Big-Brand SEO Is Ruining Your Shopify Store with Will Soprano, Part 2 | Simple and Smart SEO

0:00Crystalwhat does it mean for SEO to be a part of every silo, every department of the organization? How do you delegate search? And measure results of search?

0:09Will SopranoIt's a really good question. And it's a complex answer. So I'm gonna try to break this up into a few pieces. And I'm gonna start with a story of a conversation that I had.

0:19One of the most influential people in my life, she wasn't even in my life very long. Her name is Liz. This was like at that, ChatGPT had around for two years. Like, so I was at this like realization point and I was starting to do some R&D on like, what does this mean?

0:34I wasn't trying to figure out what other people were doing.

0:36I was thinking totally independently. I wasn't chasing what other people were doing. And so I was having this conversation with her about like what's happening, and like the way that I'm currently, or the way that I was currently seeing it at the time and like, like letting her know like it's probably gonna change even more.

0:51Here are the three buckets, but it might change more. I'm not really sure.

0:54So Liz's background, she wa- she's an executive director at IBM for, I don't know, long, long, long time.

1:00She's a long-standing IBM vet, I think like 20, 20-something years. And she really knows how to build businesses because she learned how IBM builds businesses.

1:08And she taught me a lot of higher levels of thinking that I hadn't yet gotten to and didn't even know existed. And as we're having this conversation, she goes, "Oh, so SEO is really more of a philosophy and a way of thinking than it is a task. Even though there are tasks associated." And I was like, "Yeah, exactly."

1:29She goes, "Oh, okay. So SEO should then be a part of like the conversation of the very beginnings of a business.

1:35And a part of all of these C-suite executive-ish level conversations."

1:41And I was like, "Yes, exactly. Yes." And I had never said it because I didn't think I was allowed to say it.

1:48But she said it, and I was like, " Oh, if you're saying it, then I can say it." And so thing one, I'll kind of paraphrase what she said. SEO isn't a ta- I mean, there are tasks associated, but

2:00SEO is more of, of a philosophy.

2:02you wouldn't do marketing without either a chief marketing officer or a director of marketing.

2:09You wouldn't do it. And if you wanna find your customers and help them find you, we should probably have, like, a chief optimization officer.

2:17Or a director of optimization.

2:19So that somebody can be a part of these higher levels of conversations, so that these things can happen.

2:24'Cause that's where the real benefit happens.

2:26If we're down at the very bottom and we're, you know, optimizing page speed.

2:30And, just doing all the tasks, we're missing all the revenue opportunities.

2:34And so we've gotta be in those other rooms in order to impact revenue.

2:38So SEO is a philosophy of finding our customers and helping them find us.

2:47As much as it is the tasks that go along with that. But part and parcel to the philosophy is is recognizing those inefficiencies within either the operation or within the

3:00marketing that are stifling growth, choking rev ops.

3:04Realizing that, like, email is saying this, social is saying this, and search is saying this.

3:09We've got three different messages. Only SEO would recognize that if they're put in the position to be able to recognize that. So yeah, so that's what SEO is now, and maybe always has been

3:19Crystalone of tools that I built for myself, because people are talking about, semantic strategy and different things. And I realized, I was like, that's a good lens to evaluate your strategy across those platforms and across those deliverables.

3:32Does the semantic intent line up across all of those? And so it was like a quick way to be able to say, okay, yeah, if social's saying this, the email should say this.

3:41Like, all of these things should be in alignment, but are they? And how quickly can you evaluate that?

3:47Again, for small business people, you gotta do it quickly.

3:50We gotta put this thing into action today and see if it works by, tomorrow. I love creating tools like that.

3:56And I was curious, with the tools that you use and the knowledge that you

4:00have, what's your preference?

4:01What are you using to take your skills to the next level?

4:05Will SopranoSo I'm kind of tool agnostic, it depends on what we're doing.

4:09If we've got a site that's got a lot of the fundamentals down or most of them. And there's a lot of good content and like, you know, we're, we're looking at optimizing what exists today.

4:21There's this great tool that does what you're talking about.

4:25It analyzes semantic things and I think Semrush has one, and There's another one that I prefer, I just can't remember the name of it.

4:33But for that specific thing, that, that's a tool that I like.

4:37But I, I actually prefer to build. And what's making a large difference for us is building internal tools that address specific needs that we have.

4:47One of them being a fact checker. Good luck with creating content today because the facts are gonna be a mess.

4:53And you're not gonna be able to tell, like, what's true and what's false. And then AI fact checkers, they don't work. They

5:00can't work. They don't have any way to work.

5:02So you really have to build something. You have to build something that's deterministic rather than probabilistic. So we just found that it was cheaper for us to build it rather than try to source it.

5:11And then verify whether or not that s- that thing actually works. 'Cause you have to kinda like pay to find out.

5:17So yeah. So we built a tool for that, and it's like 98.7% correct. So that's been a huge boon for us.

5:25we're automating reporting. We have to conduct an interview for the campaign or the optimization, and then but once we do that and we have all the, all the good information, we're able to automate the rest.

5:36And so we create a campaign. We put in all the information.

5:40That tool then creates a line item on the report, which sends it to a repository.

5:46Which is one place for-- It's kinda like a command center for senior leadership to be able to see what's going on.

5:51And report on what's going on.

5:53And they can see at the campaign level, at the optimization level, and they can see everything that's going on over the last

6:00month.

6:00But the other thing that this tool does is it takes a screenshot of the SERP. And then it generates a report.

6:05Now all I have to do is edit the report.

6:08And so I take all that AI mumbo jumbo and I move it to the side. I put my eyes on the report, and I see what the actual audit is.

6:17And I communicate that in plain language so that everybody knows what we're doing here. I pass off the audit. The audit goes to two places, one to SEO so that we can coordinate what needs to happen, whether that's with content, whether that's with marketing, brand, dev.

6:32And the other report goes to the person who's in charge of the campaign.

6:36Who is ultimately overseeing the campaign. And so we created this tool that does all this for us. It handles the reporting.

6:42It runs the audit, and it takes a screenshot of the SERP. And it provides visibility up and down the ladder.

6:48And, and, and again, this kind of goes back to like, what's the role that SEO plays, right?

6:52We're not just here doing tasks. We're providing visibility to senior leadership so that they know where there are revenue problems and

7:00where we're impacting revenue.

7:01the other thing that is a huge tool in my tool belt is building the artifacts and the documentation that we need to do good work.

7:10And by that I mean like identifying the ICP, building out the personas.

7:15Doing all of that in a way that's driven by data. Like, how do you do that?

7:19You know, you don't just shove a bunch of data into Claude, I'll tell you that.

7:23So I'm, I'm helping our our brand team because I've done-- Because I come at a product, like I know how to build this stuff.

7:29So I'm helping our brand team build out these artifacts and these playbooks.

7:33Which will heavily influence our work because content can't write good content if they don't know the ICP and the personas, right?

7:41we're realizing there are some opportunities for product market fit.

7:44And again, like this goes back to like, what's the role that SEO plays? Like I'm recognizing opportunities in product market fit. Social can't see that. Email can't see that. Brand can't see that. I can because I've got Google Search Console, so I can see why they're coming here.

7:59And then

8:00I can read what they're supposed to come here for.

8:03And if those two things don't align, there's a PMF problem.

8:06The only team that can see that is SEO.

8:08CrystalOh, that is so awesome. I appreciate everything you shared there.

8:11But man, I love that, the fact that you're building internal tools and the... I feel like that's one thing that, small businesses, they can bring in.

8:19And that's gonna be my next question is how do small businesses do it? But I just wanna kinda share some insight of how I do it in my own business.

8:26Let's say I do a brand interview.

8:29All of these artifacts that you're talking about, what I love about a program or, service like Claude, and I prefer it now over ChatGPT and even Gemini, and I'll probably, change my mind, but I have all three of them right now.

8:40I work in all three of them. I'm like, "Ah, I don't wanna have subscriptions to everything." But sometimes this one does it better.

8:45I can give the project all of the information, and then Claude helps me stay true to that information.

8:53Like it helps with drift because like I th- feel like as a human we can get distracted and it's wait a second, this

9:00wasn't the mission.

9:00My instructions to, my GPTs and my helpers and my Claude whatever LLM support I'm using is "Hey, help me stay focused on the mission."

9:09Like I don't want any, squirrel suggestions about what I wanna do next.

9:13I want you to refer to the documentation that I provided you, not make any assumptions about anything else. And let's stay aligned with what our goal is.

9:22So I say all that to just provide an example of like small business-wise how people can put that into practice.

9:28But you had said that a lot of times small businesses think, "Oh, the big business is doing it this way, so I should do that as well." say that's a trap, and so I wondered why is that a trap? And what are some of those big company tactics that hurt a small business?

9:43Will SopranoYeah.

9:44Yeah, it's a big trap. So the only company that gets to act like Apple is Apple. The only company that gets to act like Nike is Nike. These are very large, very unique, very mature businesses. That are going to be treated differently by the bots, by Google, by

10:00all these companies, and by customers.

10:02The way that customers perceive these companies is very different than the way that they're gonna perceive anything else.

10:09Literally anything else. Even if it's another large business.

10:12So if it's true that one large business, you know, should be careful about, what they take from another large business, it's really true for a small business.

10:20So we can look at how something is built and maybe philosophically, like why?

10:28But we need to be careful about how we implement.

10:32That's the trap. Here's a good example.

10:34So Amazon has removed their question and answers from their platform Because they have an AI. So a small business might-- A small e-comm business might see that and go, "Oh, okay. I need to have a chatbot, get rid of my questions and answers."

10:48Wrong. So wrong. Amazon already has a strong domain authority. They're already an accepted e-commerce platform. They throw up a page today, it's... So long as they have all the,

11:00you know, right keywords and are doing everything the, the right way and aren't being spammy.

11:04They throw up a page today, it's somewhere findable you know, within a week, maybe tomorrow.

11:09If, if I was a small e-commerce business today, I would be implementing questions and answers. I would not be implementing a chatbot. So that's a really tangible example of like, you know, we still need questions and answers. Those things still drive a ton of traffic.

11:24Pick up a lot of eyeballs, really help the humans.

11:26And questions and answers feed the bots.

11:30Which means that we're more likely to be served as the answer in the answer engine.

11:37It's one thing to look at, a large business and be like, "Okay," like, "that's generally kind of where I'm..."

11:42" I kinda see myself as that," or, "They're in my space," and, "That's the, the lead dog in the race."

11:48It's okay to kinda like look at that and go, "Okay," like, "how are they doing that?"

11:51What's impactful is when we look at that and we go, "Okay," like, "why did they do that?

11:56What was their intention and what was the impact?"

11:59Will Soprano:

12:00Okay, so they did this for this, and the impact was this.

12:03Okay, so my goal then is to create that impact. And I can do that any number of ways, right? Like there's a bunch of ways to skin the cat.

12:12So then I need to figure out the way for me to create that impact in a way that works for my business and my customers in my very specific, area of the internet.

12:22CrystalI'm, really getting into Shopify catalogs and cleaning up the data sources of Shopify catalogs that feed into Google Merchant Center. Start with the impact. I love that.

12:32That's such a succinct way of saying my philosophy. Is, okay, what are we actually trying to do? What are we actually trying to accomplish?

12:40Because it's at the end of the day, there's a lot of different things you can do, but what is the actual impact that you're trying to make or have or accomplish, and what's the fastest, most efficient way to get there?

12:51Small business thinking and you have to do the most with what you have.

12:55Will SopranoDo you know why Netflix is the behemoth that it is? And it has started to lose market share, and it

13:00is not the largest streamer. That is YouTube.

13:01But do you know why Netflix is the behemoth?

13:04CrystalI don't

13:05Will SopranoI don't know if it's written in their mission, but if you look at everything that they've done, their ethos it might not even be in their mission, but their ethos based on their actions, their ethos is to be a disruptor.

13:18They started off by sending DVDs to your home.

13:21And then they started letting you stream, and everything that they've done, they've disrupted.

13:28But they didn't just disrupt the market, they've disrupted themselves.

13:32So they started off with DVDs Then they got rid of DVDs. They disrupted themselves. Everyone was happy with DVDs.

13:39They could've just waited for somebody else to build the streaming platform, but they didn't.

13:44They disrupted themselves. Not only did they build the streaming platform, but they removed the DVDs. Like, they could've kept making money on that, and they said, "No, we're gonna disrupt ourselves." And they have continued.

13:55They were the first company to invest in making their own content.

14:00And now what does everybody do? Now everybody does that, right? Like Hulu and all these other ones, like that's what they do.

14:05And now guess what they're not doing anymore? They're cutting back on how much they spend.

14:09They're disrupting themselves. They're always disrupting themselves. So the best way for a small business to impact the market is to disrupt it.

14:16If it doesn't work, okay, fine. Let's find another thing.

14:19When we're small, we're more nimble than the large companies, right? So a small company can move a lot faster than I can in my Fortune 500. And so when we're small, we've gotta use that to our advantage because if we don't and we just kinda like get comfortable, guess what?

14:37The big guys are eventually going to catch up to us. It takes them a while, but eventually they do.

14:42And then they put all their money and their brand power behind it, and then we're squashed like bugs.

14:47So as we're small and we're growing, we've gotta continue to disrupt.

14:51If we continue to be nimble and use the advantage that we have, which is being small, if we continue to use that, eventually, like we grow.

14:59And

15:00we grow to a size that's like a medium. "Okay, now we can be more strategic, and now we can leverage the brand power that we have to build more brand power to get more market share."

15:10And so it all starts to compound on itself. But we've gotta use what we have to our advantage.

15:15So if we're a big company, what we have to our advantage is money. I was working with one of the junior members of our team and he was like, "Hey, we need to help this department save money."

15:25And I was like, "Uh-uh, no. Wrong, wrong way to think." He was like, "Well, why not? Like, isn't it good if we save money?"

15:30And I was like, "Well, yes. It's actually better because we're a big company. It's better that we get more efficient with money."

15:36One of our advantages as a large company is that we have spending power.

15:40If we remove that, we're cutting ourselves in the foot. So I'm not saying that, like, big companies should just willy-nilly spend money. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that if we optimize the spend to get more efficient with it, then we can spread that out to other markets.

15:54And we can gain more market share with the same amount of money.

15:58So now we're not asking for more

16:00money, we're spending the same amount that's already been budgeted.

16:02And we're increasing revenue as a result. Now, conversely to that, if we're a small business, we probably wanna save money.

16:10Because if we become more efficient and we're able to increase revenue by spending less, then we can take that money, stop spending it, spend it over here to do something that's disruptive.

16:19So if we're a small business, we wanna use that to our advantage, and we wanna act as if we're a small business because we are.

16:26Or a medium-sized business, because we are. And then conversely to that, if we're a big business, we don't wanna act like small businesses. We wanna act like big businesses.

16:34Ironically enough, I learned this lesson by studying market dynamics within Major League Baseball, of all places.

16:42I'm a huge baseball nerd.

16:43And whenever a large market team tries to act like a small market team, it doesn't work.

16:51When they don't use the resources that they have optimally, it doesn't work.

16:56But when a small market team uses their resources in their

17:00way optimally, it does work.

17:01A large market company can't act like a small market company, and the converse to that is true too. Small companies can't act like big companies. It doesn't work.

17:09Crystaltwo examples from very small businesses, micro businesses, my own. I feel like I kinda created my own blue ocean with senior night gifts.

17:18Because I don't know if I ever told you that I'm an artist. And like I make these giant numbers, like I actually manufacture them.

17:25And then I design desi-

17:27Will Sopranooh, very cool

17:28Crystaland put them on the number. And so that's my business. I ship them nationwide.

17:32I saw numbers being made, but no one made the sports numbers. Like I know sports numbers. I'm an athlete. I was a volleyball coach.

17:39Like I know sports numbers. So my numbers look different.

17:42They're not just

17:42Will SopranoRight right right right

17:43Right, They look like jersey numbers. Very cool. Very cool.

17:46CrystalEx- Yeah. So of course, people started copying me.

17:49I noticed they don't get what jersey numbers are, so I wasn't really that worried about it, but they really undercut me on price.

17:55So I'll be honest with you, the first one I ever sold was $30, but that same

18:00one now is like $300.

18:01I've learned my lesson with that. And I also learned that, I'm not competing on price, and if there's gonna be a lot of people coming into the market to fight over that $30, I need to pivot.

18:11And also maybe now I'm offering the actual jersey numbers.

18:15Just giant wood numbers that people can make their own.

18:18And so then after that, it was like, okay, what else can I make?

18:21Giant senior photo props. I can make all sorts of numbers, and now I have light-up numbers or whatever.

18:26It's like you said, I didn't realize it, but I was constantly disrupting myself.

18:30Because, people would encroach on whatever I was doing and I was like, "Okay I have to do it better, but I also have to add something, that makes me a little bit different. That brings in people for a different reason."

18:40And I help my dad with his lawn service, and he's experiencing the same thing.

18:44You can go to Lowe's now and get a mower, like a zero-turn mower for $2,000 or $3,000.

18:49So he's realized, "Okay, because I don't even wanna do the weed eating or the edging or that, high-intensity labor work anyway.

18:56Let me do the jobs that I originally didn't wanna do, which was the

19:00big cleanups, where I take in my commercial mower and knock stuff down."

19:03So it's just interesting how you start to see the competition as a, catalyst for disrupting yourself, you can grow your business. So I just wanted to throw that out there for those super small businesses, just a couple examples I've seen.

19:17Will SopranoThat's amazing. I love all of that. That is so good.

19:21The reason that you and your dad are able to do that is 'cause you know your ICP and you know who you are. And this is a problem in SEO where SEO looks outward and they go, "Okay, like, what's the market and what's our competition?"

19:32All that does is create copy pasta. What are we doing?

19:36What you've just described, Crystal, is you've just given a masterclass in inefficient markets.

19:42We don't need to take econ class or a business class to learn these things.

19:47In fact, you're not gonna learn that in a business class, and you might learn about inefficient markets in econ. You might.

19:52Probably not Econ 101, though. But inefficient markets, what that means is that a market becomes efficient when everything is

20:00moving in one direction.

20:01That means that there is an inefficient way... Like, there is something in there that is inefficient. And it's our job to exploit the inefficiency. Another way to say that is zig when everyone else is zagging. But the only way that we can exploit those market inefficiencies is if we know who we are and we know who our ICP is.

20:17Specifically to talk about your numbers, ' cause that was a really good example, the 30 versus 300. You started off at 30 bucks.

20:23Other people came in to, you know, compete with you on price, and they were like, "Hey, " we're gonna provide a worse product at $20," I guess.

20:29I, I don't really know, but I'm guessing it's cheaper, maybe $10.

20:33"So we're gonna do it at 20." And you could've tried to compete with them on price and say, "Oh, well, you know, I'll go down to 19." And instead, not only did you go up a little bit, you went up a lot a bit.

20:44And that was exploiting the inefficiency because you said, "Hey, no. The market here is actual jersey numbers. Not any number."

20:53And so you've exploited the inefficiency. And you charged a premium to do it. And you should

21:00never, so long as you're at the size that you're at and the scale that you're at, so on and so forth, so long as your unit economics are what they are today, you should never try to compete on price.

21:09It's not until your business changes that then you can start looking at, "Oh, okay, maybe I can provide this at a lower cost or whatever."

21:15But yeah. So you just, you gave a expert level course on inefficient markets. Good job.

21:21CrystalThank you. That's awesome to hear. It's something I'll have to follow up with you off air.

21:25How do you know when it's time to change? You know what I mean? Yeah. So that's a whole nother conversation.

21:31But I really appreciate, the feedback that you've given, the knowledge that you shared.

21:35It's just been amazing, Will.

21:38So if a company wants to work with you, can people reach out to you directly? Or, if someone wants to follow you, where's the best place to do that?

21:45Will SopranoPretty easy to find. If you just search my name in Google, I'll pop up. Will Soprano is my name. I'm on LinkedIn. Anybody should reach out to me.

21:53If you have questions, Come say hi.

21:55I've got enough work.

21:56I don't need work. Happy to have a conversation if someone wants to hire

22:00me. But yeah, just come say hi. I'm fairly easy to find.

22:03I mentor people on GrowthMentor but you don't have to go there to schedule some time with me. I don't charge for any of that.

22:08I give anything away for free. If I know it, you can know it. That's not how I make my money. So just come say hi. You can find me on LinkedIn. I don't have any other social media, but I'm pretty easy to find.

22:19CrystalAwesome. I will put that in the show notes and, you'll be hearing from me. I got a few things to follow up on from this conversation.

22:31So Will, thank you so much for being here today on The Simple and Smart SEO Show Podcast. You dropped so much helpful information.

22:34Will SopranoThanks for having me. I appreciate it. This was a great conversation

22:37CrystalYes. All right, guys, I'll catch you next time.

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