Season 2, EP 4:
Roy Serafin – All Things SEO – Publishing Content

Justin: Welcome to after the Shoot, a podcast where we take a peek behind the lens to get inspired by the stories, challenges, and ideas of some of the most successful photographers in the business. I’m Justin Benson from After Shoot and AI cuing and editing software that. Give photographers like you your time back so you can focus on what you do best.

While our magical unicorns take care of the most boring and time consuming parts of your job. I’ll be your host for this podcast, and I’m so excited to have you here as we talk with some of my favorite creators. 

Roy Serafin: I quit my job that day and I just said, I’m just gonna do this from now. This is way less stressful, and then I’ve just been doing it since.

Any niche has something in SEO that somebody’s searching, you’re ultimately just trying to. Trying to figure out like, what is my ideal client looking for and how do I become the first person to give them that answer? The more you learn about keyword research, the more you understand what people who wanna work with you are gonna ask you.

So you can, you can start creating assets for those people immediately.[00:01:00] 

Justin: Hey everyone. Welcome to after the shoot. Today’s podcast episode is so insightful and honestly, probably one of the funnier episodes you’re gonna check out. I got to sit with Roy Serafin, a master of all things SEO. If he wants to rank in a place, he will get there and he knows how. And this episode is all about teaching you.

How you can get your SEO game stepped up now. If you’re ready for some laughs and some learning, tune in and enjoy the show.

Tell us how you got started in photography. 

Roy Serafin: So, I used to be an advertising director, and what that would mean is that I would be in charge of some design stuff. I’d be in charge of building teams, hiring the right people, and sometimes that means hiring photographers. So I. When you’re not a photographer, photographers speak very different languages.

If I have something that I want to come out of a project, I would have to kind of try and translate it to the photographer, and I just learned, you know what, it’s probably better is to to, to actually learn the skill. So we were on a long project, I bought a [00:02:00] camera, and then I annoyed a photographer for probably six weeks straight, asking questions every single day.

Until he probably never wanted to talk to me again. But in that process, as I was learning, I got really addicted and then I started doing, like I would just go walk around the streets of Chicago and shoot around. Um, and I slowly, from that point on, I just got, really got into it, started doing travel stuff for some of the brands we worked with.

And then that leads to people asking one of two questions, which is, do you do weddings or do you do boudoir? And I felt like I fit more in weddings than I do boudoir. I’m pretty, but I’m not that pretty. So the, the, the, the, the transition kind of started there. And the other thing about being an art director is it’s a very stressful job.

So you’re working 60, 70 hours a week and if you do a great job, you get a thumbs up. If you don’t do a great job, you get yelled at for four hours by four old dudes that are sitting at a table and like, you’ve made every mistake. And it could have just been, you like miscapitalized something. So the first wedding I did, um, the, I, I I, I, I said, okay, fine, I’ll, I’ll give this a [00:03:00] shot.

I’ve been shooting for a little while, and then the bride, uh, she calls me after I deliver the wedding and I’m thinking, oh, I mess this up. ’cause this isn’t a time, like it’s in a Google file somewhere. Like it’s a, it’s a drive file She got with all the photos. Yeah. And I’m thinking, okay, we’ve made a huge mistake.

She’s calling, she’s crying, she’s upset, she’s, she pauses. She finally gets kind of, you know, it clears up and can speak English again. And she says, I just had no idea. My husband looked at me that way prior to, you know, you know when I’m not looking at him. And so I quit my job that day and I just said, I’m just gonna do this from now.

This is way less stressful. And then I’ve just been doing it since. That’s incredible. Yeah. So 

Justin: your first wedding was like, that just changed your life. 

Roy Serafin: Yeah. If I look at it now, I’m very embarrassed by that wedding because I didn’t do a great job, but we’ve learned editing and, uh, it’s, it’s, I still captured what I needed to for that couple.

Justin: Yeah, well, of course. Yeah. I don’t think there’s many people who could look at their first wedding and say. Best work I’ve ever done. 

Roy Serafin: There’s, there’s a photo in that gallery somewhere where the bride is like, she’s leaning against a brick wall and the husband is awkwardly [00:04:00] standing down an alleyway like 10 feet away where it looks like he’s just stalking her.

I call it the Jack the Ripper photo. 

Justin: That’s amazing though. Yeah. I mean, that’s a, yeah, that’s. We all did some things that we probably, I, I will admit I once did selective color on an engagement session. Um, so we all do things that we regret. I wouldn’t 

Roy Serafin: admit that publicly. I, 

Justin: yeah, I know. This is the first time anyone’s heard that story, so, uh, please don’t tune in.

Yeah, no. Now everyone’s gonna know it. So, um, definitely, you know, a, a cool launching point that means you’re very creative. Yeah. How does that then actually fall into like SEO. 

Roy Serafin: Yeah, so eventually you have to start doing leads and then start like getting some business coming in. ’cause it can’t all be word of mouth, especially as you start wanting to travel where this is what I wanted to do.

I never really liked to work in the place that I live. I like to travel, go somewhere else, kinda go around. And so, um, you know, I did Facebook ads. I was really good at that for a while. Then I think iPhone. iOS or whatever changed and that stopped working. So I was like, okay, I gotta figure out something.

Um, worked with people like Ben [00:05:00] Hartley, Jeff Armstrong, the guys from Studio Photos and just kinda started picking up this thing. I’m like, oh, I really like this. This is interesting. ’cause it’s basically just changing Word documents and then posting them your images inside ’em. There’s a lot more into it.

But, um, I got really into it and I just started like obsessing over it, kinda like photography. And now I just spend most of my day trying to figure out like if I wanna go to that place, how do I go for free? From a piece of content that I wrote. 

Justin: That’s amazing. Yeah. So that’s, uh, advice for people at home.

You can absolutely go places for free if you can tweak a Word document. 

Roy Serafin: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, you know, the thing is, is I, I would say now if you want to get leads from ’em, you’re, you’re gonna need to have some form of like couple inside of it that shows you can do good portraits. But if you, if you take amazing street photos.

People will generally lend that trust to somewhere else. So if you can, you know, you can get a really cool photo of a city and show the backdrop, they go, oh, I trust that person. So as long as something photographically is showing that you’re a good photographer and the information is helpful to somebody who’s trying to plan a wedding or go somewhere, pick somewhere to go, they’ll, [00:06:00] they’ll talk to you.

Justin: That’s amazing. So we’ll dive into SEO now. I think this is the, yeah, the, that was the perfect lead into this all. So. SEO. Yeah. Search engine optimization. Yeah. Right. So that’s, that’s how you appear, how you rank on the, on the internet. Yeah. That means that you and I are the same photographer in the same city trying to get the same clients, and I appear first in the search and you appear 10 and.

Roy Serafin: Not if I’m in the city you’re in. 

Justin: No, but okay. You appear first and I appear 23rd. There you go. 

Roy Serafin: Yeah. So, uh, it, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting because a lot of people do think that way. It’s like, well, as soon as I get to the first, the, the top of the search results, I’m good. The thing is, is that you and I probably have very different clients.

Mine are gonna be very laid back. They’re not gonna wanna deal with a whole lot of stuff. They’re really happy with sarcastic remarks and, and that kind of thing. And so like. There’s still a tailored version of this where you still have to tailor to that client as you’re writing it. But yeah, ultimately, if I get to that first result in Google and I connect with the person that’s talking, you know that that’s reading it through the, through the writing or through whatever assets I’m giving inside of there, [00:07:00] they’re more than likely gonna start reaching out.

You could do the same thing. You could be positioned two or three, talk to a completely different bride or, or a different room or whatever, and all of a sudden now you have a different lead coming in and you’re still getting clicks Less than me, but you’re still getting clicks. 

Justin: I love it. So, so, all right, so, so SEO, is this only something that like applies to, uh, like Google or is.

So 

Roy Serafin: it’s, it’s not something that necessarily applies. You gotta remember Google’s a really big company, so Google owns YouTube. So they actually, if you’ve ever looked into the history of how, like thumbnails are picked and everything, they read images, they, they can categorize them. Um, they, they break down things that way.

There’s, um, there’s an aspect of this that, that lends itself to photography. You can do it for travel stuff, you can do it for like local recommendations. Really any niche has something in SEO that somebody’s searching. You’re ultimately just trying to. Trying to figure out like what is my ideal client looking for and how do I become the first person to give them that answer?

So it’s more of a serve first and sell later type thing where I want, I want you to think I’m like the most helpful [00:08:00] person of all time. Through getting to you first. 

Justin: Got it. Okay. So SEO is a is a huge thing, right? I mean, every business is worried about it. Yeah. No matter what scale of the business, whether you’re a small time photographer or a huge corporation, SEO is, you know, number one because Sure.

That’s how people find you. Sure. More or less, uh, does SEO apply like on something, say like Google, uh, maps? 

Roy Serafin: Yeah. So there are, there are what you would call local listings. Now, local listings can be hard as photographers specifically, we all work out of our house. So you really don’t want people showing up your house asking you for passport photos, which can happen if you give out your address.

So there is some mini, there’s some manipulation that you can do inside of, uh, like Google Maps where your business is listed that says like, okay, we’re appointment only, you know, and you put your key. Word in there. So for me, for example, I live out in St. Augustine. It might say something like St.

Augustine Wedding Photographer or photography, depending on which one has more search terms. I wanna fit that in there. In addition to also just explaining what services [00:09:00] I offer, right? ’cause again, I don’t do passport photos. That’s not really worth my time. They can do that at CPS. Um, but I do do weddings.

I do do engagements, maternity, like those kind of things. That’s where I wanna show up. And so inside that mat pack, I wanna one show up for the area by setting a service area. Like St. Augustine, instead of being like, Hey, here’s my house, you wanna come surprise me at my door on Tuesday? Um, and also I wanna go a little bit wider than my city, so I wanna rank in that map pack there.

So it’s, it’s there and it’s also on your website for different things, but your website can rank for like anything. I, I have, um. Well, I think it’s places to elope in Las Vegas. Uh, I rank for that. Uh, there’s a few, uh, you know, kind of all over the country that rank for Chicago’s one of them. And I’m, I’m pretty far from Chicago.

That’s a 1200 mile difference, give or take. Um, and so, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s all encompassing and the more you learn about keyword research, the more you understand what people who wanna work with you are gonna ask you. So you can, you can start creating assets for those people immediately. 

Justin: Okay. So I [00:10:00] know nothing about SEO.

I knew I knew the name. Just saying. But, but, so with SEO, where’s like the starting point? Where should somebody be looking to learn anything about SEO? 

Roy Serafin: Sure. So, uh, I have a free Facebook group that people can come learn, hang out with me. It’s called Storing Community. It’s on Facebook. If you’re a photographer in general and you wanna learn how to, how to kind of do some things, there’s free resources in there.

YouTube is another, is another place you can find me. Um, and then conferences, like, uh, the one we’re at right now, the boco photo, uh, summit in Atlanta. Like, these are places where you can meet other people like me who will teach you. There’s courses out there that I, I’ve written a course, uh, there’s, they’re, they’re all over the place.

It doesn’t matter so much where you’re getting the information, as long as it’s obviously good information, but as long as you put in the work, which means start posting something, as soon as you learn how to do it, a lot of people, they’ll learn and they go, okay, well I’ve got all this information. And they, they write an article and they leave it in like Google Docs somewhere instead of uploading it as a blog post.

Nobody’s gonna find you in Google [00:11:00] Docs. At least I hope they should be on private. 

Justin: So, so we have, um. We have SEO as like the, the threshold being found, right? So what, what factors actually, you know, quantify that? Is it blog posts? Is it like copy? Is it pictures on your website? What, how do you, you do this?

So Google has. 

Roy Serafin: Something crazy, like 2,500 different ranking factors that all have different little weights to them. Now you don’t have to get all of them correct, because that would be insane. Um, but you have to get a lot of them correct. So making sure that the, the piece of content that you’re writing matches the keywords that you found.

You had to do some keyword research and think like, okay. Somebody who’s getting married in my city, what do they need to know? Probably engagement locations where wedding venues are, which ones you recommend specifically, not just ones that sound nice. Um, you know, what, what do they expect, you know, as, as a, as a client to get from a wedding photographer, those kind of things.

So you have to find what, what they’re looking for. Then you have to answer the question directly. Google’s very, very specific. If [00:12:00] they land on your page and they have a bad experience, meaning they just, they get to the page and they leave right away ’cause their questions weren’t answered, they’re done.

So you have to make sure you’re answering the question thoroughly. Interestingly, keeping people’s attention and then also, um, making sure that it’s, it’s optimized with enough keywords in there. So if I am talking about wedding photography in a certain location, there’s gonna be a sub, a sub keyword.

That’s also important to make sure it’s in the document somewhere. Like if we’re doing Atlanta Wedding photographer, probably Atlanta wedding photography, or. Photographers in Atlanta, those are gonna be other keywords you wanna try and fit into those key, those pages. You can get leads from your homepage, you can get leads from your blog posts, you should do both.

Justin: Interesting. Ah, so your, your actual homepage should be kind of littered with keywords. So not, not, not strategically littered. Yeah. Yeah. It shouldn’t just say, you know, photographer in Connecticut. ’cause Connecticut likes photography and I’m a photographer in Connecticut. Right. But it strategically place words that make [00:13:00] sense that are those key words that your clients are going to look for.

Should that be reiterated throughout the site or just for like, should you be worried about making your keywords appear in one page and not another, or all the pages? Yeah, you have to be 

Roy Serafin: careful, right? So what happens is, is if, let’s say you’re writing a page about Connecticut wedding photography, and then you have another page where you’re talking about your services, like you’re maybe giving price information or whatever, and then you keep using the keyword from the homepage.

Well, Google as a ro, it’s a robot, okay? It’s gonna look at it and go, well. He says, this page is about this, but this page is also about this. So I don’t know which one is correct. This means it’s bad, it’s not good quality. I don’t know where to send the people. So, um, one page can kind of bring another page down and then all of a sudden you’re not ranking at all.

So not every page should have a keyword, and not every page should be the same keyword, you know? Um, I typically don’t try and rank about pages. I don’t necessarily try and rank like pricing pages. Um, but I do try and rank the homepage and then strategic blog posts, you know, ones that are, is this gonna reach my ideal client?

And is this going to, to bring to my brain? Is it relevant to what I do and also [00:14:00] the area I’m trying to do it in? 

Justin: Yeah, no, that makes total sense. Yeah. So, so you’re, you get started in SEO, you’ve created those, you’ve found those keywords that you’re looking for. What does a blog post? I, I mean, I’m an old person, right?

Sure. So, so the blog posts I used to make were literally, they weren’t for SEO Yeah, it was, I was just sharing. ’cause I was like, Hey, look, I, I shot this, this wedding at this venue and I, I have a blog now. Yeah. Um, so I would just share photos of my clients at a venue, and I would write a one paragraph that was just like, it was raining.

Life was good. We’re married, and then I would post it. Right. Yeah. So what should photographers be looking to do with blog posts these days? 

Roy Serafin: So there, if you wanna work at a specific venue, you can do kind of what you’re doing. Now, you’re, you’re on a similar track to where it could be correct, but it’s not so like, you gotta think about this from, from a perspective, like somebody is not gonna be looking for John and.

Carrie’s wedding. Like that’s not, they’re gonna be looking for John and Carrie get married at [00:15:00] whatever the venue’s name is. They are gonna be looking for information about that venue or the venue’s. Wedding photography. So like what are questions that are gonna come up when you’re looking at a venue as a couple, right?

Uh, how much does it cost? How many people does it fit? What kind of wedding is it good to fit for? What about it makes it unique? Photographically, you want to answer those and then make sure you’re sprinkling in your best images inside of that post. If you are determined and some people are that you wanna post just a whole bunch of images.

There’s a limit to how many you can post, okay? Photographers are known for this. We think, oh, our, our images are our words, and they’re just not A robot needs to know context, like the, the, the, the text needs to give your images context. And also too many will slow down a page. So what you can do is say, okay, I’ve shot four weddings at this venue.

I love this venue. I wanna show off these, these, these amazing pictures. You’re gonna pick the best photos from those. Weddings, you’re gonna put them in the original blog post, and then you can create other posts that show 40 or so images from each, um, each wedding you did there, and then no index them. So it’s giving it context and it’s good for a user basis where they can go see more work from you, but you are not gonna run into the [00:16:00] possibility where that’s.

Um, those blog posts are now competing with the original one you were trying to write in the first place. 

Justin: Makes total sense. So now I’m, I’m, I’m going through, I’ve, I’ve created some blog posts. How am I tracking it? Am I just like going onto Google and being like, Hey, I’m number one. 

Roy Serafin: No, because Google’s search results, people don’t realize this Google search results are, are.

They’re customized to you. Okay. It’s kinda like if you go on Facebook and you, you, I dunno, maybe at one point you said dog toys and all of a sudden you’re getting 35 ads for dog toys. If I go look for a wedding photographer, it’s gonna take into the, the, the, the history of my searches into account and also the location.

If your phone is on and you have Google on your phone, which is everybody at this point, um, when you pull that up, it’s gonna be like, oh, okay. Well he’s in Atlanta right now, so he is looking for Atlanta wedding photographers. Um, so I would say that’s not a great place to track that kind of information, but.

Google has a tool called Google Search Console, and this is straight from the source. I would say this is gonna be your most accurate kind of, uh, piece of information you can get. ’cause it’ll tell you like, Hey, listen, your site’s ranking for this, this page is doing really well here. And you can look and [00:17:00] see like, okay, I’m position seven for this term.

Maybe I need a little more information to get to position one. ’cause the higher up you are in position, more clicks you’re gonna get. So, um, that’s where I do a lot of my, like, optimization on my own site. And then you have tools. Uh, one I love using for keyword research in general is called SE ranking.

And you can do competitive research where you type in, let’s say there’s a photographer in your area that’s amazing. You can then go and say, okay, well I wanna take their website and find out what’s working on this page and what’s not. It’ll, it’ll run everything. It’ll show you what keywords are working and where the traffic is coming from.

So it’s a little bit of a combination of a few tools. 

Justin: That’s that’s great. So. Would you recommend to a photographer? Do you say like, okay, we’re you’ve, you’re gonna get into the business and you’re trying to grow and you’re trying to scale. Should they be, you said you were a master of Facebook ads at one point.

Should they be focusing more energy on something like SEO or should they be trying to come up with those ad campaigns and strategies? 

Roy Serafin: So I, I’m a believer, first of all, none of your [00:18:00] leads should only be coming from one source. So for me, I, I like old school stuff, so I like, I like SEO. I also like to do a lot of in-person networking.

I like to go to events and I like to meet venue owners and kind of like see if we can create a deal or something or, or work together. Um, and then, yeah, if you wanna supplement it with ads, it’s fine, but it also depends on your personality. So like for me, I have no desire whatsoever to go on Instagram and make it real every day.

I don’t wanna do that. That sounds like a migraine inducing task, but for some photographers, that’s where they’re best fit. And so it’s where can you put the biggest impact on your business, where you’re the most happy consistently? And if you feel like SEO is still something you’re missing, you can always hire someone like my team to come through and just, we’ll do the SEO for you.

You just go create amazing work. And maybe sometimes get images from places that we’re trying to target. 

Justin: I love it. No, that’s, that’s great advice. I think, you know, marketing, marketing on a whole, having multi funnels, ’cause SEO in theory, SEO is pretty stable, but it can change overnight, 100%. [00:19:00] There’s all it takes is a switch flipping at Google and they say, yep, disqualifying this.

Yeah, disqualifying that. And then you’re back to ground zero. You have to kind of build up your SEO again. It’s, 

Roy Serafin: yeah. I mean, to your point, we’ve had, there’s a lot of content updates that happen and you know, I try and teach people like, okay, this is, this is what’s been working forever. This is what you should be doing.

And it’s really just understanding the core values of what they’re trying to do at Google, which is, how do I get the best results so that more people use our platform? So. You do have to keep in mind that sometimes things are gonna work and sometimes they don’t. For example, the way that you described writing a blog post probably would’ve worked really well in 2008.

Like it would’ve been great if you just throw a bunch of images in a little paragraph. You probably would get some traffic from that. But now you have other people like me who are optimizing words and trying to be more helpful and those kind of things, and that’s. Where I can just jump on in and say, okay, fine, I’m gonna outrank, I’m gonna outrank Justin every day now for no reason at all.

Justin: I feel bad because I’m pretty sure if you tried, you would just immediately outrank me in my own state if you wanted to. I know you don’t wanna, so Connecticut, 

Roy Serafin: I will say, is one of the harder [00:20:00] states, um, because it’s very competitive and also people in Connecticut all tend to search the same thing. Like you look for a Connecticut wedding photographer instead of a city, you know, photographer.

So that, that, that comes down to now, okay. I, I need to have local relevance as well. So that’s like, I might write something like, um, that would fit with my, I wanna fit with my audience, so I wanna talk to couples. I also wanna be specific to the area. And I also wanna see if, I can’t figure out a way to kind of put a, a, a slow sell or something like, maybe like a couple session.

So I’m gonna. Not only reach, readjust my homepage or create like a, a landing page specifically for Connecticut, but then I’m also gonna start creating content around Connecticut, like best restaurants, uh, where to go for date nights, little romantic giveaways, you know, kind of things that would be in line with my ideal client.

Okay. So I could do it, it would just be a lot of work. 

Justin: That is a lot. Yeah, I, I believe you could do it. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I have fear. I mean, I probably don’t even show up anywhere at this. You probably might, but, um, but you know, I don’t think I’ve done a blog post in years. But that’s, [00:21:00] that’s interesting because I.

So many of us feel like we’re kind of trapped. Yeah. Right. So we feel like SEO is this big scary beast and, and we can’t even stick our foot in the door. And, you know, if you’re showing up in fifth place, it’s probably not great, but it’s probably not really bad if you’re on the first page, there’s a chance you’re getting looked at.

Roy Serafin: Yeah. So it’s, it’s kind of interesting ’cause I think, uh, and I’m not gonna remember the exact percentages off the top of my head, but 30% of the organic search clicks go to position one. 30%, but then you drop down, you’re 15%, you drop down, you’re 5%. So like, it keeps getting lower and lower and lower. And by the time you’re on page two, like you could literally put a dead body on page two and, and nobody would find it.

Um, and, and the other thing is like, you could have everything right word wise, but if your site has no history and it doesn’t have any back links, which is like, like after shoot.com, linking back to my website or some other other site that’s seen as an authority figure, my word isn’t gonna be taken as well until the site has some history behind it.

So you have to start working on backlinks as well. [00:22:00] So 

Justin: backlinks, we didn’t even talk about backlinks. It’s, it’s a lot. There’s, there’s so many things. Yeah. Uh, and this is why obviously someone’s gonna hire you and your team because you’ll, you’ll take care of this stuff. Yeah. Um, but for those who are listening and feel like they’re going to do it, and then they’re going.

Hire you instead. Sure. Um, what is a backlink and why do, like, how do you get backlinks? I don’t have any backlinks. 

Roy Serafin: You probably, you probably do. So the thing is, is that backlinks can happen in a multitude of different ways. Uh, are, for example, are you a member of fearless photographers? Yes. Okay. So you have a backlink from fearless photographers.

Uh, if you sign up for directories, they’re not wedding wire, like those are backlinks. Also, if you get published somewhere, if somebody picks it up and says like, Hey, listen, I wanna have. You know, I, I, I really like this image from Justin. I’m gonna talk about the best wedding photography that happened in the country, or something like that.

You get featured there, that’s a back link. Um, you can also do something called guest posting where, let’s say I run a really big, like wedding website in general. You might have expertise in a subject, and it might be for a term that you have no chance [00:23:00] of ranking for, like it’s like a 60 or 70 on that scale.

You can write the content, but you need a much higher backlink structure. They might have more authority, they might have more backlinks. And so you go, Hey, listen, I’ll write this for you. As long as I can put a link back into my own website and that’s, that’s a guest post, they’re usually fine with that and you can get a lot of massive traffic coming from that way as in addition to just the backlinks being built up.

So there’s a hundred different ways to do it. They’re all very tedious and or very expensive. It’s really the two options you have. But over time, like I don’t have to work that hard to get leads. I’ve gotten, you know, for my own photography website. 330 leads in a year and I, I, I don’t, you can go on my Instagram.

I probably posted three weeks ago. I, I, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a major source and it’s just they’re from all over the place. Yeah. ’cause I’ve spent the time and put the effort in, and that’s all it is. Anyone who’s winning at SEO has the ability to be overtaken by somebody who’s willing to work harder or smarter than you are.

Justin: True. 

Roy Serafin: Just like anything else. 

Justin: Yeah. No, it’s, it’s, that’s, that’s, that’s important. Yeah. I mean, you need [00:24:00] to, you have to always be working at it. Yep. Right. But once you’ve gotten the heavy lifting Yeah. Easier, then the work is a lot easier. ’cause then it’s just kind of maintaining it and making sure that you, you still have to post.

Right? So, so 

Roy Serafin: yeah, there’s, it used to be that you didn’t need to, there wasn’t a cadence quite as much. It’s not like social media. You don’t need to do a blog post every day unless you’re crazy. Um, but I mean, by all means, that’s what you wanna do. Go for it. But I, I’d say like you have this ability to.

You’re gonna, if your site’s brand new, you need like a couple of posts that kind of explain the area. ’cause you need something called topical authority. I live in this area, I’m a wedding photographer. I should know these things. I need these kind of things to help build my backlink profile on the, on the homepage.

And so. What you would do is you would write those and then after that point in time, like I could not post for the next three months and my site probably wouldn’t be affected very much, but the more often I post, the more updated Google thinks the site is, and then it’s gonna reward that behavior because I’m building part of their assets.

I’m trying to be a contributing member. As long as the content quality [00:25:00] is good, you should see your website growing. It’s very simple. 

Justin: Okay, so that’s another great point that. I’m the type of person who doesn’t update my website. So the last time I updated my website was like, I think 2019. Okay. So it’s been a while.

Yeah. So obviously I’m not gonna appear anywhere on searches now. Not necessarily. It depends on how lazy 

Roy Serafin: your friends are nearby. True, true. 

Justin: Uh, but so if I were to go in and just revise some pages, does that count as like being an updated site? 

Roy Serafin: Yeah. So, you know, if you, if you update your, your portfolio page, Google still sees it as an update.

Is it as valuable as like a new blog post that explains something new? Not necessarily, ’cause it’s not going to, I, I kind of think of it like rain buckets, you know, like your homepage, it’s trying to capture that city wedding photographer page or whatever you do. Um, and then the blog posts are trying to get more, it’s trying to catch more rain, which is more leads, you know.

And so if you, if you only have one bucket, you’re not gonna catch very much water. But if you have 30 or 40 buckets, we’re catching a lot of water. Yeah. And the site’s more valuable to Google. Your content’s gonna be trusted easier, and you’re probably [00:26:00] gonna be able to rank for things that I, like some people just cannot ring for.

Justin: Yeah. That’s wild. So this is, this is just a, a huge marketing mm-hmm. Strategy. Yeah. I mean, you really, you know, I, I don’t, I don’t know that it’s, um, uh, uh, so this is basically just like a big marketing strategy Yep. And it’s something that’s worth investing in. Yes. Because you, if you, if done well. By somebody who, particularly you guys, you know, the industry.

Um, so investing in something like this, it’s almost a guaranteed funnel. 

Roy Serafin: Yeah, well, nothing is ever necessarily guaranteed because you can understand the concepts and still write all their own content. So it just depends on what you wrote. You know, for example, if I’m a wedding photographer and I only write about the best ice cream shops in my city, that’s not really that helpful or relevant.

Yep. It’s nice if you like ice cream, but it’s not gonna help me in the long run. So yeah. There, there’s, there’s, it’s a huge marketing platform. There’s a is it’s a great way to keep. People like getting eyes in your sight. So for example, the reason I don’t like Instagram is if I make one post, [00:27:00] that post is gonna die pretty quickly.

You know, I’ll post something and then like, maybe it’s the best image I’ve ever taken of all time. It’s got, it’s got a shelf life on that platform of a couple hours. At this point, I feel like, or real, even same thing, could be a couple hours, right? But with SEO, I thought blog posts like the, the Elop in Las Vegas, uh, one that I, I wrote years ago on a plane while I was driving, flying to Vegas.

Uh, I’ve gotten leads from that three, four years later. Wow. Tell me your Instagram post that does the same thing. Yeah, so it’s a, it’s a long game. It’s a tedious game, but it is something that. You, it’s gonna get you open a lot of doors, not only with like potential clients, but also because vendors can see that you’re like recommending them.

Now it’s like, oh wait, I wanna get on that list. How do I get on that list? Or they just see you as like an expert in the area. So they’ll call you for help. You’re now an expert with them. You’re helping them out. Okay. Well now who’s on the preferred vendor list? You are. 

Justin: Yeah, 

Roy Serafin: it’s very simple. 

Justin: That’s amazing.

Yeah. So there’s, this is, this is tenfold, right? Yeah, it is. It is scratching the surface of SEO. Yeah. This will not answer all of your SEO questions. Not even close. It [00:28:00] didn’t even answer any of mine. Um, no, just kidding. It, it definitely helped. It was very helpful. Sure. It gave me good insight. Uh, but I think most importantly, it made me kind of open my eyes and understand that SEO is.

Something that A, it’s not going away. Yeah. B, if I want my website to do anything other than just sit and decay into a dusty bowl, I need to be updating it and creating posts and doing blogs and Yeah. And making myself relevant if I want my website to perform. Uh, which is important. Yeah. Because. Do you have a statistic?

And if you don’t, it’s okay, but do you have a statistic on like how many people are actually searching for stuff on, like if I’m looking for a wedding photographer mm-hmm. In Georgia, are people more prone to just search on Google or is it like something that they’re gonna find ’em on Instagram? Is there any.

Stats or something behind it. I wouldn’t say it’s 

Roy Serafin: necessarily like the, I I, I don’t have any stats off the top of my head for sure, but I, I will say this, every single person, you know, has Google on their phone. It’s a built-in thing on iPhones. It’s a built-in thing on Android phones, obviously. So like it, it’s already in your pocket.

Mm-hmm. So [00:29:00] what’s, if you need to find something in the city, are you gonna go on Facebook and look for that? Or are you gonna go straight into Google and try and find what’s in the city? Right. Restaurants, food, all that stuff. So I, I’d say most people use search now, depending on whether or not they’re gonna look for their wedding photographer.

It depends on your ideal client. If you are targeting somebody who is like 18 years old, they’re probably on TikTok, like they’re just probably on TikTok. But if you’re like me and you’re like, yeah, at 18 years old, I had no money in the bank whatsoever. Could not have afforded me in the first place. Why am I gonna sit there and try and play with that market?

I’m gonna look for somebody who’s like. I dunno, 24 to maybe 36. They’re, they’re probably either on their phones, they’re checking things out, they’re gonna make an, an educated decision. And then also they have the budget to have the wedding that they want to have, which is the one that I wanna be at. So, statistics, I probably wouldn’t even answer the question ’cause it depends on the market.

Justin: True. Yeah. That’s a good point. Yeah. You can’t, you can’t blanket it all in one spot. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s, that’s perfect analogy. There’s, there’s your ideal client and anyone’s ideal client could be anywhere. Yeah. But it is very true. Uh, the more I think about it, this whole [00:30:00] conversation, I’ve been sitting here thinking, do I really use Google that much to find things?

Mm-hmm. And every restaurant, every, if I’m looking for a. Somebody to do solar panels on my house or something. Yeah. I’m going to Google. Yeah, exactly. And it’s not ’cause I’m old, it’s just because that’s the source where you’re gonna get a lot of information. Yeah. You’re gonna get reviews laid out, all of the things you could possibly wanna know about these companies.

Yeah. You’ll find in Google and you won’t find it, uh, elsewhere. So 

Roy Serafin: Yeah. And even if they use a different. Search platform, for example, search directly. They use Bing for some reason, or DuckDuckGo, all the stuff that you’re doing for Google also works for those platforms. So you’re probably ranking almost the same, if not better, on those platforms for the, for doing the same thing that Google wants you to do.

That’s wild. Um, and the other thing is like when people are very concerned, you know, we have AI coming out and they’re like, oh, is AI gonna take over? ’cause AI will answer questions for you. Here’s the thing. One, in order to have answers, AI needs human input somewhere that somebody has to know something.

’cause that there’s not a robot walking around town getting reviews of restaurants nearby. Right. And the other thing is, is that for every [00:31:00] AI result, I, I might be off on the, the exact cost, but I think like a regular search, search result costs Google, like 0 cents per search, but it’s 0.30 cents. Per like AI search.

Now that doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you have as many searches as Google does, it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $59 billion worth of cost for Google to go from organic to ai. Wow. Doesn’t mean it’s not gonna change things, but it’s not going anywhere. And ai, if you go on Google right now. And you type up something, it gives you an AI answer.

What it does is, is it pushes the advertising answers down Google’s main business. People don’t realize this. The most money they make is from search ads. Most of where their income comes from, it’s not phones, not anything else. It is directly from that. So if they keep pushing those things down, what happens?

The search business dies. You can’t afford it to completely erase organic search. That’s 

Justin: why it’s not going anywhere. Yeah, absolutely. And I, and I, and I have a feeling that, mm-hmm. AI searches are slowly, but surely gonna be very heavily [00:32:00] tied into SEO. Yeah, because I think that, that if they not, if they’re not already, I, I mean, there’s.

If I’m gonna get an AI search of wedding photographers in Connecticut, I’m pretty sure it’s gonna go through the top five. Yeah. So, and go through their blog posts or whatever it is, and accumulate its answer. It’s 

Roy Serafin: doing the same thing you would do just a little bit faster. I mean, you can even see like some of the AI results that come up will also give credit in them.

How are you gonna get that credit if you don’t write the blog post? You have to it. It needs you to create content in order to fill this, in order to keep that business going ’cause they can’t afford to kill it. 

Justin: Yeah, 

Roy Serafin: just doesn’t make sense. 

Justin: Yeah. It’s the only way that the AI can operate. I mean Exactly.

If everyone stopped doing their organic stuff, the organic SEO, then at no point in time would AI be able to be up to date. Exactly. ’cause there is no information available that’s current for it to actually go, so. Right. That’s very true. So you will, not only are you helping yourself, but you’re helping your future self with AI and, and everything in there.

Roy Serafin: Yeah. And it’s, it’s a tool really. I mean, you can use AI to help you write slightly better. I would not recommend if you haven’t written a blog [00:33:00] post, just having AI just do the whole thing for you. You need to know how to do it correctly to see what it does wrong. ’cause it’s gonna do some things wrong and it can help you write faster by a little bit.

Justin: Yeah, absolutely. That’s amazing, Roy. I think I learned more than I can digest right now. That was so much That’s, that’s effect on people. That was so much, it was so valuable. Um, I know you, you, you pitched the, the. Facebook community before. Yeah. So definitely, uh, if you’re curious about SEO, if you wanna learn more, definitely join that community.

Yeah. And I’m sure that’s how they can kind of find you and Yeah. Um, and get more, I’m, if you just search Roy Serafin, I’m pretty sure you’re the number one rank. Yeah. So, 

Roy Serafin: so the thing is, like, you can find me, like even on my own website, ro the photographer.com, storing community.com, we have a little bit, like, a little bit kind of a, a breakdown on what services we offer.

And then yeah, if you want direct answers from me, a lot of times I’m giving out free advice inside that group whenever someone posts a question to ask. So I’m, I’m happy to do that. And we do semi-regular whenever I can remember and get some time to do it. 

Justin: Videos that answers a lot of questions and that’s great.

Yeah. So thank you so much for joining in. If [00:34:00] you’re at home, be sure to check out more about this. I mean, this is Marketing 1 0 1. Yeah. To get your business A off the ground, but B appearing places and it’s just stuff that that’s in in. It’s just stuff that’s priceless to your business. 

Roy Serafin: Yeah, it’s, I mean, again, just understanding what your customers are answering or are looking for and being able to answer that is, is a massive win for you.

You could even do it in PDFs. That way you just have someone to hand somebody. I wouldn’t, it’s not gonna help you SEO wise, but it will help your customer. Um, and then also, again, because it’s part, it’s one part. Of a master like marketing plan to connect you to other businesses, it’s still gonna help you in different ways.

It’s not always about just doing the SEO, that’s one benefit of it, but I also get like preferred vendor lists are nice places to be. 

Justin: Thanks for tuning into after the shoot. Got any burning questions for today’s guest or just wanna keep the conversation going? Drop us a comment if you’re on YouTube or join the after shoot community to share your thoughts.

You can find the link in the description. Make sure you subscribe to get notified as soon as [00:35:00] we drop the next episode and trust me. You don’t wanna miss it. And if you like this episode, I’d love it if you gave us a rating or a view on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you’re watching this podcast. See you next time.