
The Authority Project · 2022-05-23 · 35 min
Travis Bliffin makes a compelling case for process-driven SEO and content marketing over tip-chasing in this episode of The Authority Project. Rather than reacting to every new SEO trend or tactic, Bliffin advocates working backwards from end goals - like booking more car accident cases for a law firm - to identify the search queries, content gaps, and link-building requirements that will move the needle. He demonstrates this with a real case study: a Chicago personal injury law firm that suffered a 12,000% traffic drop in 2020 and recovered by following his systematic audit and penalty recovery process. Bliffin emphasizes that link building is the "tiebreaker" when competitors have similar content and technical foundations - it's the authority and credibility signals that separate rankings. He also addresses why SEO, while less sexy than social media, offers compounding, passive returns: search audiences are actively seeking solutions, not being pushed advertising, making them far more qualified and cost-effective than social followers. The process framework allows operators to adapt to Google's evolving ranking signals without getting lost in the noise.
Link building is the tiebreaker when multiple websites have identical or similar content and technical performance. Authority signals from links and mentions are what Google uses to rank one site above another when everything else is equal, making it the differentiator in competitive search results.
Work backwards from your end goal (e.g., book more car accident cases), identify the search terms people use for that outcome, audit which pages you already have that address those topics, then compare your pages to top-ranking competitors to see what content elements, length, and links you're missing.
SEO traffic is passive and compounding - once you rank, you get traffic without ongoing effort - while social media requires constant engagement or traffic stops. More importantly, search audiences are actively seeking your solution with purchase intent, not being passively advertised to, making them far more qualified leads.
Instead of chasing every new SEO theory, use a competitive analysis process to see what's currently ranking in your specific industry and keyword space. By analyzing what's working in real-time for your competitors, you can adapt systematically rather than reactively waiting for someone to explain why a tactic stopped working.
Tips are reactive - you try something, it fails, and you wait for the next tip to try. A process is proactive - you understand how search works, analyze your specific competitive landscape, and systematically build content and links based on data, reducing time spent learning and increasing time doing.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Do you have a great idea but are struggling to grow your business with it? Do you have a brand but still can’t find a way to get it out to the masses? Are you tired of getting all the tips and advice out there and just need a process that works for your company? Well then you’re probably wondering if there is a REAL TALK way to figure out how to build your business online on auto-pilot? Well, I got Travis Bliffen coming to the virtual stage to show you how to use his methods of getting visibility and more qualified leads to grow your business. You'll discover: ~The one common mistake you see when it comes to link building or content marketing? ~What are the first three things marketing steps you should take when opening your business? ~How to approach SEO & Content Marketing in your business and the importance of it. Don’t miss this one if you want to learn the process most aren’t talking about these days in building your online business. Travis Bliffen is the founder of Stellar SEO, a top-rated U.S. link building agency. As an Army veteran, Travis took a leap of faith after reading a magazine article about the future of SEO. He dove deep and spent a year perfecting his craft.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Hey, it's Brian here on the virtual stage getting ready or backstage? On the backstage virtual stage here, getting ready for Travis Bliffin. And we're going to talk about something that we don't often. That we don't often talk about here on the show, and that is SEO. That is link building, that is content marketing, and why it is so super important to put this in force onto your business. It's not always about social media and all those things, even though that's a powerful, powerful force. But the foundations of SEO in link building and content marketing is still king. And he's going to show you all those things and tell you exactly how to do it step by step. The blueprint, uh, how the dangers of what to do and what not to do. And I think it's going to be great for you. All right, you ready? I'm ready.
Speaker B: Let's go.
Speaker A: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we are back with another one. It is the Authority Project. I am Brian S. Arnold here, and I have my new good friend here, Travis Bliffin, and he says, forget about tips, forget about tips, but build a process instead so you can dominate your niche. Is that what you're here to show us today, Travis?
Speaker B: That's what I'm going to tell you about today. And then you'll probably spend 50% less time reading about the latest tips, tricks, and then you'll, like, be out there doing stuff, and that's what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker A: I love it. I love it. Well, we shall see you on this episode, sir, on this current episode of the Authority Project.
Speaker C: All right, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, feast your eyes and tune your ears. It's that time again. We are live with another episode of the Authority Project. It's the video podcast streamed on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope, where we talk to digital marketers, business coaches, and creators of all kinds on how they've built authority in their field and. And how you can mimic their success developing authority, building your audience, and attracting better clients to your own business. Now, without further ado, let's bring to the virtual stage your host, Brian S. Arnold.
Speaker A: All right, we're back with another one, folks. It's Brian, that's Arnold here, and you are the project. We want to slap authority to your name so you can sell more of what you are great at. And I have Travis Bliffin here in the house. Finally. We tried to get her on, get him on last time. I'm not sure what happened, uh, what it was me or you, whatever. It doesn't matter. He is here now in the building, and I'm excited because we have a topic here that we don't always talk about. So, Travis, how you doing today?
Speaker B: First of all, I'm doing good. Yeah, it took a couple tries to get scheduled. Yeah, I think the first time. So we're having a pool built. Right. We're still working from home in Tennessee. And so twice they've ran right over the fiber line, busted it in two. Internet goes out, chaos ensues, pretty much done for the day at that point. And so third, uh, time's a charm, though. We got it this time, and so I'm glad to be here and, uh, looking forward to it.
Speaker A: This is awesome, awesome stuff. So let's talk, first of all, before we get. Before we dive in, about who you are, Travis, personally and then professionally.
Speaker B: Sure. So kind of an interesting story, how I got into business, and this kind of goes into who I am. I. I basically graduated high school, joined the army, spent four and a half years in the army, decided that I didn't want to make that a career. It was a great experience, but not something I'd want to do when I'm 40 and 50 still. And so I got out, got. Got a job, moved back home to Illinois, where I'm originally from. Got a job there, worked for the Department of Corrections for a little while. Eventually got moved over into the midnight shift, which was completely incompatible with me. I felt like a zombie all the time. Horrible experience.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Um, Right. And so I started thinking, like, all right, I'm gonna figure out a different job, a different thing I can do. And so one day, I'm on the way into work, I stop at, like, Walgreens, and I go into the magazine section. And so I'm looking, I buy one. And this is in, like, 2012. So I open up this list, and it's like, the 12 best industries to get into in 2013 or 13 best, something like that. So SEO was one of the things on the list, and that's really the first time that I'd ever heard of it, but it kind of piqued my interest. And so that's where this all got started, is kind of a random turn of events. But like a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs, I didn't necessarily set out. I haven't had a lifelong passion to own my own business or anything like that. It was just a quick matter of evolution over a couple of years there. And now that I've gotten to do it, I don't know that I could ever go back to not being my own boss, but that's in a nutshell, kind of how I got to be where I am right now.
Speaker A: I love it. That's awesome. So is there a current project that you're working on right now that you want to share?
Speaker B: So there's a lot of projects that we work on simultaneously. We have a pretty good sized team here, always. Some of my favorite ones to work on though, are helping people troubleshoot penalty recoveries. So one thing that we've been working on the past couple months is it's actually a law firm in Chicago, personal injury law firm. Basically, in 2019, they had one of the highest levels of organic traffic amongst any personal injury law firms. And in 2020, whatever happened to them, it was like 12,000% drop in traffic. Huge problem. And so a couple months ago, they went through a series of, they went to other people, other contractors, SEO people, had a bunch of audits done and really couldn't make any headway on that. So they came to us. A few months ago, we started going through the audit process with them, trying to help them uncover everything that's going on. And so that's already looking a lot better. I mean, from the start of the year until now, traffic's probably increase five times. So it's going pretty good. But that's a combination of penalty recovery and link building, and that's a pretty fun project. Just because there was like a lot of things that were missed by a lot of people and we were able to uncover those going back to a different process. We have, um, pretty much everything we do runs on processes. So we applied that process there and it kind of uncovered the, uh, situation. And so that's one that we're working on right now. That's fun. But aside from that, a lot of our projects are clients that we've had three, four, five years. And so those are pretty smooth at this point. But we're always getting interesting new things that come to us. And every now and again, we'll take on something that's unique. Like that though, because it is just kind of challenging and rewarding all at the same time. And so we like to do those. Keeps us sharp.
Speaker A: Um, um, I, I, I totally agree. So one last question before we dive in. Do you have a daily routine?
Speaker B: So I do, but not. It's not a good one. Right. Like, if you hear about, I mean, it's good, it works for me, but I don't wake up at 5am and I don't make my be day, none of this basic stuff, right? So I wake up, I drink lots of iced coffee, but then I go about my day at lunchtime since we're all, we're still remote. One of my favorite things on YouTube is HasFit. So every day at lunchtime I do like a 30 minute workout and it's these HAZFIT people, right? It's work from home with dumbbells, all that kind of stuff, right? Good part of the routine. But basically the morning is when I'm most productive. So probably between 7 and 11 in the morning is when I tackle anything that really requires a lot of brain power. And then usually in the afternoon it goes to things that would require a little bit less focus, more simplistic things. And so that is my routine. But it isn't one of those like you should try to emulate it and write a book about it or anything because it just, that's how it goes.
Speaker A: See that's the reason why I like asking that question. Because I think a lot of people think that's the way to go. That you have to wake up at 5:36, 6 o' clock to be successful, that you have to do the do this morning routine thing, that you have to do all these things. But I think you have to do really do the routine that works for you.
Speaker B: That's it.
Speaker A: Because if you don't, then you're, then you're trying to model something that's really not, maybe not congruent with who you are.
Speaker B: So that's uh, it like best advice ever is think about like how you feel at different points in the day, productivity wise, all those things and then plan out your activities to coincide with that. I know some people like our evening and nighttime people and that's when they really come alive. And so if that's your time of day then, then plan the heavy thinking, brain intensive stuff then. And so but you know, like the uh, wear a black T shirt every day kind of thing. Not that you're doing that. I saw a thing about that and there was actually a lady who started a company and she emulated that from Steve Jobs I guess. And so she was saying like this is why, because it doesn't give me decision fatigue. And. And so I wore a different T shirt today than I did yesterday. And I don't think I spent a lot of time um, trying to, to grapple with that heavy decision making. But you know, I. Some stuff you hear, it just gets blown out of proportion and it doesn't in my opinion really amount to much other than correlation.
Speaker A: I love it. I love it. We're off to a good start, folks. We're off to a great start right now. So let's go ahead and dive into why we should embrace having a process instead of just, instead of always trying to find the tips and tricks for everything.
Speaker B: Sure. So when it comes to SEO especially, but really with a lot of things in life, if you understand how something works, then you don't have to be reactive, necessarily. A lot of SEO companies, they get into the routine of, we're going to do this because, uh, we heard about it and it's working right now. And then if it stops working, then we have to wait for somebody else to figure out why it doesn't work and tell us something new to try. And then we're going to try that until it doesn't work and you're in this reactive process. Right. So, and this goes into, like, how we run our business and how we make marketing plans, everything. But basically, I like to start with the end goal in mind, and that's really, in any scenario. It can be as, uh, simple as scheduling an appointment with somebody or doing some advanced penalty recovery stuff. If you start with this is what the end outcome M looks like.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And you build backwards, then it takes out that temptation to go down a bunch of different rabbit trails that don't really amount to where you want to go. And so probably the most important part of a process is that it keeps you very focused on. This is where I'm trying to go, and this is the steps I have to take to get there by working backwards and figuring out my current situation. And if you apply this type of thinking, you can really use it to run a business, to build marketing plans, to do competitive analysis. There's not really many scenarios where it doesn't work unless you're the very first person ever to create something that solves a problem that nobody else has done yet. And I mean, if you're operating on that level, then you probably don't need a process anyway. Right. You're just doing things in your own style. So if you were like Nikola Tesla, then, then maybe don't use a process, but everybody else works pretty well. And so.
Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry, Go ahead.
Speaker B: Yeah. And so I was just going to say, though, the other thing with SEO, with link building, with marketing, is everybody kind of rehashes a lot of the same tips and information. Right. Do this, everybody hears it. And if you go out and you apply it a hundred Times it might work 60 or 70% of the time. Right. The other 30% is not going to work. And if you don't have a process, you're not really going to know why it didn't work. You just know that whatever you followed didn't work. And so then there you are again, back on the hamster wheel. You go back, read a different tip and say, okay, this must be the tip that I missed and I'm going to try this. And there's no right, there's no growth to that, there's no improvement of a process. And so that's like, I'm just a huge fan of processes. Makes everything work out much better.
Speaker A: So this is great about the process. So, so sometimes it's hard to really crack that code about how to construct that process. I mean it's not uh, because here's the thing, is it always set it and forget it. Because isn't the motions always changing? See if you're doing, if you're talking about SEO, SEO link building may probably not, but SEO content marketing, doesn't that somehow change after a while looking through things? So how do we do it as far as a process where this is the basic, if you have this foundation, at least you can start from there.
Speaker B: Yep. And so a lot of. And um, that's again where the process really is very helpful. A lot of the subtleties change. And so if you go back 10 years, if you wanted to rank a website for red shoes and blue shoes and purple shoes, you would have a page for all three of these. Right. And, and that's. And for every keyword you would have to have its own page. And that's where it started and then it progressed into now you can have a, ah, really very in depth page and it'll rank for hundreds, thousands of keywords. You don't need a page for every possible combination. Google can figure out this is what the page is about. All right. The last year of updates and what some people are predicting will be the future is history is going to repeat itself a little bit and they're going to break pages down into smaller segments. And so some of the more recent updates, you actually see that happening where you used to have one page that would rank for 500 keywords. And so now if you go back using the process of competitive analysis and you look at what pages rank for these keywords now, you'll start to see that there's now two different pages that rank for half and half of the keywords. And so it goes through this Evolution of, uh, multiple pages, one page, and now it's starting to break it back down. And the reason where it's kind of going is they want to be able to give you the best, most concise answers. And if they had their way, I imagine they would do it without people ever having to leave Google, which you see, you know, pop up more and more with the featured snippets and the answers and all of those sort of things. And so while that's changed, what kind of page you might create, for example, if you go through the process of, okay, these are the most important terms that I want to rank for, because I think they're going to have a lot of value. And then you say, okay, who's currently ranking for these terms now and what is it that they're doing to effectively rank for these terms? And so you look at what kind of content do they have, how long is it, how do they have different pages segmented, how many links do they have, what kind of activities are going on, what kind of averages and data can you extrapolate from that? And then you go and you apply that when you're creating your own pages, your own content. Then even though Google might have said, we went from one page to multiple pages, back to one page, when you go through that process, you're going to figure out which mood they're in today and figure out, this is what I need to do. And so, especially in SEO, where stuff changes so much, if you have a process of reviewing what's working really well currently specific to a, uh, keyword or a group of keywords, then you don't necessarily have to try to keep up with the 10,000 different theories that always come out about SEO, because the other variable is industries. In some industries, if you do the same thing, you'll get the site quickly penalized, and it would never rank. But if you do it in another industry, it's the only way to rank. And so to uncover that information, you have to go through a competitive analysis process and figure out based on what Google's actually doing for that search result, what it is they want to see. And so the process keeps you from chasing that ever changing kind of goal. Right, because it might change. But if you apply the same process, you'll figure out what changed and you'll make something that makes sense for that. And so it makes it a little bit less sporadic and it kind of makes it a more systematic process.
Speaker A: This is awesome, awesome for people to hear, although you might have blown some people's minds already. Right now, because it's gone over people's heads. So how, huh, what should the content marketing look like if you're just like beginning? Because I can see people like, building. Because if you're. And I got a couple of questions here because say if you already have like a website that has like 20 to 50 pages already, do you have clients where you're like, do you look at every page and say you need to change up these keywords so they, that they rank at a certain point every time when people are, uh, when you get visits, is that what you're doing with a web page? Or you. Or is it something completely different when you do this?
Speaker B: So the web pages and the keywords, they're a part of the process. So the end goal, a client might come to us and say, I want to book more car accident cases. All right? And so we know the outcome is they want to get more leads that are people in car accidents. And so you take one step back and say, what kind of things are people searching who have been involved in a car accident? And maybe it's car accidents or truck accidents or commercial vehicle accidents. And so now you have this cluster of things that people would search for. And then you take one step back and you say, okay, what pages on their website, what content on their website already exists that talks about these topics? And that's when you would then look at the competitors and say, okay, the client has a page that talks about truck accidents, but it's half of the length and it doesn't include these elements and it doesn't have any links to it. So these are all areas that we would need to adjust and improve if we too wanted to rank for that keyword. You go back one step further, and then your plan looks like, I will make this content adjustment, these on page adjustments, and we'll go out and try to acquire this many links. Because through our research, we've determined that everybody that's in the top three, four, five spots for that kind of fits this mold. And so that's the process applied. And so we would look at the pages, we would look at the keywords, but it's really about starting with the end outcome and then figuring out what can we do to maximize the visibility and the likelihood of those people finding them. And so that's kind of how it plays out in real time.
Speaker A: That's great stuff. That's great stuff. Because I want to get, I want to break it down for people just to simplify everything. Actually, we'll get to that. Tell Us, first of all, before. That's a great question later on. But tell us about the power of link building. Why you shouldn't just put up a website and just some articles and call it a day.
Speaker B: Yep. So what we like to refer to link building as is the tiebreaker. And so if 10 people all have a website and they all have the same content, and these are targeting the same market, and everything's the same because your website, the site speed, your content, those are all things you can control directly. So there's no reason that any competitor should ever be beating you in those areas because you can control your own website, your own every. There's no, there's no limitation there unless you've picked a bad platform, but you can change that and no limitations. Where there becomes a limitation is the amount of authority that your website has. And so if 10 websites have done everything within their control and Google's, uh, saying, okay, which one of these do I rank first? Then what it's going to come down to is authority. And so authority is a byproduct of getting mentions, getting talked about, getting links. And so that's why I say link building is a tiebreaker, because 10 sites are all the same. One of them is linked to, talked about, discussed, search for a lot more. Often it has these authority and credibility signals. And now Google says, okay, we have a winner. This is the most authoritative side of the bunch because people are talking about this one. And so that's a simplistic explanation, but that's essentially where link building comes into the picture.
Speaker A: I love it. That's amazing stuff. This is great because I, uh, think only one other person talked about link building on this show, so I'm glad we got another one because this isn't sexy. Let's be honest, Travis, SEO in link building, content marketing, it's not sexy anymore. People are diving into the social channels, the Facebooks, the Instagrams, the Twitters, and that kind of thing. TikTok, that's where you should be getting your clients from. So can you break down the importance of this fundamental foundation thing of, uh, SEO, link building, content marketing, why that's really should be a big foundation for your business online.
Speaker B: Yep. And the reason why is because it's both passive and compounding. If you want to engage and generate a lot of clients from social media and you stop engaging on social media, it's going to dry up. There's going to be no more. If you build a following on social media, there's only so many people that are going to find and subscribe and it'll grow over time. But on social media, not everybody who follows you and engages with you is going to be a potential client who's ready to buy. So the amount of leads you can generate from that will not grow as quickly as it will from search. There's a few exceptions like clothing, fashion items. Social media can work really well for stores that sell those things. And so there are exceptions where SEO isn't always the fastest or most direct route to doing what you do, but in other spaces where there's more of a research process, maybe business to business, consumers want to learn and be educated more about something before they purchase it, then SEO allows you to have multiple touch points with that person without necessarily going out and doing anything. So if you have a website and it answers in five different articles the most common questions they have. What a, uh, comparison of your service or product versus other people, how much does it cost? How do I know if I should use it? And then they're doing searches for that information. One, they're a very active, ready to buy audience because they're searching very specifically for what you're giving them. Right? And so with social media, it's advertising, right? You're pushing a message out, but you don't know if they're interested now or in the future. But with search, they're searching for very specific things about what you do. So the likelihood of those people wanting to do business with you goes up. And then as you get towards the bottom of the funnel, right? So you've, you have this content that teaches people, uh, about what you do. And then if they consume that, and then they go back and they search for the service or the product, which turns into more of a buyer keyword and they see you show up again. Then now in their mind they're thinking, okay, so I found them when I was trying to figure out what it is, I found them again when I was researching pricing. And now that I'm looking for a company to hire, I now see them a third time. And so it gives you instant, not instant, but it gives you a lot more credibility than if you didn't go through those. And so that's why with outbound sales, for example, you can have up to 10 touch points with somebody manually just to get to the, really the first meeting, right? And so if you wanted to and think about like higher volume searches, think about how many people it would take to reach out to and connect 10 times with those 10, 20, 30,000 visitors that came to your website. Because you made an article one time and promoted it and now it's continuously generating leads for you. And so social media is new, it's fun, it's flashy, people have moved on. Right. But just like paid ads, if you stop actively doing it, then it's gonna dry up. There's articles online that I personally wrote like three, four, five years ago that people will still call and say, I was reading this article and I saw that you wrote it. And then they go on to become a lead and in some cases a customer. And so I wrote it one time. It's been a long time ago, but it ranks, they found it and it still generates leads. Now you're never going to get that with social media. If you didn't post for 5 years, I doubt you would be generating any leads from it.
Speaker A: Right, great. I think the only one exception to that might be YouTube, which I, I don't really consider that really a social media platform for some reason because it is, um, very much SEO based.
Speaker B: Yeah. And there's a, the reason why YouTube works great is because the content you create on YouTube can last for several years, just like written content on your website. And there's an element of search. YouTube's one of the biggest search engines. So you go to regular Google if you're searching for written content and you go to YouTube if you're searching for video content on the same topic. And so you have those same elements at play. You have long lasting content that can work for you for years. You have an element of search and visibility and credibility. And it teaches people both ways through written content, through video content. Both of those teach people what you want them to know about your service, how to value your service, how to buy it. And they do all that without you having to, one on one, walk everybody through the whole step, which would take exponentially more, uh, time, more manpower. Right. All these things that just wouldn't be possible.
Speaker A: Okay, so let's go, let's start. Uh, to wrap this up here. So I wanted to say it like this before. Could we have a lot of like thought leaders in the, on this, here, on this channel? No slope, solopreneurs, that kind of thing. Small business teams. Can you tell me, as we wrap this up, the blueprint you want to see from your, from like an ideal client before, before they come to you. Like, what do you want to really see as maybe like an ideal client for you? Give us like a summary of what they should be be doing or looking to do before they get to somebody that can Hand over the reins to you from there.
Speaker B: Yep. So two things that make a, ah, really good client, and if you are a potential client, two things that you should do. One is you need to consume enough information about what you're hiring somebody to do that you can begin to distinguish the value or the quality of a service that you're getting. Right. And so it's, I think it's very important for people to take some time and at least understand the basics of what they're hiring somebody to do and what a good campaign looks like. And if they don't do that, then they can get along 612 months into a project and never really realize the red flags. Um, and then there's a lot of frustration at that point. So consume some knowledge, get the basics. There's all kinds of different free information that will go over all the basics of SEO. So the second part is you have to know what you're trying to accomplish and not from an SEO goal. Like, you don't have to know, I want to rank for this keyword. But you have to know what is the end desired outcome? What is it that I want to happen? And that just comes down to a business goal. If you sell car insurance, you want more leads from people that are looking for car insurance. Right. And so we can help then uncover all the steps to go from current situation to selling more car insurance. But we can only do that if we know this is what you hope to accomplish as the end goal. And that's where a lot of people in the SEO industry go wrong. They have a really big focus on all of these in between steps and not so much on the end outcome. And so what you'll end up with is a bloated project, a campaign where 30, 40% of the stuff being done doesn't really advance you towards the end goal anyway. Right. And so if you understand the basics and you have a clear end goal in the conversation that you have with a potential company you work with, and this can be with SEO or any kind of marketing, they should be telling you back how it is that they plan to help you achieve that end goal. And not so much focused on, we're going to do X, Y and Z, those are part of the steps. But if they don't seem to grasp this is the desired outcome, and here's how we can get to that, and they don't have a process to do that, then that's usually a red flag because they're going to just deliver kind of a set service to everybody. And it May not necessarily be what you need. And so those are the biggest two things. Know where you're trying to go and learn enough about it to spot red flags in case you do hire a bad company.
Speaker A: I like that. I'm glad that you pointed it out because you have some people, some people out there who will just maybe outsource something or just have a, uh, uh, one little software tool that they use to automate something. They're not really doing anything. So I'm glad you pointed that out. I have one last question for you, Trevor. This has been very enlightening on here. So very. I'm so glad you've been on your. Got you on the show finally. So my last question for you. Access if all of my guests and go something like this. There are people out there with maybe similar goals, some interest as you, maybe similar paths as you, and they want to do some of the things that you're doing. They want to help people with SEO, they want to help people build out more efficient websites and so forth with their link building and so forth with their content marketing, so forth. Can you tell them, and I'll put you front and center in your own words how they can become an authority in this space.
Speaker B: Yep. So one of the most important things that you can do is take action. So one of my favorite sayings is jump off the cliff and learn how to fly on the way down. If you don't take action, if you don't go out and start practicing, build your own website, try to rank your own website, do what it is that you think is the right thing and see how it works out. Learn from those mistakes and improve. Then you're gonna. You could take forever. You could spend years and years learning. And then by the time you mastered what you thought you knew, it's changed anyway. And so you get the analysis. Paralysis by analysis. Don't do it. The reason why I was able to do what I did is because I jumped in. I built a website within a few months of having read that article and started trying everything under the sun to figure out how to rank it until I figured it out. And it probably took a year of repetition before I started to notice, like, these are the things that consistently work and these are the things that don't. And had I not just jumped in and tried it, it could have taken years and I still might not have gotten nearly as far. So there's one of my favorite things is they show the entrepreneur versus the entrepreneur and it shows the timeline right where you think about it. Talk about it, dream about it, but you don't do anything to make it happen. Do something to make it happen. Don't make any excuses. I started a business with no previous experience, no money, no business running experience, nothing. I really had no reason to be successful other than I jumped in and I just kept going and going until I mastered what I needed to. And then I started building a team that could help me do it even better. And so don't make excuses for yourself. Jump in, take action. And that's really the only way to become an authority is through action, through learning, through trial and error. Because if you don't go through those steps, everybody who's an authority in any space went through those steps. You're not going to end up where they are because you won't have all the, the firsthand knowledge. And that's what being an authority really comes down to, is I have firsthand knowledge and expertise about this because I've been there, I've done it, I've tried and failed. That's it. Take action. No excuses.
Speaker A: Fantastic. That was awesome, man. I especially like how you said it took you a year to really evaluate everything. At least a year. I stress that for everybody. Just like, like don't do the 30, 60 day, 90 days and like give up. I'm like, all right, this isn't going to work for me. So give it at least a year. Right?
Speaker B: Yeah, keep going.
Speaker A: Oh, uh, that's wonderful. Awesome stuff, man. So tell people where they should get to you after the show.
Speaker B: Yeah, so just check us out. Stellarseo.com there's two guides on there. One is a link building process. Very detailed. So if you're thinking about trying your own link building, hiring a link building company, or anything in between, go through it. It outlines the process that'll probably be one of the most valuable things ever. There's another one on there, same thing. Law firm SEO guide outlines a process again. So if you fall in either one of those categories, definitely check out those two guides because it will give you a much different insight into how to think about and evaluate things. No matter if you're doing it yourself or hiring somebody to do it, or building an in house team, you'll have a process.
Speaker A: I love it. That is fantastic. People go over there right now. Steli SEO. This guy is amazing. Travis, I'm so happy to have you finally get on the show. It took a while, but it was well worth it.
Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So everybody, as you always can tell, I am stressing out to go stressing you stressing out. To help you go to the authorityletter.com where I give you a three part video series there and you can build your authority platform from there. We help you do that and I give you weekly real talk letters online about the industry. And I try my best to do as simple, as easy as possible for you to understand in my own way. And we have a lot of fun over there too. So check it out and should I announce it now? I'll announce it later. But I have a Facebook group coming very shortly. That's the hint. It's coming shortly. A new Facebook group. And it's going to be. It's going to be. It's going to be very different. We're trying to make an impact on the world, Travis. That's what we're trying to do. So that's all for me. Unless you have any final words today.
Speaker B: Just one. Facebook groups are sometimes golden nuggets. Some of the best stuff I've ever picked up from other people was from Facebook groups around a particular topic. So I'm not sure what this one's about, but Facebook groups are gold.
Speaker A: Awesome. That's. That's the key. Everybody please go and check out Travis Bleph and Travis Bliff. I'm sorry. And get to this guy. This guy's amazing. He's brilliant. It's a great team. And I am, um. So again, I'm just floored by the knowledge and everything that he brings to the table. So go there now, stellateseo.com and we'll see you in the next time. Remember, build it, share it, and they will come. And we're out. Peace.
Speaker C: And that's a wrap for this episode of the Authority Project. Thanks so much for tuning in and if you like what you heard, we want to hear from you. Subscribe, rate and give an honest review. Share and tell your friends so they can hear too. And for even more authority building tactics, be sure to sign up@theauthorityletter.com get free weekly content and ongoing digital product giveaways to help you on your entrepreneurial journey. We certainly hope you got a key takeaway or maybe an aha, uh, moment from today's broadcast. Just remember, it's your authority. Build it, share it, and they will come.
Speaker A: Until next time, Sam.
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