[00:00:00] Speaker A: If the site isn't healthy, if the site isn't built structurally sound, if the messaging isn't there, people are going to leave and they're going to go to the next competitor that's doing it. They're just like little things, little adjustments that are holding them back massively. I try to teach my clients as much as I can and as much as they'll allow because I could go deep with the information.
In 2023, there was like a little window when AI came out where just flooding your website with blog posts every day was working and it is not working anymore. And I'm here for it because we've got too much junk on the Internet and I think it's time to go back to real, at least human reviewed and human edited content.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Welcome to the Entrepreneur's Aqua Podcast. I'm your host Zach Bernard. You can find me on social at Zack B. In each episode, I bring on experts from various industries for you to learn about their strategies and insights driving X ray business growth. Today we're joined by Amber Getz, founder of ActiveMedia, a high performance web and SEO agency that that's been around since 2005. Amber's been turning websites into lead generation machine long before SEO become the buzzword that it is today. And she's helped clients blend over $10 million in revenue through organic channel scale sites from zero to over 100,000 monthly visitors. And she's also built more than 500 websites throughout her career. And known for her no fluff, straight shooting approach, Amber cuts through the industry noise to deliver actual insights and that actually moved the needle. And interestingly enough, before dominating the digital marketing world, she was actually a professional stunt driver. Just an interesting career path here. So Amber, really great to have your show. Thank you for jumping on here.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me. Very excited.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: I love it. So one of the questions that I always like to start with like your podcast is obviously you've been running your company for like two decades, which is quite a while. And if you had to like start from scratch, rebuild your company from everything that you know today, what's like the one thing that you would implement from the scratch that you feel perhaps other entrepreneurs like totally get wrong?
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Oh gosh, if I you asked me that question two years ago, it would be very different than I would answer right now. But I think we're getting that like market research is so important and I feel like we went through like a period of time where people were not doing market research. They were just like going for A thing.
So I would, I would tell people, market research, because if you don't know your audience and the need for your audience, and I'm talking from a search perspective, like do the research to find out, are people searching for this product or service, Is this something that is already being fulfilled? Is the competition high?
I think market research, that's what it goes back to.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good one because yeah, you're right. Like a lot of people just dive in, try to offer a service, but they haven't even found that product or service fit. They don't even know if people will be interested in like what they have to offer. So you're saving yourself a lot of time by doing that research. And I feel like a lot of people skip over that and they probably should not do that. So.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Right. And we live in a digital mobile first world. So like, if it's not something someone can purchase or you know, engage with on a phone, you know, it's something to consider.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: I love that. And what I'd kind of be curious with, like obviously your company, you obviously work with quite a lot like clients since you've been doing this for like 20 years. But I'd love to hear some of the process as far as like how you work with your clients. Like when someone comes to you, they're saying like, hey, my website is in randomly like generating leads. We're somewhat invisible on Google. What's some of like the thought process and like mythology that you take to somewhat turn that around and just take them to like that next space and their business growth.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: So I would say I kind of do like, I don't do a deep audit first. I do almost like a complimentary version where we do like a comb of their content, really evaluate the messaging and make sure that they're getting that right. Because if your messaging isn't right, you're going to lose leads, you're going to lose clicks before the user will even continue through the past to make a purchase.
Then I also, from there take a look at like some technical issues that the site might have. And oftentimes that's a big one because a lot of companies, especially startup small brands, are building a site on their own. They did something kind of diy. So they're just like little things, little adjustments that are holding them back massively. And I like to show them that I want to, I try to teach my client as much as I can and as much as they'll allow because I could go deep with the information again, I put Together, this little mini video audit. I actually do one live on my newsletter. I share it where people can see my methodology and how I look at where the content is falling short, what their competitors are doing right, what you're doing wrong. And it really is an eye opener for people. So they realize, like, okay, this whole SEO thing isn't fluff. Like, it actually matters. You can, there's clear patterns in the data. It's, it's right there in front of your face. When you see a competitor doing it right and you're not, you're like, okay, I need to get myself together.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And I love, like, the approach that you take, which is basically you're teaching them, like, how to fish. Like, you're actually educating your clients. You're making sure that they're aware of like, everything that's like, out there. But going back to like, what you mentioned in the beginning, you said that you look at like, their, their messaging, branding, like, everything that they're currently doing. And I feel like a lot of people, what they do is they're going to focus, okay, let's drive more traffic. Let's go get more lead flow within the door. But if you're not optimizing the traffic that you're already getting, you're somewhat just doing like a disservice yourself, just like wasting all this traffic coming in. So you basically started like the root cause issue before driving, like, new traffic. If, if I got that correctly, Yes.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: I love that. The root cause. Yes, yes. If the site isn't healthy, if the site isn't built str naturally sound, if the messaging isn't there, people are going to leave and they're going to go to the next competitor that's doing it. Right?
Yeah, I think that's a great way.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Would you say that's like the most, like, common thing that you see with like, most clients where, like, you start working with them, messaging, keywords, everything's like totally off.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: That paired with spending their money in every avenue. They're doing meta ads, they're doing Google Ads, they're. They paid an SEO guy, they bought backlinks online. Don't even get me started on that topic. But yes, they're doing too many things and they don't even know how to measure what they're doing. That's another thing. I always build visual dashboards for my clients because I think analytics scares people. They look at it and they're like, I don't know what I'm looking at. So I try to put in a very Visual. I'm like, hey, are you a bar chart kind of guy or are you more like a pie chart kind of guy? And put it in something that really makes sense for them and then when they see it, they're like, all this effort we're doing on social and everyone's either bouncing and they're leaving fast or they're not converting at all, you know, and, and that's a really an eye opener for people because then they're like, okay.
And almost always, probably 90% of the time, the traffic that comes from organic, which is search effort, SEO efforts are the ones that have the highest conversion because they, they found you, they sought you out. Like as, as humans, we, we, when we are searching for something, we want, our intent is there to go find the exact thing. So like, that's the mindset you gotta be in for your searchers when putting together your messaging. It's very, very important.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they're like warm searches. Like they're already interested in buying, like way out to sell in the first place. And one of the things I thought was interesting as you mentioned, like having those dashboard, giving those analytics, and I found that really interesting because typically in the SEO world, and I guess that's maybe just a stereotype or misconception that I have, but a lot of companies, they won't give too many insights into the SEO process. So what they're doing, what's actually driving the needle when they're working with a company, like, I know a lot of agencies, that's like one thing they don't do. They literally do not give you that transparency in like what they're doing. But it seems that you found a way to somewhat crack the code for that, to be able to showcase like, exactly like, hey, this is what's driving the measurable results. This is what we're doing. And you're somewhat giving that transparency, like the.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. I also, I will be on just the visual dashboards. I'll share our keyword growth. Like, where, where are we going? Are we moving up on the keywords? We want to. Oh, look at this. Maybe we're moving down on another keyword that we weren't focusing on because I think it's important for the client to see. Like, look, we've been given all this love to these pages and this campaign, but these ones over here we kind of forgot about, which will become important in maybe the next season.
So then it's like, it is an ongoing relationship and really truly understanding the, the business and how the business flows and having an open line of communication with clients. And I share all of it. And, you know, I encourage them to ask questions. I'm like, let me know if I'm drowning you with technical jargon. I just, I just want them to, I want them to feel good when someone's like, oh, you do SEO, like, how do you like the person you're working with? I want them to be like, I know my stuff because she teaches. Like, I explain it, you know, no, no gatekeeping.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: And I think that's a good approach to take because I've heard so many horror stories of people saying they work with a CEO agency. They have no idea what they were doing. Apparently they're just, we're helping their website, but that's just what they do. They're just money.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: They love saying, I've seen this multiple times. And I'm kidding. Oh, we have secret, we have secret tricks. We do. No, the secret sauce. Like, anybody can learn SEO. Like, that's a lie. Or they'll like, oh, it's going to take three to six months. Like, don't. Like, sure, yeah, it. Absolutely. To see massive growth, you're going to need to take exponential amount of months. But there's still metrics to share and there's still wins that your client needs and deserves to know about.
So they can get behind it and be like, hey, that page is doing really well. What if we added a video? You know, like it's, it's a collaborative process to really win.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And something I'd be like a little bit curious about because, like when we spoke initially, you've been running the company since 2005. You've been in the SEO space for like, more than like a decade. And you're very vocal about the fact that a lot of the SEO, like advice out there will actually tank a lot of businesses in 2025 especially. And I mean, even, even in 2026 and beyond 20. Because when we think about the new shifts, I mean, is like a big one, like AI optimization, search results and everything like that.
And I know that's probably one of the answers you would give me, but what are some like the biggest shifts that you're seeing right now in search that business owners do need to understand and what kind of, I guess like outdated tactics should they like, stop doing and like go full on, on like.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: These new strategies creating massive amounts of content? In 2023, there was like a little window and AI came out where just flooding your website with blog posts every day was working. And it is not working anymore. And I'm, I'm here for it because we've got too much junk on the Internet and I think it's time to go back to real, at least human reviewed and human edited content. Like, I'm not saying don't use AI to help you out, because I, I do. But you definitely need to make sure it still has your voice and it still sounds like human.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: And I think like, what was it? There was like a post that blew up on X Twitter, whichever you want to call it, that there was like a financial site or like blog that was literally posting a financial related keyword like every two seconds for like a blog post. And that site I think blew up to like 5 million like monthly like visitors in like literally a matter of weeks. But I think it like tanked recently to like a hundred thousand because Google does like penalize like these types of things.
So that's like basically what you're saying, like, don't just spam like content. Make sure there's like that authentic voice production. Proofread the content and have like that human touch.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Absolutely, yes. I mean, Google puts it right in their webmaster guidelines. They release every year. We get a new set, sometimes multiple. This year they change the algorithm, I think three times. I don't, I can't keep up.
They put right in there what they want. They want value in the content and they want it to answer questions that people are actually answering. Not just here's a bunch of fluff and lists and emojis and like, that's, that's not what people are looking for.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Yeah, and I guess taking it back to like the AI component because now there's like ChatGPT, now you're able to like search for people if you, if you optimize like AI searches. I'm not exactly sure how that works. You're obviously like the expert with SEO, but is that something that people like, should be on the lookout for? Should they be trying to like optimize that or do you think that's something more in like a few months? They maybe should be taking attention.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: No, do it now. Like if you're not optimizing your content for voice search, which, which will make AI search results very, very happy, you're behind. Another thing I will say with AI and I, I started testing this like six months ago.
Schema. The return of schema data. Structured data being put into every single page, every single blog post in your site is more important than it's ever been because it is, it is a clear guideline for crawlspiders and LLMs to read.
And it's, it's interesting because I'm seeing a huge influx of clients coming from DIY like drag and drop site builders going, I can't find my site anywhere, I can't find it in ChatGPT, I can't find it in Google. And it's because you have to keep stepping up your game and a lot of these people who just threw together DIY site, it's just not working anymore because you are going to have to either learn a little bit of code and get comfortable with it or at least get yourself in a platform where you can ask AI for help with code and get it in yourself.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: And if you want, because you obviously mentioned you should do it now, don't wait a few months, three years to be left behind.
Is there, I guess if you could break it down and maybe two, three first steps, like is there a few first steps that a business owner should take to be able to obviously get ahead of the curve, optimize their website through SEO for AI and like LLMs?
[00:13:32] Speaker A: I think the tip I would give someone, I think I'm going to speak from like a very beginner level. I know everyone's got their own level of experience with the back end of their sites, but I think from a beginner level, like just do some real world comparisons. Pull up your site, maybe search a term that you know your site will come up for, pull it up, have a look at it and then also look at a competitor who's also coming up. If they're coming up higher than you, what are they doing better? Are they providing more visuals? Are they providing, you know, maybe some sort of like guidelines or video. Like there's, there's always something that someone might be doing a little bit better than you if they're above you without a doubt.
Well, I will say let me back up. Unless it's like a government site, a healthcare site or a site that's you know, 40 year old domain, which I guess that's not possible.
There's my exaggeration kicking in.
It's almost night and day. Like when you look at a competitor who is outranking you, there is a clear differentiator why Google thinks their, their site is doing a better job at giving that same information.
And I think if you can look at it from that lens and then go back to your site and be like, how do I make mine even better?
You know, that's, that's a great place to start. And then beyond That I would say get really comfortable with schema.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that because I mean there's so many strategies, things you should be doing, shouldn't be doing and with like AI because a lot of people are trying to incorporate that within their strategies but they just have no idea like where to start. They're getting bombarded by different advice, different strategies and it's just knowing which way to go, what traction to and what I'd also be curious is when we talk about more the like the solopreneur, the small business owners who are looking at their competition, maybe it's a big brand, they have a huge marketing budget and they feel that they can't really compete with them organically. What's like some of your thought process or strategy to like help these smaller players like outrank and outperform the big guys? Obviously time being in the space, having a domain that's been there for a while does help.
But I'm assuming there's probably a few other strategies that you probably know about.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. So it depends. If I'm working with an enterprise brand that's newer and they're trying to really get out there fast, they're going to need to spend money. Google Ads, Bing, LinkedIn, it's very dependent upon their audience. Who are they trying to attract? So I always tell people, do not go after the LinkedIn audience if that's not where your audience is or if they are, is that when they're in that decision making mindset? Like it's really important to not just start throwing money out to all these platforms because you know they'll eat your budget up very fast.
So in the same thing with small business, again depending if they have like a local product or local service, I always tell them to start with a meta campaign because it can be a little more cost effective. And if someone's trying to do this on their own, it's not super difficult to learn and there's definitely some great resources out there to get you 90% of the way.
But I would say like once you start seeing traction and there's some more budget, hire a pro to come in and clean up some of the retargeting values and like just make sure your every penny is really, really dialed in.
For local SEO it you can gain traction very, very fast if you just put a lot of love onto your Google business profile. That's huge.
Um, right now Google is loving constant updates. So update your profile, add an offer, put up a new picture, you know, get reviews constantly. It's there's it's something like one every 10 days, which is like super overwhelming. I'm like, it's hard for me to get through a year just because it's like the nature of what I do. But it's very, very, very important.
So I, I sort of answered that question, but sort of gave a few different. It really depends on the niche and the size of the business.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: That's totally fair. I mean in some niches you might be competing like healthcare sites for example, as you were saying, that always rank like so heavily. So those might be a little bit more challenging to work with there. But. And you also have a newsletter, right? The SEO Sidekick, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. And like what do you cover on like that newsletter? Is it more so just like tips, strategies for like business owners? I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Okay. So I try to do like, like break down like really simple concepts that are very important for SEO just so people feel a little more confident. My thinking behind the newsletter was I work with a lot of larger brands who have these massive marketing teams, but then they outsource their SEO to someone else or like me, but the teams don't understand it. And if teams had internal teams had a better understanding of how SEO works, they could not only really hold those agencies accountable that are maybe a little shady and they can also do so much more on their own. I mean if you have an in house copywriter, that in house copywriter should know SEO. If you have a in house social media person. There's a lot of SEO going into Instagram specifically right now.
So I try to a little mix of everything. Obviously if something new is happening and working, I try to share it immediately. And it's really, and sparked some really great conversations.
And I get some fun questions where people are, they're trying, they're trying so hard on their own. And I think it's great. I think, I think anybody can do SEO. It's. Do you have the patience and the time? Because it's, it's another person's, it's an, it's another group of people's job. Like it's, I don't just do all the SEO. I have team members that work alongside me with my clients.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean you have to start somewhere. Like you can't just dive into SEO and then figure out everything like night and day. Like that definitely won't happen.
And I guess that's something that brings me to like one of my last, my last question Here. When it comes to working with like an agency SEO company that, when, when you're trying to take like your SEO to the next level, if you're like, hey, I don't do this on my own, I want to hire someone that's actually like an expert. Is there like certain red flags that people should be looking out to when they're trying to hire an SEO agency? Whether it's their strategy, how they do things. I know we obviously talked about the transparency being a big thing, educating people, but you've been in the space for a while and I imagine you've probably seen quite a lot of those red flags from past clients that you've worked with that told you about their past experiences.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say false promises, any kind of like promising overnight, you know, you see those emails come in, we'll get your ranking next week. Not possible. You'd be a billionaire if you could pull that off.
That's huge red flag.
Second, I would. Anyone who doesn't ask for access to your analytics, your Google Search console and any other metric. Metric tools you're using. Some, some folks are using Microsoft tools.
That is huge. Like there's no one doing SEO if they don't. I just, I took a client away from someone near me who I. It was an amicable change of hands. And when I reached out to the other developer and I said, can I get Google Search console access? And he's like, I've never sought that up. I'm like, what do you mean?
[00:20:34] Speaker B: What I mean, that's what I'm talking about. Like the horrible stories, like another agency takes over and like do you guys didn't do this? Like what kind of basic.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: How long have you been paying this guy? Yeah, so yeah, it's interesting. But that, that's a big one for me. Like, yeah, just make sure they do. Unfortunately, they meaning SEO, they need access to those tools and they're going to need admin access to it to most of them.
So if, if your person ain't asking for that, then they don't know what they're doing.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: I love that. Thank you, Amber. I guess just like parting thoughts here. If, if there's like one thing that you would like to leave with the audience could be SEO related website or anything like that. Is there anything that comes to mind as far as like actual input, tip, anything like that?
[00:21:21] Speaker A: It's a big question.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: I know it's a big eat your vegetables.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: No, I mean it's. Go with your gut. Honest.
This, this sounds so silly but like, okay, Side story, really quick, let's see. Five months ago I went to one of my developers and I was like, add an LLMs TXT file in the activemedia.com today and tell it to allow. And he's like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, look, when Google, you know, with SEO and Google, we add in robot txt file for people listening, they're like, what is this lady? What is crazy lady's name? A robot. Txt file tells the search spiders to crawl a page or not. Like you wouldn't want to crawl like the back end pages. Like there's certain things you would say, don't crawl these pages. I came to him months ago and was like, add an LLM txt file. And he was like, that's not a thing. And I'm like, it's a thing. I know. I knew it. I knew it in my gut.
And now it's becoming a standard. Like it's becoming a standard where like when you log into SEMrush or you log into Ahrefs, it's like, have us crawl your LLMs. And I'm like, I knew it.
Go with your gut. Like, if you're like, hey, people, look at your analytics. If people are searching one thing and you thought they're going to search another, like really think through that. If you think they're wrong and it's maybe bringing you the wrong kind of visitors, you know, So I, I don't know, I think listen to yourself a little bit when it comes to making business decisions.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: I love that. I mean, I think that's probably like the best advice you can give to like any entrepreneur. Like, listen to your gut. I mean, often time, like 90% of the time you'll end up being CR. If not, you probably won't be too much far off here. But I love that. Amber, thank you so much for being on the show and for like anyone that wants to get in touch with you. I know we obviously have your website, the activemedia.com anywhere else that you'd want people to, to find you out or.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: My newsletter can be
[email protected] that's kind of like my link tree that has all my free stuff. And if you want to learn more, download some of my guide. It's on there.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Perfect. So we'll add that in the show notes if anyone wants to obviously take a look at that. If anyone wants to take the rest of your game to the next level and go beyond those red flags that a lot of agencies have. And then yeah, Perfect. So thank you again for listening to the show. Until then, keep pushing, and we will see you in the next one.
