In this episode you’ll learn how Brian from Backlinko made $100,000 from a 2,000 person email list, the specific metrics for optimizing YouTube videos AND 1 tactic that permanently changed OkDork after this episode.
Brian gives a ton of actionable tips to help improve your SEO and some surprises like having more pages doesn’t necessarily make your site easier to find in search engines. Get ready to take some notes because you’re going to want to use this stuff right away.
Lessons learned in this episode:
- How to not get bored creating niche content.
- With mastery comes greater enjoyment.
- How Brian made $100,000 on a 2,000 person email list.
- Most course purchases are made near closing.
- Simplify your marketing and don’t overwhelm your customers.
- Who’s on your list matters.
- Embrace beginners mind to learn new skills.
- Using “pattern interrupts” to make your videos better.
- How and why to buy online courses to shortcut learning.
- Mastering audience retention and why it’s important.
- Quantity of information is not as important as quality.
- Promotion tips and tricks for new content.
- Avoiding premature automation.
- How to evaluate existing properties for growth.
- Why more content can negatively impact SEO.
- Enhanced and compressed goal setting.
- Delete old content that’s not adding value.
The Challenge: Use the step-by-step instructions to delete under-performing content.
Leave a comment and tell me how you did on this week’s challenge!
Links discussed in this episode:
Video Creators with Tim Schmoyer
118 responses to “SEO Case Study With Brian Dean”
This is a fantastic podcast.
Great episode! I enjoyed it, and I learned from it.
Great podcast. The only thing I would’ve added is to 301 redirect the page or pages you are deleting.
Great ideas (I think) but I’m the newest newby there is so I don’t really know what I don’t know…you know? Haven’t started my blog but am researching to figure out how to do this. Thanks for (hopefully) pointing me in the right direction.
Wow, great episode!
There were so many awesome and actionable ideas, but my big take-aways as a total online business newbie were:
#1 – Focus on developing truly high quality content (that’s super useful to your niche audience… even if that audience isn’t massive)
#2 – Play the long game, and don’t be afraid to invest a lot of time/effort into a piece of content (make it evergreen) or learning something deeply
#3 – Simplify your marketing, don’t overwhelm your audience
#4 -Think of what you’re procrastinating on professionally, get specific, and commit to (re)learning or mastering that with a beginners mind
Entertaining and insightful, I learned a lot!
Reese’s Peanut Butter cups are my favorite candy bar.
Love the show! Love how you ask for specifics/ examples and really probe into topics. Thanks for all your hard work.
I really enjoyed your interview with Brian. The questions were excellent. Just what I needed to learn today. Still looking for a way to share my vegan dessert recipes. May use YouTube.
Thanks, Gayle
Twix
One of the most actionable tip-laden podcasts yet! Thx!
Great content on this post. I’m heading on over to Google Analytics to check my stats and prepping myself to delete!
Wanted to give you a thumbs up on Google Play – but they don’t give the option to give you a like, that’s a bummer.
Instead of YouTube I am embedding private Vimeo Videos on my blog. With YouTube people get distracted with competitor content. I want people to stay with my content. How will the tactics be different for me?
Great show with great tips!
My favourite candy bar is Daim. 🙂
Great podcast! SEO is such obtuse voodoo to me it’s great to hear some tangible pointers.
Good stuff fellas. Been focusing on the 100% of stuff that works the last couple weeks so that was good reinforcement. Also relates to the deleting of shit that doesn’t.
solid episode, heaps of takeaways. I really like the way you ask questions.
9 Tacos out of 10. Dropped 1 taco for audio quality. I still enjoyed those other 9 tacos…deeeeelish!
Great stuff
There’s so many golden nuggets in this episode. I always thought having more content was better, but when Brian explained why less content is better, my mind was blown.
My favorite candy are the gummy bears from Trader Joes. 🙂
I plan to listen a second time!
Loved this episode, particularly the counter-intuitive advice on improving SEO for websites by reducing pages.
Nice episode. My favorite candy bar is Milky Way. Not sure why, but it seems like my first comment disappeared
Hmm, odd, now I can see my first comment. Glitch I guess.
Hey Noah, love this episode, and the podcast in general. Keep up the awesome work.
Interesting tidbit about the way YouTube interprets viewer retention rates from short videos with hgher rates compared to longer videos with a lower viewer retention rate
Great podcast Noah! Aside from the content packed into your interviews, I also take note of how you keep the conversation flowing with relevant questions and how you sprinkle humor throughout. I have the conversational skills of a 4-year old, so your podcast provides a learning opportunity on so many levels.
Thanks again, and I’m already looking forward to your next one. Oh, and my favorite candy bar is prob Mounds, 3 Musketeers a close second. What’s yours?
Liked the show. Step-by-step instructions – if you don’t know how to do this you shouldn’t be here – awesome. My favorite candy bar is Milky Way.
They say your hair grows faster if you cut it often. I guess the same goes with content. Delete those low traffic pages and improve your SEO. Fav candy bar – Ocho bar with caramel and peanuts. I eat two of them at a time they are so good.
Loved this episode! Very insightful
Very interesting interview, this guy rocks in SEO! He must eat tacos all the time…
Great show – now lots of work to implement!
Listened to this a few days ago on my drive home from LA… this was easily the best podcast I’ve listened to in 6-12 months. Top 10 of all time. You and Brian killed it!
This must have been my favorite podcast episode for quite some time! Loved the whole conversation between Noah and Brian and got lots of input. Can’t wait for the next episode, Noah …
You’re so right – “it’s ‘easy’ to find customers when you’re very specific”. As a marketer who can solve a lot of different problems, that’s actually a bad thing for me because people don’t always “see” their problems in my solutions. But as I’ve niched down, I’ve gotten more traction. Thanks for a great episode!
<3 🙂
It is great to see people committed to quality content. In a society of more is better, we lose sight of the truth: people will respond to quality!
Great stuff. Brain’s work has had a massive influence on my own business already. Gonna dig into the notes and apply some more of his ideas this week 🙂
I listened and Love Brian’s stuff!
I’ve been doing SEO for a while now but never thought about his recommendation at the end where he says to delete the pages that are not doing anything for your website. And how you retain more “link juice.” Great stuff!
I loved this episode. It as a lot of compacted info and it’s inspiring at the same time. Great job Noah and thanks for sharing so much value for FREE! I am always looking forward to Tuesdays!
Great Podcast! I’m a big fan of Brian Dean. I follow his blog and receive his email blast. I highly recommend this episode to anyone in the SEO field. Cheers!
Hi There, Taco Man.
I must say you inspired me.
Brian has an awesome blog and I read almost all of it.
It’s great to hear the 2 of you together, which give awesome tips!
Will be happy to hear some tips of you on the start of the blogging way!
Cheers, Taco and Bear, Hell yeah
Thanks for getting him on the show! I’ve spent over 10 hours since then combing through his stuff. It’s been awesome.
This was a great episode, as soon as it was over I went into my site and deleted over 330 ‘dead weight’ pages!
Had the same issue with the super fast audio, was expecting you at the end to say it was intentional, to show how much time you had now saved. Time that should be spent implementing the advice given.
Ha, that would have been funny. It was an error on our side. Should be fixed if you listen to it now. Learning and improving.
Especially loved the ideas of one blog post per month and the 90 day year. Implementing both. Thanks Noah & Brian!
your content is good. I liked your youtube channel. thank you very much for creating videos on youtube. it is very beneficial.
Awesome as always!
Great episode. I am curious about the removing old content part. Would Brian then recommend going out to Google and using their URL removal tool? Not a big candy bar fan, but I can throw down on some Swedish fish.
Great information and a fun listen. It’s going to be difficult to fit one year of goals into four months.
I also like Payday; I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite, but really good!
Great content, clear and actionable! Thanks Noah, gracias Noah!