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When Jason McKenzie was 11 years old, he started his own lawn care business. At the same time, he started programming on a Pentium 90.
As his business grew, he began to understand the importance of marketing and reaching more customers, which led him to study it in college. He also began to see a correlation between Google search results and businesses acquiring new customers.
McKenzie delved into the technology behind search engine algorithms. Now, at the age of 39, he has written a book entitled “Small Business, Big Visibility – Local SEO Made Easy,” which teaches businesses how to get the most out of search engine optimization, better known as one of the acronyms that has almost taken over business operations: SEO.
Specifically, McKenzie focuses on local SEO, helping small businesses reach their local markets.
The author took a break from his business, Boise Web, to talk to Idaho Business Review about the book and what it can teach those who study it.
Idaho Business Review: What prompted you to write this book?
Jason McKenzie: Around 2009, I became heavily intrigued by search engine optimization, and that was one of my main driving forces. At the same time, I realized how many people in the industry didn’t even understand what that meant. And there were a number of people who came into this industry at that time who were quite scrupulous, and who always felt very unpleasant to me. For years, I didn’t know what to do with it. And it just annoyed me. I see all these small business owners struggling every day to make a real impact and support their families, and here come these companies that will lock them into a contract and take untold sums of money and not give them results. Eventually, I realized I had all the knowledge. If I can give this knowledge to these employers, they can do it themselves, or at least find someone who has good morals, and we will do the real work so that an educated employer will not make the mistake of hiring them. unscrupulous people. Empowering small business owners to make wise business decisions was really the basis of what made me write the book.
IBR: What was your reasoning for including a workbook at the end of each chapter and not just making it a workbook?
JM: If a person is busy, like a business owner is, they can read, “oh, I need to do X,” and by the time the chapter is over, they’ll have forgotten most of what they were told to do. . By summarizing a short workbook at the end of each chapter, we make sure we give them a little refresher and a little accountability, so they can check the box and say, “Yes, I really did what I was supposed to do. a .” So the real goal is to empower them to succeed, not just teach them what they could do to succeed.
IBR: How has SEO changed over the years since you’ve been involved in the industry?
JM: Years ago SEO was very much in the industry, not completely, but very much in the industry, it was about how we trick the search engines to get to the top. And in today’s world, search engines have become smart enough that people have finally realized that it’s better to be an expert and have authority and build trust than to try to outdo search engines, which gives every company the basis of a great brand. SEO has really become about coming up with the best brand that resonates with your target audience, rather than trying a bunch of short-sighted tricks that may or may not work or may or may not get you in trouble. It’s been a great transition because it helps build better businesses when engaging in SEO today.
IBR: This helps weed out some of the unscrupulous characters that were in the business:
JM: Well, unfortunately, many of these characters are still selling the same stuff as they were in 2009, which blows my mind, and makes me think that this book is more important than ever because they charge more than ever and still give without results
IBR: What changes did you see in the latest Google algorithm update?
JM: Google is constantly releasing new updates, but the biggest change is that Google has tried to figure out how we treat this AI content? In 2022, they had a statement saying that any content not written by a human is considered spam by Google, and they’ve since softened that approach. In 2023, they changed their position and said, “We now say that any quality content is good.” Now it’s becoming a question of what is quality content, because it’s certainly not advantageous in Google’s long-term plan to exclude AI content when it benefits the end consumer. They’ve changed their stance and as recently as March started punishing bad AI content more strictly. But don’t punish good quality content.
IBR: What are some of the biggest mistakes businesses make when it comes to SEO and marketing?
JM: With search engine optimization, people focus and obsess over the less important things because that’s what they’ve often heard they need to worry about. When I wrote the book, I put the most important at the front of the book to the least important, knowing that most business owners only do this halfway through the book anyway. If they get halfway through the book, they’ve covered the most important information.
There are several things that used to be all buzzwords. People would throw around words like optimize your images and optimize your alt tags and link sculpting and that kind of stuff that sounds really technical and amazing, but actually if you have a 55 gallon drum and you’re trying to fill – it with SEO, it would be like taking a dropper and letting drops fall. Whereas some of the basic principles can take a big gallon and you’re pouring a gallon and you’re making more and more.
This would be the biggest mistake I see in the SEO world.
In the world of marketing, one of the biggest mistakes is that people don’t take the time to recognize who their ideal customer is. This means they don’t take the time to find out what their customer is thinking and how to communicate with them and where to communicate with them. I often see companies trying to do some kind of marketing approach where they post a lot of unhelpful information on multiple platforms in an attempt to be everywhere when their customers aren’t there and aren’t looking. for them in those places.
IBR: What are some of the biggest challenges businesses face when trying to get their name in front of consumers?
JM: For many small business owners, the biggest challenge they face is knowing what to do with the time and resources they have.
IBR: What kind of advice would you give to a small business owner starting out in SEO?
JM: For a local business location serving a local geographic area, the most important thing they can do is to fully set up and fill out and maintain their Google Business Profile. This is more important than having a website in today’s world. This is due to the fact that Google will leave as the main source of information. Now, the website matches perfectly with this, and Google recognizes it when they have a good website with the same content that is also found on the Google Business Profile. It combines very well and Google gives an extra push to have it. But the first step is to make sure your Google Business Profile is complete, complete, and up-to-date…with accurate information.
