like more your positive view, which is, I’m collaborating with this thing that its goal is to serve the same audience that you want to serve, right?

[00:17:16] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: I think they’re kind of like polar opposite points of views. But what would you tell somebody that comes like, no, they just want to keep people on the platform to make money. How would you approach that conversation?

[00:17:30] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Which is a brilliant question. I come from the Google world, where Google wants to solve the problem of the user, and to do so, it recommends the best solution it can find. And your aim is to make sure that it’s recommending your solution as the best solution. And we use Google because we’re looking for a solution to a problem or the answer to a question, and we trust Google. So Google will try to keep people on its platform to generate ad revenue, but ultimately, it will always look for the perfect click. And it’s officially called the perfect click, which is the click when somebody goes through and buys converts, solves the problem, whatever that might be. So that’s my perspective coming from the world of search engine optimization. You mentioned social media platforms.

[00:17:49] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Their aim is to keep people within their walled garden. They’re saying, the longer I keep the user, the more ad revenue I can generate, and there’s no reason for me to send them elsewhere because we’re simply having a conversation, whereas Google’s trying to solve a problem. But that actually ultimately doesn’t matter to you, because if you can educate the algorithms of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Apple, it doesn’t matter. All of these machines are the same. Amazon. If you can educate them as to who you are, what you do, who you serve, that you’re credible, and which solution you can offer to whom, at what time, they will put you in front of their audience, keeping that audience, your audience, the subset of their users who are your audience within the platform. But ultimately, you want to convert. Once you’ve got their attention, satisfied their curiosity about you, thanks to these algorithms who are presenting you to quench the thirst that they have for that curiosity about you, then you can sell to them. And ultimately, I think we all have to remember that we don’t sell to people without them knowing who we are and trusting us.

[00:19:30] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Sorry. It’s who we are, what we offer, that it solves their problem and that they trust us. So whether it’s on social media and we don’t get them until the very last moment or it’s on search, where we do get them, often before the last moment, doesn’t make any difference. We’re looking for these algorithms to bring people down the funnel for us. And that brings me to another point, which is Generative AI in search, which is what’s coming next in Google and in Bing and Perplexity and ChatGPT, is that we have to educate the machines about our funnel. What does our perfect click look like, and how do we get people to that perfect click? And who do we want to get to that perfect click? And if we can educate them about that, they will all bring the person to that perfect click. So this is a universal approach and a universal strategy, which is what I love. If you found something universal, and it’s simple like this idea, you’ve got it right, and you’ve nailed it.

Multimodal mastery: How Google’s MUM Model is Revolutionizing Content Search

[00:20:33] Luis Camejo: Actually, this morning, I had an example. So we’re uploading the podcast episode to YouTube, which is part of Google, right? And there’s a section where you can actually list it as a category. And I think it’s a how to or the education category. Then it opens a submenu that I’ve never seen before. I don’t know if this is new. And on our podcast, we don’t categorize education, but what happens was, it starts asking you questions like, what problem are you solving? How are you solving this problem? With the video, for example, right? And it’s like three or four questions that help you describe what’s happening in the video, which is probably helping Google and YouTube know how to place this video for better exposure to help more people. And I thought it showed up literally after a conversation. And I just sat there.

[00:21:27] Luis Camejo: I was like, this is exactly what Jason was talking about. By doing this, we’re educating the platform. What are the problems that we’re solving? In that case, with YouTube videos, right? And we dove deep in the mastermind where you were talking about how YouTube and video content now on the back-end is grabbing the transcripts and the things that you say and your name and all these things, and it’s fitting the database. So that’s why we have to be so consistent, not only on our websites, but also on the things that we say on the podcast interviews that we are in, right, on the podcast that we host, because all this information is educating the platform. And the more consistent we are, the more we’re going to be ranking for the things that we want to rank. Am I correct on this?

[00:22:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): 100%. And you bring in the point of multimodal. That’s what it’s called. Multimodal is actually multimedia. So the geeks in the world will say, oh, multimodal. And it’s the new MUM model that a couple of years ago, Google introduced it, everyone got overexcited. But it actually just means Google is using multimedia content to solve problems instead of just text, which was historically what they did. So we bring in video, we bring in podcasts.

[00:22:39] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And I didn’t know about the multiple questions, but yes, they are analyzing the audio of this podcast on YouTube and on the podcast platforms, and they’re trying to figure out what’s the category, what are the questions, what are the answers, and what problems are we solving? And it’s problems within an individual video or a podcast, or even an article. And these machines want to break your content. Sorry. They want to identify what the category is, number one, and get that right. They want to identify what the overall problem is with the overall solution and then break it down into the mini sub questions, sub problems and subsolutions. And if they can do that, then we’ve got what Google call… excuse me, I would call it fragmented indexing and fragmented work on their part to understand what the different chunks are, the different fragments they can bring out that solve a problem quickly. Because if you turn that around, as a user, I don’t want to watch a 30-minute video to solve a very simple problem. Like how do I bang a nail into a wall? I want to jump straight to the part where the guy or the woman bangs the nail into the wall and says, make sure it’s straight, or whatever it is.

[00:24:00] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I’m very bad example. That’s what they’re trying to do. Because video is something that people want to consume. A lot of people prefer to consume, but don’t want to watch the whole thing. They want to jump straight to the part that answers their question or solves their problem. That’s where they’re coming from.

Passage-Based Indexing: The Evolution of Search Optimization Strategies

[00:24:18] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: I have two questions. They’re sort of different.

[00:24:23] Luis Camejo: Wait, before that question, before that question, I just want to give an example of what you just said. Yesterday, I was looking for a specific solution on a specific software, right? I was like, how to do X on this software. And the first couple of articles that came up, the second one gave me a solution right away. The first one was a massive blog post with like, this is the software, how to use the software. I’m like, I don’t want to know any of that. So I started scrolling all the way down till I find the one paragraph that said actually how to do the thing, right? So two total opposites. And I guess that’s the new trend or that’s the new behavior, right, that we’re seeing.

[00:25:03] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: Well, I’ve been on Google. Oh, sorry, go ahead, Jason.

[00:25:06] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No, no, it’s a great point because those long articles that tell you everything are traditional SEO, because that’s how you could rank on Google. Get to the top with Google by writing a complete article. And as you say, it starts with what is the software? Who published it? When was it published? And you go, I really don’t care. I want the solution by problem, which is very specific. And I’ve just remembered the word. It’s not fragmented indexing, which I’ve just called it. It’s passage-based indexing. And they break the content into passages so that they can send you to the right one.

[00:25:39] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So Google are trying to play the double game, is either they send you to the one article that simply solves that one problem, which is preferable for them and preferable for the user, or if they can’t do that, they will send you to the traditional SEO article. Try to send you directly to the passage that makes sense. But they can only do that on Chrome browser. They can’t do it on Edge from Microsoft or any of the others. So that’s obviously limited. So it’s not the preferred solution. So traditional SEO is dying or has died. SEO hasn’t died because SEO is just packaging content for Google. But traditional SEO, the way we used to work with word-counting and link-counting, is no longer relevant.

Crafting Concise Content for Modern Search Optimization

[00:26:22] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: So rather, let’s say I search for how to start a podcast. Rather than the first article that’s going to pop in there being a 2500-word, starting by the history of podcasting, going all the way into eventually showing you the couple of steps you need to start a podcast, it’ll be something more short and concise. Straight to the point, this is how you start a podcast. Get your equipment. Step one, two, three. Interesting. That’s good to know. I feel like that could be a relief for people. Feel like part of the monster of SEO is I have to write 2500 words for every single article so I can rank first, part of the deal.

[00:27:09] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Well, there are two monsters of SEO, as you call them. One is it’s geeky. It’s not. It used to be 80% geek, 20% content. Now it’s 80% content, 20% geek. That’s a relief for us all. But the content is no longer let’s write amazingly huge amount of content. It’s write the amount of content that solves the problem that the user is looking for.

[00:27:33] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Don’t write more. Don’t write less. And Google is moving from search to answer to assistive. Search is when it says, here are ten choices. Go and have a look. Luis just said, I went to two different articles, didn’t like the first one, went to the second one because Google is saying, here’s a choice of ten, because I’m not sure. If it was sure, it would send you to the one answer and it would say, here’s the website with the one answer. You don’t need to look further.

[00:27:58] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Assistive is I’ll send you to the answer to the question you’ve asked, which is, how do I start a podcast? Once you finish that on the SERP, which is the walled garden, let’s keep you on the SERP, which people, content creators hate. It will then say, here’s the solution to problem number one, how to start it. The next step is this. Do you want to know the next step? Do you want to know the next step? Do you want to know the next step? At which point, your job as Content is Profit or as a company is to make sure that as Google guides you down or guides the user down that assistive, conversational approach, it is educating the user. Its user. Always remember, it’s Google’s users who are using Google because they trust Google. They’re not your user until Google sends them to you. It guides them down the funnel.

[00:28:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): At some point they say, who can help me with this? At the point at which the user asks that question, or Google suggests that as a question, which often happens, which is what assistive engines are all about, it will say, the company who is best placed to help you specifically is BIZBROS, because I have understood that they can serve you, the audience, because they do B2B podcast production. Then it can bring them down your funnel. How much does it cost? What services are included? What’s the client support like? To get to the point when they click on the last link, which is the perfect click that we talked about earlier on, and they’re already ready to buy. So what we’ve done there is create your entire funnel in Google’s brain or ChatGPT’s brain or Bing Chat’s brain. And it can then draw the user down the funnel in a conversational manner where Google or Bing or ChatGPT are recommending you at the point at which the person is ready to buy. And that last click is the perfect click for them and the perfect click for you.

Beyond Keywords: Mastering Intent, Problems, and Solutions

[00:30:04] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: All right, Jason, I’m going to back up here a little bit. I think all the questions build up upon each other. I’m going to share all three questions and then you can tell me which one we should start with first. The first one is you’ve been talking in a… I’m making quotes here, perfect-base scenario in the sense of you put your content out there and then Google will direct traffic to you. But there’s a lot of competition, right? There’s a lot of people. If I put, I just search in here, how to start a podcast. You know a massive company like Buzzsprout pops in first. Obviously there’s some sponsored posts, but then the first organic one is Buzzsprout. So how do we get Google to share us instead of the competition? How do we outrank them? Now, the next side of the question is we’re talking about a podcast.

[00:30:57] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: We’re talking about specific solutions. Who are we, what solution are we offering? And you did talk about that kind of like fragmented type of content, but let’s say a podcast like ours, right? We’re talking Content is Profit. There’s multiple different ways you can create profit through content, right? Different solutions. Like today we have you, right, the GOAT of SEO. Some other days, we might have somebody talking about YouTube, somebody else talking about podcasting. I guess the main problem we’re solving is a bit general of content creating profits. But when we go into the nitty-gritty of each episode, it’s a very specialized, different problems. And even inside of the conversation, then we have different problems that we’re solving, right? A lot of the times the conversation might go into mindset, and then we go a little bit into the tactical part of whatever topic we’re covering that day.

[00:31:57] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: So how do we solve that? How do we rank when you have, let’s say, somewhat of a general conversation podcast? And the last one is how much importance do terms still have, right? Like, do I want to rank on how to start a podcast? Or do I want to find a term that might not have as much competition, if that’s even a thing now, right? With the whole new type of SEO, should I go for how to start a podcast? Or should I go with how to start a local podcast in Florida, right?

[00:32:38] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. Okay.

00:32:40] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: I can go back to the questions because I know I just drop a bomb on you. I drop a lot of them, so I can go back if you need a refresher.

[00:32:48] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Well, I hope I can remember number one. And we’ll start with the last one, which is, do we focus on keywords? Which is traditional SEO. The answer is no, we focus on intent, problem, solution. So what you need to do is make sure that you have all of the content on your website that answers every problem, every question, sorry, solves the problem. So the first question you said, I’ve got this global, huge solution, but you need to break it down into all of the questions that people would ask with the ultimate intent of solving that huge problem. But they will approach it either from the huge problem and then realize that that’s not the right way to do it, and then approach it from the micro problems. Or Google or the other machines will guide them towards that approach of micro problems rather than the whole problem.

[00:32:37] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Or give them an overview and say, well, here are the micro problems that you’ll need to solve along the way. So from your perspective, you’re saying, I need to focus on the micro problems within the macro problem. If I can give one page that solves or gives the overall overview of the macro problem with links to the micro problems, I’ve solved Google’s problem of being able to present that in a systematic and helpful manner to the subset of its users who are my audience. And that’s how you beat the huge corporations, the HubSpots of this world. Because number one, they will never be able to do it in the detail that you can. Number two is you can focus on a specific persona audience that they will never do. And number three is Google prefers specialization. You guys are specialized in something very specific, HubSpot, a generalist.

[00:34:33] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And people often say to me, and I hear it all the time, and I saw an article today where somebody was complaining about Google and saying, oh, the big companies always dominate. And there’s a lot of people who complain about Google’s approach, about what Google is doing. And they fail to realize that the reason Google is prioritizing the huge corporations, Buzzsprout, whoever it might be is not because they prefer them per se. It’s because the smaller corporations are not presenting the information that they need and they aren’t proving the credibility that they need. Because for a niche audience, you’re always going to be more credible if you’re a niche company. You’re going to be more credible to the audience, you’re going to be more credible to Google. Google will recommend a niche solution when it can, but its problem will always be understanding that niche solution exists in that niche company and that niche company is truly credible within its industry. I think I answered all three questions. Did I?

Strategic Funnel Optimization: Answering Every Question from Bottom to Top for Perfect Clicks

[00:35:34] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: Yeah, absolutely. And sounds to me like there is actually a main skill here. And the skill is not that tactical, right. Or that technical. Actually, it’s more tactical. It’s not that technical in the sense of, I got to go on the back-end of this website and put the metadata and all these things and the keywords and do the keyword research. I think the skill that people can take away from today’s conversation is learning how to properly spot problems and then break them down in logical micro-problem steps, if you want to call them that way, to reach the solution. Or we can say we have the main problem, what are the steps that we need to take to find the solution to that problem and by breaking those down, then create specific content around those.

[00:36:26] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: So in a way, we are becoming a little bit of a problem sniper out there.

[00:36:25] Luis Camejo: Problem sniper. So let me see if I can maybe create a visual example, right? So let’s say we have a conversation about how to generate profit from your content under the lens of investing in relationships, for example, right? So we have a new thing coming that we’re inviting people over to see our system on how we’ve done it with the podcast, right? We call it pipeline platform. So let’s say we talk a full episode of pipeline platform and then we go into obviously how that was born. We tell a little bit of the story on the show. We have a conversation back and forth and then we’re like, well, here are the steps, right? And step one is like, okay, well, the first thing is you have to find a collaboration platform, right? For us was podcasts. Here’s a couple of steps on how to start a podcast. And step two is maybe we need to track the conversation. So we need to use a CRM.

[00:37:23] Luis Camejo: So this is the CRM that we use. Here’s how we use it. And then the last part is like, how can we structure the conversation so we can actually generate opportunities, right? So we have the macro problem, which is how do we actually generate profits through pipeline platform, you know, framework? And then you have three micro ones which are start a podcast, track your conversations in a CRM. And then what are the things that we actually say? Kind of scripting, right? So then that’s the main episode. So to be able to serve Google on this new thing that’s happening and the evolution of SEO, you’ll be, we’ll have a macro article on the full pipeline platform kind of overview. And then when we get to the micro problems, right, it’s like, okay, here’s how to start a podcast. People can click there and it’s a very specific way on, here’s how you start a podcast, right? You go to this platform, you do XYZ, blah blah blah. And then the second problem is like, here’s how to choose your CRM, for example.

[00:38:21] Luis Camejo: And then step one, step two, step three, something very specific that way. And then the last one is like, hey, by the way, here are three examples of scripts that you can say after your interview so people can actually, so you can generate opportunities. Is that accurate? That’s what I was picturing with our model of podcast today, which is conversational, but we can still extract little ones. Does that make sense?

[00:38:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, it does 100%. It’s a really good way of explaining it. I would take it perhaps another step further is to say if you think about your funnel and all the questions in the funnel, you start answering the questions, every single question you can, starting at the bottom of the funnel and moving upwards. So first of all, about your company. Who are your bottom of funnel prospects? Who are your clients? Answer all of those questions first. So it’s very much branded and very close to your products and services. Then you move up the funnel and answer the more and more general questions. That’s the best way of doing it, because it’s the micro questions about your company that are closest to your company that are going to be the ones that drive small amounts of traffic, but very relevant traffic.

[00:38:20] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Ready to convert. The perfect click is much closer when you’re at the bottom of the funnel. So we’re aiming at the perfect click. The fastest way to results is to answer the questions that are closest to the perfect click. The second thing that I would, oh, sorry. The second thing I would say here is answering them is this huge task. I mean, there are literally hundreds of thousands of questions we could all answer. And what we’ve done at Kalicube is use Generative AI to our own advantage.

[00:40:01] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So we have what we call Kalibot. And it’s been trained on 2 million words of things that I said or written over the last two years plus our website. And then we simply ask Kalibot, what questions would our prospect ask for Knowledge Panel services? And it will spit out 50 questions and the answers to the questions are more or less correct. We correct them, and then we have the FAQ. All of these question-answers spat out by Generative AI, human-corrected always, because Generative AI, GPT-4, for example, or Gemini at Google, is not very good at the moment. But what we then do is we can feed those question-answers back into the Kalibot, which is trained on GPT-4. It’s our bespoke version or our adapted version of GPT-4 ChatGPT. And we can then feed the questions-answers back in and then ask it more. Can you give me more questions and answers? And it will.

[00:41:01] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And you can have this iterative process of just generating questions and answers. It goes very quickly. But always remember, to human-correct absolutely everything. Publish it publicly, then the bots will get that, and it will get your specific approach and your specific niche. That helps it to understand that you can answer the questions, solve the problems of the subset of its users, who are your audience. Which brings me to the final point, which is never forget, all of these machines are simply the interface between two human beings. You’re a human being trying to sell to another human being. That human being is looking for a solution to a problem, and you are potentially the company or the person who can solve that problem.

[00:41:45] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The machines are simply trying to match the two together. So they’re always an interface, and you’re communicating with another human being initially through that interface. So you’re simply trying to, let’s say, manipulate that interface to push its users to your solution. And if you can do that and you understand that, then you’re winning the game again.

[00:41:43] Luis Camejo: So good.

Empowering Your Strategy with Kalicube’s Proven Solutions

[00:42:09] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: Yeah, this is very interesting. I’m assuming the person listening is hopefully taking a lot of notes and learning a lot. And I think, in a way, redefining a little bit of their SEO knowledge. That has definitely happened to me right now in this conversation. It has made it less scary. But at the same time, now I have questions on, okay, how do I start? How do I, you know, where do I go to improve my SEO on my website? How do I do this?

[00:42:46] Luis Camejo: Obviously, go reach out to Kalicube.

[00:42:49] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: That’s obviously step one.

[00:42:50] Luis Camejo: Step one, yes, and then step two.

[00:42:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, I mean, at Kalicube, I’ll be really clear. We have an approach, which is I, Jason Barnard, Kalicube, as a company, 20 people working Kalicube, a hugely talented team, have figured out the solution to Digital Marketing. It’s not, “we think we found something that might help.” It’s “we have the solution, full stop.” Because this is so powerful, because it’s Digital Marketing for a company or personal branding for a person or marketing for a podcast. That’s huge.

[00:43:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): We can’t serve everybody in the world. We don’t have any hope of serving everyone in the world. But we’re the only company and I’m the only person who has this approach. We share everything for free on our website, kalicube.com. K-A-L-I-C-U-B-E .com or search Kalicube, K-A-L-I-C-U-B-E. Because we know everybody can do it themselves. You said this all suddenly sounds less scary. It’s simple.

[00:43:52] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It really isn’t complicated. When you figure something out that’s universal, simple and easy to implement for anybody, you know you’ve got it right. Simplicity is the hardest thing to get. We share it all free on kalicube.com. Come to kalicube.com. We’ve got PDF downloads, videos. We’ve got hundreds of hours of videos, millions of words written, PDF downloads. Take it all. It’s free. Because… Sorry.

Kalicube’s Unique Approach to Digital Marketing Success

[00:44:23] Luis Camejo: Just excited. Let’s go.

[00:44:29] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, there are a couple of things, is how are we going to make a living if we share everything for free? Which we do. And I’ll tell you the reason I share everything for free. It wasn’t a strategic decision initially. It’s that if you ask me a question and I know the answer, my nature is I cannot not give you the answer. And my team tell me off for giving everybody the answer to all the questions they ever asked me. But that’s my nature and I’m not going to change it. What we then do is say, well, everybody can come along and do it for free. When you do it for free, it takes you time to learn everything that we’ve learned.

[00:44:26] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): We can do it much more quickly and more effectively, and we won’t make mistakes. So you might want to take us on to serve you because you want to avoid the mistakes. You want to save time, you want to save resources, you want to save money. Or you come to us when you’ve messed it all up, or you come to us because the problem is too intricate for a general explanation that you will find for free on our website. It’s so specific, we’re never going to explain it because it’s such a detailed-specific problem. Then you come to us and we’ve got that somewhere, either in our database, which contains a billion data points drawn from Google. It’s Google data that we’ve taken from Google. And that’s ironic. Google takes data, information, content from other people, and a lot of content creators are complaining about it. We’ve flipped it on Google. We’re taking their data, using it to beat Google, which is delightful. We have the data, we have the experience. We know what to do. If your problem is super complicated, super specific and completely out of left field, we will solve it for you. That’s the client we want. Because that’s the interesting work.

[00:46:11] Luis Camejo: Yeah. So good.

[00:45:43] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: I’m just going to say, I just Googled Jason Barnard and there’s so many results about you. This is everywhere. Yeah. The proof is in the pudding, right? And I just keep scrolling and scrolling and so much stuff about you. Even the beginning. You know how Google has those nice pictures?

[00:46:31] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s you.

[00:46:32] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: I can confirm it’s you.

Brilliant Branding: The Power of Consistency in Personal Image

[00:46:34] Luis Camejo: By the way, this is a pro tip, right? You’re wearing a red shirt right now and every single picture online is a red shirt of you. Is that on purpose? I know the answer, but is that on purpose?

[00:46:30] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes. It’s branding. And the last eight years, I have never appeared in a professional environment without the red shirt. And it’s really difficult to do. But it’s hugely powerful because when I’m on sales calls with clients who understand that Kalicube can build their personal brand or solve their Digital Marketing problems as a company better than they can, more effectively than they can, more efficiently than they can, and cheaper than they can, they come on the call and they say, I was researching this. Every time I searched this or I found something online, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Twitter, I see the red shirt that has nailed it and it sets me up as the expert in the field. Not only because we’re always present and I’m always present, but also because I’m visually very easy to recognize at a glance. Not because I’m pretty or because I have no hair or my glasses. It’s the red shirt, full stop. So literally, a minute before I came on screen with you guys, I was wearing a blue t-shirt and I changed.

[00:47:54] Luis Camejo: Yeah.

The Story Behind Jason Barnard’s Iconic Red Shirt

[00:47:54] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: I was going to ask why red and not blue would like Boowa.

[00:47:57] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s quite a long story, but it comes from my musical career. I was playing on stage, a music concert. And I was wearing a red shirt in the first half of the concert and a blue shirt in the second half of the concert. Somebody filmed the whole concert. In the first half with the red shirt. And as soon as I’ve got the blue shirt, I disappear into the background. So I will always wear a red shirt when I’m playing music, playing the double bass and singing. And I just thought, probably work in conferences too.

 [00:48:37] Luis Camejo: New brand color for BIZBROS.

[00:48:41] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: Interesting. Interesting.

The Impact of Barnard’s Signature Red Shirt

[00:48:43] Luis Camejo: How many red shirts do you have? Do you go to the store, be like, give me all of them?

[00:48:47] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, no, exactly. I was in Thailand five years ago and I was walking past a tailor and I just walked in and said, can you make me a red shirt? And he said, sure. They measured me. I said, just give me three. And they made me, sorry, three red shirts. They lasted me four years. And I’ve just got these made. I’ve got two. But, yeah, I’ve always got multiple shirts, but people always think I’m wearing the same one. And in conferences when there’s three days of conferences, like Podfest, when we met, people think I’m wearing the same shirt every day.

[00:49:21] Luis Camejo: But you smell good.

[00:49:08] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, exactly. But I smell fine. Don’t run away. But in conferences, what was interesting is, Podfest, I didn’t know anybody. And thanks to you guys and Alex Sanfilippo from PodMatch, I was introduced to a lot of people. But in fact, that isn’t necessary because if I turn up the first day, nobody talks to me or I don’t talk to anybody. But I wander around.

[00:49:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): By the next day, people come up to me and say, oh, you’re the guy in the red shirt. And they think they know me. Not because they do know me or they’ve talked to me, but because they see me with a red shirt and they’ve noticed me. And that’s a trick I learned from being a musician, is when you’re a musician standing on stage, because people have seen you and have watched you, they think they know you and they will talk to you significantly more easily. The red shirt does it every time.

[00:50:10] Luis Camejo: So cool. So awesome.

[00:50:12] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: You have some guitars in the background. I warned you, Jason. I warned you and you brought it up. You brought your musician background. Is there anything you’re going to play for us today?

[00:50:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I won’t play, but I can sing.

[00:50:26] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: Oh, yeah, sing.

[00:50:12] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): What kind of song do you want? Do you want a children’s song? I wrote 96 children’s songs. And you mentioned the multi-award winner. I won two awards, Davey Awards for children’s songwriting. Or I can sing the intro song to my podcast. Or the punk folk musician from 30 years ago.

[00:50:51] Luis Camejo: Let’s do the podcast intro.

[00:50:54] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: Yeah, definitely the podcast intro.

[00:50:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): A quick hello and we’re good to go. Welcome to your own show, Luis and Luis.

[00:51:05] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: Nice. I love it. This is awesome.

[00:51:08] Luis Camejo: Yes. Studio clap. Let’s go.

[00:51:11] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: That was epic.

[00:51:12] Luis Camejo: Today has… I have hope.

Embracing Simplicity and Branding in Digital Marketing Strategies

[00:51:15] Luis Camejo: I’ve always seen SEO and that very world is like kind of like the thing that’s there and we avoid it and we don’t want to talk about it or want to see it or tinker with it, right? And we found video and podcasting, like a refuging content side of things. But this week has been, I think personally, I pass a page and be like, okay, it’s time to welcome it. It’s not as crazy and hard as it might seem. It’s not as technical as it might seem. It’s like, again, very simple. What do we do? How do we help people consistently over a long period of time? Which is the same thing that we talk about on the content and video side, right? I think there’s obviously a lot of synergies and there’s a reason and I love where it goes. I love what you guys are about and it’s been a pleasure, man, having you here on the show and educating our community on this stuff.

[00:52:06] Luis Camejo: So I’m sure there will be some comments and some questions, so we’ll send them your way. If you want to connect with Jason, right below you’ll find all the links. Go get your resources, go get educated. Go tell your company to go reach out to Jason and Kalicube so you guys can work together. But is there anything else that you want to add, Jason?

[00:52:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I would like to add one philosophical thing, which is you were mentioning SEO is scary. It’s technical. It’s not technical. It’s all about content now. 80% content, 20% technical. Don’t let the technical aspect scare you. But also we can flip the whole thing on its head as marketers is that SEO is the last in line.

[00:52:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The first thing is brand, the red shirt, for example. The second thing is the marketing materials that serve your audience. If you’ve got branded marketing materials that make sense to your audience and you’re placing it where your audience are looking so they can see you’ve got the solution and then invite them down the funnel, all you need to do is package that branded marketing for Google. SEO is simply packaging your branding and your marketing for search engines and the other machines, whatever it may be. LinkedIn, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, SEO and optimizing for machines, optimizing for AI is simply packaging your branding and marketing for the machine. Simple as that. And if you want to find me, search Jason Barnard, J-A-S-O-N B-A-R-N-A-R-D on Google or ask ChatGPT, who is Jason Barnard? And it will say Jason Barnard is a world-renowned expert in Brand SERPs, Knowledge Panels he’s been working in SEO and Digital Marketing since 1998.

[00:53:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): He founded Kalicube in 2015. Kalicube is an expert company in managing personal brand and Digital Marketing strategies for companies.

[00:54:05] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: I’m asking ChatGPT right now. You nailed it. You nailed it. That was pretty good. I’m going to take a screenshot of this so we can put it on the video, but that was pretty on point.

[00:54:19] Luis Camejo: I mean, that proof is the pudding, baby. Let’s go.

[00:54:22] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: That’s so epic.

[00:54:23] Luis Camejo: What an incredible demonstration here, man, of exactly what you guys do. And so so cool. We’re going to keep this episode as a resource for the community as well, man. I think it’s a great introduction to what you guys do and all this craziness. That’s the information on the Internet and it’s going to create some path and light into a lot of the companies and the people that we help. So thank you so much again. Fonz, is there anything else that you want to add?

[00:54:50] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: No, this was extremely entertaining, educational. I appreciate you, Jason. It was awesome. I learned a lot today.

[00:54:58] Luis Camejo: Sweet. Jason?

[00:54:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It was a lot of fun.

[00:55:01] Luis Camejo: Go ahead.

[00:55:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, no, it was a lot of fun. You guys asked the right questions. You asked them in the right way that made me reiterate what I’ve been saying for the last twelve years that I’ve been working on for the last 25 years. But you’ve encouraged me and helped me to say it in a way that makes a lot more sense to people who don’t come from the geeky world I come from. Thank you so much.

[00:55:23] Luis Camejo: Absolutely. Well, with that say, guys, thank you so much for finishing Content is Podcast. Go ahead and follow the show in your favorite podcasting platform and on social media at BIZBROS Co.

[00:55:35] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: That is right. Jason here. I hope you move one step closer towards your goal. Please don’t forget to share this episode and leave a five star review. And don’t forget, guess how many arms my brother had. We got a surprise for you.

[00:55:49] Luis Camejo: This has been the highest so far.

[00:55:51] Luis (Fonzi) Camejo: See ya.

[00:55:51] Luis Camejo: Bye, guys.