Mastering SEO and Affiliate Marketing, Importance of Email Lists and AI | Greg Jeffries DSH #326

This up-and-coming search engine that no one had ever heard of called Google.

You know, I'm going to teach you, I'm going to tell you how our algorithm works and how to game it or whatever.

But really, SEO just comes down to three things.

Number one,

be relevant.

Number two, be popular.

And number three, don't be evil.

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And here's the episode.

All right, we are back on the show, guys, all the way from Austin, Texas.

We got Greg Jeffries here today.

How's it going, man?

Pretty awesome.

How's it going

in Austin, man?

I hear good things about it there.

Oh, it's popping, man.

Yeah, it just keeps expanding.

Everybody keeps moving there.

So

a lot of...

entrepreneurs and authors and yeah so you went there 10 years ago were you doing seo and affiliate marketing at the time or did that come recently no that was uh well it started shortly after there I moved in 2010 fall of 2010 just as I'm originally from Mississippi so just kind of like the

hope of a better life more opportunities it's a bigger city and

you know thinking back

it didn't take very long for me to kind of start going down that rabbit hole of like the make money online searches and things like that.

So I think that started actually probably within a couple months.

Interesting.

But it did take

probably

five or six years to kind of weed through all the,

you know, just all the kind of misdirection and BS and stuff that's out there.

There's a lot of just.

There's a lot of that in the free marketing space.

Yeah, so some people it takes a little bit, some people it takes longer, but it kind of in the grand scheme of things, it didn't take that long looking back you know and and once I finally had the the pieces of the puzzle that worked for me or made sense for me it it only took about 90 days for me to kind of really

change my life I guess right so 90 days how much did you make in that that period well that's what got me from like

a thousand to three thousand dollars a month on a good month just because I was like I don't know what I'm doing some things are working but I don't know why

to I think I have a direction so from so from December of 2016 to

April of 2017, that's where I built up from whatever I was doing,

maybe a couple thousand bucks randomly each month to five figures a month, and then I've never made less than that since.

Wow.

So, consistent.

Yeah.

Well, it helped that I was promoting some products and services that paid recurring, which helped considerably.

But yeah, it really, you know,

I can talk for hours about this stuff now that I've lived it.

But when I when I first moved out there, you know, I just wanted to like make money, but I would see all these quotes of like positive quotes, affirmations, self-help, personal development.

And it's like, that sounds really good.

Give me the money first, and then I'll change my mindset.

But now all those, you know, quotes and affirmations stuff make a lot more sense because

you know it really it really

is all in your mind and stuff and once you once you understand that that the money for sure flows and follows which is it doesn't make sense until it until it finally does no for sure i know what you mean you got to build that safety net first and then focus on those things i neglected my health completely the first few years which is terrible advice but i think you know just getting getting a safety net yeah and i think the money

I don't think that's a bad thing because once you have the money, you can buy the nicer, the better food.

You can shop at Whole Foods.

You can get a training.

I remember that change to Whole Foods, man that was a game changer right for me from shop right to whole foods yeah when i when i when i first job when i moved out there uh whole foods was new to me i all i knew was walmart growing up yeah um so we didn't even have that as an option in mississippi um but uh one of the girls at my first job i worked at she was like she jokingly called it whole paycheck because that's how you know the food you are spending hundreds every time you go there for sure but it's higher quality so yeah so health is one of those things i just i don't cheap out on anymore i used to try to eat for like super cheap, as cheap as possible, but you just pay terrible.

You'll pay for it later.

Yeah, you'll definitely pay for it later.

But growing up in Mississippi, what was that like?

I don't know anyone from there.

Most people don't.

Most people say, well, I've been through there on my way to Florida.

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Peace.

It's a great place.

I really like it.

It's a good place to come back to.

It's much slower than the rest of the country, it seems like, or at least I've been to most of the

continental U.S., so it's it's a much slower pace of life,

which isn't a bad thing, but it's almost like it's kind of like a little time bubble.

No bubble.

Which is not bad.

You know, food's amazing.

People are good.

No entrepreneurship, though.

Not a lot, but it exists.

They're just not.

flexing like you see on social media and stuff.

And

I grew up in the 90s.

So at that time, we didn't really have the internet as we have now.

Yes, it existed, but we didn't have social media, so we didn't know what we didn't know.

So it wasn't that bad, you know, reflecting on that for sure.

So we just had what they fed us through the radio waves, so the FM,

AM, I guess, but FM.

We had cable,

and then we had magazines and movies and stuff.

So

we, that was all we knew.

So yeah, if you don't know what's out there, you think you're living a great life, you know?

Yeah, that's how I was in Jersey.

I caught the tail end of social media.

I think Instagram came out when I was in high school.

So that Jersey is pretty much all I knew.

I didn't even know about LA or anything.

Yeah.

And

I don't know if you've traveled internationally, but I've started that and like, wow, that really shifts your perspective because you realize, and not to, you know, throw America under the bus or anything, but it's like you start to realize, wow, you know, our whole lives, they've been, they've kind of fed us.

these beliefs in school that we're number one and we're the best in the world

until you go to other countries and they're like, we don't think that about y'all.

And they're like, what?

We're the best.

We're number one.

That's what they tell us.

And like, but not in lifestyle.

Yeah.

So, yeah, number one in certain things, but not even anymore, to be honest.

I do like the opportunity that we have here.

But as far as quality of life and like the healthcare system, the school system, financial system, and whatever.

I mean, we have access to ridiculous amounts of credit, which is amazing.

The credit's great.

Yeah, I just got like 200K and and 0% credit like a month ago, just having a good credit score.

Yeah, which is wild.

In other countries, that's not possible.

Yeah, so which is, you know, again, we're told we have to work for money and trade time for money, but

not really true once you discover the truth.

Just go get it.

Yeah, which countries really shifted your perspective that you traveled to?

Well, my fiancé's from Dominican Republic, so that's

a whole different world there.

And I guess, well, it was a massive culture shock, but in a good way.

But it kind of was uncomfortable because it, I guess, shed some light on the way we do things over here and why we probably are very depressed and kind of frustrated over here, which, like, things they do over there, they just sort of make sense, which is,

you wonder, well, why, why are people so stressed over here?

And, like, an example would be like, you know, the health care and stuff.

You can just go pay to go to a doctor today.

You don't have to, like if you've got something severely wrong with you, you don't have to be on a wait list.

Right.

You just go pay for that.

And if you need, if you're sick,

instead of having to drive or drag yourself to a pharmacy, you just call the pharmacy and describe to the pharmacist what's wrong with you and they deliver your medications to you.

I'm like, what a genius idea because who feels like going to the CBS when you feel like crap?

Yeah, you can order cannabis, you can order alcohol, you can order everything.

Yeah.

And then

I guess the biggest shifter for me is just

over here, I feel like we put a lot of emphasis on the outside of things.

So like the outside of restaurants, the outside of buildings and stuff, and what

perception and stuff like perception is reality.

And what's on the outside, well, that must reflect what's on the inside.

Not true, and at least in the DR.

I haven't been to all the other countries, but

over here, you know, we've got strip malls where all the

stores pretty much look the same.

The logos are just different.

Whereas in their country or in the DR,

like you could have a salon next to a radio station, next to a house, next to

a restaurant, next to another restaurant, and they're just doors.

And you're just like, what's in there?

There's no sign or anything?

Maybe there's a sign, but it's like, I would never go in in there.

But then you go in there and it's completely transformed on the inside.

So beautiful restaurants, amazing service.

Your money goes so much farther.

And so I was like, what, what, what do I, how do I process this information?

Yeah.

Because everything I've been ever been told and sold and fed is like flip-flopped.

Right.

So, but so I encourage people, you know,

work hard, get the, do what you need to do to get the money or learn how the money, monetary system works, and

use it to travel, educate yourself, read books.

Absolutely.

Things like that.

Learn.

I always encourage that, especially traveling.

Yeah, because it's just going to shift your perspective.

It's going to give you a lot.

It's going to humble you.

It's going to give you a lot of

help you understand other cultures and stuff

because our way is not the only way.

Every single country is different.

And I know

we live in a huge country here in the U.S., so we've got different states.

And sure, Jersey is different from Mississippi, is different from Austin.

Yeah.

But not in the same way

that

the Dominican Republic is different from Mexico, is different from Canada.

Those are completely different

ways of living that

and

the same things that apply in the U.S.

that you cannot do in the DR some things and vice versa.

So it's like you just

have to accept it you can't really change it

so

yeah there's certain countries I mean you spend five ten bucks on a meal you're eating like a king yeah I remember going to Jamaica it was like that Thailand it was like that Bolivia the dollar goes far in some countries man yeah so it's cool to get out there and experience different cultures and you can live like a bad

out here spending five bucks on a meal you're getting fast food Not even like the other week, my fiancé, she bought a Wendy's, which I haven't had Wendy's in like 20 years.

And we got a junior bacon cheeseburger, another burger,

two fries, I think, and two Cokes.

And it was like

$30-something dollars.

I'm like, how?

Dang.

Yeah, that used to be like seven bucks.

Yeah,

for a long time.

Yeah.

Like for decades or whatever.

I'm like, when did it go up to $30 to eat Wendy's?

Like, for two people?

I wonder if they still have the dollar menu at some of those places.

That's what I was asking.

Is it now the $5 menu?

I don't know.

I don't go.

Remember the $5 foot long at Subway?

Yeah.

Those are like $12 now.

Oh, really?

They pulled those commercials.

Yeah.

That was one of the best marketing campaigns I've ever seen because I still get that jingle in my head.

Yeah.

See?

Like, that's how effective it was.

Now commercials these days are like just copy-paste.

Yeah.

Doesn't have that personality, you know?

Yeah.

They're all about...

internal bleeding and

pharmaceuticals.

Even like those old progressive commercials, State Farm, like those are classics, man.

I actually go on YouTube and watch old commercial compilations.

Yeah.

I mean, that sounds pretty weird, but it's just like interesting to see how advertising has changed over the years.

Oh, yeah.

Like, I didn't, I don't even like old Spice, but I love their commercials so much that it made me want to buy their products.

Yeah.

I'm like, these are cool.

Yeah, that whistle.

Yeah.

Geico had some good ones with the gecko.

Doritos had some good ones.

Super Bowl.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love how they, yeah, they just, they, yeah.

And

I just know the 90s and stuff mostly, but yeah, some of those old classic ones, they would just run for years, years, years and stuff.

Like every Christmas, we had the Eminem and I think the Cola Coca Cola commercial.

Do you remember the one with the little girl around Christmas?

I think it was Campbell's Soup or something.

Oh, classic.

She come in.

She was a snowman or something.

Yeah, or the boy.

The Campbell's one where the thing's rolling down the road and goes to the guy's foot.

Yeah.

Just

stays with you for life.

I know, right?

These days it's lost its touch, man.

How are are you advertising these days with the SEO and the affiliate marketing stuff?

Well,

that's I'm mostly

through

the shorts have kind of taken over.

Honestly, I've just kind of been taking

a step back for the last couple of years because there's been so many developments and advancements and stuff with kind of AI slash with shorts.

So I'm just now kind of incorporating that stuff into my process, which the process hasn't really changed, but the platforms and the methods and the media have a little bit of a TikTok.

Yeah, so TikTok wasn't around

several years ago.

We got

TikToks with Facebook Reels, Instagram, YouTube shorts, YouTube shows.

And so basically, yeah, you just have to kind of adjust and pivot

what you're doing, which I don't want to get too nerdy for your audience and stuff, but we just focus on

how we're different is

creating

pieces of content for long-tail searches.

So, specific keywords that people are searching for, and so instead of like weight loss, which is like super generic, focus on all the

they're called long-tail phrases, just like the questions that people are typing in, and create a piece of content for each of those.

So, that lends itself really well, actually, to the YouTube shorts and things like that, because people have, I guess,

shorter and shorter attention spans apparently now.

Oh, yeah, but they actually watch

more

of those shorts.

So instead of watching a one-hour video, I think a lot of people, not everybody, but a lot of people would rather watch like a hundred one-minute shorts and just I would personally because I get so bored on the longer videos.

Yeah, and I and I do watch those too, but I speed them up.

Yeah, 2x.

I used to do 1.5, now I'm at 2.

Audiobooks, I'm at 2x.

Dang.

People think I'm wild, but.

But yeah,

this is like sounding listening to a chipmunk.

No, yeah.

2.5 is like a chipmunk.

I tried 2.5 and that was, I couldn't even understand the book.

I can do 1.5, maybe 1.7.

You can slowly work your way off.

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Go to 175 next, get comfortable there, then go to 2x.

It's pretty wild, but because people that have never done that probably are like, you're crazy.

But

your mind is so powerful.

No, it is.

You're like, it can receive information.

Yeah, and it helps me on podcasts because now I'm already, you know, a step ahead of the guest and I can get ready for the next question.

So it definitely is useful to be able to learn and retain information quickly.

I know you're very good at SEO, which is an interesting topic.

I know it evolves so rapidly,

but a lot of people suck at SEO.

What are some ways to get better there?

Oh,

that's a broad question.

But

I guess my best advice really would be, I mean, everybody's got a different little process or approach.

Try, you know, just consume three or more people's courses so that you get

a pretty broad scope of the landscape.

Because everybody's got a different process.

Like, you know, I know if you bought my course or courses or whatever, I've got a different perspective than someone else.

So I would

consume, you know, three to six different courses on the topic and then just kind of assimilate all that information together and figure out your own little proprietary process that works for you.

Because

every SEO that I know has a slightly different philosophy, but the results are

consistent.

Yeah, that's what I see with different SEO agents.

But I'll sum it up for your audience because I don't want people to to go on these crazy long multi-year tangents and stuff trying to figure out the secret of SEO.

It's really simple.

It just comes down to content and backlinks.

And

if I have a couple minutes, I just

want to tell a really quick story.

I just had like an aha moment about...

I think 2015 or something.

I was chasing all these courses and SEO plugins and things like that.

And every single year it's the same thing.

It's like, you know, Google's changed their algorithm, and so you got to get this new plug-in to save yourself or whatever.

We just figured out how to crack the code.

And I was like, man,

it can't just be a mystery.

It has to be logical.

Because if

Google is designed by humans, the algorithm, there has to be some method to it, you know, and it's got to be pretty simple.

And

lo and behold, and the last job I was at was a company where we sold

household wares, mostly vacuums and stuff.

In my experience, you find some of the answers to your questions in the weirdest places.

And so

at that place,

they had an interesting story.

They had started from selling vacuums.

The owner started selling vacuums out of his car, made so much money that he started a physical physical store in Austin

and did direct mail and stuff, made some money that way,

had one of the first websites out there, just a website, back when we just had pages, and people would come to the web page to buy and stuff.

And anyway, so the son of the owner, he and I used to have a lot of conversations.

And he said, yeah, in the early days,

there was hardly anybody that had websites, hardly anybody selling online.

And so we would go to these weird little hotel meetings where it's like all the other internet retailers were there.

And the search engines would all send like people from their company there, basically tell us how to game their algorithms and stuff.

And one of, yeah, because like they, you know,

they worked there.

They got the inside.

Yeah.

So like, this is how our algorithm works and stuff.

And so one of the last events he said he remember going to.

You know, at the time, like at the time, like

Yahoo at one point was like king.

Yeah.

You know, and then they were were like the Alta Vistas and the dog piles and and Lycos and Excite and all those but there was this up-and-coming search engine that no one had ever heard of called Google and

this was like the last speaker or whatever and he got up there and he was like I think he was one of the top one of the first three founding members or something wow not not not

the Sergey and I don't even know the others

but not one of those but one of the the other guys and he said uh basically uh you know I'm gonna teach you I'm gonna tell you how our algorithm works and how to game it or whatever and everybody's like what what who is this guy like and what is Google

and so this guy basically just summed it up and what my boss what I'm about to say and what my boss told me it confirmed the conclusions that I had come to so I was like this makes perfect sense and just sums it up so simply so you know you can take all these courses you can read books, you can buy all these expensive tools and tracking tools and stuff.

But really, SEO just comes down to three things,

you know, in

or Google, which is like the behemoth.

Number one,

be relevant.

Number two, be popular.

And number three, don't be evil.

So

how that translates to me is number one, be relevant.

That's the on-page SEO.

That's the,

you know if you're trying to target dog training well make sure you create content about dog training yeah very simple

and dog training types of titles and phrases and searches

be popular also very simple that just means backlinks that's the off-page that's links from other websites pointing to your website or or your video or your image or whatever you're trying to rank.

So backlinks are basically just a vote in the eyes of Google.

And you have to think back to like,

why would this be evergreen?

Why would these things stand the test of time?

So when the internet was first created,

these were the elements that were around in the beginning.

So social media didn't exist yet.

And so all the things that worked back then still work today.

And so, and the third element, don't be evil, the way I interpret that is basically

don't do the first two

in a

not so much a spammy way, but in a

unnatural way.

Right.

Because I think we can all agree, like, you know,

Amazon is a huge site.

So is it unnatural for them to get a million new links a day?

No.

No.

Because it's huge.

Yeah.

But would it be unnatural for gregjeffries.com to get a million links today and tomorrow and the next day?

Yeah, who am I?

Like, I don't sell a billion products a second.

So just do things in a natural, progressive kind of way.

Yeah.

And you're good.

I've seen people sell those backlinks.

I'm like, that's sketchy, dude.

Yeah.

And a black hat kind of guy gave me this advice years ago.

He said, it doesn't matter if you're buying 100 links a day or 10,000.

Just make sure that if you buy 10,000 today, you keep that up because I'm sure people mess up yeah because if you do 10,000 and then you never buy a link again

that's a weird yeah what was that so yeah so you're able to use SEO to basically get whatever you want on the first page of Google right that's the goal but um I kind of I shifted my philosophy and that

with SEO years ago.

So instead of trying to get on page one for like, you know, whatever, best SEO in Austin, best dentist in Austin, weight loss expert or whatever, I focus on all the longer till searches.

So I don't care so much that I'm like ranking number one

or whatever.

I just want, I call it like just saturating that niche or that audience.

So like I, because I don't really know where all the traffic is because the keyword tools out there that you have,

they're just a guesstimate.

Right.

And they're usually a pretty low guesstimate.

And what I've discovered through experience is that a lot of the longer search phrases that people are typing in, they may have smaller numbers of traffic, but they're more targeted, so they're higher quality.

So they're going to lead to more conversions, yeah.

So, which is all you're after, because who cares if you're ranking number one for weight loss if you've got to educate the crap out of them on your product?

I'd rather, much rather have somebody that's like red Nike men's running shoes.

And like, cool, we I'm ranking on page one red Nike men's running shoes click buy wonderful that's what we're here for to make money so you go after the people that are already ready to buy they're not in the research stuff yeah because otherwise you have the long you know process of sales funnel educating yeah you know make money online friends it's Great.

It's great for bragging, right?

Yeah.

But then you got to educate these people.

They're just like, oh my God.

That's a huge funnel.

Right.

You got to take them from learning about about a whole industry to buying.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what are the best types of niches or products that you've had success with?

So I'll give you a couple.

So since SEO is kind of a longer game,

but

six to twelve months isn't super long in the grand scheme of things.

I would recommend people go after mostly products that are evergreen.

Although I did catch your

recent interview that you made a lot of money off

the masks yeah genius but those those are trends now there's nothing yeah yeah so I focus on more things that are evergreen and specifically products that are either

yeah evergreen recurring or high ticket so evergreen would be like a web host you're always gonna need web hosts to host your website recurring would be something like um

i i don't you know necessarily butcher box yeah something like like that that has an affiliate program, click funnels, go high level, something like that.

This has recurring

SASs and stuff that have, uh, also have recurring affiliate programs, and then high-ticket stuff.

So things that may pay 500, 1,000 or more in commission.

So, because it, that makes it worth it.

And there's a handful, there's only a handful in my experience of products and services that are the exception to that.

You would need volume for there to be an exception, I think.

Exactly.

Yeah, I love high-ticket.

I only do high-ticket.

yeah, yeah, VIP stuff because then it's not like you don't have to focus on customer service and all that.

Exactly.

Oh, and I'll add this to it too.

Pretty much any physical products, so like

if you're selling a desk or a chair,

you don't have to convince somebody that

you're going to scam them, you know.

So, like,

if they order a chair,

it's not gonna, you're not gonna get a soda can.

Right.

like you don't have to convince them of that that it's not this is not a scam or whatever

and then digital products or whatever pretty much anything outside of the make money online space because people are so that's such a negative connotation these days yeah which is weird because like I'm in the make money online space but like that is the hardest thing to sell any like it doesn't matter if you I would much it would be a way easier sell to sell a two thousand dollar course on how to break bake bread because people or people that are buying that are not like, well, I wonder if like bread's a scam.

They're like, no, no, like, dude, they have disposable income.

They want to learn how to bake bread.

And this just so happens to be a course that's going to teach them how to do that.

Wonderful.

I agree.

So, yeah, the make money online.

I think so many people have gotten their hopes up and then they get the course and they don't take action.

Exactly.

And they're like,

you're a scammer.

They blame the person with the I'm not going to jump through the computer and push buttons.

Are you worried AI is gonna be able to do what you do better

I'm not worried about it I'm excited yeah yeah I know some people in the SEO space the copywriting space

they're pretty worried I'm not because uh it basically took everything in my process and made it better faster and cheaper nice so I'm not worried at all yeah I think people on salaries from corporations are worried mainly true yeah like I'm I'm a you know entrepreneur solopreneur whatever self-employed So, yeah, I guess if I was at a job, maybe, but then I really don't.

I just think things are going to shift.

I don't think

things are going to go away.

It's just that now instead of somebody who is like doing the manual SEO, they now just need to become the person that is in charge of these tools.

Yeah, absolutely.

Manage these tools and stuff.

So just pivot.

Yeah, Greg, it's been insightful.

Anything you want to promote or close off with?

I'll just tell people to go to gregjeffries.com.

That's where I'm going to have all my latest projects and stuff so they can see all the things I'm involved in and doing.

Perfectly.

And they can reach out to you there.

Yep.

Cool.

All right.

Well, thanks for coming on, man.

Fun episode.

Thanks for watching, guys, as always.

I'll see you tomorrow.