Podcast With Jeff Collins

Stop These SEO Tactics Hurting Your Growth - Jeff Collins

Show Notes

Stop relying on outdated SEO tactics that are holding back your business growth! 📉 In this comprehensive guide, Jeff Collins, founder of SEO Study Spot, reveals the key strategies that can boost your organic traffic, help you rank #1, and set you up for long-term SEO success. Whether you’re running an agency, managing a site, or just getting started, this video is packed with actionable insights to level up your SEO game.

Find out why pumping out content isn’t always the solution, the importance of building trust with your audience, and which strategies truly make an impact. Learn the difference between growth-boosting and growth-killing tactics, how AI is shaping SEO in 2025, and how to align your content with evolving user intent. Plus, Jeff shares his unique approach, including why cutting SEO deliverables early on can lead to better results.

This podcast is perfect for both beginners and experienced pros looking to refine their SEO tactics, drive more organic traffic, and future-proof their strategy. Get ahead of the competition and take the first step towards a #1 ranking today.

Enjoyed the video? Subscribe for more expert tips and drop your thoughts in the comments! Let’s grow together. 🚀

Chapters:

00:00 – Intro

01:36 – Jeff’s Journey in SEO

05:19 – Differences in Enterprise SEO

07:28 – Unconventional SEO Strategies

08:49 – Costly SEO Strategies for Growth

10:52 – High Impact SEO Techniques

13:15 – Differentiating Growth Driving vs. Hindering Strategies

14:09 – AI’s Impact on SEO

15:24 – Future-Proofing Your SEO Strategy

19:25 – Aligning Content Strategy with Search Intent

21:24 – Valuable SEO Skills for 2025

22:21 – Canceling SEO Deliverables Effectively

23:54 – Essential SEO Audits Before Starting

27:34 – Overlooked Technical SEO Issues

28:55 – Importance of Page Speed in 2025

30:40 – SEO Myths to Discard

31:30 – Must-Have SEO Tools

31:40 – Early SEO Mistakes to Avoid

32:06 – Alternative Career Paths Without SEO

32:30 – Key Advice for Dominating SEO in 2020

33:13 – Connect with SEO Study Spot

Transcript

Introduction

0:00 I'll see commonly is businesses will just like pile on SEO like tactics you call so just blasting out a bunch of

0:05 content to get more traffic and almost every time I've seen a website they don't have the foundation in place yet. So do you think most SEO agencies are too

0:12 obsessed with traffic numbers and not enough with business results? I think um that tactic of just jumping

0:17 in and starting without seeing what's important is to to stop. Yeah, I think um in 2025 especially, I'd say making

0:23 SEO unre repeatable and from a brand perspective to build more trust for the brand. And so traffic stayed about the

0:29 same, maybe dropped slightly, but we saw conversion, sales, time on site, you know, went through the roof.

0:36 [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

0:41 [Music] Welcome to the another episode of the

0:48 Agency Insider Show. I am your host Nabit Koshell and today we have a special guest who is an SEO expert Jeff

0:55 Collins. Jeff is the founder of SEO study spot and has been working with brands like purple to shape their

1:01 strategies. He's thought leader in the industry challenging conventional wisdom

1:06 and bringing fresh resultsdriven perspective to the table. Today we are going to unpack some of the most

1:12 critical aspects of the SEO including strategies that are actually hurting your growth, tactics to win in 2025 and

1:18 his unconventional approach of cancelling all SEO deliverables in the first month. If you run an SEO agency,

1:25 work in SEO, or simply want to scale organic growth the right way, this episode is a gold mine for you. Jeff,

1:32 welcome to the show. It's great to have you here. Hey, thanks for having me, Nadine. Uh,

Jeff's Journey in SEO

1:38 pleasure to be here. And uh before we dive into the

1:43 strategies, let's start with your journey. What led you to SEO and how did SEO study spot came come about?

1:51 Yeah, for sure. So, I've been doing SEO for eight plus years. And how I got

1:57 started was eight plus years ago, I had a like a car detailing business. So, I'd

2:04 go to people's house um and detail their car. And I got to a point, most of my

2:11 clients were like doortodoor. I would just knock on doors and talk to people. Um but, uh I started to see businesses

2:21 online, like on Google My Business, and I thought, hey, there must be something to this like I need to get my business

2:26 online and get more clients that way. So, I started to mess with some of the

2:32 online stuff like Google My Business, um, Yelp, and get more clients that way.

2:38 And so, that kind of planted the seed for me in SEO. And then I went off to college, or if you're in another area,

2:44 maybe it's called university. Um, and I took a class where we uh we

2:51 built websites that were targeting pest control um services and then we would

2:57 call the business, rank the websites in different cities throughout the country. Call the business and say, "Hey, you

3:04 know, we're getting x amount of um leads to this site. If you pay x amount per month, um we'll put your business name

3:12 on there." So, that's kind of what started with me with SEO. And then after school, I started on the agency side and

3:20 then I moved over inhouse and um and then most recently I've gone

3:25 on the the consulting side helping businesses uh with their SEO. But in the

3:31 terms of SEO study spot, I um I found I kind of how that came about is

3:37 earlier on in my career, I was at an agency and I got to a point where I just

3:43 I learned a certain amount and I got stuck. I felt like I wasn't learning more just within the framework of my

3:50 position. And so I was kind of like, hey, I need to I need to learn more and figure

3:55 something out. So I started to create like affiliate websites on the side and then um SEO study spot kind of became

4:04 the thing where I just um you know the things that I test or learn with SEO I u

4:11 you know share with others. So that's how that came about. Okay. And how's been going with this?

4:18 Good. Yeah. I feel like it's a it's a fun thing for me to get to share and test different things and share it with

4:24 other people. Um it's been a great way to network too,

4:29 meet other people, um and share things that they've learned. Um so yeah, it's

4:34 been great. So is it something you are monetizing or how does it work?

4:41 Yeah, so sometimes I'll do um ads and um like emails that I'll send out, but I'd

4:48 say a lot of it has just kind of been a hobby, something I enjoy. And anybody can join for free.

4:55 Yeah. Yep. Okay. Now, uh so when you mentioned that

5:01 you were doing uh so it was more when you started it was more like rank and rent, right?

5:07 Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, now the interesting thing is you also have worked with some big

5:13 brands like Purple, right? Mhm. So, so how does enterprise SEO differs

Differences in Enterprise SEO

5:19 from a small or midsize businesses? Yeah, I think the difference that I've

5:25 seen is just the the stakes are a lot higher and um

5:31 well I think with any size there's always there's so much to do like you never have enough budget or enough um

5:38 you know resources to do everything you need to do but it becomes kind of a game

5:43 of chess right there's so many um big brands and also oftentimes affiliate

5:50 sites that have a lot of money and you're competing against. So, it takes a

5:56 lot of um a lot more research on the front end to make sure that what we're

6:02 doing is actually going to be worth our time to do um

6:07 and yeah, a lot more quality quality and thought going into it to be able to be

6:14 successful. So, so for our listener does it require different sort of documentation or reporting or is it

6:22 almost same when you do the enterprises consulting?

6:27 So in terms of like different reporting you said yeah so for example when you have to get the changes done so for small business

6:34 there is a I mean they don't require too much of a formal way of presenting but when it comes to enterprise it's it's

6:40 more of a document or a paperwork. Yeah. No, you bring up a good point. Uh

6:46 I found with enterprise um there's a lot more red tape and so it's um more time

6:52 often to get things signed off and then in some cases you can't get things signed off just because um maybe the you

7:00 know upper management or whatever doesn't um want to go that specific route. So yeah, it takes a little more

7:07 um navigating and and getting things signed off and at times can take a little bit longer to to execute

7:16 maybe another circumstance. So okay. Okay. But of course it pays quite

7:22 well than the small and midsize SEO businesses. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Now your approach to SEO is

Unconventional SEO Strategies

7:29 quite unique especially with your recent rec recent post about to cancel all SEO

7:34 deliverance for the first month. Have you always been this unconventional in your strategies?

7:42 No, I would I would say not so. Um, I think earlier on in my career it was

7:48 more just kind of like, hey, what's the highest search volume keyword? Um,

7:54 and let's just go after that and not really understanding, you know, the

8:00 business much. I think the kind of shift that really happened for me is I was on the agency

8:06 side and then I moved in-house um and was working with a brand u managing

8:12 multiple sites, ecom sites with um um you know dozens of thousands of pages

8:19 each and I had little to no resources. So that really it made like a switch in

8:25 my mind to force me like hey I I don't have anywhere near the resource that I need. So, I really need to think things

8:33 through and find the highest opportunity things and execute those. And there's going to be a lot of things I, you know,

8:39 won't even be able to touch. So, just focus on what's going to move the needle.

8:44 Okay. Now, uh let's talk a little bit about SEO strategies, uh that cost

Costly SEO Strategies for Growth

8:51 growth versus drive growth. Now, I mean I mean let's talk about the elephant in the room. Most businesses think that

8:57 doing more SEO automatically leads to growth. But you say some But you say that some strategies actually cost

9:04 company growth. What strategies are those? Yeah, I'd say a big one is just um I'll

9:10 see commonly is businesses will just like pile on SEO like tactics you would call. So just blasting out a bunch of

9:18 content um to get more traffic. And a lot of times, almost every time

9:24 I've seen a website, they don't have the foundation in place yet. So, they kind of jump the strategy of initially making

9:32 sure that things are in place on their current site. So, just making from sure from like a conversion perspective and a

9:38 brand perspective things are are right on the site to maximize the traffic that

9:43 they are getting and then from there grow the traffic. Um, so yeah, I'd say that's a really common one. Okay. Now,

9:52 uh what also what are some outdated SEO practices that agencies and businesses

9:58 need to stop doing? Right. Um outdated practices. Let's see. I've

10:03 seen like directory links. I see that pop up sometimes. Um

10:08 okay. But, uh I think just like the the biggest one I see is

10:15 um not understanding the business. I think that needs to go away like there needs

10:21 to be a process beforehand to understand you know what are the pain points of um

10:27 their customers who are their customers what are the biggest benefits of the um

10:32 the business's product or service and then from there going out to find related search to go after that. So I

10:40 think um that tactic of just jumping in and starting without um you know seeing

10:45 what's important needs to needs to stop. And uh now if you had to narrow it down,

High Impact SEO Techniques

10:53 what are top three high impact SEO strategies that according to you uh truly drives the growth?

11:02 Yeah, I think um in 2025 especially, I'd say making SEO unre repeatable. Mhm.

11:09 And so doing those sort of initiatives. So those are going to be things like um

11:16 just really high quality um work in terms of you know create creating like

11:23 calculators or tools on the website. Um firstparty data that's a huge one. I

11:30 think companies that are able to uh have their own data that they can share and integrate across the site is a huge one.

11:38 Um, I'd say, yeah, just a combination of that, making SEO unre repeatable and and

11:45 doing that across the site. And, you know, companies always asking themselves

11:51 like, is this is my website can it be recreated with AI? Um, and how easily

11:59 can that be done? Right. Right. and and uh uh can you

12:05 share an example of SEO tactics that you have constantly used to drive growth in

12:10 your experience? Yeah, I would say a lot of them are just the ones um I just had mentioned. So, uh

12:17 using firstparty data so using tools like survey monkey to get surveys

12:24 related to whatever it is within the business. Um, also talking to customer

12:31 service or sales teams, product teams internally at companies and getting firstparty data and then using that on

12:38 the site whether it be like blog type content. Um, another one is uh what I call like trust

12:46 signals for like brand building. So finding first party data. So it can be

12:51 like, hey, how many um customers have we worked with um in total in the history

12:57 of the company and then creating trust headers throughout the site that say, you know, we're trusted by over 30,000

13:04 customers or um things like that to build up the brand more.

13:09 Okay. Okay. Now, uh uh typically businesses confuses between a growth

Differentiating Growth Driving vs. Hindering Strategies

13:16 driving and a growth hindering strategy. So h what how do you think can a business differentiate between a growth

13:23 driving and a growth hindering strategies? So with like growth hindering do you mean like the difference between

13:29 something that's driving growth or or hurting the business? Right. Right. Right. Right.

13:35 I think the biggest thing I think that weeds that out is just um knowing like what are we trying to get out of SEO? So

13:41 if we know you know we're trying to get more leads. It's a SAS company, we're trying, we want to get more leads and

13:48 then being able to measure, you know, after a month or whatever of doing SEO,

13:53 like do we have more leads or do we not have more leads? Um, so just being understanding of like what's the KPI and

14:00 what are we wanting to get out of SEO and then measuring whether it's doing that as uh as a big part of it.

AI's Impact on SEO

14:09 Okay. Now, uh AI is transforming search. How do you see AI impacting SEO in 2025

14:15 and how should agencies adopt? Yeah, that's a great question. In my opin opinion, AI is just making

14:24 a lot of things within SEO easier to do like content.

14:29 And so the barrier of entry to be successful

14:34 has just become higher. And again, going back to like first party data and things like that, I think

14:42 um a lot of agencies, they're they're going to need to do things that are more

14:47 difficult than they were before in order to be successful. Um

14:54 and so things that I see are things like content design. So rather than, you know, blasting out a bunch of um blog

15:01 posts, maybe look at a template that's used across the site and update that to

15:06 make it better and then have an impact across a lot of pages. Again, things like firstparty data. Um doing kind of

15:16 brand initiatives to build up the brand and support it. Okay. Now, uh, Google's recent algorithm

Future-Proofing Your SEO Strategy

15:25 updates have been, uh, have made ranking more challenging. What's the key to staying ahead and building a futurep

15:31 proof SEO strategy? Or is there a future proof SEO strategy we can have? Yeah, that's a great question. I think

15:37 it just goes back to making it unre repeatable. Um, and then leaning more

15:43 into brand. Um and those two things combined I think will will really help

15:49 businesses so that um they can be successful and then it's much harder for

15:55 you know someone to just come in and and take market share that they have from an SEO perspective.

16:01 So it's not just the SEO it's also important to continue building your brand online.

16:06 Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely agree. In fact the recent updates have actually hinted the

16:12 brands which have stronger position got hit less.

16:17 Yes. Now uh you uh we we hear a lot about EAT experience, expertise,

16:24 authoriveness, authoritiveness and trust. How important according to you is it and how should businesses incorporate

16:30 into their SU efforts? Yeah, I think it probably depends on the

16:37 industry a little bit how important it is. Like obviously if there's um you know some sort of like health industry

16:43 or maybe finance industry that is giving advice that's really um impactful then

16:49 it's going to be more important. But um one thing that I've really liked uh

16:56 doing is um within an industry like pulling in

17:01 quotes and things from experts. And so you know if we're talking about

17:06 um some sort of topic within the industry have like an actual professional in that industry and a

17:12 quote. And then even better, if they can, you know, help tie in the benefit of the the product for the business,

17:19 that's even better. Um, and then I think a lot of the basic things. So, just um,

17:25 you know, if there's a page and we can include um, an expert as the author or

17:31 reviewer of the content, that always helps. Um, and then especially if that

17:36 person has an online presence, um, and Google kind of sees them mentioned on a

17:41 lot of different places. That's a great initiative as well. Now I have seen with this strategy a lot

17:48 of companies going on board with a lot of these articles. For example, if it's going to be a very simple article about

17:54 an SEO tool, it's going to say okay fact check by person X written by person Y.

17:59 So don't you think they are going overboard with something like this? Or is it actually that necessary just

18:05 because Google said that? I don't know. I think it's a tough one. I haven't I haven't tested that, but um

18:13 again, it probably depends on the industry, but I think it's great if someone's in the

18:18 industry. So, like the mattress industry, we did that in some cases where if we're talking about, you know,

18:25 a mattress or something and how it can benefit someone and it's going to help with pain or something and we can pull

18:33 in like a chiropractor or some sort of expert. I think from a human

18:38 perspective, it has more legitimacy of like, hey, like a chiropractor looked at

18:44 this. So, um, but to to your point, I think I don't know. I've never actually tested that, so I don't I don't know for

18:51 sure. Yeah. When you say chiropractic because it it

18:56 makes sense. It sinks. But for an SEO tool or for an article which has nothing to do with an expert specialist, keeping

19:02 in mind you yourself as an expert, I I I have seen people going overboard on those.

19:08 Yeah. I would say though like health health websites that are giving like

19:14 pretty strong health advice for sure. It's it's important, but to your point, yeah, I think there are

19:19 some sites where it could probably be a bit overboard and not needed.

Aligning Content Strategy with Search Intent

19:25 Right. Right. Now you also mentioned in the past that Google focus on user intent is getting strong stronger. How

19:32 can businesses align their content strategy with evolving search intent or is it the search intent which is Google

19:38 getting stronger or is there user itself intent are changing while searching?

19:47 Yeah. Could you say the question sorry one more time? Yes. Yes. So you mentioned in the past

19:53 that Google's focus on user intent is getting stronger. Now how can businesses

19:58 align their content strategy with this evolving search intent?

20:05 Yeah, I think a big one and it's like so simple but often not done is if someone

20:11 you know is trying to rank say a product page, a collection page or blog post,

20:17 whatever it might be. Just simply googling whatever the topic is or the keyword and looking at the top

20:23 performing pages and understanding what their intent is and then in a way

20:29 reverse engineering it but making it better. And so yeah, I think a lot of

20:35 businesses can just um do simple things like that where just Google whatever it

20:40 is you're trying to rank for. Another one I see commonly is

20:45 um you know a business will have like five different landing pages or blog posts like explaining the same exact

20:53 thing and they're cannibalizing each other. So, I think a simple but good practice is for a business to just um

21:01 before they're they create any landing page, blog post or page on their site,

21:06 just check to see if they already have um an existing page like do site search

21:12 to see if they have a related page for it. So I think those two things are just

21:17 super simple but can really have a powerful impact for businesses

Valuable SEO Skills for 2025

21:24 right now. Now what skills do you think will be most valuable for SEO

21:29 professionals in 2025? Yeah. So oh man that's a tough one

21:34 putting me on the spot here. Uh I think in my opinion like creativity

21:43 and um curiosity because I feel kind of back to my earlier point I feel um this

21:51 year a lot of it is you know AI can cover a lot of the basics

21:57 and so it create creates like you know we don't just look at a website top

22:02 performing page and copy it to a te um we need to be more creative and think of

22:08 things outside of the box and you know do things like first party data. So um

22:15 yeah I think those two things combined um curiosity and and creativeness.

Canceling SEO Deliverables Effectively

22:21 Okay. Okay. Now let's talk about one of your recent post you posted about the

22:26 cancelling SU deliverables uh which actually sparked a lot of discussions.

22:32 Now, can you break down your thought process behind this post or a decision which you have for a client?

22:39 Yeah, definitely. So, it was um with the client, they basically were like, "Hey,

22:44 we want you to do you know a lot of these SEO optimizations content and start right away." But um the discussion

22:52 also was that um conversion was bad on the website. And so after doing some

22:59 digging, I found that um there were a lot of things off on the

23:05 site where it just wasn't in a place to do a good job of converting existing

23:11 traffic they were getting. And so, um, with that, we went through and and made

23:17 updates to the site from a conversion perspective to make it convert better and then from a brand perspective to

23:24 build more trust for the brand. And so, um, traffic stayed about the same, maybe

23:31 dropped slightly, um, but we saw conversion, sales, time on site, um, you

23:37 know, went through the roof. And so, um, yeah, again, just focusing on kind of

23:43 those basics before, um, you know, piling on more work.

23:48 All right. Now, uh, so, uh, you also

Essential SEO Audits Before Starting

23:54 mentioned that many clients focus too much on SEO optimization instead of fixing fundamental conversion issues.

24:01 Now, what are the first things you audit before even thinking about SEO? Yeah. Um

24:07 I think so from a high level the first thing I'll look at is you know their current traffic. I'll look at uh

24:17 where they're ranking in terms of things that are maybe second page almost first page. But actually now I think about it

24:24 rewind. So, a lot of what I'll do before I do any SEO work is I'll talk to the

24:30 client and kind of to understand who their target audience is and what some

24:36 of their pain points are, get to know their business some more. So, I send over kind of a questionnaire and then

24:42 also meet with them, okay? And I'll I'll get to know kind of what

24:47 are they what are they wanting to get out of SEO, whether it be leads. I've had some businesses are like, "Hey, we

24:52 don't care if traffic converts." Like, "We just want a bunch of traffic, so when someone's in market to buy, like we

24:59 always come up." And so, yeah, just get a feel for what they're wanting to get out of SEO. And then now I know like

25:05 directionally what's going to be valuable for the business. And so from there, I'll start to dig deeper in terms

25:12 of, you know, where from with our existing site, where can we um get some

25:17 quick wins? And then I'll look at things from a conversion perspective, brand perspective, um how we can improve that.

25:25 And then once we have that down and we've kind of gotten all the current opportunities out of the current site,

25:32 then we look at, you know, net new expanding the reach more um with net new

25:37 landing pages, content um that sort of thing. Okay. the now the results also the

25:46 results you shared uh uh no change in traffic but a huge boost in conversions are of course fascinating do you think

25:54 most SEO agencies are too I think sometimes it feels like I don't know it's hard to say I don't

25:59 necessarily talk to um a ton of agencies um but um sometimes when I I'm working

26:08 with clients I'll see like a lot of the work was just pile on traffic So I see that sometimes but it does seem like a

26:15 lot of SEOs on online and stuff and some of the content they share the mindset

26:21 has shifted a bit of um you know focusing on non-traic related things

26:27 more lately. Okay. Now uh if a company is stuck in a

26:35 uh traditional SEO mindset pumping out blogs, chasing back links, tweaking metadata, how would you recommend they

26:41 shift towards a more effective growth strategy? So shift to more towards um more effective growth strategy.

26:51 Yeah, I think um that's where it kind of comes down to focusing on stuff that

26:57 moves the needle. So, right, you know, maybe if they're working with an SEO service, um, they have a

27:04 conversation of like looking at what's currently being done and like if it's blog post, is it driving kind of the

27:09 traffic or leads that they want, but um, I think a lot of that needs to be driven

27:16 by, you know, the SEO provider to educate them and inform them of, you

27:22 know, how they focus on things that, um, actually move the needle verse not move

27:29 the needle. Yeah. Now, uh let's talk a little bit about a

Overlooked Technical SEO Issues

27:35 technical side of the SEO. I mean, uh what are some of the often often overlooked technical SEO is shoe issues

27:42 that can significantly impact the site performance?

27:47 Yeah. Um yeah, I'll speak to some that I've seen um quite a few times. So, sometimes

27:53 I'll see canonical tags are off. So, um, that can be a common one and like such a

28:00 simple fix and a big improvement for businesses. Another one I've seen too is

28:07 there's a lot of pages that are being indexed in their index that shouldn't be

28:12 where, you know, you look at the website index and you see that there's multiple versions of URLs, like there's a WW

28:19 version and a nonWW one. Um,

28:25 another one I've seen, I don't know if this would be technical, but um, I've met with some businesses

28:32 where they have like entire like huge sections of their website that are in

28:38 the index and they're like not really doing anything with it and they're not

28:43 driving any traffic. So, again, kind of hurting the the index bloat. So, I'd say

28:50 those are some of the most common that I've seen. Okay. All right. Now, how important do

Importance of Page Speed in 2025

28:56 you think page speed will be in 2025 compared to I mean now

29:02 compared to now? I don't know. I I don't know. Uh, I don't focus as much. Like I obviously

29:08 like look to make sure that page speed um isn't terrible, but I kind of more

29:15 look at it just uh make sure that page speed isn't terrible, but it's not necessarily if

29:22 it's like fast or faster, there's not going to be necessarily a huge difference. So that's kind of how I look

29:28 at it. Okay. So basically you look more from a user perspective rather than a Google

29:34 perspective. Yeah. Now uh so do you do technical SEO at all

29:43 or not? Yes, I do. I generally don't take on

29:49 projects if it's like hey we have a we want a huge focus on just technical work

29:54 I'll refer someone else. But um when yeah whenever I take on a client I'll do

30:00 an initial technical focus but I generally more just like I try to focus

30:06 as little as I can just to have an impact. So just make sure that the sites

30:11 being indexed um they have a decent sight speed um stuff like that but try

30:17 not to go too crazy on the technical side of things. Okay. Okay. Now we just coming towards

30:25 the uh end of our show and there's going to be a rapid fire questions. So I'm going to ask you uh some uh quick

30:33 questions and uh you need to just give me a short sharp answers to these questions. Whatever comes into your mind

30:39 of course it's all related to SEO. Nothing scary. So uh one SEO myth you wish would die.

SEO Myths to Discard

30:47 You said SEO like tactic I wish would die. Yes.

30:52 Oh man. Um, updating all tags.

30:59 So, you don't think it's important? I mean, it's important, but like uh not

31:04 like a huge focus. I don't know. I've seen some um campaigns where there's like that's like the whole focus.

31:11 No, it's right. Right. Right. Now, one of the most underrated SEO tactic in 2025,

31:19 uh, understanding the business before Okay. Okay. So, yeah, that's very very

31:25 important. I agree with that. Now, uh if you could only use one SEO tool, what would it be? Probably search console. Google search

Must-Have SEO Tools

31:32 console. Okay. I thought you might gear towards SEMrush or HRS,

31:38 but I think yes, that's the right choice actually. Uh your biggest SEO mistake early in your career?

Early SEO Mistakes to Avoid

31:46 Yeah, there was a a website I worked on for about a month

31:51 and uh the robot robot txt file was set to disavow the entire site and I didn't

31:59 realize it until like a month in. So, okay. Uh if SEO didn't exist, what

Alternative Career Paths Without SEO

32:08 career would you been pursuing? Like what sort of job?

32:14 Yep. Uh, I would do like construction. I'm a

32:19 huge fan of woodworking. In fact, a lot of the furniture in my house I've built

32:24 myself. So, yeah, I do that. Okay. All right. All right, Jeff, this

Key Advice for Dominating SEO in 2020

32:31 has been an incredible conversation. Before we wrap up, what's one key piece of advice you would like to give to

32:38 businesses or agencies looking to dominate SEO in 2020?

32:44 Yeah, I think the one key advice I would I would take is just um understand what

32:50 you're trying to get out of SEO again like whether it be leads um whatever it might be and then look at your you know

32:57 customer pain points and the key benefits of your products and then

33:02 validate some of that with search data and create pages and assets on your site that captures that demand. So that

33:09 that'd be my recommendation, right? And where are listeners can connect with you and how can they learn

Connect with SEO Study Spot

33:15 more about SEO study spot? Yeah. So I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.

33:21 So feel free to reach out to me, connect on LinkedIn and then um yeah, you can

33:26 just go to sestudiespot.com and um sign up there.

33:32 Uh thank you so much for being here, Jeff. And to our listeners, if you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to

33:37 subscribe to the Agency Insider Show and leave us a review. See you next time and thank you once again, Jeff.

33:44 All right. Thanks for having me.