The Best SEO Podcast: Unlocking the Unknown Secrets of AI, Search Rankings & Digital Marketing

From SERPs to Subscribers: Mastering YouTube SEO with the Leaf Strategy with Nate Woodbury

• MatthewBertram.com • Episode 638

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Nate Woodbury shares his powerful "Leaf Strategy" for YouTube marketing that generates predictable leads and revenue for businesses by targeting specific long-tail search queries.

• YouTube is now the #1 way to grow your brand, especially before you're ranking at the top of Google search
• Nate pivoted to YouTube after discovering videos getting 50X more views than #1 ranked Google pages
• The "Leaf Strategy" involves identifying ultra-specific 8-10 word questions your audience is asking
• Focus first on questions with lower search volume to build authority in a specific niche
• Videos answering specific questions can rank at the top of YouTube within 1-2 days
• Create 10-12 minute videos that thoroughly answer questions without scripts
• Include hooks at the beginning and strong call-to-action at the end directing to another video or lead magnet
• Case study: Real estate coach grew from $1M to $6M business by switching from Facebook ads to YouTube
• Use SEMrush's Keyword Magic Tool to find specific question-based queries
• Create content based on what people are actively searching for to future-proof your strategy

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Guest Contact Information: 

https://theleafstrategy.com/

https://www.youtube.com/c/natewoodbury

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The Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing podcast is a podcast hosted by Internet marketing expert Matthew Bertram. The show provides insights and advice on digital marketing, SEO, and online business. 

Topics covered include keyword research, content optimization, link building, local SEO, and more. The show also features interviews with industry leaders and experts who share their experiences and tips. 

Additionally, Matt shares his own experiences and strategies, as well as his own successes and failures, to help listeners learn from his experiences and apply the same principles to their businesses. The show is designed to help entrepreneurs and business owners become successful online and get the most out of their digital marketing efforts.

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Speaker 1:

This is the Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. Your insider guide to the strategies top marketers use to crush the competition. Ready to unlock your business full potential, let's get started.

Speaker 2:

All right, welcome back to the show. This is the Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. I need to add on that trailer on there. My stream yard is just completely full of data, so it's not working. But welcome back everybody.

Speaker 2:

I have a great guest for you today, following the series of really building your brand online. Go check out Build your Brand Mania, a book I read a number of years ago, really coming into fruition today. Because, well, everything has to do with social media. Social media is so powerful. It's the number one reason or way that I think you can grow your brand. So, as much as I think SEO is important and I do think SEO is extremely important and a lot of the attribution goes to Google reaching customers at the top of the funnel happens a lot on social media where people find out about you.

Speaker 2:

If you're not ranking in search, so before you're the top positions in search and while you're building that, people need to find you other places, and one of the best ways to do that right now, today is YouTube. So today I wanted to welcome on Nate Woodbury from BeTheHeroStudioscom. He specializes in YouTube. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see behind him. He's won all kinds of awards. He's not just one of those experts that says how to do it and doesn't do it himself. He's actually done it and now he's showing people how to do it and doesn't do it himself. He's actually done it and now he's showing people how to do it, so I wanted to bring him on and introduce you all to Nate Nate, welcome on the show.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thanks for having me. I've got a unique strategy, but it works very, very predictably. I produce over 60 different YouTube channels and the strategy I'm going to share is going to help you leverage YouTube, getting your videos ranked at the top of YouTube search even as quickly as a single day and dominating YouTube within about four months. And primarily, we do this for lead gen. So the businesses that I help with this strategy they're generating seven or even eight figures of lead revenue into their business just from organic YouTube.

Speaker 2:

That's something that everybody wants. Everybody's looking for lead gen, everybody's looking for predictable revenue. That's the thing that we're focused on at EWR. Digital is building predictable revenue, and I believe YouTube is one of the great components of that strategy. So, nate, let's get into it. Why don't you tell me a little bit about how you discovered this strategy and maybe a little bit more about what it is?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I've had my company 15 years and back then in the beginning I offered web design and SEO and we were getting websites ranked at the top of Google, and you know there's a lot of things that we did to get this page ranked number one. One of those pieces was a YouTube video. One day I was looking at the analytics for a page ranking number one on Google, but I noticed that this video was getting 50 times more views on YouTube than this page ranking number one, and it was surprising to me. So I looked into other examples, found that it was consistent. So I ended up pivoting my business and have focused on YouTube for over a decade now.

Speaker 2:

No, I love that, and we're seeing everything change, from some of the major conferences I've gone to to what we're seeing in the data, from some of the major conferences I've gone to to what we're seeing in the data. It's not just about Google, right, and so that's one of the big things on this podcast, which was one of the top ranked SEO podcasts for at least 12 years okay, one of the number one podcasts to listen to and we exclusively focused on SEO. We've started to broaden out from that because it is a multi-channel strategy. The attribution is well, again, google gets a lot of that credit, but it's discovered other places and that customer journey is not a straight line, right, and you're seeing that.

Speaker 2:

One of the other episodes that I encourage everybody to go listen to is we did a strategy. We did a recent podcast on Reddit. Okay, the Reddit strategy. So for press releases, reddit, you can get millions of views if you're in the right subreddit, okay, so, like a press release, distribution is just kind of old school, right, like who's really seen it? It's a couple hundred views. You're not getting the bang for your buck that you used to get, and I'm even seeing that with clients. When we do press release. We have to explain a lot of why we're doing that press release and how it's part of a bigger strategy, but if they're looking at the raw numbers, they're not seeing the bang for the buck that they want. We're seeing that on organic Reddit, okay, and so I think that this is another piece to that and I'll add this for everybody into the playlist we're building on how to build social media strategy. So, nate, tell me what you discovered, right as far as like how you started to dig into it and what started to work.

Speaker 1:

Right as far as like how you started to dig into it and what started to work. Well, the way that I look at it now is I see that the search engines have really changed. I see Google is. It used to be a website search engine yeah, people agree with that, but it's now become a content search engine and so there's content everywhere. You can get content to rank on the search engine now, but I believe the number one content platform is YouTube and who owns it? Right, so you can. You can make a YouTube video and have it rank at the top at that amazing search engine. Youtube search engine is fantastic and your video will rank in the Google search engine as well. So that's been the big change.

Speaker 1:

And another way that makes this work is, you know, back in the day of me doing website SEO, we would focus on two word phrases or three or four word phrases.

Speaker 1:

That would be long tail four or five words.

Speaker 1:

Well, search engines have evolved and gotten better and better, and so we, as users, when we do a search, we are getting more and more specific, and that just and gotten better and better, and so we, as users, when we do a search, we are getting more and more specific, and that just gives us better and better results. The more words we type in, the better we find. And so this discovery I made I found that, wow, if you find an eight-word question or a nine or a 10-word question that people are asking, that question is so specific. You know so much about them because of you know if they're in their beginning stages or if they're advanced, you know their demographics, you know their career and so you can give them an answer on YouTube. And yet, because it's so specific, no one else is going that specific. So your video will typically rank at the top of YouTube within a day or two, so you can start to dominate in these, these really focused niches, but then eventually you dominate in the broad category as well.

Speaker 2:

So, so I love that. Like right, long tail key phrases are where most of the traffic and the high converting traffic is right. And, and how these algorithms work is it's based on a bell curve. There's like a perfect score, a perfect answer, and it's how close you get to that answer. So if you're answering that specific question as best you can, you're going to rank higher up for that search.

Speaker 2:

And one of the things I can tell you, for YouTube specifically, is not a lot of people are producing content. You would think that, it being the second biggest search engine, that a lot of people are producing content. You would think that, it being the second biggest search engine, that a lot of people are producing content, but there's so many gaps, there's so many opportunities in YouTube to to fill it out. So you're like not too late if you haven't started it yet. Right, is is one. And then, and then I think too, um, you gotta, you gotta understand that people are spending more time on YouTube than on any other platform. Like hands down, okay. Like not on Facebook, not on Instagram, okay, maybe TikTok, but who knows what's going on with that. I'll tell you, youtube is where it's at as far as the second biggest search engine, owned by Google. Where people are spending their time and how people are getting their information is all through video. So YouTube needs to be part of your strategy. If you are, if you are trying to generate business online, it like needs to be period, full stop. So I'm fully in alignment with you. Um, so I'm fully in alignment with you.

Speaker 2:

Answering questions, faqs, schema, like talking about the search engines. I think that you know semantically, since semantically as these, as you're talking about search engines getting smarter. They're really good at making associations and pattern recognition and understanding what people are typically generally searching. When they search for one thing, then they're generally searching for this, and so it can start to make these associations, um, more dynamically than, uh, maybe just like repeat this keyword, right? Um, those strategies, um, and so I love it. Okay, so how? Let let's go through the mechanics of maybe, uh, give, give me a case study of something that you did and what happened.

Speaker 1:

All right. So you know, most people when they are trying to market their business on YouTube, they're thinking in terms of you know, promotional materials, some type of commercial, and those things are important. It's really important to have good promo videos on your, your website. But the the advantage I see is we can have this two-step approach. We can build a relationship first on YouTube and they don't feel like they're being pitched to. They don't have their defenses up, they're not, they're not interrupted, like like cause. There's advantages to paid advertising, but one big disadvantage of that is that it's interruptive marketing, disruptive, right. So when people find you through search. So here's a case study Noelle Randall. She teaches real estate investing and in the year 2019, I've worked with her for now five years so in 2019, one of the businesses she built was teaching how to invest in Airbnb real estate. She sold a $5,000 coaching program and she did Facebook ads to build that business and she had built that to a million dollars of revenue in the previous year.

Speaker 1:

Now she had been trying to build her YouTube channel but she was just putting out content that she would guess that people would like. She had grown 6,000 subscribers but she was just putting out content that she would guess that people would like. She had grown 6,000 subscribers but she wasn't generating any leads from YouTube. No ad revenue, not really a lot of engagement. But she started incorporating what I call the leaf strategy, where you focus on these questions and really specific to our target audience, and we were launching five episodes a week. These are average in length, about 10 minute episodes.

Speaker 1:

After about three and a half months she was able to turn off her Facebook ad campaign because the leads that she was getting from YouTube were so far superior not higher in quantity, but most certainly in quality the people that she was talking to. Their conversion rates were way higher and she, over the next year, grew that business to a $6 million business on YouTube just by focusing on what I call these little trickles of traffic. If you find a question and one of them that I can remember is how to invest in Airbnb real estate with no money you know that's a real specific question and people that are typing in that exact phrasing it might be 20 people per month, but she answers it really well and so the algorithm sees oh wow, those 20 people, they really liked the video and then 20 people the next month, and so YouTube starts to understand who the audience is for this and it sends the right people and it just becomes a lead generation machine.

Speaker 2:

I believe it right. I believe that case study for sure how it works. So a couple of years ago, the LinkedIn algorithm, there was a lot of things like or LinkedIn, youtube, all the different algorithms they're all a little bit different right On how they work and what they're looking for, and and you got to give them enough data right In the audition period to understand who the people are Right, and I think that that's why paid is so important, right, but uh, organic takes forever, like, if you can put some paid behind it and say these are the kind of people I like and let's see how they engage with the content, it speeds up the process. You know, when you're looking at YouTube, what are the things organically right, because everybody's going to be like, oh my gosh, I'm not going to go out of the gate spending a ton of money and I don't think you have to, but what are the things organically? And on paid, you're seeing on how the algorithm works, because I think a lot of people that listen to the show like to understand the mechanics.

Speaker 2:

Right, you have an SEO background, like they want to understand the mechanics of how the algorithm work, and this was, and I think still is, more of an advanced SEO podcast, right? So we we go pretty deep in the weeds. I would love to hear some of the learnings that you found as far as how the algorithm works and what kind of content performs maybe better or you know, what would you suggest for people to start creating to kind of get that? That's the thing, seo. I love it because you get almost immediate results right Based on caffeine if you're already. You get almost immediate results right Based on caffeine if you're already indexed in that category, like if you do something right, the algorithm responds and lets you know that pretty immediately. It's not part of that long-term database, so I would love to hear some of those key learnings or findings that you have.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I'll see if I can paint a really clear picture in our minds here. So a lot of times I'll go to YouTube and I'll. I'll first show an example. I'll say, look, we type in this question in YouTube and then I'll show look, we've got Jason Schroeder, or you know someone of my clients, ranking at the top of YouTube, and then I'll also them. This is how we did it. So I use a tree analogy, where the trunk of the tree represents your core area of expertise, the branches are the different categories, but the leaves represent these really, really specific questions. So I'll use Jason Schroeder as an example. He's in the construction industry. He provides consulting for construction businesses and professionals. And here's the key If we look at this whole tree of the construction industry, there are tens of thousands of questions, tens of thousands of leaves.

Speaker 1:

So how do you know where to start? Well, you can compare one branch to a branch right next to it, and when you do that, one branch might have 30 different questions on it. Another branch might have 10. Another one might have 50. You look at that collection of questions that are really similar in that branch and you know who the target audience is, and you compare that to the branch next to it and you're like, ooh, I thought I liked that branch, but this one is way more my target audience. So just by grouping these questions together by category and comparing them to each other, you can formulate a strategy of which one you want to dominate. So where most people will just look at this whole tree and just start picking leaves here and there, picking all these questions, just by having that much focus you can progressively start to tick off leaves on that branch.

Speaker 1:

I typically recommend and this is where we get the most results start with those questions that have the lowest search volume. Now, this is crazy because, yeah, we want to rank for the ones that have higher search volume, but if you go after the ones with low search volume, first focused on this branch, you'll start to see you'll rank at the top of YouTube for that one, and now that one, and now that one, and eventually every single question on that entire branch. That one and now that one, and eventually every single question on that entire branch. You're, you're ranking at the top of YouTube for, and getting Google traffic for. So it's, it's simple, but it's the the changes in the past we would say, okay, I'm going to create a great video. It's going to have high value, and then I'm going to do SEO to that video. There, there's no such thing. There's no such thing.

Speaker 1:

What you have to do today is do the SEO work beforehand. You've got to be really strategic about the research, these questions that you find, grouping them, honing in on okay, what's the path I'm going to take to dominate this branch? And then it's really easy to track. I mean, I can look at this branch that's got 30 leaves on it and when I search on YouTube, nope, I'm not ranking for any of them. So I've got 30 no's. But a month later, oh, wow, I've got seven yeses. I've, you know, seven of these. These questions are ranking me at the top of YouTube. Oh, the next month, I've got 13. Next month, ooh, I've got 22. So it's very tactical and very predictable.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So I'm going to translate this for people that have been listening to the podcast and they're so focused on SEO and we're trying to zoom out and start to make the pivot, and so I think that there's a lot of comps or comparable things that you need to look at. One of the big connections that I've started to make is okay, off page authority posting, guest posting, stuff like that, right. I think that that is comparable to mentions in social media. Okay, somebody else is saying, hey, you did a great job, that's what. Maybe a backlink is right. So you're making these comparable comps. Well, this is content clustering, right, this is content clustering with blogs is another comparison of what we're making right, and the strategy of focusing on the lowest volume one is if you're ranking at the top for any searches where you're getting traffic, you're becoming an authority in that space and in SEO. Right now, to even get in the AI overview, you've got to kind of be on the first page, right, for from where it pulls from, you don't have to be number one, but you have to be in that category. So we've used that strategy a lot with like location strategies to go after, maybe a city to rank in the surrounding areas, right? So you kind of build that, you know let's surround it on all sides, right, and then attack the gate from the front. I think that makes a lot of sense and I would tell you that the higher conversions come from the long tail key phrases, those little honey holes that you don't think of. It's not that core keyword. Now you have to rank in that core keyword or, as you were talking about the tree, the trunk of the tree, but if you keep sticking in that content cluster of that topic, you, that video is to tie you into that category, not necessarily to produce the leads, right? So I can totally, absolutely see that Now, where I want to take this conversation is into and I think a lot of people don't give enough credit to strategy.

Speaker 2:

People just jump in and start doing stuff, jump in and start optimizing stuff, and I think that they feel overwhelmed and there's too much going on, and that's why I think having an expert guide you is really, really important, right? So I do fractional CMO services for a lot of companies and it's just a sea of like. If you talk about AI right now, right, everybody's just overwhelmed. Like, what's our AI governance? Like, how are we going to incorporate AI? Like I mean, even marketers in general, their heads spin like there's so much to do. Where do you start Right? And I think a lot of times getting clarity of where you want to end up and what are your KPIs help you figure that out. So I am in 100% agreement with you, again on strategies really important and analytics.

Speaker 2:

That's the difference between traditional marketing and digital marketing is you can make pivots, you can optimize, you can see data. If you're buying, you know we just did digital billboards right For a client and it's great. Well, we can did digital billboards right for a client and it's great. Well, we can change that right mid-roll, like it's not that you have to keep going. Same thing with streaming radio or CTV or OTT. Like you can make changes where you're not buying traditionally and it's happening. Or you buy in a magazine and it just is what it is. You can see the data and make decisions. But with that you can even get more tactical of what's working in the prep phase. You can see what people are searching for. You have different tools and that's where I wanted to go.

Speaker 2:

What kind of tools?

Speaker 2:

Like people are familiar with the tools for SEO, right, and I've had a number of these companies on as sponsors.

Speaker 2:

What are the tools you're using for SEO and what are the metrics you're looking for as opposed to like? I'm trying to again make that comparison for everybody, to make that leap, because people need to be doing quote unquote YouTube SEO and write that term SEO. That's. That's really why I'm broadening the podcast is because everything's about algorithms, everything's about search, everything's about lead gen and back in the day, well, and I think YouTube got a big leg up because they own it, but there weren't deals where you could scrape Facebook right, it was only with Twitter. I think that they actually had a deal because all these companies didn't want to talk to each other, like Google hated Facebook and wouldn't work together. Even now, I have issues with my you know Outlook email talking to my Gmail email. Like they, these companies don't want to work together. They want to build their own kind of kingdoms. So so let's make that comp transition on the analytics side and let's dig into that a little bit more.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I've got two different ways that I can answer that I think will be helpful. One is to look at these different platforms and the tools that are provided there. I'll compare YouTube and LinkedIn. We'll throw Facebook in there. Great, youtube's got an amazing analytics platform. That is a really good tool just in understanding your audience. Looking at content, how it's performing. Linkedin I'm really familiar with. I know how to get results on LinkedIn. I know how to generate leads on LinkedIn, but comparing those two platforms is so like the strategy is so drastically different.

Speaker 1:

I could have an amazing strategy on YouTube and if I'm posting those same videos to LinkedIn, it would bomb because you've got to have a variety of types of content. You've got to have it's a way more social platform. You've got to interact and get people to interact with your content. And, um, the the the thing. One of the reasons I love YouTube so much is because the analytics provided there.

Speaker 1:

If I were to put a number, I guess it's probably a thousand times more data that YouTube gives us than what we get on LinkedIn. If you're doing a Facebook ads campaign, there's a good amount of data, organic. Nothing like in comparison. So I use it heavily. I use YouTube analytics heavily Now when I'm talking about the research before I film, before I upload a video to YouTube. There are a lot of great free tools out there for ideation or coming up with ideas for content, but when you really want to be tactical, I used to use a whole variety of tools because what I wanted to know is first, what questions are people asking, you know what are really specific questions, and then, do those questions have consistent search volume, right and and? Because I liked finding those super long tail like eight to ten word phrases.

Speaker 1:

Some of the tools, uh, wouldn't, wouldn't recommend those yeah yeah, so I did discover, um, a tool in back oh, probably like 2018, I believe. Uh, semrush had a tool in beta called the keyword magic tool. Yeah, and I got excited because it really saved me so much time. Um, in in one there's a questions button so you could do a search and filter it for questions, and then there's a lot of questions in there, and then it had a word count filter that I could put in there. I want questions that are eight words or more, and when I did that, it was like, uh, just, it's just so refreshing to see, wow, there's still hundreds of questions here that have consistent search volume. It obviously it had that data. It showed me the search volume, and so that tool has actually gotten better. It came out of beta mode, went into full force, and so that is my go-to tool.

Speaker 1:

You know a lot of people when we're talking YouTube, they're questioning all right, what about vidIQ? What about TubeBuddy? There's two different YouTube strategies. If your goal is entertainment and ad revenue, tubebuddy and Vet IQ could be great because they're going to help you come up with compelling, not really keyword-based, because keywords don't really work for that strategy. But if your goal is to generate leads for a business and to follow the strategy we've been talking about. Those tools don't give you the data points that I need and they focus on two or three word phrases. So I actually recommend my clients against using those tools and just show them how great. You need a tool that works like this keyword magic tool by SEMrush.

Speaker 2:

Love that and a lot of people are very familiar with SEM Sashlo, also a sponsor previously of the podcast. All right, so I think people got a good idea of what the strategy is, how to kind of target it. They know maybe them or their clients kind of what they're going to be focused on. They probably have a pretty good idea that they have background in SEO, which they should. All right, let's talk about. What is the structure of that video Like? What does that video need to look like to to get these kinds of results? Right, I think you've got to answer the question fully. But how do you lay it out? What does that look like?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the most important part of a video is the value that you're going to deliver. So we could compare is this on a DSLR camera with a lens that will blur the background, right? Do you have amazing lighting, like? Those things are nice, but if the content's bad, then that doesn't matter at all. Compare that, though, to this amazing camera that we've got on our phone, if we just film a selfie video, but we to this amazing camera that we've got on our phone, if we just film a selfie video, but we're sharing amazing value, like if we're answering these questions. We have real good knowledge and experience that we're. I mean, that video is going to do well. So that's first and foremost, and you know, if you compare these two videos one that's maybe highly produced, with the best camera and lighting compared to a selfie video if both of them have great value, you're only going to have a slight improvement, right, and who knows how to measure that, but I would say, focus on the value.

Speaker 1:

Now, the length of the video I'm going to recommend is 10 to 12 minutes. We know that TikTok is doing well. We know that YouTube shorts are doing well, but what are they doing well for? They're doing well of getting viral type views, and we think that that's exciting, but we don't get a control who those views are. You mentioned something earlier, matt, about how these long tail phrases are the highest converting for lead generation. That is definitely the case. So if we want first, if we focus on these questions and we're bringing in people through search and we have a longer time to really give them value, we're able to build a relationship, and that's what we really want. So if you're going after a 10 minute, 12 minute conversation with them, this is just a talking head video. So it's simple. I recommend not being scripted, so don't use a teleprompter, but if you're answering a question on something that you know inside and out, then all you need is an outline of talking points and so you don't have to memorize it. Right? You look down at your notes. Oh yeah, the first thing I was going to share is this. So then you look at the camera. You deliver point number one. Don't worry about remembering what's coming next, because then you're going to intentionally pause. Look down at your notes oh yeah, I was going to share that next. So you know, focus on having a conversation If you're going to pause in your video, to kind of find the right word. I mean, that's how we talk for real, and so it works really well to build a relationship. And then I'll cap it off with this.

Speaker 1:

You've got to do something at the beginning of your video and at the end of the video in order to have this really work well for you. So at the beginning, you need to set some hooks right. You've got to create some curiosity. Let people know what you're going to cover in the video, how they're going to benefit from this video, how it's really going to help them. So just give them a little bit of table of contents, but in a way that creates curiosity. Another way I could describe it is you're not going to sell in this video, right? You're not going to sell your programs, your services. This is step one, is building a relationship. But at the very beginning you do need to sell them on the value of this video, right. So sell them on why they should spend 10 minutes with you, then teach and give value throughout the video.

Speaker 1:

At the very end, you've got to have one strong call to action, and it could be to subscribe, right? We heard that a lot, but I'm going to actually suggest two other calls to action that are going to be the most important. Call to One is recommend they go watch another video and be specific so say hey, now that you've learned this concept, you've really got to learn this next concept. So go watch that video. Next, you know, tell them the title of the video, have a link to it right there. The second call to action is to give away a free gift. Right, your lead magnet so they get to the end of the video.

Speaker 1:

Now that you understand this principle, I've got a gift for you that's going to really help you implement this. It's called such and such. You can go to this link. It's my gift to you. Go there now. So if that, if with that second example, if that video is going to offer a lead magnet, we could call that a lead magnet video. Another video that's going to have a call to action to go watch a second video. Send them to your lead magnet video, right? So when you send people away from YouTube, youtube doesn't necessarily like that.

Speaker 1:

You can get your website approved right, but when you link to another video, youtube loves that. So it's a way of making sure that you're generating leads but also pleasing the YouTube algorithm.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So I have a question about the videos. Right, I think that what holds a lot of people up is okay. I need to add value. I know this information Okay. Does it need to look nice? Professional? People are worried about how they look, how they sound. I get that Like. I think we've all had that. Should the video?

Speaker 2:

If you're teaching right specifically on YouTube, do you need to show examples? Because there's a lot of videos on YouTube where they have pulling up a slide. Maybe it's like kind of like a slide presentation. Some people are, you know, in front of a whiteboard and then some people are, you know, in front of a whiteboard, uh, and then some people are just talking like, what are your opinions on, like the different kind of formats? Uh, when you're answering a question of how important is it if you know a topic like inside and out? Uh to um and and we haven't even talked about like news and and all that. But essentially, like, what are you seeing on different kind of engagements or views or interest on how the information is presented once you are delivering that value?

Speaker 1:

What are people wanting? Do you see, typically Viewer's perspective the more variety that you can show or the more variety of methods you can use to teach, versus just straight up talking head for the full 10 minutes. It can help, right, and you can do some things in talking head, though, where you can incorporate story, and the more excited you are about the subject, the more excited they're going to be. You want to practice something, though. If you try something let's say you're going to use a flip chart or a whiteboard, but you're not used to using that and you're awkward doing it it's going to feel awkward for them too. So I would say try things, experiment that you get the data, so you can make two videos one that's one way and one that's another way and look at your data. A lot of the people that I work with they have experience in speaking or training. They're in front of groups a lot, and through that process you learn what your style is. Some people really like the flip charts. Some people really like slides like keynotes or slide decks decks One. I love slide decks, actually, but what I do with those is I take screenshots, so I'll show them a screenshot of a thumbnail or YouTube analytics page, or right, I'm not, I'm not writing out all this text that I then that I'm then reading Uh, I would avoid just reading the screen, but, um, I'm not, I'm. So you know, to start with what's most comfortable.

Speaker 1:

The thing that holds people back is maybe this perfection mindset, where they've got to do it a certain way in order to get results. The reality is, people just have a question and you can give them an answer and you can improve over time. If one video performs better and another video performs poorly, well, then watch them through and see what did you do in one, what did you do in the other? Ooh, maybe I can try it another way. And if one video that one place you're really trying to rank high on YouTube, for you notice, wow, all my other videos are ranking high, but this specific question, why am I fifth? Look at the videos above you and see what did they do. So, maybe in this space? Ooh, that guy's using a lot more text effects. Maybe I'll just try it in this space. I'll answer. I'll answer this question, but I'll use a lot more text effects or B roll, right. So a lot of it's kind of experimenting and learning as you go.

Speaker 2:

Love it. So I think we've kind of taken people on the journey from a good consulting session of like, okay, I'm, I'm ready to step up and start doing some YouTube. And, of course, nate's there, if you can help. Um, if you need help is what I meant. Uh, nate can help, um, okay. So then objections what are the biggest things that are holding people back? And and also I would love to talk a little bit about the future of YouTube and SEO Like, okay, you got notebook right out there. There's two AIs talking to each other. I'm seeing those get a lot of views.

Speaker 2:

I'm hearing a lot of people podcasters going okay, well, is AI taking over my job too? Right, so where do you see it going? What are some of the objections that you hear? To just let's get people to take some action Because, like I said at the beginning, very few people are creating content, and I do on the next series, if you know anybody, if anybody listening knows anybody that's an expert in LinkedIn building out all these different social media channels, as we've discussed completely different strategies. So taking the same post and posting it on multiple platforms, which I know a lot of people are doing, is not that effective, because you got to engage with people differently, right, and people are looking for different things on different platforms. So so, so want to want to get a a expert on about that. But what are, what are the objections and where do you see this thing going?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, as, as far as an objection, I would kind of look at, like, what are the biggest challenges? Because there there's the mindset out there of Gary V, gary Vaynerchuk, and you know he's got a big presence on social media. He started on one platform and then he started, you know, expanding to many and now he teaches that, like you just got to be everywhere. These are not his words, but I would say he teaches you've got to spam the planet and enough will stick. Well, I disagree. I feel like each platform, as we both said, is so unique that you've got to learn the strategy for that. What people are really challenged by is they'll think well, I've got a Facebook marketing campaign that I'm doing. I've got regular posts that are going out. What it's doing well is it's nurturing their tribe. What I consider marketing is getting in front of people who've never heard of you before. So how is that actually marketing? And just having them recognize, no, that's actually a good nurturing campaign. But what are you doing to market? And on YouTube, they're great at creating content. They've seen a lot of other channels and they've gotten some inspiration and some ideas like Ooh, I want to create a show like that, and so they'll just start creating content, thinking that content without strategy. They think that creating the content is the strategy, right. But if you think about Hollywood, even when they're making an amazing movie, they're putting big budgets behind it. That's not the end. They do so much for marketing with their trailers, with the posters in the theaters, having their stars go on the tonight shows, and there's this big buildup to the launch of a movie. So when it launches, it's got a built-in audience right. So that's the biggest thing is having strategy have a built-in audience for your content.

Speaker 1:

Now, if we're talking about the future, it's kind of interesting because when you focus on creating content that people are searching for, it kind of makes your strategy future-proof. And I've seen that I've been running this strategy for over a decade and I've had videos that I made a decade ago that are still getting you know, getting views, generating leads. Because what a lot of strategies will do is they will focus on a loophole or some type of tactic that when the algorithm changes, that tactic no longer works. But if you focus on the end user, even if YouTube goes away, there's something that's going to be better than it, right, the reason it'll go away is because there's something better. So, if our focus is creating content that people are searching for that's why we do this research to find what are people searching for really, really specifically, and which ones of these are my target audience you focus on that and it makes it future-proof.

Speaker 1:

Now you talk about AI. It's really fun to experiment and just try with it. Like, going all in on an AI strategy can be really risky, right. So do it as a test, do it as an experiment, and there's some tools that really simplify things and work as a great assistant. I think that we've already. Ai is so new and yet we kind of have expectations of what AI is going to deliver, like if I found a question and then I go to chat GPT and I say, hey, can you write me a video script for this? We kind of know what that video is going to be like. It's going to be the stuff we've already heard before. It's going to be the stuff that everyone is saying. So all we have to do is share our own experiences, share our own biases, why we disagree with this and why we go this direction. You know and this is why I'm providing this answer that's what people want. They want an opinion. They want real experience and I think if we do that, it's going to help us be future-proof.

Speaker 2:

I love that. So, to kind of wrap this up in summary, just creating content and I know a lot of people just start doing that Like, I have a lot of examples of clients that have just started to create content and it's not linked together in some way and there's no strategy, and so therefore, you know, it's just kind of thrown spaghetti on the wall and it kind of you know, some sticks, some doesn't, but there's no cohesive message. It doesn't work, right, and so you got to start with where you want to end up and work backwards from that. I also think something to bring to this discussion is that shorts are really good to get people interested, right. It's almost kind of like advertising, right. You're just advertising what you have.

Speaker 2:

A 10 minute video is a way to get to know you better, because you're trying to get to the know, like trust, you're trying to get to the seven hours, but they don't have to commit, right. So it's kind of like the, the, the dating component of it, or like kind of middle part of the process, and then if, if they commit, or you know you're nurturing a tribe, um, from a podcast standpoint, right Cause, uh, people will sit down and listen to you for long periods of time and even binge listen to you, and the way to get into that is to build those kind of middle of the funnel videos. So I think that this really has a place in a strategy and I really encourage everybody to get started. So, nate, we're about to wrap up here. We talked about a lot. I think this pod had a lot of great value in it for everybody. Please share with us in the comments what you found most valuable. What would you say? The biggest takeaway is what is the biggest unknown secret of internet marketing in your mind, nate?

Speaker 1:

takeaway is what is the biggest unknown secret of internet marketing in your mind, nate? Well, what we see on YouTube is we see the viral stuff. You know if if we're there for entertainment I use YouTube a lot for that, that purpose and so we kind of are we're tempted to go that that direction, like how can I have a video go viral? So the biggest takeaway that I hope listeners will have is to recognize that we can be way more tactical and predict results, because going viral is not predictable. What worked one time will not work ever again, so you've always got to just guess. But when you're focusing on on this strategy we've been talking about here, finding your target audience, what questions are they asking? Being really tactical, you can get results and you can start to track results, you know, just in the next few months and actually really start to have this work for you.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic. So, nate, what is the best way for people to get in touch with you? I'm sure YouTube is probably a good place, yeah.

Speaker 1:

YouTube is great and I actually do a webinar most weeks. We've got spring break coming up so I might have a gap there, but most every Wednesday I do a webinar where I show a lot of examples. I teach the five ingredients to my leaf strategy, and that is theleafstrategycom. So if people want to go more in depth, see real-time examples, live webinar theleafstrategycom.

Speaker 2:

We'll definitely get that in the show notes. So, everyone, if you would like to grow your marketing with the largest, most powerful tool on the planet, which is the internet combined with ai, now um reach out to ewr for more revenue in your business. And I would leave you with one big takeaway ai will never get rid of your own personal experiences. Right, add what makes uniquely you to your marketing, because people are buying from you and they want to work with you and you have something unique to offer. And so always, always, never, I guess never forget that and always remember to continue to lead with human first, until the next time. My name is Matt Bertram. Bye, bye for now.

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