SEO Strategies: Proven Tips for Effective Digital Marketing – ep 108

Mostafa Hosseini  00:03

Welcome. For entrepreneurs in this episode, you will discover how to make SEO scalable and systematized why you need to constantly evolve, evolve, marketing and SEO. What will SEO or Search Engine Optimization look like in the future, and you will watch yours truly get exposed and coached by my friend, Stephen Spencer. Welcome, Stephen. Thanks for having me. So, the topic today is the role of intuition in Stephen is a genius at what he does.

 Let me do the proper introduction to Stephen dive into a very conversation and he’s one of the best in the SEO in the SEO world. So let me do the proper intro. Stephen Spencer is an SEO expert, founder of the agency concepts as selling author, he has books, O’Reilly, SEO, social ecommerce, and Google Power Search as optimized websites of some of the biggest brands in the world. bloosh. Although Sony and Zappos Stefan hosts that podcast called Get yourself optimized, and marketing speak. COMM Stephen again. How’s your day going? So far?

Stephan Spencer  01:27

Gone. Fabulous.

Mostafa Hosseini  01:28

Love it. Where are you?

Stephan Spencer  01:30

I’m in Miami.

Mostafa Hosseini  01:31

Miami, Florida. What’s the weather like?

Stephan Spencer  01:35

It’s, it’s hot. But it’s beautiful. We’re on a lake. It’s called Enchanted Lake and it is enchanted. So we have all these amazing waterfall fowl that visit us all day long, like Egyptian geese and Muscovy, ducks, ibis and parens. And everything. Yeah, it’s really cool.

Mostafa Hosseini  01:56

Love it. So again, for you before I start, this is a kind of sparkly water. It’s not beer. For those of you who are watching, I’m not like running a live show and drinking beer just so there’s this new thing I just picked up and I’m trying and testing having it during the day because I almost fast every day. So like I could probably get a couple of scoops clean water cans, that is not going to break my fast. So let’s dive into it step by step. And what is your

Stephan Spencer  02:28

you broke up there, can you can you? Yeah, you’re breaking up a little bit. So what would just repeat yourself so I can answer the question.

Mostafa Hosseini  02:38

What is your story?

Stephan Spencer  02:40

Oh, my story. Okay. Well, I started an SEO in the mid 90s. I was studying for a biochemistry, PhD. And I dropped out to start an internet company and agency. And part of that was me being inspired to do that because I wanted to kind of jump on the internet bandwagon. I had attended a conference, I presented a paper there it was called the second international worldwide web conference.

And Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web was there as a keynote speaker and I talked very briefly to him. I met Rob McCool when when a name right, Rob McCool, that is a cool name. He is the inventor of Netscape server. So there was Netscape browser. And then there was Netscape server, he invented Netscape server. And prior to that, he invented httpd server that was from Ennis NCSA. And then he invented Apache after that. So Apache is running probably most websites on the internet these days.

Anyway, so I met him at this conference. And I just thought, wow, I should totally ride this, this internet wave. And simultaneously, I got kind of a push out of the nest because my advisor, the professor, who I was working in his lab said, You’re not working enough hours. You go home at six, and that’s not okay. Everyone else in the lab is staying till eight 9pm What the heck are you? Who do you think you are? Like, why have young kids I have, like, babies, I need to go home.

And so this was a point of contention. And it got to the point where he said, You know what, you’re not, you’re not gonna, you got to find a new lab. And that meant starting over, like, a year and a half into my degree having to go start over did not appeal to me. So I might, you know, I’ll just stop with a master’s degree, abandon the PhD and I’ll start a company. So as a blessing in disguise that happens, right? You get to know your spouse It tells you you’re, you’re going to get divorced.

And you’re blindsided by that that happened to me too. But ends up being this amazing blessing, I wouldn’t have wished it to go any other way. So this was the beginning of me on my journey of doing internet marketing and SEO, I hadn’t taken any business classes, marketing classes, really nothing much for computer programming. And even, it was all focused on biochemistry and molecular biology. So I was making it up as I was going along, but I just had a knack for it. And now, you know, decades later, I’m still doing it. But with with the additional bent of figuring out how to work in my spiritual mission into what I do with my agency, as well. So talk about that later.

And tie that in maybe to the topic of intuition if you’d like. But that’s just kind of how I got started story. And if you want to ask any other questions about it, happy to happy to elaborate. For

Mostafa Hosseini  06:08

sure. So what were you doing your PhD on?

Stephan Spencer  06:12

Biochemistry,

Mostafa Hosseini  06:13

biochemistry, okay. And then, and that. So what do you do these days? And who do you serve?

Stephan Spencer  06:21

Well, we do SEO primarily, we also do some social media and content production and conversion optimization, but mostly we’re known for SEO.

And that’s because of, in large part because of this big book, co authored the art of SEO. Like that’s, or an SEO. Okay, that thing. 994 pages. Yeah. co authored that. 994. So it’s practically 1000 page book.

Mostafa Hosseini  06:53

Wow, that’s a lot of ages. And

Stephan Spencer  07:00

it’s just like a homegrown kind of thing. This is legit published by O’Reilly, the textbook publisher, so

Mostafa Hosseini  07:08

and then how many editions have you guys released.

Stephan Spencer  07:11

So that’s the third that I was holding up. And we are now working on the fourth. And that will come out at Q in q1 of 2023.

Mostafa Hosseini  07:23

And I’m guessing you guys have to update that book, once a while. Because

Stephan Spencer  07:30

it’s painful. It’s painful. I don’t know what birthing a child is like. But this is the closest I’ve gotten.

Mostafa Hosseini  07:41

You have to go through and redeem and update and the whole the whole thing, probably every couple of years or so, right? Or more, and how often if

Stephan Spencer  07:52

Well, ideally, every two or three years, but this edition is five years old, no seven years old. So it’s been a long, it’s well overdue. But it’s a year to two year mission to do it. So we’re it’s serious business trying to write 1000 page book, or update 1000 page book.

It is many, many, many, many hours even with having co authors. It’s a ton of work. Have you

Mostafa Hosseini  08:24

ever been in a situation when you like just went through updating a big section and then other update came out with like Google and like, other guys? Oh, I just finished?

Stephan Spencer  08:35

Yeah, well, you know, the worst thing that could happen is the print deadline hits and then a major change.

Stephan Spencer  08:53

It was within days of the of the print deadline. We had already submitted everything and copy editing everything it all happened. And then Microsoft Live Search rebranded as being so yeah, all the screenshots, all the mentions of Live Search and everything had to be changed last last minute and we were in the 11th hour. And we did it that would have been talking about live search. Yeah, dodged a bullet there.

Mostafa Hosseini  09:28

Fantastic. So how did you end up in SEO? What was the journey like, like going from biochemistry to SEO helped me understand the connection there.

Stephan Spencer  09:40

Well, back when I was a little kid, I was 1213 years old. I was big into computers. I was a super nerd. I programmed in basic and machine language and assembly language and I was just super nerdy. I wrote my own bulletin board system from scratch a BBS. This is back pre internet days, pre World Wide Web. So I wrote a BBS and I ran it on my home phone line, and annoyed the heck out of my mother because she picked up the phone.

And then she’d hear the squealing sounds of of a modem. And she wouldn’t be able to make make any phone calls. So that was my early teenage years. And then I got to the point where I realized like, this is not healthy. I’m not I shouldn’t be staying up all night

Stephan Spencer  10:42

so I sold my computer gave away all my software, and I went cold turkey joined the track team during the cross country team cycling club and everything and then just, you know, got a life for the second half of my teenage or my high school years.

Stephan Spencer  11:11

Getting kicked out of a chemistry lab

Mostafa Hosseini  11:22

I think we’re out some connection issues. Yeah,

Stephan Spencer  11:25

I’m seeing my, my video going in and out. Maybe I should change my Wi Fi network to maybe see if that stabilizes it. So let me do they want to try it. Yeah, absolutely. I’ll be I’ll be gone for about five to 10 seconds.

Mostafa Hosseini  11:39

No problem. So again, while we’re waiting for Stefan, Stefan changes that internet connection we’re talking about SEO which SEO stands for search engine optimization. And Stephanie you’re back. I’m back. All right, I was just I was just giving what are you give us maybe finish up your story there and then I’ll ask my next question.

Stephan Spencer  12:08

Yeah, okay. So I think the the kind of the through line of the red thread through all of this is that I love and like reverse engineering stuff like D deconstructing black boxes and poking and prodding at them I as as a teenager when I got my

Stephan Spencer  12:47

so that yeah

Stephan Spencer  12:58

figured out how to scrounge a satellite dish from for free from people who wanted to just get rid of their satellite dish. This was in the very early days, like in the early 90s, when that was not a thing to have a satellite dish. So I could get, you know, TV stations in from overseas and stuff that was really cool. I just love figuring stuff out and, and reverse engineering stuff.

So that’s been through line through my whole life is to reverse engineer, what seems to be a black box. I want to know the unknowable.

Mostafa Hosseini  13:36

For sure, so you like you like deconstructing things? Like, I like that process too. And especially when I was I started doing that, that thing when I was a kid, my like, my dad would buy me toys, and in no time, I would just open it up and try to figure out what’s inside and how it works. And it’s like, son, I spend a lot of money on that. Like, I’m just curious to see what it’s like inside.

So I love doing that doing that as well. Yep. Love it. Love it. So you were breaking up a little bit in when you were saying so. Um, I didn’t catch the part where and how you ended up with an SEO

Stephan Spencer  14:18

Okay, so I was Yeah, that’s a that’s a good point. I don’t think I actually went into how I ended up studying SEO specifically. So I started the agency focused on web development, and, and working on things like online catalogs and corporate websites and that sort of thing. And back in the day, it was Alta Vista and Infoseek and web crawler and all those minor search engines.

And people would do silly stuff like create separate pages for each search engine, the same content but retooled and make all this spammy stuff. Looking back at it now, it just seemed ridiculous. But that’s what a lot of people did. And I thought there must be a better way. And then Google came out. And I’m like, thank goodness, because I hate doing SEO in the traditional way, I want to focus on that engine, because that engine is really cool. And comes back with great results. I think that’s the future. And so I, I bet on Google and my bet turned out to be correct, I wish I would have put money on it. Not just my own business and focus, but invested in it.

But you know, whatever. Everything happens in perfect timing. So I started doing SEO in earnest, really, in 1997 98 timeframe. And really focused on that primarily as, as the core business from maybe 2001 Onward, one of our biggest clients, or one of our biggest names, our early clients, that put us on the map and SEO was target.com. And we didn’t even get money from them. We convinced them to, to say yes to an audit, an SEO audit, that if they liked it, and they were getting value out of it, they would give us a testimonial on the use of their logo.

So we did that. And they loved it. And they gave us a great quote, and let us use their logo. And so that went on our website. And then that just started the floodgates. You just very first domino to fall. You know, you get some like, with my podcast marketing speak, one of the first people I had on my show was Jay Abraham. He was guest number 10. And all you have to do is name drop Jay Abraham, and it’s like, okay, yep. Where do I book? How do I get on your show? Yeah, first, I’m gonna make the difference.

Mostafa Hosseini  17:05

Love it. I love that strategy on how you just chase target. And you offered a free audit, as most people will probably focused on getting 1000s and millions of dollars from them. And then you just grabbed it and you use their logo. And that helps you get more clients. That’s very smart. Yeah,

Stephan Spencer  17:23

yeah. But the thing is, we have to create value. So if we didn’t deliver a very value laden audit, if we had cut corners and just try to do the bare minimum to get our outcome that we wanted, like, the universe doesn’t reward you for that. That’s that’s not how it’s supposed to work. Karma isn’t just in life. It’s in business, too. So we over delivered. And then, you know, God gave us lots of blessings from that. So yeah,

Mostafa Hosseini  17:55

love it. And so another thing I was I was surprised with is I thought SEO started when Google came out. But apparently you were doing SEO before Google. And that’s right, lice. What’s it like on Yahoo, and AltaVista, and those search engines? Exactly, yeah.

Stephan Spencer  18:13

And there were tools that helped to do it to create these doorway pages is what they were called, that were each designed to rank for that particular search engine. Infoseek relied heavily for example, on meta keywords, which is so ridiculous, so you could spam the heck out of the meta keywords and that Infoseek, but it wouldn’t work with web crawler, or one over when, you know, whatever other engines. So you would use a tool called Web position gold, and it would spin out all these pages that would be designed for each of the search engines, and then you upload them to your site. And it was just ridiculous. Oh,

Mostafa Hosseini  18:48

yeah, I remember, I ran a web agency from 2010 to 2018. And even in those days, I remember where there was days where we could just put a bunch of keywords on a page and put the meta keywords and it would just show up right up. A lot of our customers actually did really well surprisingly, like in multiple six figures just from that alone. Well,

Stephan Spencer  19:10

Meta Keywords actually, this is not a well known fact, But Google confirmed that they never counted meta keywords. Hmm.

Mostafa Hosseini  19:21

Very interesting. So um, give us a feel for people that are just not quite quite familiar with, with SEO, and they’re not that tech savvy give us what’s the definition of SEO? Like, what is SEO? What’s the definition?

Stephan Spencer  19:39

Yeah, so search engine optimization is optimizing or working to improve your rankings and traffic coming from Google organically from the unpaid editorial side of Google, not from the paid advertising side of Google. What used to be called AdWords ads. just called Google ads. So so the unpaid side, that’s where I focus.

And I help companies get higher rankings so that they get more organic traffic. And if you want to compare and contrast those two areas of Google paid versus Google organic, think of Google paid and getting really great results out of Google ads as developing an income stream versus developing an asset. With Google, organic, when you have an asset, and let’s say you take six months off, you go on sabbatical, or something actually did that for five months, back years and years ago, you go on sabbatical, and you leave everything. What happens to your paid search?

You know, everything that’s happening there, well, you’re not going to just let it run on its own, and come back and find that the coffers are empty, think Google, spend all your budget and then deliver it? No, you have to shut your ads off, because you’re going on sabbatical. But what if you shut off your SEO, I’m not going to write any more content, no more link building, I’m just going to put that all on the shelf for now I’m going to Fiji or wherever, right?

Well, because it’s an asset, it will continue to pay you dividends month after month while you are away, even though you’re not putting any additional effort into it. You don’t get that with Google ads, you don’t get the with really any other channel that is based on on staying on a treadmill. So that’s your F. That’s the difference maker, and it makes it very compelling to focus on SEO versus the other. The other channels love it.

Mostafa Hosseini  21:50

Yeah, well, that’s what I appreciate about organic SEO. I like the fact that you just mentioned like, even if you stopped doing it, it’s still there, and it will still bring traffic to you. Yeah. And unless you do some shady stuff, and Google punishes you for?

Stephan Spencer  22:05

Yes. Well, that’s where having good ethics and, and business principles, saves the day because you got to kind of get into your heart. And does this feel right to me? It if it’s against Google’s guidelines, and you’re embarrassed to tell a Google engineer what you’re doing, if you happen to run across that Google engineer? Well, you’re taking a risk.

But then if you also overlay on to that, does it feel right in my soul, and in my heart to do this? I feel like I’m doing some unfair manipulation here. And then you shouldn’t do it. Right? Because karma is real. What you put out comes back 10 times over. Now, if you’re doing something that’s a little bit shady, or a lot shady, then you’re inviting karma to give you a nice, big smack to to let you know how the law of cause and effect works.

Mostafa Hosseini  23:07

For sure, for sure. So let’s talk about making SEO scalable and systematize. What’s what’s the best approach to that? How can we make it happen?

Stephan Spencer  23:19

Well, if you have, let’s say that you’re not doing much of anything online right now. Right? So we’ll take the worst case example of let’s say, a one page website, Google does not like one page websites. That means you’re going to have to create a lot of new content. And why do you need all that content because the more pages, the more virtual salespeople you have in Google, each paying virtual salesperson if you want a nice big virtual sales force out there, pounding the pavement, trying to bring in searchers to your website to turn into customers.

You need a big Salesforce, you need to have a lot of webpages and not just spammy pages, spun pages of artificially intelligent generated content. Now, it has to be legit valuable content, and written with search engines in mind, but not written for search engines, written for humans and value laden content. And ideally, if you can make it remarkable content, that is the ideal. Remarkable as in worthy of remark. That is a definition.

I learned from Seth Godin, he wrote permission marketing. And he wrote unleashing the idea virus and the Purple Cow and all these other mazing marketing books. He was a guest on my podcast, a marketing speak amazing guy. So that is what you’re aiming for. Well, how do you scale that up? What if you want to have 1000 pages of quality A value laden content like that that’s worthy of remark. That’s a tall order, especially if you’re a small business.

You just have to start small and work your way up. But you want to build systems and processes, SOPs, standard operating procedures. And you want to use tools that help you to not necessarily rubber stamp or cookie cutter content or spin content, but will help you to do it more effectively. without as much grunt work. So just a few examples, let’s say that you’re writing articles for your blog, you’re producing videos for your YouTube channel, and you have FAQs, frequently asked questions, where do you get your ideas from? Well, you could just brainstorm and sit down with a pen and paper for a few hours. Or you could turn to a tool like also asked.com, which is a free tool. There’s a premium version that’s very inexpensive as well, but it just scrapes the content out of the people also asked box in Google.

When you do a search, let’s say it’s for, I don’t know, peanuts, or cheese, or homeschooling. You’re gonna get people also asked with some questions there that you can expand and see what the answers are. We’ve all seen those kinds of boxes in the Google search results. Well, that’s great fodder for ideas for videos, and blog posts, and FAQ is while this tool, also asked.com will take the boxes off of Google search results. And follow it down those rabbit holes.

Find because as you expand the questions, there are more questions that get added. So you click on expand to see the answer. Then there’s more, the box gets longer and longer and longer as you keep expanding this. So scrapes through all of that pulls all that content out and puts it into a really cool little tree chart, or graph. And then you can export that as a as an image or you can export that as a CSV file and pull it into Google Sheets.

You can recenter on one of the questions like oh, that’s a great question about homeschooling. I’m going to focus on that one. And then it redraws the whole tree structure with a whole new set of questions starting with that as the starting point. So this is a great way to systematize and scale ideation for blog posts and articles and FAQs. So that’s just one little piece. Interesting.

Mostafa Hosseini  27:55

Right? Yeah, go ahead. No, I just went on also ask.com. And I searched for follow up, because that’s what I specialize in. I’m trying to figure out what are people asking about follow up. So I could like create an article, create a video about it, and probably do a bunch of work that way.

Stephan Spencer  28:14

Yeah. So that’s a great way to start. Another way to scale this. Let’s say that you wanted to write about follow up might not be the best keyword to use. In this example, let’s use something like a prospecting. Okay, because I think you’ll get some more interesting results using this approach with that keyword. So just humor me here, we’ll use that keyword for the moment. If you Google, and you type in site, colon buzzfeed.com.

You could do this with any of the viral sites. I like BuzzFeed, it’s valued at over a billion dollars. And they have a massive team of incredibly gifted writers who understand what makes stuff go viral. So you’re using them as your inspiration for your own articles. Because we had to create some link bait or some link worthy content, and again, we want to scale it. So we can’t just you know, kind of hope that we stumble upon a good idea. We got to always have these pools of ideas that we can we can draw from BuzzFeed for this but we’re searching Google without having to go into the BuzzFeed site. So site colon buzzfeed.com There’s no space after the colon and then your keyword in this case prospecting.

Mostafa Hosseini  29:49

me try it and you will find

Stephan Spencer  29:51

there are some probably pretty good article ideas there for you. And you’re not going to copy and paste and and make A duplicate piece of content, no plagiarism here, we’re just using this as an ideation resource. But what a great way to start.

Mostafa Hosseini  30:18

So what happens when I do that? I, for some reason, I’m not able to bring that up, bring that up on my end. So site, Kallen, si

Stephan Spencer  30:28

te colon buzzfeed.com. This is all a Google search, and then prospecting.

Mostafa Hosseini  30:35

And then I’m seeing Am I attaching prospecting here on the

Stephan Spencer  30:38

after that so the second word after.com. So I’m getting some examples here of articles like none of these seem really relevant. The browser tool lets you see anyone’s email address. Well, yeah, yeah. Just homeschooling as an example here.

Mostafa Hosseini  31:06

homeschooling, okay, yeah. 12

Stephan Spencer  31:08

homeschooling tips for beginners and working parents. We tried homeschooling for a week. 16 celebrities who are actually homeschooled. 17, homeschooling during the corona, virus outbreak tweets.

Mostafa Hosseini  31:25

Okay, so how do I use? So what is that? What does that give me?

Stephan Spencer  31:29

These are ideas. If you are in that niche, you’re trying to figure out what am I going to write about? What am I going to write about that has viral appeal that has a hook to it? This is great inspiration.

Mostafa Hosseini  31:42

Got it. Okay. And so these are examples of topics. monetize,

Stephan Spencer  31:46

right? So we want systems, we want checklists, and standard operating procedures, SOPs, we want to be able to give this to a new team member and say here, watch the training video. Here’s the checklist, go do this search, pull up this tool. Here’s how you find a hashtag. This sort of stuff is reproducible and trainable then.

Mostafa Hosseini  32:16

Love it. Now, why? Why boss buzzfeed.com? Well,

Stephan Spencer  32:20

because they understand virality. And we don’t just want to have a good quality piece of content. Right? So here are here’s everything you need to know about prospecting, or here’s everything you need to do need to know about follow ups. I’m falling asleep just in the middle of saying that sentence, right. So that’s not really compelling. You got to sexy it up. You need to have the curiosity gap that you create for the reader. When you that title. They’re intrigued.

They’re, they’re compelled, they’re pulled in. There’s tension there that they have to relieve. And how do they relieve it? They click, they end up on your website, they read the article, and you don’t give them the punchline in the first sentence. No, you keep them reading you like you give. So you release the tension slowly, so that they read the whole article. If you gave the the punch line in the title, they would not even bother to click to read the article, let alone like the they wouldn’t even scroll through the whole article.

They wouldn’t even bother landing on your website. Right? Oh, yeah. Great to prospecting is in the follow up. I just made that up. Yeah, you just gave it away. You just gave it away. Don’t do that, like create a curiosity gap Creek tension in the headline, that you then continue to slowly release that tension line so that they keep reading through to the very end of the article.

Mostafa Hosseini  34:01

Love it. 16 secrets and stories about multiple marketing companies 17 MLM jokes that are funny and painfully accurate. Yeah,

Stephan Spencer  34:11

right. See, you gotta have that. There’s either controversy or humor, or something counterintuitive or surprising in there. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  34:24

JD mlm recruiting tactics. Yeah.

Stephan Spencer  34:29

Cognitive dissonance. Yeah, some of that makes you kind of stop and look like.

Mostafa Hosseini  34:37

So would you then copy that title? Exactly, or do we need to modify it? I think I know the answer,

Stephan Spencer  34:42

modify it or use it as inspiration. But don’t r&d it rip off and duplicate

Mostafa Hosseini  34:47

it? Yeah. I mean, put your own version and make it different instead of Yeah, modify. So it’s not an exact copy. Yeah.

Stephan Spencer  34:55

And you can do that as well. And because YouTube is the number two, sir So let’s say that you’re, you’re using a tool for YouTube called vid IQ. That right out of the browser extension you use that?

Mostafa Hosseini  35:12

I do not actually. Yeah, so vid IQ.

Stephan Spencer  35:15

It gives you all sorts of stats on each video, as you’re looking at it on on YouTube, but also, when you’re looking in the YouTube search results, it tells you how many subscribers that channel has without having to go to their channel. If I do a search for follow ups, or prospecting or whatever, in YouTube, the number two search engine and I can see because I have vid IQ installed, that some channels have many millions of subscribers and some have only 15 subscribers.

And then I compare that with the number of views on that topic of prospecting or whatever, then I can say, Oh, look at that video, it has way more views than subscribers. more views than subscribers means it busted out from its little niche of its core audience. Got a really good video then to r&d

Mostafa Hosseini  36:17

rip off. Because is that because the is that because SEO is that because people liked it or what what is like the role.

Stephan Spencer  36:27

That’s a whole other show, YouTube and what makes for the search engine algorithmic signals that work and also the recommendation engine, which actually is more important than the search engine of YouTube. Yeah, YouTube’s number two search engine. But most of the traffic you’re in watch time you’re gonna get for your videos is probably coming from the recommendation engine, those suggested videos on the right hand side.

 And so the most important thing is actually the the thumbnail if you have a really great quality, thumbnail, really enticing, creates that curiosity gap, very distinctive and brandable branded, so they can easily tell that that’s another one of your videos, and they just watch one of your videos, then they’re inclined to click on one of your next videos. Also, you use things like N screens in YouTube to help drive people to additional videos of yours. That’s at the end of the video, and you should watch this video and then this video over here.

You know, that’s n screens are and important, I guess in carts. But the other thing that you would do is you would make very branded and easily recognized thumbnails, which is the first thing that people look at, especially when they’re looking at the suggested videos. And in the search results to see the see the thumbnail first title second. It’s not all about the title in Google search for SEO for Google. Yeah, titles are the thing. That is the most important thing. The title tag is the most important thing on YouTube. It’s the thumbnail. That’s what that’s where people look first.

Mostafa Hosseini  38:23

For sure gang, if you’re watching or listening, if you have any SEO questions, put them in a comment and we’ll do our best to cover your questions. Now. Stefan, would you use any other sites out in the BuzzFeed to just get other ideas? And Oh, for

Stephan Spencer  38:36

sure for sure. I just gave that as an example. I love that example because they have so much content on so many different topics. But you could use distract, defy viral or distracted via the stratified.com Viral Nova. Ford panda Upworthy these are all just you know, more viral sites where they have lots of viral content. I’m sure you’ve heard of some of these.

Love it. Oh, for sure. And you’re just again, looking for inspiration for what to write about that will hook people. Yeah. And clickbait gets this bad rap like it’s a bad word. It only is if you are over promising and under delivering I want you to under promise and over deliver. Don’t say that number six will blow your mind and then don’t blow their minds.

Don’t even say that number six will blow their mind because you’re setting a very high expectation but really bait them with something that’s super compelling and intriguing and has curiosity gaps built into it. And then over deliver in the actual article or video

Mostafa Hosseini  39:53

of it and that will be in your title again.

Stephan Spencer  39:55

Yeah, so the title is the first thing that that is Gonna be looked at, typically. But you can also do that in, let’s say, you’re going to push this out on social media. So you have Twitter cards and the image for open Facebook, Open Graph and so forth, you put that image in to the HTML of the article. And that gets picked up and displayed in social media.

Well, that should be a really compelling curiosity inducing image. So you might want to use a viral meme or something really funny, or something that’s maybe riding on the coattails of some trending topic. And that helps draw the person in,

Mostafa Hosseini  40:45

for sure. So if I sell? I’m trying to figure out what’s the best way to go about finding keywords that I want to focus on? Like, for what I like, from what it sounds like, follow up is not a sexy keyword that I want to focus on. Right? How do I go about finding keywords that are relevant and sexy? And I could bring people in? And I’m guessing that might be a question for people?

Stephan Spencer  41:11

Yeah, there’s a lot out there for keyword research. There are a number of great tools, h refs.com semrush.com moz.com, and Mozi. is they’re just a few examples of great tools for keyword research. And within the tool sets, you’ll see multiple tools. So just within SEMrush, for example, you’ll have the keyword magic tool, you’ll have the content gap tool.

And on Ahrefs, you have the keyword gap tool. And what these tools do they help you look at different aspects of the keyword research aspect of SEO, or discipline. So for example, let’s say that you wanted to compare how you rank versus your competitors for different keywords to see where the gaps are. I want to see where my competitor is ranking for keywords that I am nowhere to be found for. Right, so arch nemesis. I don’t believe in that sort of thing.

No, I I think the world is big enough that you there’s enough for everybody. So it’s not, it’s not competition, it’s coopetition. But anyway, so you pick a competitor to analyze, and you see where they’re ranking and you’re not at all, you’re not in the first 10 pages, they’re on page one, you’re not in the first 100 results. This is a great report that you can run using either SEMrush or Ahrefs. It’s either called the content gap tool, or the keyword gap tool, depending on which tool you use.

 And you can get all these great keyword ideas. You just put in a competitor and set the parameters. So it’s one page one rankings for them, and nowhere pages one through 10 for you. If they’re on page six, and you’re on page seven, I’m not It’s not interesting to me. I want to be nowhere invisible for that keyword. I need to create some content around that.

Mostafa Hosseini  43:25

Okay. Interesting. Very interesting, right?

Stephan Spencer  43:31

Because you know, the old adage, you don’t know what you don’t know. Well start here and you’ll find out what you don’t know. You don’t know, like, oh, I had no idea that these were things that I could rank for and that I could get traffic on. And my competitor figured it all out for me. For

Mostafa Hosseini  43:47

sure. For sure. So gang go those sites are a traffic.com today get that right, Stephen.

Stephan Spencer  43:53

So a H R E F s.com? Ah, yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  43:58

Okay. The one that he said, sem rush.com. And then moz.com, Mo zed.com websites to get started, get some keyword research done and figure out what you got, and what keywords probably to focus on. Now. By the way

Stephan Spencer  44:16

to tie into what we were talking about, at the beginning and how there’s intuition in the title of this, of this episode, where intuition would fit in as you’re not just relying on tools to tell you what to write about or what to try to rank for or what to try and build links to. You’re tapping into the universal Google for some of that inspiration. Right? The Universal Google is, you know, above the upper worlds like to the heavens, you’re, you’re not just relying on your gut, you’re actually an antenna for for the other side of the veil. Alright, so you’re gonna listen For your intuitive feelings around, like, what should I write about? What should I?

How should I differentiate myself? In this content piece? What can I do that is going to stand out and make this piece remarkable. And just tune in just like listen, get in your heart and listen to what comes out. And you’ll be amazed, like this stuff is divinely inspired. So tap into it. MIT, take advantage of it, make use of it, because we all have that gift of intuition.

Mostafa Hosseini  45:40

Very interesting. So would you then maybe care to run some checks on Google and different different tools to see if there are maybe related topics or keywords to that intuition or topic that you came up with?

Stephan Spencer  45:57

Yeah, so let’s say that. So for you, if you’re trying to figure out what to write about that would attract your ideal client avatar. And your your specialty is follow ups like what would be would be the biggest problem that your clients face. The

Mostafa Hosseini  46:16

biggest problem is that, as I see it, is that they have a list of customers and prospects. And they’re out there spending a ton of time and money to bring and find new leads, while totally ignoring what they already have.

Stephan Spencer  46:32

So how to reactivate a cold list might be something that would appeal to that person.

Mostafa Hosseini  46:39

Mm hmm. Very cold list for sure.

Stephan Spencer  46:44

So you have a cold audience or you have on a stale email list, like these are keywords, people are searching for things like stale email list, or email list is stale. Or they’re searching for targeting a cold audience versus warm, or warm versus cold audiences.

Mostafa Hosseini  47:06

Cold audience like another issue that I know, I know for a fact people have is they hate to pick up the phone? Do I need to I do a keyword search for hate to pick up the phone? Or how to overcome fear of phone or so

Stephan Spencer  47:23

the term is cold calling that comes to mind and fear of cold calling. That would probably be a great article. So here, I’m just I’m tapping into my intuition to answer your questions around this like what would what would be motivating somebody to, to search while it’s either getting out of pain or getting into pleasure?

So fear, greed, they’re trying to get a problem solved? And if they have a fear, what’s another way of describing it? What if it’s an extreme fear? Well, that’s called a phobia.

Mostafa Hosseini  48:09

Like I don’t know, some of the fears are like they say, I don’t want to bother my customers. All right, I don’t want to be

Stephan Spencer  48:14

an excuse that that is, that is a justification because they are uncomfortable or fearful. Again, if we take this formula of let’s create a curiosity gap, let’s make this article remarkable and memorable. Well, we talk about cold calling, not as a fear, but as a phobia. How often do you hear that, like, fear you have fear of heights, fear of water, fear of? I don’t know why.

But fear of cold calling, phobia of cold calling, I think that is a hook. That’s a way of differentiating, then you could spin off so many different ideas off of that. You need a guy who’s here on this planet to obliterate the phobia of cold calling. That could be your hook on TV to get a book deal. So many things.

Mostafa Hosseini  49:23

Most of all we do is like, more like warm calling. Do I want to talk about fear of cold calling, and then be like, you don’t have to worry about this because you’re you could actually do follow up and do more more like warm calling.

Stephan Spencer  49:37

You could but here’s the thing. You’re going to try and establish yourself with something that is maybe counterintuitive or creates a curiosity gap. And if warm calling doesn’t create that curiosity gap, you’re not going to get any traction from it.

Mostafa Hosseini  49:57

Got it? Right.

Stephan Spencer  49:59

So if If I saw two books on the bookshelf at barnes and noble people, I guess occasionally we’ll go into a bookstore. So they see to two options. The warm calling Bible switch from cold calling to warm calling, here’s the, here’s the process and the other book is delete your cold calling phobia.

Or here’s how to delete your cold calling phobia or the the phobia of cold calling. Something along those lines. Okay, that’s interesting. I like that. I can one. That one hooked me. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  50:40

I like triggers or pain or a fear that people are like, Yep, I need to deal with that.

Stephan Spencer  50:47

Yeah, so there are different kinds of hooks. There’s the controversy hook, the original research hook, the humor, hook, utility hook, newsworthy hook, it’s a bunch of different hooks. And those don’t all have to be used, of course, but you have to have a hook.

Otherwise, it’s just like a ho hum yet another piece of content out there about cold calling or warm audiences or follow ups or whatever. There’s a bazillion pieces of content out there about that sort of stuff. You got to stand out. In SEO parlance. They refer to it as skyscraper content. Because it’s above and beyond every other piece of content out there. It’s like everything else is a house and you’re the skyscraper.

Mostafa Hosseini  51:32

For sure, for sure. Stefano, how do you what do you see in the future of SEO? What what’s going to happen probably within the next five to 10 years or so?

Stephan Spencer  51:43

Oh, gosh, so much. I mean, it’s this plan is going to be very different in five to 10 years. I’ll tell you that for sure. So let’s just stick to SEO, though, if nothing else changes significantly, in terms of what I think is going to happen on this planet in the next five to 10 years. Good stuff. I think I’m very optimistic. And I have a lot of faith.

But let’s just focus on SEO, if we were to just say that everything else is kind of same old, same old. But SEO continues at a faster and faster clip, got the Law of Accelerating Returns. That’s Moore’s law. Metcalfe’s law, you know, the speed of computing power and the price of it will, the price will have the speed will double every 18 months or one or the other. That’s Moore’s law. So that’s going to continue and make computers faster. And Metcalfe’s law, the network effect the power, the power and value of the network squares with the size of the network.

So all that’s happening just in the SEO space. Well, that means that we’re going to be using AI. A great quote from Peter Diamandis, the founder of the XPRIZE, and creator of the abundance 360. conference, he said that by the end of this decade, there will be two kinds of businesses. One are businesses that are using AI at their core, and the other businesses that are out of business.

So you’re going to have to be using AI, artificial intelligence will be an essential prerequisite to having a good business. How will that show itself we’ll be using tools like market Muse like surfer, SEO, and Jasper, to write content to come up with keywords and targeting different opportunities and analyzing the page for things not just like readability. But is this how quality is this? If I put this in front of an expert, would they give this a thumbs up?

 Would this be worthy of their time, you’ll have an expert system AI that will be able to determine that without giving it to the actual human expert. So that’s the world we’re moving into, is that kind of intelligence for SEO? And then on the flip side, What’s Google doing? They’re using more and more advanced API’s to determine if you were creating content using API’s or, you know, machines versus an actual expert, human expert, so they’ll be able to sniff out that stuff better and better and they will also be able to determine if you’re playing other kinds of sneaky games going against Google’s guidelines.

Mostafa Hosseini  54:44

Love it. So some of the AI tools that you mentioned, one of them was Jasper, what was the you mentioned a couple of other

Stephan Spencer  54:50

tools surfer SEO and market Muse

Mostafa Hosseini  54:57

use Yeah. And then do you saw this app is this where people that don’t know how to write or don’t have time to do it, and these tools will just come up with an article around a certain topic for you. Yeah.

Stephan Spencer  55:13

Or if they want to leverage their time, and right in half the time that normally takes. So they start with the outline, or at least the hook, and they feed it to the tool like Jasper. And then it writes the introduction, it writes the, the article content based on the outline you gave it, you could ask it to write the outline as well. But you have to have, you know, hands on,

Mostafa Hosseini  55:44

you have to at least read up the hand drawn,

Stephan Spencer  55:45

you can’t just rely on the tool to write everything for you, you can’t not fact check what it writes, you have to assume that everything is just not correct. And you don’t have to start with a blank page. What I do and I’ve done this for decades, is I would dictate an article to somebody like an assistant, who would then write a draft, and maybe even load it into WordPress for me, and then I would just tweak it.

So I’m not looking at a blank screen, looking at half written article, or at least a decent, like first draft, because I hate starting with a blank screen. So

Mostafa Hosseini  56:29

I think you would speak it out, give it to someone to edit it and add and modify and optimize it, then you would look back at it again. And make some final tweaks to it to make sure it is like your language and it works for you, I

Stephan Spencer  56:42

guess. Yeah, yeah. And garbage in, garbage out. That’s the programmer, adage, garbage in, garbage out. So if you give terrible inputs and instructions to the AI, Jasper, for example, is based on GPT. Three from open AI. And it’s amazing, amazing technology. But if you tell it a terrible instruction, expect terrible output. You need to fine tune what you asked for. Could you

Mostafa Hosseini  57:12

like speak like a rough draft and give it to Jasper and be like Jasper expand on this for me?

Stephan Spencer  57:17

Yeah, you could just say, write me an article about the power of the follow up in business phone calling.

Mostafa Hosseini  57:30

And it will do it, it will do it.

Stephan Spencer  57:32

In the more specific you are about it and you say and in the first paragraph, I want you to introduce what the difference is between warm leads and and cold leads. And also the difference between a referred prospect versus someone that came in cold from some ad campaign.

And then in the next section, I want you to explain how leads need nurturing, and existing clients need nurturing. And then in the next section, I need you to talk about counterintuitive ways to capture the interest and delight the client, even if they’ve been with you for years and they know exactly what’s on your mind and what you’re going to do and everything because you know, you’ve been working together for so long. How do you surprise and delight those people?

Then I want you to wrap it up by inviting them to download my white paper on closing techniques to get referrals from your clients.

Mostafa Hosseini  58:53

I am definitely going to give that Jasper tool and try I’ll give it a shot today. Actually, I haven’t on my screen right now. I heard about it like with our group like yesterday the day before about like just about all three what was that?

Stephan Spencer  59:08

There are no coincidences. Yeah, in fact what we just heard about it yesterday.

Mostafa Hosseini  59:14

And then you’re going for sure and so is trial

Stephan Spencer  59:18

as well. So you can get 10,000 words for free. Go to Jasper, I don’t get anything from this. This is not an affiliate like jasper.ai/free-trial and they’ll give you a 10,000 word trial. Free dash trial. Yeah. Oh, and by the way, I have a cool freebie too.

Mostafa Hosseini  59:42

Yeah, that’s that’s next actually posted about it. You are giving away four amazing gifts here to our audience. Can you tell us about it, please? Yeah,

Stephan Spencer  59:54

so I have Well, first of all, when You’re talking to somebody who is supposedly an SEO expert. And you don’t know SEO that that well. You don’t know which questions to ask. So you could end up getting snickered. So the first freebie is an SEO BS detector. It’s a cheat sheet of questions that you can ask you just subtly, surreptitiously slide them into the interview process. And they don’t realize that they’re trick questions.

So an example we actually talked about this very briefly earlier on in the in the interview, that Meta Keywords never counted in Google. What if one of my questions in the interview process for an SEO, either employee or or contractor or agency that I’m thinking of hiring is, tell me your process for optimizing meta keywords? How do you do that? That’s a good one, right? Because the only right answer is what are you serious?

Those never counted in Google. If they say, well, they don’t count as much now these days as they used to, like, Here’s the door, or here’s the virtual door. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, so that’s one. And then there’s a SEO hiring blueprint, which is my seven step process of screening candidates, not just in the interview, but what about beforehand, you can put little easter eggs or little tests inside of the job adverts, if you’re putting out a an ad to hire somebody, an employee or contractor could have like, some sort of problem solving riddle, or you could have an instruction that they have to leave a voice message instead of sending an email to put their application forward.

And if they don’t follow the directions, like okay, I’m not even gonna respond to this person. They can even follow a simple direction. They didn’t clearly read my job advert. Absolutely, I actually do that and he saves me hours upon hours, oh, my goodness, such a great little hack. Absolutely. It can work for any any kind of role not just for hiring an SEO 100%.

Then I have the SEO myth, white paper, there are a lot of myths, a lot of misinformation out there about SEO and how it works. I bust all those myths. And then the fourth piece of content there that you guys will like is chapter seven. Of that really big book I showed you the art of SEO chapter seven is on link building, how to get links because if you don’t get links, then you don’t get authority you don’t get importance.

You don’t look like anybody trustworthy or important to Google. And that whole chapter is essential reading. Love

Mostafa Hosseini  1:02:52

it again, to to get access to these four gifts go to Marketing speak.com forward slash Mustapha marketing speak.com forward slash Mustapha is m o s t a FA, and get access to these four very generous gifts.

The SEO BS detector is which is a set of questions you can use to screen and qualify your SEO experts. The hiring blueprint, the SEO Heron blueprint that you can use to hire your SEO person, the SEO myth as as is the the white paper and the seventh chapter of his book, The Art of SEO, which is on link building. So again, for that go to Marketing speak.com forward slash Mostafa. Stefan, do you have time for a couple more personal questions before we wrap up? What is a new thing you have tried recently?

Stephan Spencer  1:03:53

Figures and new thing or just anything? Reading

Mostafa Hosseini  1:04:00

a new article trying something crazy new or bigger, small whatever you feel that would be new.

Stephan Spencer  1:04:09

New for me or new for everybody? New for you. New for me. Okay, well, I’ve been taking some courses on psychic stuff, like remote viewing and psychometry and stuff like that. That’s pretty large, but pretty phenomenal. Like

Mostafa Hosseini  1:04:33

yeah, so I know that could be another another session as well, I guess. Yeah. Give us like two of your favorite books.

Stephan Spencer  1:04:46

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Have you read that one?

Mostafa Hosseini  1:04:51

Absolutely.

Stephan Spencer  1:04:52

Yeah. Ken, did you know how long it took to write that book? Paul spent 12 days 150 million copies sold. And he wrote it in 12 days. Can you believe that? Wow. Yeah, that was a download just a good one downloaded. Right? Right from the upper worlds. So cool. So that’s one. And another is you were born for this. That’s by Bruce Wilkinson. There’s another book with the same title by somebody else. But the one that I recommend is by Bruce Wilkinson.

 And the idea behind it, is that you can deliver God’s miracles. You have to volunteer for it. You have to say, God, I’m I’m here, please send me. And then make sure you transfer the credit. So it’s not your miracle. You’re not the miracle worker. You’re just the pizza delivery guy. It was God’s miracle. Love it. The amazing mind blowing stuff that shows up. Oh, my goodness. The stories I could tell you the things that you would say, I can’t even believe that to be true. That is just so mind

Mostafa Hosseini  1:06:09

blowing. mind blowing experience last week. Yeah, like what? Well, I was flying to Denver. And recently, I noticed that a lot of my results like with business and stuff. There’s a lot of up and down, I caught up and I come down crashing like head on. And then I noticed that that’s a trend. And I’ve been trying to figure out why. And I’ve been looking for solutions in the mindset category, talking to people and whatnot.

And then a whole bunch of people have given me recommendations to the book called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. So on the Flight to Denver, I pick up the book and I look at my Kindle and I have a sample of this book. I start reading and goes there are a lot of people in the world who have this up and down experience. I’m like I was like this entire book about is about fixing that issue. I’m like, what

Stephan Spencer  1:07:05

you mentioned Mostafa reading before it is by Mostafa.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:07:14

So that was my that was my crazy experience last week. And I started reading the book and it’s pretty, pretty cool.

Stephan Spencer  1:07:19

Yeah, you know, there’s a thing called Biblio Mansi. It’s so cool. When you open a book randomly with it. Just being tapped into your intuition and with intention. Like you want to reveal light and be a better person and do more good in the world. So you open the book up, because I don’t have time to read this whole thing. So what am I supposed to learn?

I open it up, just randomly pick something but it’s not random because nothing’s random. There’s nothing random in this universe. So that is exactly the thing that you that account was exactly the thing that you were meant to hear. And just it’s so cool. It happens over and over and over again. I love it. Absolutely. That’s called Biblio Mansi. I learned that term just last year from a big internet marketer that I had on on my show who’s become a spiritual author for Hay House.

And he’s got the maverick mastermind His name is Yannick silver. I don’t know if you know. Yeah, yep. Yeah, so he taught me the term Biblio Mansi. And it’s real. Oh, Leo. Mansi. Oh, Mansi b i b l IOMANCY.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:08:37

Interesting. Yeah. Love it. So next question. What’s one advice that made a big impact in life or business?

Stephan Spencer  1:08:46

Making God my business partner.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:08:52

Like there’s a quick story there. Well, I

Stephan Spencer  1:08:54

so I was interviewing another guest for my, this was for my other show the spiritual and biohacking podcast get yourself optimized. So the, the, you know, the the more spiritually focused podcast. I was interviewing Curtis Thomas. Big. Like breathwork guy. Really cool guy.

So he told me that he may got his business partner, I’m like, Tell me more. And he shared his whole story. And like, wow, that is super inspiring. And I just decided I’m going to do that too. I love it. Yeah. And don’t assume that God is going to say yes, ask him. You know, invite him and he’ll say, like,

Mostafa Hosseini  1:09:46

I want to listen to that to that episode. Where do I go? Now

Stephan Spencer  1:09:50

one is get yourself optimized.com/three to three, because that’s the opposite number three to three.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:10:00

323 I’m gonna check that out. I liked the concept of making God your business partner.

Stephan Spencer  1:10:07

And just think if if God’s your business partner, not just equal business partner, not certainly not a minority business partner, or silent partner. No, he’s directing you. You’re the steward for the business. So he’s taken another step.

And he’s the, you’re the steward for his wealth to not just in business, but personally, you’re not just tithing 10%. What’s the 90%? You think the 90% is yours? No, you’re just a steward for that to

Mostafa Hosseini  1:10:48

have you talked about this, like somewhere that I can listen to. But you got

Stephan Spencer  1:10:53

to start listening to my show to get yourself optimized. There’s lots of spiritual content on there. Lots and lots. It’s, it’s really good.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:11:02

I haven’t done an episode specifically on this topic.

Stephan Spencer  1:11:06

I did one about how I got this awakening and was shown the matrix and I might have talked about what you’re asking about in that episode. I’m not sure I don’t remember how much I covered that. But that’s episode 300. Of you gotta get yourself optimized.com/ 300. At episode, my wife, Orion, who is also a podcaster. Her podcast is stellar life, which is amazing.

Subscribe to that one. She interviewed me on my second spiritual awakening, the one I had January 22, last year, in the middle of night, while I was praying, so pretty wild, pretty wild and changed everything. My whole life, my whole world is different now.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:11:57

Very interesting. Stuff. Anyhow, if you had a Facebook or a Google ad, where everyone around the world who has access to the internet could see what would your message be for the people of Earth?

Stephan Spencer  1:12:14

Reveal light in everything you do. And if somebody is a skeptic, or they’re a cynic, even where they just don’t believe in that concept, the corollary to that ad would be there are no there are no private thoughts, and there’s nowhere to hide. So, you know, the good news is that we’re all just walking each other home. That’s a quote from rom Das.

It’s also the corollary of that is that, you know, we’re we’re like Truman and The Truman Show, and everybody’s in on the gig. We’re the clueless ones, and were the star of the show. We don’t realize it. So there are no private thoughts. Keep it clean and pure and be your best self at all times. Because you’re on display 24/7 For a lot of water beings. The Unseen World is more real than the seen world. Yeah, so that’s, that’s my that’s my slightly long Facebook ad. Love it.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:13:33

Love it. Love it. Stefan, this has been an amazing conversation. You dropped a lot of value. You shared a lot of tools. Gang if you want to still get access to Stephens for gifts. Go to marketing speak.com, forward slash Mostafa. Mostafa is m l s. T A FA and get access to that. Is there anything that you’d like to share that maybe we didn’t get a chance to talk about? Before we wrap up?

Stephan Spencer  1:14:05

Okay, this is something I learned just in the last couple of weeks from one of my coaches. I have this wonderful coach who I studied Kabbalah with and I get spiritual coaching from and business coaching to his name is Eliyahu that was another episode for my show. Eliyahu John, the great Kabbalah episode on Get yourself optimized. Anyway, so he gave me this little piece of advice that has just been really profound.

 It was didn’t the last month, you said trying to do stuff on your own is a recipe for disaster really? Because spirituality is just working to get closer and closer to the Creator. That’s it’s not personal development. It’s not being a better person. It’s just how close can I get to the creator and you can get through anything you If you’re holding his hand, you know, you’re like the little child holding his hand and you can walk through the worst neighborhood in the most violent city. And get through it. holding his hand tried to do it on your own good luck.

Try to do anything on your own, even breathe without him. Not going to happen. Everything happens with and through him. So I visualize holding his hand multiple times a day, because he’s here 24/7 Because I not thinking about him in a particular moment doesn’t mean he’s not here. Like, whoa, that is a game changer. I love that. So I’ve been practicing that one. Very

Mostafa Hosseini  1:15:51

interesting. I recently read the book, The Game of Life and how to play it. Florence Scovel Shinn? Absolutely. And it’s been, it’s been mind blowing for me, I probably listened to the book a good eight or nine times over the past month, month and a half. I just can’t get enough of it. And

Stephan Spencer  1:16:09

she’s on not just audible, but it’s free on YouTube, the audio version on the master key societies YouTube channel is actually a better sounding. Narrate narration of it. Yeah. So you should drop that in the show notes.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:16:27

I will drop the link to it, I could do it right now. And so what happened was, I’ve listened to it. And one of the chapters she talks about letting, casting the burden on God, and let just letting it go, and let God handle it in the best way possible. And I’m like, that’s such a relief, like, I have a problem instead of worrying about it and sweating it and you know, losing my sleep over be like, God is gonna take care of me. Um, I love it. There’s nothing that’s been profound for me.

Stephan Spencer  1:17:02

She’s such a trailblazer. This is 1925 when that book came out, and it was like the matrix matrix, like, that’s the best documentary of all time, that movie. And people who are rolling their eyeballs when they hear that it’s a documentary. She was so ahead of her time that she was like Neo in the Matrix, in 1925. And yet she maintained rapport and relatedness with pretty much anybody.

She was not super over the top. Whoo, whoo. And she was also not super over the top Christian. So that people who weren’t Christian didn’t relate. Is this a perfect balance, very accessible. So many great anecdotes, personal stories that just really hit home. And it feels like, wow, this lady is not just dodging bullets. She’s like, The End scene in The Matrix, where Neo just makes those bullets dropped to the ground.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:18:20

100% I, almost every morning where I wake up, I go for a drive, and I drive in the country and I come back. And I’ve been listening to that book. At the YouTube version, I put the link here and in the comments. Probably eight or nine times over the past month or so.

And it’s been it’s been having a profound impact on me. And the fact that we’re here today, talking about it, and all the stuff that’s been happening to me, and we, how many how many times have you listened to this YouTube version?

Stephan Spencer  1:18:54

several, several, but here’s the thing is that, you know, think of Biblio man see again, so instead of I need to, or I have to, it’s like I get to and I don’t have to be overwhelmed by it. I have, I don’t know 300 books on my to read list. I’m never gonna get to all those. I have to I know that I’m being guided. And I know that if I have the benevolent intention, and desire to be close to the Creator, I’m going to be guided to exactly the right things at exactly the right time.

And so one book that I recommend of hers that you may not have read yet is the word is your wand.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:19:41

The word

Stephan Spencer  1:19:43

is your your word is your wand. Now that came out in 1928.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:19:49

The word our word, how,

Stephan Spencer  1:19:52

that’s how we manifest. That’s how we make things real. You know, you actually create angels With words, when you have positive, pure intention, like thoughts, words and deeds, that creates very powerful angels. And I’m not making this up, this isn’t some new age woowoo thing. This is ancient Kabbalistic to Jewish mysticism.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:20:22

Yeah,

Stephan Spencer  1:20:23

this is this is legit. So be very mindful of your words.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:20:28

Well, to me, like your worth comes from your come from your thoughts. Our thoughts kind of drive everything. So yeah, it’s doesn’t sound too woowoo I mean, our thoughts, action and results and, and everything around us. So be careful,

Stephan Spencer  1:20:47

what if your thoughts aren’t even yours? What if you’re just a receiver, like a radio receiver. And the vibration that you’re at, that you’re vibrating at, determines the radio stations that you tune into. So you hear these horrible self deprecating jokes, and you think you’re being funny, or you’re just self loathing, or you’re being defeatist, or whatever, and you’re mouthing these words that you’re hearing in your head. It’s like, Oh, why am I so mean to myself?

That’s not you. You’re you’re tuning into a very bad radio station, work on your vibration, get into a place of gratitude, quiet your mind and get in your heart. And then your radio receiver will be tuned into higher vibration stuff. That’s where the intuition comes in. And intuition. Those are whispers from your higher self, and your guides and your angels and God himself. He’s also whispering to you. Now that still small voice that’s mentioned in the Bible.

It’s not like big burning bush or big bellowing voice. It’s a still small voice. It is subtle. Design by design. Because if it was set yourself over the head with it kind of obvious. And where’s the freewill? Like, oh, I’m gonna get a smack if I do this sin or this wrong thing? No, you’ve got lots of you get lots of latitude to make mistakes. How

Mostafa Hosseini  1:22:34

do you do for time? Do you have to run? I can keep

Stephan Spencer  1:22:37

going. Do we still have people listening? People

Mostafa Hosseini  1:22:40

are listening, and they’re gonna listen to this later. But so how do you go between the idea of here’s what I want, and setting your intention on your goal and chasing your goal and going until you get it, and then doing and surrendering to God? What’s because I feel like there is that now, kind of contradicting each other?

Stephan Spencer  1:23:05

No, not really. It’s more like, do you want to get carried down the river? Or do you want to struggle down the river or worse yet, swim upstream as you’re being carried on. There are plenty of people who quote unquote, hustle their way through their business. And they’re thinking that they’re, like, doing it all on their own. And they end up swimming upstream, unnecessarily, exhausting themselves and not getting to where they’re supposed to go.

So the so that’s part of it is knowing to work with the energies of, of creation, the creative forces that are that put you here and that gave you this opportunity to learn and grow. Now, this is all coming from God, it’s just ultimately at the end of the day, this is it’s just you and God, that’s all that this illusion of of reality is. And you need to have the desire to make an impact and to reveal light.

And the more you have the desire, and is this is another really powerful concept from Kabbalah from Jewish mysticism. And that is, if you have the desire, you have already received the fulfillment without on for a second because if you had not received the fulfillment, why would you even want it? You wouldn’t like if if I told you about this amazing Indian desert

Stephan Spencer  1:24:51

and it’s got this exotic name and I can’t even pronounce it. Would you want it? Probably When Not, not unless you’ve tasted it. If you’ve had the fulfillment, let’s say in a past life or whatever, okay, I’m interested, tell me more, how do I get it?

Stephan Spencer  1:25:13

So that means, if time is an illusion and the fulfillment has already received been, I’ve already received it, but it’s, you know, it hasn’t manifested in this timeline yet. Okay, so that means that I have received it. Just I need to work on on my faith, and my manifesting abilities of faith in Hebrews and Muna. So I need to work on my faith, my absolute certainty, certainly beyond logic, that everything is guided everything is for my highest and best good.

And then I allow allow myself to get carried down the river while I maintain that absolute certainty and that desire to reveal light to be close to the Creator to heal wounds that I’ve either created, and others or that I have received for a higher purpose that I don’t see necessarily what that higher purpose is yet, but I, I trust that it’s there. Does those don’t contradict? I don’t think it’s just it’s like, they work hand in hand.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:26:29

So in simple terms, we’re like, God, here’s, here’s, here’s my, here’s my goal. Here’s what I want. Help me get there. My Yeah. Or guide me or support me to get there? Or?

Stephan Spencer  1:26:44

Well, how about this? What if the things that you desire, you check in with God and say, I only want the things that you want me to have? If you don’t want it for me, I don’t want it either.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:27:00

You know, I read a beautiful prayer the other day, and it said, God, please save me from chasing things that are not mine by the Divine Right. Because we could be could be chasing things that are that don’t belong, right. I read that like that’s, that’s very interesting.

Stephan Spencer  1:27:19

Yeah. And we don’t know what we don’t know. So when we’re asked, you know, I’ve fallen into this trap many times praying for exactly the thing. Well, what if there’s a more benevolent outcome that I’m not seeing? I remember my chiropractor telling me he went through cancer, I don’t know 15 years ago. And he said that that was the best thing that ever happened to him. He wouldn’t change it for the world is such a better person because of it.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:27:54

Absolutely. I heard Brett Wilson talking to Joe Polish last night. Brett Wilson is a Calgary guy talking to Joe Polish. Last time he was saying the same thing. He said he went through cancer. And that’s like, the best thing that happened to him, gave him some good awakening. And now health is his number one priority. And I’ve seen a few people actually talk about that. Who

Stephan Spencer  1:28:15

would want to ask God for an easy life? That’s like saying well, I want to go to the gym. And I want to hire the best personal trainer and I want the like just the best gear the coolest workout clothes you know the wicking the wicks my sweat and everything. But I won’t even want to do really lightweights. I just want to curl with two pounds. That’s, that’s an easy life. I don’t want that.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:28:52

Absolutely. Wow. I feel like we could we could easily go for another couple hours. Yeah. I’m sure I’ll have you back here on the show.

Stephan Spencer  1:29:06

I would love to and you’re actually coming on my show tomorrow.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:29:10

Yes. And I look forward to it. Yeah, me too. And let’s see what would transpire and what we could talk about, because it this really got off topic here. And I love it.

Stephan Spencer  1:29:23

Well, you know, everything leads to this, because that’s the whole point is that it’s not about building anything other than your relationship with God. And when I was shown that, that matrix that we live in this illusionary world, the simulation Wow, that cleared a lot up. That gave me so much. Clarity and inspiration and focus And yeah, I didn’t do it for myself. When I made the request I saw I prayed to God for a job. And that’s how it happened.

And he showed me the matrix. He showed me the other side of the veil, or how this this illusionary world works. I didn’t ask for a job because I wanted to benefit myself. I asked for it because I just felt inspired to do so that that was the right thing to do at the right time, and I was inspired by a podcast guest I had had on a few months earlier, a pretty famous psychic.

Her name is Sheila Gillette. And that was what she prayed for when she was on her deathbed in 1969. She prayed for a job she’s she was suffering from pulmonary embolism. It was complication from childbirth. And yeah, she was saved, and then her psychic abilities came online. So she’s been doing it for 50 years.

 And she got Esther Hicks started actually in the 80s, Esther Hicks, who’s written all those books about the law of attraction for Hay House and channels, Abraham. Yeah, she got Esther started. And she said that thing about praying for a job. I just filed that away. And three months later, I’m like, I’m gonna pray for job

Mostafa Hosseini  1:31:40

is this current job that got job that you got?

Stephan Spencer  1:31:43

It’s an ambassador of spirituality. And I still have the business of running an SEO agency, which is the money machine, right, that helps me fund for example, my spirituality podcast, personal development podcast. And I’ll be coming out with spirituality books. I already have a draft of one I hired a ghostwriter to help me with it.

I hate the rights. Yeah, so that helps me to do that work, to have an SEO business. But my business my mission on this planet, in this in this simulation is not to help people with their Google rankings. Although I do a very excellent job of it. It’s Gay Hendricks calls it the zone of genius. Not just the zone of excellence. So I play in the zone of genius with SEO. But it’s not my spiritual mission. It’s not what I’m here on earth to do. It’s just a facilitator for me to do that spiritual job that I’ve been given.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:32:58

Absolutely. Love it. Love it. Hmm. Stephen, thank you very much. This has been really a really good conversation. And this This is officially my longest podcast episode and probably mine too. We just we just went on some of the stuff that I’m working on right now. And, and pretty well connected to business and life and spirituality and personal development and, and God and whatnot.

So thank you for that. Dan gang, again, go to Marketing speak.com forward slash Mustapha to get access to Steve Stephens gifts. He shared four amazing generous gifts, go get access to those. If you need SEO Help, and SEO consulting, and you need an SEO expert. Stephen is probably one of the top in the world. And, and he is one of the top in the world and reach out and have a conversation and we’ll go from there.

Thank you for joining us. You’ve been listening to daily competence for entrepreneurs. Please like and subscribe to the show. If you have any questions about what we talked about today. Put them in the comments below. And if you know anybody that could benefit from this conversation, SEO and the later conversation that we had shared the link with them or tagged them in a comment, and we’ll go from there. Have a great day and we will see you next week. Bye now.