How to Make Google Love You with Nick Loper: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Created with John Ushai. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives and we'll be breaking down how to make Google love you. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Nick Loper into EO Fire Studios. Nick helps people earn more money. He's an author, online entrepreneur, and host of the award-winning Side Hustle Show podcast, which features new part-time business ideas each week. Value bombs today, Fire Nation, are one question we always get is how to make money online.

0:40The short answer is it comes down to helping people. Here's how to do it. Align your content with your audience and business goals, Fire Nation, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Nick and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lands, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented.

1:14The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Nick, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with? Well, what's going on, John? First of all, thank you so much for having me back. I think it's five, six years. It's been a hot minute, brother. What's something about becoming successful that a lot of people disagree with? I think there is this myth and maybe this mystique that successful people got there because they had this amazing, never been seen before business idea.

1:56And because of that, I see a lot of people sitting on the side hustle sidelines, the entrepreneurial sidelines, waiting for that perfect idea to strike. And I think that myth needs to go away because what we've seen are two things. Number one, great execution can turn an already been done idea into a huge success. And second, most quote unquote new ideas are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. And by that, I mean, they make some small pivot, tweak, change to something that's already out there to create something new slash different slash better. And I know you've given EO Fire as a real life example of this.

2:37Like podcasts existed back in 2012. Interview podcasts existed. Entrepreneur interview podcasts existed, but a daily entrepreneur interview podcast didn't. It was that evolutionary shift to something new, something different. And then, of course, came, this is a really important part, your incredible effort in the production, the systems, the marketing, the monetization that all went into it to make it a hit. So I think what most people overemphasize is this importance of coming up with the killer, never been seen before business idea where a lot of the successful entrepreneurs that you and I have interviewed really earned their way there with persistence and execution.

3:17It's so true. I mean, sometimes it's just a little tweak, a little adjustment, a little pivot off of something that's already working. Or maybe it's just going within that big idea and discovering that void, that underutilized niche that's not currently being focused on for any number of reasons that makes whatever you do explode. And I love that phrase, evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Now, nobody knows what Google wants, but I'm going to ask anyways, because who knows, maybe we'll get lucky. So Nick, what does Google want? Well, Google wants what every other dominant player wants. They want to keep dominating, right?

3:55They want to maintain their market share at this point. All I do is win, win, win no matter what. And so how do they keep up their position as the world's most trusted answer engine? I think they do that by continuing to serve up the best answers. And what does that mean for content creators like us? It means, for better or worse, that we need to keep feeding the machine by creating the best answers in the world to the questions that our audiences are asking us and the best resources in the world for the problems that they have. now I don't know if you've done this but early on in my online business journey I would come up with this like great idea for a new side hustle nation blog post and then I would google it to see if anybody else had already written about it and sure enough of course they had like have you ever made a google search and gotten zero results of course this topic have you know it's already been covered it's already been written about and that was like really discouraging for me at the time.

4:50What I have since realized is like, yes, of course, other people have already covered your topic, but they haven't covered it with your unique voice, your insight, your depth, your level of expertise. And I think that leaves the door open for you to create a better resource than what's already out there. That's how the internet gets better. That's how you can give Google what it wants. That's how you can ultimately earn some qualified search traffic for your own business. Fire Nation, there's so much here. Number one, if you create the top solution to a real specific unique problem in this world, you will win because people will beat a path to the number one solution to their real problem and they will ignore the second best solution all the way through to infinity because nobody wants the second best.

5:37They want the best. The silver medalist gets ignored. They get forgotten in minutes. The gold medalist, man, they're on the cover of Nike. They get Nike shoes. They're on the cover of cereal boxes. I mean, fill in the blank. And let's be honest, and Nick has kind of been talking about this a little bit, but I'm just going to come out and say it. People don't love Google. People love that Google gives them the best results, that Google gives them the best answers, the best solutions to their problems. If something came along that's better than Google, believe me, it would not take long for Google to become the Alta Vista of old.

6:13And for those people that are old enough to remember Alta Vista, you know what I'm talking about. It's the Alta Vista of old, the InfoSeek of the 90s. Now, traffic. Get me some lead generation loper, but I want to do it the easy way. What are some simple strategies that I can use to get more traffic to my site? You bet. So I am with you. I want easy. I want low hanging fruit. I'm always thinking 80-20, right? So one of my favorite ways to do this is to go into Google Search Console. It's totally free to set up if you haven't done it already. If you already have, I want you to look under your search results performance.

6:55And what's important about this is for whatever reason, you can't get this data from Google Analytics, but you can get it here in Search Console. And it shows you the exact keywords that people are typing into Google to discover your content. In this search performance results report, you're going to sort by impressions. And what I'm looking for here are keywords with lots of impressions, but not so many clicks, because that's usually an indicator that I am ranking lower on page one, maybe even top of page two in the search results for that keyword. But what that signals is with a little bit of TLC, a little bit of effort and optimization, I could climb higher on that page and earn a bigger share of that traffic.

7:43So what that looks like for me in practice is, you know, finding keywords in this report, going through the older posts that those are likely showing up for. And you can even add that as a filter in the search console report, like what specific posts are getting those impressions. And I'm going to go through, I'm going to add new content. Maybe I'm adding word count. Maybe I'm adding frequently asked questions to that post. Maybe it's just not up to date anymore. Like, oh, it's from 2016. It needs to be brought current. Maybe it's updating your subheadings or your title tag to either make it more compelling to click on or include a variation of that keyword that Google is saying.

8:22Hey, look, we're already serving up your content for that keyword, but it's just not getting the click-through rate that you would like. Maybe it's adding a table of contents. Maybe it's adding relevant images. maybe you add some authoritative outbound links which is something that i was always hesitant to do like i got these people to my site like i want to keep them i want them to read my stuff but no authoritative outbound link seems to be effective these days and i'm even going through the rest of the side hustle nation archive content to see if there are any other relevant posts that should be linking to the post that i'm updating for example we did one on like how to start a pressure washing business.

9:02And sure enough, I've talked about pressure washing in a few other instances, like, oh, those posts ought to link to this new post about pressure washing. But when you hit update on that refresh, that re-energized piece of content, unless you're just up against crazy levels of authoritative domains and competition, you can be reasonably confident. You're going to see a healthy bump in your search exposure and in your search traffic. And you can even ask, and I have no idea if this actually does anything, But through Search Console, you can request that they recrawl your page, which may or may not speed up that process even further.

9:37Now, I actually experienced this firsthand. I mean, I actually noticed that one of my promo codes that I had, so one of my affiliate sites, was not being utilized nearly as much as it used to. I was always getting like, you know, a couple thousand dollars per month. It was just kind of like automatic. And I do remember like a few years ago going back and being like, oh, it's just cool to see that that's the number one search result for that promo code. when people type in like promo code blank, like that was the first result. And it was just like automatic every month just coming in a couple thousand dollars.

10:08And then boom, it dropped down to like a thousand. Then it dropped down to like 600. And then it dropped down to like 200. I'm like, something's going on here. Sure enough, I looked at it and I was like the fourth or fifth result now. And I looked at the ones that were above me and they were just a little bit better than mine and they were being a little bit more helpful. So I just went to work and really just over-delivered on that site. And then sure enough, a couple months later, I'm back in the first place, back at a couple of K a month. So this can really work, Fire Nation, when you implement these things the right way and do that specific strategy that Nick just shared, where you're going into Google Search Console, not just using the regular, typical Google Analytics.

10:45So really amazing stuff. And it's so much easier than trying to create a brand new post from scratch. It just has to do with updating and tweaking the stuff that you already have. that's already, you've already crawled up your way past millions of other sites to make it to the first page or second page. Man, such good advice. And Fire Nation, we have a ton more advice coming up as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. The overwhelm that comes with choosing the right software and tools for growing your business is real. With so many options and so little time, how are you supposed to know which platform is best?

11:20You've got your email marketing platform, payment systems, content tools, the list goes on. It can sometimes feel like you're spending more time organizing all the moving pieces and places than actually connecting with prospects and customers. And this is where HubSpot steps in. HubSpot is the all-on-one customer platform for growing better. Imagine this. Marketers generate better leads. Sales builds tighter relationships with customers and closes more deals. And service supports your customers at scale with tools like HubSpot's AI chatbot and knowledge base. Plus, with built-in AI to answer common customer questions, brainstorm and write marketing content, easily pull reports and more, your teams can slash their busy work.

12:02Meaning your marketers, sales reps and service teams actually have the time to be, well, marketers, sales reps and service teams. And when they grow, the sky's the limit for your business too. Grow better, faster with HubSpot's all-in-one intuitive customer platform. Visit HubSpot.com to learn more. One of my favorite places to visit in the late summer months is my home state of Maine. There's just something about being on a lake in August and September that I absolutely love. And now that we have a little one, spending time with family is that much sweeter. Something else I love, sharing my home in Puerto Rico when I'm away.

12:42Think about it. If you travel for parts of the year, whether it's for a vacation, a business trip, or to see family, why not Airbnb your home while you're away? It's a good way to earn extra money, and the joy of knowing others are enjoying your space is an added bonus. Plus, with things like the Airbnb setup guide and tips to make your home a great place to stay from experienced Airbnb hosts available to you. Getting started is simple. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. So Nick, wait a second, hold up. You're telling me there are other search engines besides Google.

13:25I mean, obviously I know that we talked about AltaVist and InfoSeek, dead and gone, but should I be optimizing for search engines that are not Google? Yes, you should. And I think it's pertinent that you just mentioned, like nobody remembers the silver medalist. Nobody knows who the third place finisher was. Most people in the search world know that Google is number one, YouTube is number two, but you know who's number three? DuckDuckGo. Possibly. I'm actually thinking of Amazon. Amazon's number three, Facebook is number four. And I think these are really interesting search engines to play around with.

13:59Another search engine that is worth exploring, depending on your niche, would be Pinterest. Much more a search engine for content than it is a social network. Now, I like search traffic because it's super consistent. Like you said, two grand a month, on clockwork, hitting this page. And it's unlike most social media where it's here today, gone two hours from now, or even email, where you can message your list. You see this big spike for a, you know, a day. And it's certainly better than not having an email list to send to. But I really like the steady, predictable stream that comes with, you know, winning exposure in these popular search engines.

14:38And YouTube, I think, you know, so YouTube is second most popular. I'm not the world's most successful YouTuber. So I don't think you should ignore YouTube. And, but I do want to point out a couple of the strategies that are working for me on Amazon and Facebook that might be worth a look. The first one, actually, the power of Amazon as a search engine, my eyes were really opened to this when I self-published my first book back in 2012. My theory was that people would come to the website, forgive the crappy design that I had at the time, discover that I'd written a book on the topic, say, well, you must know what he's talking about.

15:16He wrote the book. Click over to Amazon and buy it. Through the magic of affiliate link tracking, what I found was almost the exact opposite happened. Instead, people would search on Amazon for the topic, find the book, buy the book, and then come visit the website afterwards. And how did I know? Because I was making book sales, but didn't have any corresponding affiliate commissions on those book sales. So that was Amazon as a powerful search engine. But fast forward to how I use Amazon as a search engine today, my main goal in life is to own my primary keyword, own that side hustle keyword in as many marketplaces as possible.

15:55And for a while, I had the trifecta of iTunes, Google, and Amazon. And then this Chris Guillebeau guy comes along, but it's all good. For Amazon today, I am using what's called the perma-free strategy, where I want my book, The Side Hustle, to, you know, number one, show up when somebody searches on Amazon for that term, but number two, have as little friction as possible to get somebody into my ecosystem, consuming my content. And, you know, I could probably be better about tracking email signups and leads from that book, but it consistently generates 500 plus downloads a month and occasionally spikes much higher, like just this week randomly has over 2 ,500 downloads so far.

16:39The challenge is Amazon doesn't let you price your book for free, so you have to upload it to a different marketplace that does and then send them just a friendly support email. Hey, would you mind price matching this? Doesn't always work on the first try, but usually they agree to get that done for you. And even if you don't want to give your work away, the strategy still works, even with a paid book, especially if you can work your primary keywords into that title there. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense to me. It's something Fire Nation that a lot of people just don't even think about.

17:10And again, I love how you reverse engineered that, Nick, when you were talking about at the beginning about how people were finding and then buying your book. I mean, this is the type of stuff you need to be doing. So what else do you want to talk about on this specific topic? I want to talk about Facebook for a second. And I am I'm blown away by how many people use Facebook as a search engine. Like there's that search bar at the top, but, you know, it's the number four most popular search engine. So a ton of people are using it. And again, if they're searching for my primary keyword, I'd much rather that they find me rather than some other resource or competitor.

17:42And you probably, you know, you probably already have a Facebook page set up for your business. But where I've found that the magic really happens is with a group. The Side Hustle Nation Facebook group is now more than 40 ,000 members strong. And the majority of those people discover the group organically on Facebook through search or through the recommendations in the sidebar recommended groups. Now, from there, I can invite them to check out the podcast, to join the email list. It becomes this really consistent discovery engine. And I should add, I've had some guests on the Side Hustle Show where this is a major entry point into their funnel, like top of the funnel for their online course businesses.

18:25But the point is, when it comes to search, Google definitely isn't the only game in town. Fire Nation, this is critical stuff to realize that you want to have this multifaceted approach. You don't want to just rely on one search engine you might be crushing, like, by the way, I was for a while. and then all of a sudden something can happen, something can change, algorithms can update, whatever it might be, then all of a sudden, poof, there goes everything because you had all of your eggs in that one single basket. So I think it's fascinating to think about Amazon in that different light, about Facebook in that different light, about the power of Facebook groups.

18:58I mean, we have a very powerful Facebook group as well and we see the benefit of that, about how that can cross-pollinate and co-mingle in all these other different areas because once you start getting rolling, then other things just happen because once a lot of people start searching for your topic and then finding your book, your book is a higher ranking. And then once your book is higher ranking, it starts getting bought more, you're probably gonna get more reviews and ratings. And when you get all of that stuff, guess what? Now Amazon's gonna start saying, customers who bought this also bought that.

19:28And they'll start putting your product, your service, your book in that area as well because it's selling well and people are talking about it highly. So you have to realize this is like a snowball effect. But let's just be honest. I've completely run out of ideas. I mean, completely. How do you figure out what content to create, Nick? For me, it starts with your audience and your business goals. And the sweet spot is really, you know, obviously where those two things are aligned. Because the last thing you need to do is to create more content for the sake of like, Like, well, I said I'd publish a blog post every Monday.

20:07Like, if it doesn't align with your goals and you're just forcing it to meet some arbitrary publishing schedule, like, stop, stop cluttering up the internet. And in the past, I've totally been guilty of that. Like, oh, I need a blog post for tomorrow. But instead, what I do today is I keep an Excel file, actually a Google sheet, with all these like seed topics or seed keywords that you come up with. And if you already have an audience, you already have people paying attention to you, asking you questions. Those make great fodder for this type of thing. Like what is your audience already asking you about?

20:39Those could be topics that you know you want to cover. You could even type in a seed keyword, like maybe it's side hustle, maybe it's podcasting, maybe it's, you know, gardening or something. You can punch those into a tool like answer the public, where you punch in that keyword and it spits back out a bunch of relevant questions related to that keyword, super cool tool and free to use. And then I, the other tool that I use is just like Google itself. And I've done this a bunch of different times. Like you start by typing in a phrase into the search box and then space bar just to see what pops up in the auto suggest.

21:16Like I've gone through like how to make money blank. And then you'll see, you know, what comes up and those auto complete suggestions are normally sorted by search volume. So the closer they are to the top, like as an estimation, the more searches that's getting. And you find some crazy ideas that way, you can just go through the whole alphabet, how to make money A, and then see like, oh, all the different options that come up with that. But once you have that list, the next challenge really is prioritizing, because hopefully you come up with, you know, 50, 100 different topics. I've been using this free Chrome extension, it's called Uber Suggest.

21:55This is pretty slick because it just overlays into your Google search the estimated search volume for each keyword that you punch in. And it gives you this score between one and 100 of how like how difficult the software estimates it's going to be to rank for that keyword. So like, you know, if it has a keyword difficulty score of like a 90, like you don't want to touch that. The higher number means it's harder. But if you find something and everybody's looking for like these unicorn, you know, high volume, low competition keywords that that also serve your audience, that also align with your business goals.

22:31So I understand it's a little bit can be tricky. But, you know, if you have enough of these ideas, I guarantee that you'll start to find those where it's like the search volume is high enough to justify your effort in creating that piece of content. And the competition is such that, like, OK, I'm reasonably confident that I can get on the first page. and I'm like, it feels a bit like this, like strategic treasure hunt, but it's really rewarding to go through that process to create this great piece of content, follow all, you know, the best practices SEO wise, and then have it land on the first page of Google.

23:04Usually within the first few weeks, it honestly feels like alchemy in a way because you're creating this asset out of ones and zeros in a sense that can drive traffic, can drive leads, can drive revenue almost out of thin air, like creating something out of nothing. And that's, I understand I'm totally a nerd, but like that's a ton of fun for me. There's a lot that I want you to take away from this Fire Nation, but the top thing is find that unicorn, find that unicorn that Nick's talking about that aligns with your business goals, that doesn't have that crazy Uber suggest a score that can drive a lot of traffic and, you know, that, hey, can be not super difficult to take over and to conquer.

23:44And I don't know if you remember this, Nick, but I went to answer the public and I haven't been there for a while. Didn't there used to be like a creepy old man, like as a centerfold of that website? And like, he's not there anymore. What happened to him? They probably got the feedback that he was creeping people out, but I do remember him. That was so good. I used to go there just to like be like, that's the best. But listen, Nick, I want to give the mic to you because I want you to share the specific key takeaway that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from everything that we talked about here today, a lot of value bombs.

24:15I know you have a special gift and call to action for Fire Nation, so definitely share that now, and then we will say goodbye. Then we will say adieu. So one question that I get a lot, and I'm sure you get a lot too, John, is how to make money online. And there are a million ways to get it done. but the short answer is it really comes down to helping people build helpful resources and then figure out how to market them i mean this is what you put in uh the common path be the best solution to a real problem so that's what i want to leave people with you want to figure out how to make money online figure out who you're going to help how are you going to help them over at sidehustlenation.com slash fire put together a few resources i think will be valuable for fire nation first up is this curated SEO and online business playlist from the Side Hustle Show archives, some of the heavy, hard-hitting podcasts, some real pros in the SEO and affiliate online business space there.

25:13You'll also find my free guide to the three most common website mistakes that I've seen from reviewing hundreds of listener websites that are costing you money and how you can plug up those holes. And I've also got a special limited time offer on my all-new traffic course where I go step-by-step through the marketing strategies we talked about today and a ton more. Fire Nation, get over there. SideHustleNation.com slash fire. Nick has an amazing audience for a reason. I mean, I was honored to be a guest on his show when I was promoting the common path to uncommon success and the feedback from his audience was fantastic.