SEO Strategies Made Simple for Manufacturers with Purdue MEP

Unknown Speaker 0:00
verbally that this meeting is being recorded.

Curt Anderson 0:03
There you go. Just so everybody knows So, alright. Hey, Chris. Keep it clean, right? Nobody, no cursing today. So just teasing. So, jokes. No, no bad bad jokes today. That’s right.

Chris Pearson 0:17
Oh my goodness.

Curt Anderson 0:18
We have tons of time. Well, you know Chris, we do have three minutes before noon so I think those coffered get bad dad jokes as

Chris Pearson 0:27
well, you know, are we do have Upset forging here and it gets pretty hot in the shop. And you heard about the guy that evaporated didn’t ya?

Curt Anderson 0:36
Know, Chris, I didn’t hear what happened to the guy evaporated. What happened?

Chris Pearson 0:40
Yeah, he’ll be missed.

Curt Anderson 0:44
But I thought boy, that was

Chris Pearson 0:47
we got a lot more we go through him every morning here.

Curt Anderson 0:50
Nice. So you guys are missing. If you’re not estrogen forward, you’re missing out. That’s for sure. So I so we have a really fun program plan for everybody today. So Nicole, I hit record. I don’t have LinkedIn but I did drop your LinkedIn and Chris’s LinkedIn profile in the chat box. So we’ve got that going on. And who else I think somebody else popped in here. We got Scott joined us, Scott, I think that I send you a LinkedIn connection.

Unknown Speaker 1:17
I think so. Where are you?

Curt Anderson 1:21
So Scott’s here, Reagan’s here. Maddies here. Hey, Scott, how are you man? Good. Alright, you’re with best equipment you have the best equipment is word on the street. Is that correct? That’s correct. All right. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Kurt. Great to have you here. And guys, as you’re chiming in as Jay Ragan, they’ve dropped their LinkedIn profiles in the chat box love to see drop your website in there. Any social wherever you’re hanging out, feel free to connect with great new networking opportunity. And what do we have like Nicole like 30 whole seconds ago, right? So we’d like to Christine were any more bad than good dad jokes anymore? Good dad jokes.

Chris Pearson 2:01
Let’s see. There was a well dressed man on a unicycle and a poorly dressed man on a bicycle. What was the difference between them?

Curt Anderson 2:14
Any answers? anybody? Anybody have the answer out there? What is it Chris? attire. It’s all about the attire. Right? It’s all about the attire. That was good Chris that was a good one. All right. Well, it’s

Nicole Donnelly 2:31
a there’s my dad joke game here. I don’t get that Chris.

Curt Anderson 2:37
Jean Jones Do you have any good dad jokes for us before we get before we kick things off?

Unknown Speaker 2:44
Got a terrible joke teller. No.

Curt Anderson 2:48
joke teller. So well, hey, I think we’re coming right to the top of the hour. I’m letting people in. I know. I think I saw Julie sneak in here. Jean from the Purdue MEP is in the house. Jean or Julie Do you guys want to give? You guys want to give a little intro a little shout out to the Purdue MEP for folks as we’re getting things warmed up.

Unknown Speaker 3:13
Okay, well, I’ll jump in there. Didn’t hear Julie chime in. So Purdue Manufacturing Extension Partnership. As the name implies, we’re focused on manufacturers in the state of Indiana. All types of services, lean quality leadership, advanced manufacturing training. So happy to talk to any, any company about that. And we strive to also find state and federal funding to support that training to bring down the cost to Indiana small to medium manufacturers, to grants in particular, we have a Department of Defense grant and there’s also a state grant next level jobs that’s in that’s working today. So thank you for that. Kurt, I won’t rob you of any more of your time, because I’m ready for this and throttling SEO strategies made simple. And because I’m a simple person, I know that you and Nicole will provide great training. I will say though, that for the attendees, the companies that have undertaken this engagement with Kurt and Nicole, without exception, have asked for extended time, which I think is a complement to the quality of the product that needed the product and the quality of the professionals. Back to you,

Curt Anderson 4:46
Kurt. Gene. Thanks, man. Dude, you warmed my heart with that one gene. Thank you so much, brother. I appreciate you guys. So as everybody’s coming in, man I’m doing I’m a multitasker. I’m not a good multitasker. But I’m driving I’ve got record a call so that too Golf. We’ve got the program in place. I’m letting people in the house here. I think Lisa joined us I saw David Carmen. We’ve got my friend Diane buyer, Eric is here. So who else we’ve got Lisa Bachman. Lauren is here. I love that name. Lauren. It’s my daughter’s name. So guys, happy Wednesday. Let’s get things kicked off and I’m going to be letting people in but my name is Curt Anderson complete honor privilege to be here today with you at the Purdue University MEP is Jean just said, this is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. There’s an MEP Manufacturing Extension Partnership in all 50 states and boy between us, you guys in a great state of Indiana, you are certainly blessed with a rockstar team. Julie’s here genes here. They help manufacturers with just about anything that you can think of. The great thing about the MEP for manufacture is sometimes you feel like you’re in a silo, you’re on your own trying to figure it your nose to the grindstone and trying to figure things out. But the MEP has just a wealth of resources and information for you from lean operational excellence, HR workforce assistance, and we’re going to talk today about digital marketing. As Jean said, man, we’re gonna have make SEO a little bit simple. So let’s dig in what I’d love to do, guys, if you’re just chiming in here. You know first off the call let me give a big thank you to everybody here for making incredible amazing, wonderful products here in the great USA. Let’s get a little USA chant gone USA you as hey, you keep it going. Keep it going. So guys, thank you. We know how challenging it’s been it was for COVID It’s tough being in manufacturing COVID Didn’t make it any easier. Supply chain workforce. But hey, let’s block out everything for the next 60 minutes. We’re going to take a deep dive with you guys. And so hey, I want to Gene just said if you just chimed in, we have an awesome, awesome grant program here at Purdue University. We’re going to go through a little case study with my dear friend Chris Pearson. We’re going to talk about that in one minute. So we have a couple nice opportunities for you at the end. We have a complimentary website audit to offer you guys and again, as Jeanne mentioned, there’s a great grant funding opportunity for you through the Purdue MEP. So let me back up a minute. Where are you? Hey, Chris, can you wave to everybody?

Unknown Speaker 7:18
Are you there? Hey,

Curt Anderson 7:20
hey, there’s Chris Pearson. So hey, Chris Pearson from from Edgerton Forge, dude, how are you today?

Chris Pearson 7:26
John, great to hear.

Curt Anderson 7:29
Well, hey, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. Know that you’re super busy. So Nicole Donnelly have had the honor and privilege of working with Chris over the past few months. Nicole, I want to give a shout out to my friend your inbound marketing expert you are HubSpot guru. Give a little intro to everybody and what you have going on in your world.

Nicole Donnelly 7:47
Yes, I am the founder of Donnelly Marketing Group. I am a fierce advocate for small businesses love helping small businesses be successful. I’m a fourth generation entrepreneur, my dad, my grandfather, my great grandfather, all started owned and built successful small businesses. So I just am super passionate about helping small business succeed and really love partnering with Kurt to be part of this program and love all things inbound marketing and SEO. And so yeah, I’m excited to be here. It’s great,

Curt Anderson 8:21
perfect guys and what I’ve done again, if you just chimed in a number of you’ve already done so but I’ve dropped myself I’ve got Chris and I dropped Nicola jumped off our LinkedIn profiles in the chat box boy, I strongly encourage invite welcome you to do the same. If we were in person, we’d be high fiving. handing out business cards is a great little networking opportunity. Drop your LinkedIn profile in the chat box. If you’re not active on LinkedIn, I strongly encourage you to do so. But drop your website we’d love to know what you have going on. What we’re going to do guys is we’re going to cover an SEO case study and Chris from Edgerton Forge has kindly offered up his services today. We’ve been working with Chris past few months. So we’re going to run through a little bit of a case study for you guys. And this is Edgerton Ford strongly encourage you Jody, if you’re out there if you want to drop Jody’s on the team Edgerton Forge, if you want to drop your website in the chat box, and again, let’s let’s all connect with each other. It’s a great time to move forward. So all right, I jumped ahead there Nicole. Hey, is everybody ready to start pouring it on out there and SEO? How about a show of hands can I see a show of hands who’s ready start right rock start rocking it right? Heck yeah, we are. Because you know what at Purdue University, Nikolai, this is the advanced crowd. Okay, this is the advanced crowd. So I’m going a little heightening. Chris, you know, like we kind of took it simple and Jean said, hey, you need to take it slow. But this is the advanced crowd. So we’re gonna dig deep on SEO right now. So Nicole, here’s two terms that I have for SEO marketing success. Two terms. Number one is KY S. could represent kiss right? Probably not the best term during COVID. But KY s number two is hy s. Now we said his that doesn’t sound real nice. But what is K? Y S? can you start with that for everybody please

Nicole Donnelly 10:04
know your soulmate. This is the foundation of all good marketing and all good SEO strategy, you really need to know who it is that you’re targeting, who needs your product wants it and absolutely has to have it. And what is it about them that is, you know, that is unique that you can target and talk to. So you know, you want to know your soulmate. First and foremost.

Curt Anderson 10:27
Perfect. Now does anybody does it? You know, Chris, does everybody know every every person has a favorite radio station on the planet? Did you know wi I fm is every person’s favorite radio station on the planet? What’s in it for me with your marketing with your sales pitch with everything that you do, especially today on SEO? We need to flip the script. Your ideal buyer is thinking about who all day every day themselves, right? We’re out there trying to sell we in unfortunately, they’re not really worried about us. They’re worried about themselves. So what we want to do is we want to flip the script. And instead of with them, let’s I have a new term for everybody out there today. You can say it’s either WiFis might pronounce it we fees. I don’t know Whitney down in Houston, she might pronounce a little bit differently. Right? You see what news here today, McCall? What’s in it for what’s in it for your soulmates? Okay, what’s in it for your soulmate? So we’re gonna go through a little process here. And, Chris, what we did when we started with you is we took a deep dive into your buyer persona, okay? Now this is an example of different clients that we work with another manufacturer, but they’re targeting the facilities manager, Mario, they’re also targeting tailor, the interior designer to talk about a couple of the soulmates that you’re targeting at Edgerton Forge.

Chris Pearson 11:47
Sure. So we kind of did the same thing, we developed really two different ones, depending on the types of customers we have. So we’ve got our, our smaller size customers where the soul mate might be not just a buyer, but it might be an engineer, it might be the owner of the company, General Manager, so you know, somebody at a smaller company, they’ve got a lot of things on their plate, they don’t have a lot of time, they need to know that we’re there to help them. We’re there to teach them we’re there to help them and, and what can we do to serve them. The other the other persona we built was for a little bit larger company where he may have multiple layers, and you might have a buyer at a certain level, their their job focus is to buy, and we’ve got to help them figure out you know, how can we help them with their need for the day they’ve got, they’ve got a forging, they’ve got a source, they don’t really know a lot about forgings, maybe they don’t know the specific types of forgings they need. We’ve got to be there to help them out.

Curt Anderson 12:52
Absolutely, guys, so again, as manufacturers and just for the record, you know, I hate to tell you, I went I tried connecting with you guys on LinkedIn, I checked out every person’s website, you guys are doing an awesome job. If you want to stick around at the end, Nicole and I gonna, we’re gonna hang out. And if you have any, if you want to have us pull up your website, I can pull up your website and we can go through a few things. But when you take a look at this slide right here understanding your ideal buyer, we call them soulmates. We need to take a clear, concise understanding of their goals, frustrations, motivations, Nicole, why is this so critical for pert for for just marketing success as a whole.

Nicole Donnelly 13:29
So critical because it makes it so much more efficient. I’ll tell you a story about this. So the other day, my sister in law came over and she was so busy, she needed help, she didn’t have time to get a birthday gift for her son’s friend’s birthday party. And I said, You know what, I’ll go get the birthday gift for you. I’ll go do I’ll take care of it. But I had no idea who this boy was, I didn’t know what he liked. I didn’t know anything about his interest. I didn’t know what toys he liked to play with what he liked to do in a spare time, I didn’t know anything. So I go into this toy store and I’m like flying blind. I’m trying to find out anything that this child might like. And it just took me so much time because I didn’t really know anything about what it is that he wanted or needed. So if I would have taken the time to ask her some more questions about his interests, how old he was, you know, some of those qualities and attributes then when I went to the store, I would have been able to much more quickly been able to find out what it is that he needed and wanted and it’s the same thing with your with your buyers. The more that you know and understand exactly what their challenges are their pain points, what keeps them up at night. What motivates them, the easier it’s going to be for you to help them find the right solution quickly and accurately and really like make their day.

Curt Anderson 14:44
So I love that guys, if you want you know, Diane Whitney, anybody out there if you guys want to play along, drop in the chatbox like who is your ideal buyer, who’s your soulmate? You’re taking notes at home. You know, if you’re a manufacturer, odds are Who is it? Probably that engineer so Somebody in purchasing somebody in buying a call. We were just on a call with a client, you know, it’s field aid, you know, they target FBI agents, right? field agents, Scott, it was James, the engineer. So we want to have a clear, concise understanding. And Nicole, you always talked about empathy and curiosity. So let’s, let’s step right into number two, how you know the key to success for SEO strategies, help your soulmate. Talk about let’s talk about that empathy and curiosity, please.

Nicole Donnelly 15:27
Yes, absolutely. And I love Chris, when he was talking earlier, he used the word help multiple times how he wants to help his customers with their upset foraging. And that’s what you want to start thinking about when you’re thinking about your customers. It’s not about selling them something, it’s about trying to help them solve a problem. And the more that you can think about it from that perspective, that you’re there to help, you’re there to be their guide, you’re not there to be their hero there. You’re not the hero, right? You’re the guide, and you want them to be the hero, how can you help them win the day? That is going to be the key to success? And that starts with curiosity. It starts with asking the right questions. And the more questions you ask, the more you’re naturally going to have empathy, which will help you be able to connect with and identify their problems and help them better.

Curt Anderson 16:13
Absolutely. And Chris, you know, as we were digging deep into Edgerton Forge, we’re like we’re talking about different forging processes. And we’re going to talk about your keywords next. But boy, I don’t care what business we’re in, what are we selling? What’s our favorite word here?

Chris Pearson 16:26
Selling trust?

Curt Anderson 16:27
We’re selling trust, man, it’s, you know, with supply chain challenges. Can you come through? Can you deliver on time? Are you a quality supplier? Are you somebody that I can count on? Do you have my back when my customer is chirping in my ear? Right? So as manufacturers out there, you guys are doing an amazing job. Again, I checked out all your websites, you guys are absolutely crushing it. But think about you are selling trust. And today we’re going to talk about consistency, that reliability. And let’s just let’s take it a little bit further. And Nicole, talk about this aspect for your SEO. And we’re gonna go into some different examples. But why do we want to be a I’m a manufacturer? Why do I need to be the teacher talk about this, please?

Nicole Donnelly 17:05
Yeah, absolutely. Because you want to position yourself as the expert. When people are looking for researching a product, more and more people are doing their research online before they even speak to a sales rep 85% of the buying process in b2b is happening before they pick up the phone on the web. And so you want to really be positioning yourself as helping your customer make that right decision and make that right purchase so that there’ll be ready when the time is right for them to reach out. And they’re searching. They’re already on the web searching. They’re asking questions in Google all the time and you want to position yourself so that you’re the one that’s right there front of mine answering those questions that they’re typing into Google right away and position yourself to be right there to help them

Curt Anderson 17:49
perfect segue So let’s dig into our keywords. Okay, so keyword strategy. Okay, now we understand our ideal buyer, we identified that soulmate and really took a deep dive into like, what are their motivations? What’s their motivation, their goals, frustrations, challenges, right. Now, let’s dig into keywords. Okay, keyword strategy is basically this. It’s keyword research is simply understanding your soulmates what they’re asking where are they hanging out at? Where are they asking those questions? And how do you deposit yourself into the conversation? How do we get you in front of the conversation instead of your competition? Let’s keep this party rollin my friend Chris we started off with Rick’s Can you please enlighten everybody what on earth is what are Rick’s what does this have to do with keyword strategies?

Chris Pearson 18:39
Sure thing Rick So Rex are ridiculously important keywords. All right.

Curt Anderson 18:45
Let’s all say that together. It feels really good when you say that together. We’re gonna say it on three ready 123 Ridiculously core. We’re right. We want to focus on your ridiculously important keywords. Now what do I mean by this? Let’s take another step your key words if this is brand new, if this is foreign, you’re like, dude, what is a key word? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Chris, were you were you what was what did keywords mean to you a few months ago?

Unknown Speaker 19:13
Um,

Chris Pearson 19:15
you know, we had some key words the one we kind of talked but I don’t think we really understood what the key words were. I think we were we were talking about reserves. We were talking

Curt Anderson 19:26
and you know, what do you say my presentation it was we’re gonna dig into it, guys what you want to do if you did your SWOT analysis, right, your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, your keywords are what you are absolutely best at what your God put you on this God’s green earth to do. But what’s important is you want to niche down with your keyword strategy. Nicole, let’s talk about that a second. And what I would love to do if you want to if you guys want to participate in a little participation game, let’s have a little break party, put in the chat box or hopefully if you’re taking notes at home, I love for you To put down what are your keywords? Are your processes things your bread? Let’s have a little brag party but put in the chat box if you would, what are you absolutely best at Nicole? why they’re doing it talk about like, what what do we think about with these ridiculously important keywords?

Nicole Donnelly 20:15
Yeah, you want to niche down? I think that’s really important that you that you said that. So as you’re thinking about what are you really absolutely the best at, you want to think about your soulmate and what your target niche is, right? So when you’re thinking about Google, the shorter the keywords are, the bigger the pie is, right? So it’s going to be much more difficult for people to find you if you’re competing against a really short keyword. And so you want to try to have these longer keywords questions. For example, you want to optimize for questions that your customers are asking, and make sure that your keywords are a little bit longer so that you’re not competing as much against more people in the search. So

Curt Anderson 20:55
we’ll jump in. I’m jumping ahead a little bit here, Chris, but so you and I, so we connected back in, in March. So I connect with Chris for the FBI first maybe it was our second meeting, and I had no clue I knew you know, I’ve heard of 4g and I had no idea what upset 4g was. So you see this screenshot says one day ago so the date that night, I shot a video just I’m like man, this is manufacturers when what Nicole’s describing them, we’re going to walk through some examples. We encourage you to niche down with your keyword strategy. If you’re trying to target contract manufacturer, 3d printing, you know, something really broad CNC metal fabrication, those terms are too broad, we need to niche that down. So just for giggles after I met Chris, I did a little video on the resource guide for made in USA upset 14 I might because his term when you niche that down and you have multiple words in a keyword. It’s so much less competitive, and your buyer is likely to type that the average keyword search now that average Google search is five words. So I did Made in USA upset 4g within 24 hours. You see that little goofy bald guy right there. within 24 hours I had the number one position Chris were we dying or what was

Chris Pearson 22:13
was amazing. Absolutely amazing. We’re back on page five and you’re on page one with

Curt Anderson 22:22
literally overnight. So a couple of takeaways right there. If you’re taking notes, video video video, we’re gonna be talking about that focusing on your keywords. Now, Chris, you just you teed it up, dude. Here’s a great question for everybody. Boy, Nicole, we’re constantly challenging ourselves. Just share this. What’s the thought process here about you know, is the soulmate typing Exactly? What are wicks are what do you think?

Nicole Donnelly 22:46
I’ll give you an example. So I have a client that sells filtration equipment, okay, so these are what we call filter bags in the industry. They’re these very long, tubular bags that go into these air filtration systems huge. They’re in factories. And so, you know, the customer is thinking, oh, people are searching for filter bags, because that’s what we’re calling it, when really what we learned is that there were so many people looking for these filter bags, but they were calling them filter socks, because they look like big, huge long socks. So we realized that you know, yes, there were people searching for filter bags, obviously. But there was also this huge opportunity to to optimize for filter socks because that was the term that their their customers were using to look for this product.

Curt Anderson 23:33
Yeah, I love that. And so you know, you know, those are boring. My background, Chris, you’ve, you’ve noticed how boring I need. I should get like a picture like Nicole has these beautiful pictures probably of her family. But if I go to Home Depot, if I go to Lowe’s, my looking for a drill. My problem is I need a quarter inch hole. My solution is go out going into the hardware store to buy the drill. So we want to put our mind So Chris, I teed it up right here for you. Pop quiz. And if you guys want to drop it in the chat box, does anybody know anybody who’s a coffee drinker out there? Can I see a show of hands? Anybody? Everybody’s on? Any coffee drinkers out there? Have you Chris, if you ever that piece of cardboard if you were if you had a piece of cardboard around a coffee cup? Oh, yeah, daily, right? If you’re going through Tim Hortons, if you’re going through some or you know, Dunkin Donuts, whatever your Starbucks whatever your whatever your coffee supply the day is, you’ve touched that little cardboard coffee thing. Does anybody out there know the name of the little cart piece of cardboard that goes over a coffee cup? Man, Chris, if we were to thought of that idea, we’d be gazillionaires by now. Anybody know the name of that product that goes around a coffee cup.

Chris Pearson 24:42
Chris, what’s the name? deserve?

Curt Anderson 24:45
It’s called a Zark. Okay, so it’s called as RF So internally, maybe we can call it the Coffee Sleeve. The gentleman that discovered it back in 1991. He called the jock the Java jacket. Maybe we call it the cardboard thingy. Nicole what What is our soulmate thinking? Are they thinking czar Coffee Sleeve? Or what are they thinking?

Nicole Donnelly 25:06
Now? i I’m sure they don’t know I didn’t know what his art was. So I’m you know, I can’t I mean, who does what is darkness? So of course they’re just that I’ve cardboard thingy. That’s what they’re going to be typing in, right? So you want to be right there and make sure you’re optimizing for that.

Curt Anderson 25:19
Chris, let’s talk on your end. So we’ve gone through, okay, like you’re thinking forging, forging forging right now the engineer, the buyer, boy, they might be thinking, you know, you make amazing, incredible products. They might be thinking, hey, I need a tie rod. I need a torque rod. But talk a little bit. Was there any aha moments? Or what was your thought process as we went through this?

Chris Pearson 25:41
Yeah, absolutely. You know, we started out doing exactly what you were talking about. We we started developing that keyword list and realize through our conversations through our journey, that our terminology and our lingo that we use within our facility might not be what the customers are searching for, they’re searching for more based on the part name that they might call it. So it made us really take a step back and rethink that keyword strategy and what the words might be that our customers are searching for, which, you know, in turn drives the way we’re going to communicate with them.

Curt Anderson 26:19
Exactly. So guys, as you go through your keyword strategy, we want to be thinking about your core processes, your core strengths, what you’re absolutely best at, however, what was that what was step number one, Nicole know your soul, your soul, they need to speak the right language to the soulmate. So Alright guys. So that’s going through that keyword process. We man, we geek out on this, don’t we geek out hard on keyword strategy, Nicole, what’s what’s our favorite tool to help folks with their keyword strategies?

Nicole Donnelly 26:48
Google Keyword Planner, it’s free. It’s completely free. And Kurt is the king of scrappy. So

Curt Anderson 26:58
that’s your polite way of saying I’m really cheap. So I love not spending people’s money. So Google Keyword Planner, boy, again, if you’re jotting down notes, if you’re looking for a great tool to figure out your core keywords. And Chris, we had a great time by we really geeked out hard on this going through different strategies, different processes. And again, our favorite word is free. So Nicole, let’s take a look at this. I always love you know, we have young daughters and we love I always love using this example. But you were talking about, let’s talk about that niching down, okay, like if again, if you’re a CNC shop out there, you’re a metal fabricator, you know, very broad terms, Okay, walk through the example on like, if we’re gonna look at shoes.

Nicole Donnelly 27:38
Yeah, so if you were to just type shoes into the search bar, you’re gonna come up with billions and billions of search results, which means that your, your store, that’s what you’re competing against, and you’re trying to compete against all of those other other search results, it’s gonna be very, very difficult for you to rank on the first page of Google. And that’s really the goal, right? We want to get you on the first page. So you get some visibility, so people see you, because fewer and fewer people are making it past page one. So the more that you niche down your keywords, and really like in this example, here, move through this process, what happens is, is you’re competing against fewer and fewer search results, which is going to make it easier for you to get on that first page. And it’s going to also help you connect much better with the right soulmate who needs exactly what it is that you’re selling. So you’re gonna get much more specific results that way, but

Curt Anderson 28:32
that’s exactly right. And again, if I, if I mentioned before, we’re going to stick around at the end, I have everybody’s website pulled up, I’d be more than I have a bunch of notes on your websites, there’s a lot of great opportunities to focus on niching down on those keywords. So our example here is I came from Target shoes, let’s get a little bit more specific. How about running shoes? Still way way, way too broad. It’s going to be too tough to come up on Google. Think about pink running shoes. How about pink Nike running shoes, or pink running shoes with purple shoelaces? So the Rick, that ridiculously important keyword are your running shoes. Maybe they’re even the pink running shoes. So maybe you do. You know, man, we have a lot of great companies. Iko blast Steel City Vista, dual machine arrow Oh, you guys are just absolutely crushing it. So think about your Rick but tied on with that present. He get my pun right there tied on with the shoelace, you get that? I couldn’t help it. Uncle. Sorry. All right, let’s talk about Let’s google keyword planner. I’m not going to spend a ton of time on this. But part of our process, we take a deep dive into Google Keyword Planner, as Nicole said, it’s free. The great thing about Google Keyword Planner, I wish they’d get a little bit more specific, but it tells me the value of search on that key word. So that helps me instead of us sitting around like Hey, I think people are searching this keyword. Google will tell us it’s a broad range, but it’s going to tell us and again as manufacturers, you’re like well gee, there’s only like 10 or 1520 people a month looking for my particular keyword. And that’s 200 to 200 50 people a year in Christian manufacturing, dude, if you land like one major account, could that be a game changer or

Chris Pearson 30:07
what? Yeah, absolutely.

Curt Anderson 30:10
Absolutely. So

Nicole Donnelly 30:10
I’ve seen it happen time and time again,

Curt Anderson 30:13
time and time again. So again, we don’t we, so we hit that hard. So let’s move forward. I want to talk about Google business profile. Maybe some of you guys know that as the artist formerly known as Google My Business. And that once again, Nicole, what’s our favorite word?

Nicole Donnelly 30:26
Free? Absolutely,

Curt Anderson 30:30
absolutely free. But look at this chunk of real estate over here to the right. So if Chris is a soulmate is like, hey, you know, I heard about this edits and forwards, what’s going on with them, they do this Google search, look at this big meaty chunk of real estate. Again, if you’re taking notes at home, another great takeaway, Google business profile, it’s completely free. And it’s a big chunk of real estate. And it’s the almighty Google. So if you’re looking for another free tool, a great way to help you get that step above the competition. So for myself, like I post on Google Business Profile three, four days a week, we are constantly posting, and it is a powerful, powerful tool. Nikolas talked about backlinks here. I don’t I don’t wanna take a super deep dive because I know like that might be like Seo 202. That may be a step above. But boy, those backlinks are super important. Explain to everybody what is a backlink? And why is that important for their SEO strategies.

Nicole Donnelly 31:28
A backlink is basically getting your website listed on someone else’s website. So if someone else has has your link on their website, and it’s, it’s, it’s giving more people exposure to your website. So it’s like if I’m in the neighborhood, and I’m going for a walk, and I just happened to meet someone down the road, a good friend of mine, who I really like hanging out with and I say, you know, I really, I really looking for a really good meal, I really want to have something really good on the grill. Do you know anyone in the neighborhood who who might be really good at that? And they say, oh, yeah, Kurt, his wife down the road. She’s really awesome. She’s a really great cook. So that’s what it’s like on the web. Right? So this is basically like, making a referral source for you and your brand, by partnering with other companies. And you know, the more popular right, the more popular that friend is, the more that they can put you in touch with other people, right? So you know, if you can get your website linked out on a really popular brand can call high Domain Authority website, that’s going to help increase your exposure.

Curt Anderson 32:32
Chris, let’s have you chime in. So again, you know, backlinks was probably a completely foreign term too few months ago, what’s your perspective? Or like, how do you perceive backlinks now for a strategy for SEO strategy? Edgerton?

Chris Pearson 32:43
Yeah, it’s you’re absolutely right. I knew absolutely nothing about it. No idea what you were talking about. You did a great job working us through it. Yeah, it’s, you know, this is one key piece to everything we’re trying to do, the more links we get on how high profile websites, the more traffic we’re going to get the more opportunities for someone to run across to us. You know, so we’re not the best kept secret.

Curt Anderson 33:14
Right? Perfect. So So guys, alright, so if you’re out there, like Alright, guys, I hear you, I hear this word. What on earth are you guys talking about? Okay, so let me let me go back once. Let me go back one slide. If I can. Let’s go back here. Okay. This is my LinkedIn profile. Sorry for that poor mug shot. But you take a look, see this little link that little hyperlink? All that is on LinkedIn is a link going to my website. That’s all that is. Okay. So when you’re like, dude, what is a backlink? We’re not It’s not scientific, it’s not high tech. It’s just a link. So if you’re in manufacturing, if you’re manufacturing like, Man, why should I be on social? I’ll tell you social is critical. It is critical. I’m sorry to say that you don’t have to be everywhere in everything, but is absolutely critical, especially from that backlink standpoint. Okay, so now, Chris mentioned the word domain authority. And so in Nicole mentioned it as well. Basically, it’s kind of a popularity contest, if you will, according to Google, Google gives you a score we’re offering through the Purdue MEP, we have a complimentary website audit for everybody, Chris, that’s how you and I met, you came in for a complimentary audit, no strings, totally free. And what we do is we get in Izmir, in fact, I think I have a couple of audits from folks that have been here at previous webinars. And what we do is we start with your domain authority. Now, I invite you to take a look at this middle column right here. Okay, see where the arrow is. Nicole just kind of rattle off this list like what 98? What does that mean for LinkedIn? 96 for Facebook, what are some of these numbers? What does this represent right here,

Nicole Donnelly 34:45
the closer that your number is to 100. The higher your domain authority, the more reputable your site is, the more Google gives it legitimacy and credibility. So like look at LinkedIn. I mean, this is hugely high domain authority. If you can get your website link Don’t back, LinkedIn. So just by having a, you know, a fake profile page business page there, you’re getting great backlink juice from that. So the higher your your score closer to 100, the better your domain authority.

Curt Anderson 35:13
Correct. Now, with that being said, I just, you know, I want to, you know, folks get a, an audit and they, you know, they end up with like a 50. It’s common, you know, manufacturers are typically in that 1520 Well, if you’re in the mid 20s, you’re doing phenomenal, okay? So as a manufacturer, your website’s probably not the biggest priority. You know, we can’t compare ourselves to LinkedIn or Facebook or other major, you know, household name platforms. But the goal is, the more that you can increase that domain authority in with and combine it against your Rick’s those ridiculously important keywords. That’s how we’re going to help you get those higher rankings. Okay. Now, you might be okay. I’m starting to understand it a little bit. Let’s take it one step further. Anybody out here familiar with YouTube? Of course, we’re familiar with YouTube. We love YouTube, because why Nico, who owns YouTube, by the way,

Nicole Donnelly 36:02
Google, Google, the world.

Curt Anderson 36:07
We love we love Google Google. If you’re listening, we’d love you, right. So alright, so this is a YouTube I cut out the video, but this is the description in the video. Now at the at the tail end, we’re going to go through a process that we’re working on with Chris here. If you what we’re doing is we’re shooting a video we do, man, Nicole, I’m 53 I have no hair, like I’m doing video constantly. So if I can do it, anybody on this call can do it. I’m on doing videos nonstop. So I don’t know if my wife appreciates that or not. I’m just teasing, so. But when you see these links right here, these links are linking back to product pages of this particular manufacturer. So we’re gonna go through a quick case study in a few minutes. But this company, they do all sorts of videos, they’re putting links of their product pages on their videos. If you guys are doing YouTube videos, I strongly encourage you get a nice healthy description in that video. Have your keywords in that description, and then have your links coming back to your website? Nicole, let’s jump into blogging. Why is blogging so important? I’m like, Man, I’m a manufacturer I have to blog. Are you kidding? Why is blogging so important for manufacturers?

Nicole Donnelly 37:16
Blogging is so important because it’s going to help you rank higher and SEO, the more consistently that you do it. So this example here is from one of my clients, what we did when we first started back in 2090, and they weren’t doing any blogging whatsoever. So there was no new content being created whatsoever, just had a standard website with a static number of pages. And we said, You know what, we are going to identify who our soulmate is, and what are their top questions that they’re asking our sales team over and over and over again. And so we’re going to really try to make that process as efficient as possible, and create some content on the website that answers those questions, that hopefully they’ll get those answers questions, those questions answered in a much easier way. So we just got on a cadence of twice a month, blogging just twice a month, it wasn’t like you’re blogging three, four times a month, twice a month. And these are the results that we saw just from consistently blogging was getting a huge increase in search traffic from putting out that content regularly.

Curt Anderson 38:18
Okay, this is phenomenal. So let’s recap this again, man, what we all love this be, you know, our stock portfolio 401k. Look at that graph there. But this, you know, here’s a manufacturer that started absolutely at zero, raise their hand and said, Okay, you know, this whole digital marketing thing, we’re going to make a commitment. We talked earlier about how important that consistency is. And look at this graph, look at this traffic in a call. Most importantly, how about sales? How about new leads? What does that look like?

Nicole Donnelly 38:46
It absolutely correlated. So we saw quadruple the number of leads coming in. And almost three times the number of new opportunities created. All related to just being able to create this content marketing engine where we are regularly putting out fresh content that was answering and helping our our customers problems.

Curt Anderson 39:04
Perfect. So here’s one of your Rick’s. It’s a word bag house. You were talking about that earlier in here. You’re number two on Google. And on this next screen, you’ve got dust collector filter bags, you guys have the number one top position. And then here’s a great I love what you did here. And this goes back into what Chris was talking about with the XOF situation. Is somebody googling Zark? Or they googling I don’t want to burn my fingers today. Are they googling dust collector filter bags? Are they are they googling? How much does a dust collector cost? Can you share a little bit about that process?

Nicole Donnelly 39:35
Exactly. So here we were trying to put ourselves in the mind of the buyer. And the question that the sales team was saying that they were being asked over and over again is how much is this system going to cost me? So we decided we were going to create a guide all about the factors that go into the cost of this product. And we provided a price ranges so we didn’t give specific prices in this case we just provide a general ranges for the difference. izes and then went into each of the variables and created this really nice long what we call a pillar page, which is a very in depth article that goes into all of those factors. And it’s just been hugely successful in getting traffic to the website.

Curt Anderson 40:18
Perfect. So with that, let’s segue right into this. So as folks are against, we’re using a couple, we’re going to end we’re gonna go through a couple more case studies here real quick. But we just want you thinking about, you know, man, there’s a lot of great companies on the call today, but think about your products, your services, your processes, even if you’re a custom manufacturer out there. And Chris, we were just talking about this last week, you know, your your, I guess, by definition, as a forging company, you are a custom manufacturer. So though you don’t have proprietary products, boy, you have great proprietary processes, in those processes, those proprietary processes, that’s your superpower. That’s how you help crush it with your clients just share a little bit about like, you know, how are you approaching moving forward, your marketing strategies, now that you have these tools, this, you know, this process to go forward?

Chris Pearson 41:06
or So, with all of this, what we’re trying to do is, is like you, you’ve said before, we’re trying to develop a way that we can educate our potential buyers on what it is that we do, what a forging is, how the forgings made, how our specific process works, how our process differs from other potential processes, what the advantages are, what we can, you know, the things that we can do that set us apart, that helped them that can help that buyer or that person looking for a forging. Really take care of their problem,

Curt Anderson 41:46
right? And look at how many man I don’t like that kill two birds with one stone who thought that one? Let’s say how somebody told me we’re better how can you hit a couple of homeruns with the same bat? I think that sounds a little bit better, Chris, right. But just think and Nicole would love to have you do is chime in a little bit. Look how efficient you can be. By creating this content. You’re like, oh, man, I’m so busy. How do I create this content? But when you create that content, from a customer’s look, Crystal call customer service is going to love you. Because now when somebody raises their hand and says, Hey, dude, what is upset 4g? Hey, guess what, not only do I have a video, I have a killer pillar blog for you. I have all sorts of information. Chris did it once. He doesn’t have to keep repeating it. He’s earning that trust quicker, faster, easier, most important. While that as important that is now he’s put himself in position to be found on Google, which now he can stop being the best kept secret. Nicole, please share a little bit about like, you know, questions that we’ve talked about, like those questions, hey, I don’t want to burn my fingers. But talking about like the guides, resource tools, checklists, comparisons, talk about that.

Nicole Donnelly 42:51
These are all examples of types of content that you can create that really like to Kirk’s point, help you scale your sales team, right, allow you to be able to do more, much more efficiently. So you know, we’ve talked about identifying questions that they asked and creating content on that, like a frequently asked questions you can do how to guides on how to install your product, how to maintain your product, you know, how do I, you know, a number of things around creating guides that you can use a checklist, the maintenance checklist, for example, can be a really great resource that would help your customers with their long term maintenance, for example. And then comparison is huge. Being able to compare your brand and your products to your competitors. And creating an in depth guide that really shows how you’re different than them is a great way to just build trust and build transparency with your prospects, because let’s be honest, they’re already researching your competitors. So why not make it easy and help them out and just make it really straightforward for them by just bringing it forward and talking about it?

Curt Anderson 43:52
That is awesome. Now I know Justin, it might not be your speakers. I have a horrible, horrible accent. You know, Nicole, my accent is just terrible. So it might not be your speakers. Maybe. So I don’t know if you saw that. No, he’s asking if. So if I get a little little shaky, just let me know. Chris, this slide is for you, my friend. Right? So we’re gonna slide into another little case study. And so this buyer persona this soulmate is engineering, Elsa engineering. Also, we’re going to talk about my loop. My friends at Faulkner electronics are a custom manufacturer here in New York, and their ideal buyer. We created a soulmate called engineering Elsa. Now all right, I don’t know if everybody knew this gene. I don’t know if you guys everybody take yourself off of mute because we’re going to do a little karaoke right now. So Chris, our let’s see, I have narratives. I’ve got that I brought the words for you guys. We’re gonna sing Let It Go. You ready? On three ready, Chris? Sure. Just kidding. Just kidding. We’re not going to sing Let It Go. And everybody would hang up the call gene gene is going to do let it go at the end of the call. So stick around for that gene. Thank you for that. So engineering Alpha I’m

Unknown Speaker 45:00
not gonna give them nightmares

Curt Anderson 45:03
Jr. So Midas Jean has a great voice you know handsome dude. Great voice. Hey, by the way, Jean, you know, let’s give a round of applause. Jeanne served our country proudly in the Navy. Any of our veterans on a call today? Let’s give a round of applause. Thank you for your service chain. Thank you for your service. Anybody else out there any other veterans? Check that in the chat box? Let us know about God bless you. Thank you for serving our country. And again, guys, if you’re just coming in, if you’re not engaged and connected with the Purdue Emmy P gene is your guy Whitney, your husband’s an Army veteran? Thank you Whitney. Tell your husband we sent our blessings to him. All right, let’s talk about engineering. Elsa. Engineering also works at let’s say Boeing, maybe SpaceX could be Ford. And she is super busy. Nicole, she came in to work today. And a supervisor somebody the food chain said, Hey, engineering, Elsa, you have 30 things that you need to find and put on this drawing today. Ready go in engineering, also thinking my goodness, I am busy. I’m slammed. I’m trying to get my kid to a soccer game this afternoon. How am I going to do all this? So let’s take a look. Engineering also finds this web page. Let’s see what engineering also sees. She’s looking for a goofy product called ground strap. That’s our rake. And I’m going to show you how we’re capturing first page not even with first page number one rankings on Google with this little goofy product called ground strap. A ground strap is a ubiquitous item. It’s a multibillion dollar industry. She lands on this web page, no call and it says receiving instant ground strap. Build your own no RFQ wait time it takes 60 seconds or less. Are you kidding me? How many of us have had to wait days, hours weeks for an RFQ we’re telling engineering also also we have your back we know you’re busy. We know you have 29 Other things to buy today. And we know you have a soccer game and get to let’s go through this little process and we’ll get you on your way. Get a Quote fast. Here is a video. So Nicole, let’s talk about what is this position this number one top position. What’s this call right here on Google?

Nicole Donnelly 47:05
That is the Featured Snippet. This is like the golden nugget. This is absolutely like the tops tear place that you want to be able to get to get this is like awesome. It’s every marketer’s dream to get a Featured Snippet every time I get when I do a little happy dance. You probably

Curt Anderson 47:21
take your husband out for dinner right by more than that right because those Google snippets man they look at this piece of real estate right here guys. So again, what we found with Chris like Chris when Chris niche down, and when we did Made in USA upset 14 Because we niche down. Now you could come back and say all right, tough guy, Kurt. How many people are actually googling Made in USA Upset forging. But the thing is, if you’re in the Department of Defense, or you’re tired of supply chain challenges, you’re tired of buying things from overseas and you want to buy in United States, that would be a good key word, or a good key phrase Made in USA upset 14. We want to make engineering Alice’s life as easy as possible. Be in that top position. Don’t let your competition beat you to the game because you’re better than your competition. And if we’re not coming up on search, now you forced engineering also to go to somebody else. Same type of thing. We’ve had a dramatic increase in traffic, but let’s keep this party rolling to call. Here’s a couple examples. Does this work? And this was super exciting talking about the happy dance. See that arrow right there? Man, we got an RFQ from Space X how that was a sexy one. That was really cool. You take a look at this one here, man, Ford knocked on our door and said, Hey, we need 90 to 100,000 units. Yes, we will take that because again, if engineering Elsa is at SpaceX or at Ford, boy, I don’t want her coming up on on a different I don’t want her finding somebody else on search. We don’t want your competitors coming up on search as well. Let’s take a look, Nicole. Now creating those product pages. Maybe many of you are on WordPress, if you’re on WordPress, to if you’re taking notes. Again, a great tool is SEO Yoast. I know Chris, your company edits and forge you guys are on WordPress. We’re talking. You have another plugin tool that you’re using is called all in one. Nicole, how important is it having that SEO tool on a website to make your life easier? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Nicole Donnelly 49:15
Yeah, SEO Yoast makes it super simple because it basically gives you guidelines on what you need to do on your web page to make sure that it’s making Google happy, right? You want to make Google happy. You want to make sure your your page is structured properly, that you have the right tags. And so Yoast makes it really easy. It’ll tell you exactly what you need to do on that page. And when you’ve done it, it tells you if you’ve done it, right, so you get very clear feedback right away to help you help help those people out there who just don’t really know SEO really well. It’s like a really handy tool.

Curt Anderson 49:48
Absolutely. So guys, if you’re doing it internally, just you can google S E O Yoast and you’re like What are you saying? It’s YOSYOASTYO a s t SEO Yoast? Check that out. That’s a great tool. If you have an external web designer, I think there’s a marketing firm I think was a tree house. I think Maddie, I think you’re from a marketing firm, check with your local marketing firm, it’s a great tool to take advantage of. Now what I want to do, I want to break down this product page here, there’s a number of you that are OEMs. I saw when I was kind of stalking, not stalking, I was checking you guys out this morning. Just kidding a call. But what I want you to think about when you know your customer know that soulmate, if it’s a buyer, maybe they’re not geeking out like in that real engineering speak, Chris, we’ve talked about that a lot. So on this page, what we’ve done, we’ve loaded up this page with our Rick ground straps, again, you fill in the blank of your product, your service, what you’re best at, were our core keyword, our Rick is ground straps, we’ve loaded this page, but on this page, I’m speaking to a buyer, it’s we want to keep it kind of light, easy. Somebody just said, Hey, go buy some ground straps. Okay, and this next page. Now we’re going to get a little geeky here. And now we’re going to talk about those specs. Okay, so now we’re getting more engineering speak. So Chris, how you mentioned that you have two different buyers? How are you guys approaching this on different language to that different buyer?

Chris Pearson 51:12
Yeah, exactly. One, you know, we’re trying to really focus on our keywords so that the searches come up. But then, like you’ve shown here later on down in, we get a little more specific with some of the generalized engineering specs a little bit different with what we’re doing. Since we can do some customization it’s more about generalizing the sizes and lengths that we can work with, versus what you’re showing here. But similar type of idea, you start out talking with your, your key words to get them there, and then later on, you start talking about more of the detail that really sends it home with them.

Curt Anderson 51:52
Absolutely. Now what we’ve also done is added video and Nicole, you are super bullish, huge on video video video with your clients. Talk about how important that video is.

Nicole Donnelly 52:02
Video is huge, because more and more buyers want to be able to learn about your brand and your products through video is becoming more and more common, especially with the younger generations as well. So you want to make sure that you’re delivering the information to your customers in a variety of ways that you’re meeting them where they are and how they want to consume information. It all goes back to knowing your soulmate. All this just goes back to knowing really deeply what their preferences are interests, pain points, so that you can really get really close to them.

Curt Anderson 52:31
KYSHY is right know your soulmate, help your soulmate, boy, if you just can resonate with those two things. And then we get into like the more tactical stuff. But if you commit to those two things, makes your life from a marketing standpoint so much easier. And right here, what we’ve done is we’ve you know, we have the drawing, you know, the spec sheet right in here. And again, now, if you guys have PDFs on your website, you know, Nicole, we have a nice project that we’re working on with a manufacturer in Queens, New York of all places. And what’s fantastic is like we’re trying to convert some PDFs into other more content driven pages. So if you have PDFs on your website, that’s that’s not the best for search for Google, it’s a great opportunity to take those PDFs and convert them into web pages. We’re gonna wind down this portion on this but just take a look at this all these arrows represent the real estate that this company has on their core keyword. Our goal is we want to dominate search. And every single one of these arrows represents either a position on Amazon, Walmart or their own two positions of their own website and that’s their number one seller right there is that eight inch crown strap. So again, our goal is for you is the same type of result we want you coming up front and center front of mind on on those grounds on your particular product. Okay, man, we’re gonna take it home is this time just flying by or what my goodness gracious man? You guys are you haven’t half as much fun as I am. Man. This is fun. Okay, Nicole. Hey, Nicole. There’s this. Look into clothes background man. I’m like I’m kind of jealous crystal called professional that looks you look so nice back there. Look very nice today. Nicole. Nicole, what is the hub and spoke? Strategy? You? You’ve just enlightened? So many people with this. What is a hub and spoke?

Nicole Donnelly 54:18
Yes. So we’ve talked a lot about how important it is for you to be creating content regularly. Because well, the secret to great marketing I’m going to tell you is consistency. Its consistency. There’s no one and done approach to this. You can’t just go in and spend a couple hours on your website and all of a sudden magic is gonna happen. I wish but then I’d be out of a job. So the secret to marketing good marketing is consistency. So what you want to do is we’ve talked about creating those really great topic ideas of questions. Your customers are asking comparison guides, all of those topics. And then what you’re going to do is you’re going to take your ridiculously important keyword, that top top keyword that you want to rank for whether it’s running Use pink running shoes or dust collector filter bags. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to create your own learning center. Okay, all about that, Rick. So this is what we call hub and spoke, the main topic in the center is your pillar content. So this would be, in the case of the dust collector filter bags, that would be the main topic that you’re going to create an article about. And then around that hub, you have different spoke articles, all related to that, that you’re going to be writing all related back to dust collector, filter, bag, filter bags, and we have a great example that Chris and we worked with Chris on Edgerton forge that we want to show you that just this is like real life, one that edited Ford who worked closely together on for them to come up with their own hub and spoke model that we’re now in the process of building out and creating for them. So

Curt Anderson 55:51
absolutely, man, well done. I’m sick, and I had a slide for you on that does. Clocker but Chris, if you don’t mind, let’s slide right into you made an America forgings. Let’s talk about when you went through this hub and spoke process, talk about everybody how you know how you took your Rick and just share what you did here?

Chris Pearson 56:08
Sure. So you start out with the main topic, which is, which is the Rick made America forgings. And then you start to think about little details that go behind that. So you can see some of the things that we came up with, for example, Made in America forgings, right size, your order, you know, if you’re if you’re buying from somebody in the States, you don’t have to buy a massive quantity, and have it shipped across the ocean, you can order based on the size of, of volume that you need. Same thing with simplify your communications. So basically, we did as you explained, we tried to come up with different sub topics to support that made in America forgings. And each one of those gives us an opportunity to, to have a blog post and talk about it. Yeah, so

Curt Anderson 57:05
it is perfect. We’re going to show an example. So now what we’ve done is man does a great process. Nicole, let’s walk through this. So again, just to kind of recap, you take your main topic, you take your Rick, okay, so Ragan Scott, David, everybody out there, Lisa, you know, take some of your core products, and then think about what are some of the questions? What are some of the challenges that your soulmate might be thinking asking around that particular topic? Okay. Nicole, let’s just talk about some different content ideas for everybody on this on this slide right here.

Nicole Donnelly 57:39
Yeah, exactly. So we talked about what questions are your customers asking? What are the benefits of your product over the competition? Again, going back to a comparison, you know, what is your product and service? Explain it explain what goes into it, a lot of people may not fully understand what it is. So they don’t know the value? How does it work? You know, how do I maintain it? How do I assemble it? How do I, you know, do all the things I need to do once I purchase it. And then pricing is huge. Everybody wants to know how much it costs, let’s make that really easy for them and transparent by being very upfront about what goes into the price. So these are just like a good place for you to start. If you’re starting for the first time, have spokes that you can build all around that main core topic.

Curt Anderson 58:19
Absolutely. And then what this is, what it looks like is now what Nicole has done is she’s created all these web pages. And Nicole just is we’re coming into home, just share a little bit of, you know, folks can see these topics over here to the left, and then how, and then just share about the the actual web link, that slug if you could just explain that real quick

Nicole Donnelly 58:38
to everybody. Yeah, so you can see that the URL for each of these, the slug is the section after the second parenthesis after the website, domain name. And you want that slug to include a really important keyword. So you’ll notice all the slugs here, these are all really important keywords that we wanted to rank for related to dust collectors. And we organized this, this calendar just this is the example that we showed earlier with a blog traffic that increased over time. This was our plan. This was a list of all the content that we created. And the green green article is the pillar main topic that we created and all the content around that. So this is just an example of what this would look like that you could build plan for, for your own learning centers.

Curt Anderson 59:24
All right, perfect. So you know, I’m going to jump into this, this slide right here. And then we have one more minute. I’m actually Chris Murphy. We’re kind of revealing a blog post to you. So what we did is we did an interview with Chris and their sales manager last week. And we took a deep dive into one of his Rick’s Christiaan just kind of described that process and then I’m going to go off road for a second and I’m just going to pull up if you don’t mind. I’m going to share what we’ve got going on here

Chris Pearson 59:50
are so yeah, you basically we set up a meeting you interviewed us based on some questions that we came up with to try to answer some of those was a questions that our customers might have better ways for us to explain our process our products, and just did a q&a on zoom just like we’re doing now. I think you had otter a AI running in the background to transcribe it for us because we’re all lazy, like free stuff. It was, you know, the first time you do it, it’s a little little, I’m sure.

Curt Anderson 1:00:31
Funky. i Dude, you’re being modest like that you absolutely crushed it you are,

Chris Pearson 1:00:35
as we do more, it’s gonna get better. And I think, you know, what you’ve done now is probably broke that down into different segments and, and have some posts coming out on a planned schedule. Yeah, and the

Nicole Donnelly 1:00:48
great thing is, is it’s just such as from, from your team’s perspective, Chris, it’s not a big huge investment, right to discover and talk one way that we can create all of this content from one interview session. Now we have a process where like, you know, once a month, we schedule it, we transcribe it. And now we’ve got regular content that we can publish for you.

Curt Anderson 1:01:08
So what what Chris is describing guys is, man, this is a phenomenal tool, and we goof around or like, you know, hey, let’s be lazy. And it’s a running joke of like, hey, you know, why work harder, let’s work smarter. So this is a manufacturer over in Illinois, we’re interviewing them. And what we’ve done is you check this out, as we interviewed them, we have the full transcription here of everything that we’re discussing. So right here, when I say like, Hey, tell me about your company, the president of the company, he’s like, Well, hey, Kurt, our father started this company in 1986 data, set it up. Now what the marketer, my dear friend, Marsha ray here, what she’s going to do this wonderful young woman right here, she’s going to copy and paste this because she were being efficient. She’s going to copy and paste this. And now that creates an about section, then what we did is we specifically started asking questions about their Rick’s a bunch of their products. And so down here, way below, in Look at all this juicy content, because this is phenomenal or what, right? So when we get down here, the President and CEO, they’re talking about what their products are, how passionate they are, how great they are. And now their marker can just go through this whole transcription. And now she can start creating content. It’s a copy and paste. We’re just being a lot more efficient with our time. So the tool is called otter just like the animal. Does. Matter of fact, Nicole, I have a blog post going out tomorrow. If you guys are on my blog, you’ll see a little blog post about how great otter.ai You called What’s it cost to get otter? That’s pretty Curt. It’s completely free. And so let’s do this for coming into time. And man, we got like 30 seconds left. I want to be mindful and respectful of everybody’s time. If you guys want to stick around, I’d be happy. I’d be honored. Nicole, we would be pleased to address answer any questions that you have whatsoever. couple, two takeaways. No, your soulmate, your soulmate, Ky SHYS. Help your soulmate. That’s our SEO tip of the day. You guys, you have access to a complimentary website audit, feel free to reach out to anybody here at the Purdue MEP, you can reach out to Nicole reach out to myself. And as Jean kicked off the program, they are offering this incredible, wonderful grant program that are helping manufacturers in a great state of Indiana with digital marketing. That’s the work that we’ve been doing here with Chris, Chris, any what Chris about what are your thoughts about the Purdue MEP? Are they just amazing peeps or what?

Chris Pearson 1:03:34
It’s been fantastic. It really has we got in touch through our corporate office and about a particular topic, not this one. But another another topic that we needed some assistance with. And quite honestly, I think we kicked off five different projects with the Purdue MEP, this being one of them. And it’s been it’s been great. Really helping us I believe, set ourselves up for the long game to really help us out not just now but in the future with digital marketing and and other skill sets that we needed.

Curt Anderson 1:04:17
Well, Chris, thank you man. It’s been such an absolute honor privilege. We have a blast working together, but boy, we’re rolling up our sleeves. And you know, I can’t I goof around a lot but boy at my passion my purpose in life is helping manufacturers helping us manufacturers be more competitive from an E commerce standpoint. That’s exactly what the Purdue MEP is here for. So guys, I’m gonna stick around and this is my Zoom account so I can stick around right hang out. If you guys have any questions I have you see all these windows pulled up Jean I have like all these manufacturers look at all these great companies that you have here in the great state of Indiana. So anyway, if anybody has any questions, there’s Chris and Gordy doing that recording right there. Look at those handsome devils, Jean anything that you want to close us out with and again If anybody has questions, please stick around and feel free to ask Jean anything that you want to close this out with on your end.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:05
Thanks, Kurt and Nicole and also thanks to Chris Pearson as well. Great job.

Curt Anderson 1:05:12
Thank you, sir. So, any you guys feel free to take yourself off of mute? I would love to tackle I know we threw a ton at you. We’d be happy to back up a step and address anything specific. Please don’t be shy. any unanswered questions a bed? How’s it going to call no questions or bad questions? Is that what it is? All

Nicole Donnelly 1:05:29
questions are bad questions, no

Curt Anderson 1:05:31
questions or bad questions, right. So feel free to ask a question you can contact on myself or Nicole on LinkedIn, please reach out to Jean or Julie’s here from the Purdue MEP. But any questions that you guys have? I threw our Kurt This was great. I gotta go. But Thanks, Jake. I really love what you guys were doing. So thank you very much for sharing it with me. Hey, thanks for being here. Jay. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks, Scott. Thank you for being here. Diane. Whitney. Thank you, Julie. Thank you. Thank you, Justin. appreciate the kind words.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:09
Some questions, Kurt. If you start with singing karaoke, that’ll generate some questions.

Curt Anderson 1:06:14
Hey, let’s get back to that. Frozen. Chris, are you ready? Let it go. Now, Chris. Chris is Chris has a funny story about what’s your Don’t you have a little frozen thing at the shop there? No. I wasn’t. I thought you’re telling Gordy like, Hey, if you if you guys don’t do this, we’re gonna start singing Let it go. Do you guys are what was

Chris Pearson 1:06:35
that one day? Yep. That was fun. So hey,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:38
Kurt. So Curt, here’s a question for you, Chris. Since let’s see, we went from 30. On the presentation down to seven, there’s less risk of me embarrassing anyone by asking this question. So Chris, have you seen Have you seen have you and Gordy seen a bump up in Leeds? Thus, already with the work with with Kurt Nicole?

Chris Pearson 1:07:07
We’ve had some we’ve had a little bit yes. You know, every day is bringing something different to us. I believe we’ve seen some increase in traffic. You know, traditionally, before we started this project, no joke. Like Kurt says, We’re the best kept secret. You know, you did a Google search. We were on page five of our primary thing that we do, nobody could find us. We were getting a lot of leads new new jobs inquiry sent to us by other forging companies that didn’t specialize in the type of work that we do. And they were steering customers to us. So now, you know, with what we’ve been doing. We’re seeing a change in that people are finding us on their own. I can’t say that it’s been a huge amount of traffic. But I think we’re still really early in the in the project. Kurt’s been doing a great job. We’ve been a little bit challenged for some time here. So we we’ve I think we’ve got a clear path. And a good good plan and strategy moving forward. And really, for me, it’s about like I said earlier, it’s about the long game I didn’t didn’t really get into this expecting to have an immediate impact. This is more setting us up for long term goals. Because I believe that, as we’ve learned, and like Nicola and Kurt are saying, more and more people are doing all this research and, and online. They’re not calling or not emailing. They’re, they’re trying to figure everything out before they get a hold of you.

Nicole Donnelly 1:09:03
Yeah, I think that’s absolutely the right approach. Chris, is it It absolutely is a long game, right. And I think that you have to think about marketing in that kind of mindset versus sales, which is more of like an immediate kind of impact. So you’re thinking about it, right? You’re approaching it right?

Chris Pearson 1:09:18
For example, you’ve got my LinkedIn page up there. Before we started this project with Kurt, I hadn’t touched that in nine years. And I thought LinkedIn was used for professional job searching. And that was the last time I touched it. Boy did I learn a lot of stuff about LinkedIn with through this process. And now we’re using that as a tool and I went from two connections. I think I’m only up to about 59 or 60 At the moment, but just in a couple of months. That’s a lot and you know, we’re having some communication on there. Maybe Finding some companies and they’re finding us and we’re sharing information doing some quote, activity back and forth where maybe they can help us as a supplier and maybe down the road, if they get an inquiry and they’re gonna send it our way so that we can collaborate with each other. So I really think it’s about building relationships and and that long game.

Curt Anderson 1:10:24
So just to chime in real quick, what was awesome in I tried connecting with a lot of folks on LinkedIn. I know it’s common with manufacturers that you know, not super heavy on LinkedIn. But I encourage you welcome you guys to take advantage of that. And what Chris has done the entire team, when you go to their LinkedIn, they’re using this banner to create that consistency. And Chris, you started posting and so you’re doing a great job there. I want to I want to digress not digress. I want to change gears for one second. So Regan, is this your? Is this your your Dexter? Right? Yep. Perfect, okay, to a guy. And again, we thank everybody. Thank you guys. I know how busy everyone is. So thank you for joining us. And we still have 18 people on here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We know how precious your time is. And I know you need to get run in here. Right. And so let’s take a look. Nikolas, take a look at Chris Harrington is joining us now. Let’s take a look at your website. And Reagan. Sir. What are any challenges that you’re facing? Or frustrations? Or give us a little background? And we’ll give you some quick feedback here?

Unknown Speaker 1:11:25
I’m not really anything major. We just did a complete like, recently, they did a complete website overhaul. So if you hover over our resources tab and you see it’s going anywhere, I’d say got it other okay. You see the second option of learning library? Right there. Yep. So we just want this. So I’m actually just everything that you talked about I’m very familiar with at this is like brand new, we just launched this, I have a whole like I’ve started 10 Plus articles that has to go through approval process before we’re able to to publicize them just because like we’re highly engineered products, right? Where axles hubs, brakes, like everything. So I was just kind of curious if you guys had any, just off the cuff sort of so to speak, like feedback or just interests or anything because we actually are starting to build the learning library. I actually came up with the name, which is interesting that you guys kind of called it similar things. But yeah, and so we have a lot of different things in there. And we do have quite a few PDFs, I guess. But it’s a lot of instruction sheets and stuff that just want to be I don’t think it’s beneficial to have as a page. We’re kind of taking items from instruction sheets and making them kind of what you guys are saying articles, if you will, but yeah.

Curt Anderson 1:12:49
Perfect. So Nicole, I know That’s music to your ears. The Learning Library. Nicole, as you said Regan, she calls it the Learning Center. Edgerton forges you know, they’re creating a forging, forging Learning Center. So that’s phenomenal. So like right off the bat, I love the new website kudos to you’re doing a phenomenal job. Kudos to you that you’re launching the the library, my immediate thought so I’m an E commerce guy looking at this I’m like, this is fan I love what you’ve done is you’ve separated it out the product. So you know you have a trademark product right there. I’m assuming that torx flex, medium duty something like maybe your Rick is the rubber tours Torsen suspend suspension axles. Do I have that? Correct? I didn’t see it easily. But that’s so what you want to do is like so see up here like Nicole was talking about that slug? So like, right off the bat, you know, depending on what the keyword is, if it’s just torsion suspension, or torsion axles, then that’s phenomenal. Because you have those two keywords right here. If you wanted more than you might want to consider, you know, you know, what would the slug look like or create another page with that slug? Or you could now with that, are you on WordPress?

Unknown Speaker 1:13:59
No. What are you? Why are we it’s actually worked for we are like highly, because we’re global. So we’re in Europe in all over the Okay. Yep. We are like highly, like half high because we acquire quite a few companies. So every time we acquire a company, we have like a very narrow security system type thing. So we’re not we’re just on we use like a company and the

Curt Anderson 1:14:25
differences. Sure, yeah. Okay. But what I know cool, I’ll have you chime in next. So what I love how you’ve put out the bullet points, it looks content rich, you know, again, just like down the road. What I would love to see are like maybe more pictures, Google loves those pictures, tagging those images with your keywords. And then as Nicole preaches video video video, I would love a video on that page with that product.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:51
We do. If you look to the right, the VC like the small video.

Curt Anderson 1:14:55
Oh, there it is right there. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:58
We probably just need to embedded on that page, because we do embed videos all over, like the Vico, we have like a Yep. That’s a good point.

Curt Anderson 1:15:08
Yep, I would consider embedded in here and again, you know, think about your searchers, you know, especially as buyers are getting younger, per chance, if they happen to be on their mobile, or they’re, they’re on a device, they’re sliding down, right. So on mobile that might be hidden. You know, I’m curious where These were, these links would be

Unknown Speaker 1:15:25
on down to the bottom there just like on mobile chunks. Yep.

Curt Anderson 1:15:30
Yeah, I think I think as you’re saying, like embedding that video, like right here or somewhere, and again, from an SEO standpoint, we didn’t get into that, but time on webpage. That’s one of Google’s ranked, you know, ranking characteristics. So having that video, and again, like I said, like, you know, front and center like I can, I whiffed on this, I didn’t see it. So make it as easy as possible for your buyer to see it, and then they’re going to be on that page much longer watching that video.

Nicole Donnelly 1:15:57
Yeah, I completely agree with all that. The other thing I would recommend here is to add some internal links to this page to other relevant pages. Yeah, so that you’re keeping them on the site and engaged. So just like sprinkling in some internal links to other, you know, articles from your Learning Center, other product pages that are relevant. And then at the bottom of the page, I always like to make sure on every page, there’s some sort of very clear, like, next step call to action, like, what are they going to do next after they’ve read this page? So maybe it’s like creating a module at the bottom that’s like related articles related to that product. So if you have articles in your learning center all about these specific elements of this rubber, you know, yes, an axle, you could have a module on the bottom that just says Learn More, and takes them to the Learning Center where they can learn more about it, or that kind of thing. So

Unknown Speaker 1:16:45
yeah, that’s because that’s what I kind of was focusing on. So like the resource Learning Library, if you click on that, I did add like customizable widgets to like kick people out to other pages and things like that, and, or byproduct, if it’s like a transactional search and stuff like that. So now sounds like we’re kind of on the right path. I’m all you can only do so much. Right? Like,

Nicole Donnelly 1:17:11
it wasn’t built in a day. It is today. In

Curt Anderson 1:17:14
fact, I did a summer found. I’m Jody from Edrington. So here, I just did a little workshop yesterday. And Marcia from louvers in Chicago, she caught something on my website, she’s like, Hey, Kurt, shouldn’t you be doing this? So Regan? It is, it’s, it’s a treadmill, it’s like, it’s, you know, it never ends. So trust me, you know, we could do, you know, you’re doing a phenomenal job. So these are just we want to view them not as a critique opportunities for improvement. But we can pull up anybody’s website in you know, we could pay pull up Amazon and find something right. So Well,

Nicole Donnelly 1:17:46
mine and find something. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 1:17:48
no, it’s great. I love the feedback. So no harm no foul, I appreciate it. So sorry, I’m gonna hop off. If you haven’t, you can see, sorry, I didn’t want to cut you off.

Curt Anderson 1:17:59
So So again, just kind of recap. So internal links, the webpage, they’re always looking for External links. So External links on this page would be great too. Like any other your social media platforms, maybe an external link to like your company LinkedIn page, or your company YouTube page, or you said, like your global brand. So maybe links to the other if there’s other websites or whatever, but internal links, External links, images, having that video, and I think, you know, you’re crushing it with these pages here.

Nicole Donnelly 1:18:27
You’re absolutely on the right track with the learning library. I love what you’re building there. That was great. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:18:33
sounds good. I had a question. But it’s on my mind, but yeah, no, that was great. I appreciate it. It’s, it’s good to at least know you’re on the right track, I guess.

Curt Anderson 1:18:42
Yeah, you’re doing you’re doing phenomenal. And again, thank you for joining us today. We appreciate it. Anybody else is anybody else have any questions? Before we wrap up? I want to be mindful of everybody’s time. But if you I’d love to dress answer anything. I see Addison, Kelly Paco. Lisa, if you guys have anything, be happy to address your website. Maddie, any questions that you guys have be happy to address that.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:04
Hi, this is Kelly. I work with Maddie actually have a question. So we work with VISTA manufacturer. They’re an LED lighting manufacturing company out of Elkhart, Indiana, and we’ve been working with them for about a year and a half. We were able to launch a new website last year. So I have two questions. One of the things that we are struggling with their engineers and their sales team is struggling with to provide us information on what their best clients are actually looking for. So in terms of when we ask for things like what kind of how to guides you know, is there anything that we can build that will make the industrial engineers or the designers job easier? Are there checklists? Are there questions that are constantly answered? What about video owes for things of like how things are installed, like case studies, all of that. So that doesn’t seem to be able to be an easy fix for them to be able to do that. Because, especially for the people that would need to create the case studies, they’re extremely busy. So one, I would like to understand, what do you guys do? Or what do you do?

Nicole Donnelly 1:20:21
How do you go about finding

Unknown Speaker 1:20:23
information, knowing that you need to provide specific information, but you don’t necessarily have it? So we’ve created, I was gonna say, we’ve created a couple guides, like an IP rating guide, because a lot of engineers don’t understand the whole IP rating between like all the products, and is it waterproof? Is it water resistant, all of that. So that worked really well like a guide to Flexi type lighting, like those types of things that we’re kind of running out of general information. So we’re trying to determine if the audience is looking for solutions? Or if they’re looking for specific products.

Curt Anderson 1:21:01
Cool, take it away.

Nicole Donnelly 1:21:02
I love this question. Kelly, like this is awesome. Have they given you access to reach out to their customers directly?

Unknown Speaker 1:21:12
They have allowed customer surveys. But those are more for what is your experience as opposed to, hey, tell me what you’re searching for. So we’ve tried to util go through the sales team and say, Hey, can you send out this specific email with this these specific questions to like five of your best customers? And that we haven’t gotten any response from those? Have you tried

Nicole Donnelly 1:21:37
doing like getting access to their entire database and sending like a bulk survey out through like a Survey Monkey platform so that you can get like a larger sample size and come up with like a list of very specific questions that you could ask, specifically, that would help you figure out what content and questions they’re having?

Unknown Speaker 1:21:54
So yes, we have access to that, yes, we’ve talked about that. Their database doesn’t distinguish between if somebody is a purchaser, like a purchasing agent, if they’re an engineer, if they’re a designer, so it’s like, kind of like blasting out completely. So we actually don’t know who the audience is. So we haven’t moved forward with that, knowing that we could ask people to self identify, yeah, with thinking that

Nicole Donnelly 1:22:21
could be one of your questions, you could ask them in the survey what their role is. And then you could filter the survey results based on that. But yeah, I feel your pain I’ve been in your shoes, like, it’s tough, it is so tough Kelly to get these engineers bought in and willing to contribute. I, my recommendation would be to try to leverage the executive team as much as possible, if you can, to try to get them to try to get the engineers to buy in. And even just the model of trying to schedule like a subject matter expert interview where you just schedule it in advance with those engineers, like a month advance. I

Unknown Speaker 1:23:03
love how all of these things we have tried to do that. And when we connect with an engineer, their answers are I don’t know, gosh, I don’t know what I would do. I don’t know, like, and we’re like, Well, I don’t know how to answer. I don’t know how to ask the question a different way to get the information out of there.

Curt Anderson 1:23:21
What so we twist, we twist Chris’s arm a little bit. So Kelly, maybe, you know, so maybe a little persuasion, but this is what we found going this direction. So this is otter. So if anybody’s still on here, this is otter, it’s phenomenal. You hit this little record button right here. If I hit that, it’s going to start recording our conversation right now. So it’s great getting that transcription. And what we found is, is it certainly record? There it is. Hi, Kelly, how are you? Hi, Nicole. So by getting this transcription, what we’ve discovered is, boy, when you find the right person, if you can get even if the engineer is a little bit on the introverted side, and it’s great that most people just love talking about what they do, because not many people want to hear it. Right, especially from an engineering standpoint. And I’ll close that out. But if you could find somebody on the team, and just like get them fired up, get them excited and say, hey, you know, Stacy, Joe, whoever it is, boy, you are that subject matter expert, you know, try to get some questions prepared. And that’s what we did with Chris and Chris, and I want to be mindful of your time, Chris, because I appreciate you hanging out with us. But think about some of those core questions that you could ask us that odor and just record them and then like Chris, what did you think of the process? We just did it last week?

Chris Pearson 1:24:39
It’s good. I like I said, I’m a little bit like it’s an uncomfortable I’m an engineer by trade. So you know, we’re a little bit goofy and how we talk and whatever, but just getting as it’s really relaxing when you’re just asking me questions, and I’m just answering your question. gents, and you can be a little bit more natural. You’ve got otter running in the background at transcribes it. I think you’re right, you got to find the right person to talk to. And what we did here was, we’re really busy too. But I forced us to go ahead and schedule the appointments with Kurt and Nicole to force us to sit down and do the work. And it really is doesn’t take that long. You know, it’s an hour of our time that we spend once every couple of weeks. And we’re making great progress. So you just got to find the person with the right knowledge and the commitment to sit down for an hour and have a chat.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:45
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. My career, you’re gonna say something?

Curt Anderson 1:25:50
No, obviously, I was I was gonna, I think I sent you a LinkedIn connection. So I want to I’m just going to thank you again for joining us today. But go ahead with your question.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:59
So I like I think that we’re definitely on the right track. When it came to SEO, we were kind of hand, our hands were tied a little bit because the company utilized specific language. And we were kind of I don’t want to say force, but we we had to compromise and create the initial SEO, content based off of that, but now we’re finding 12 months into it that people are literally not searching for the terms that we had to optimize for. So we’re redoing some of the the terms based on the analytics that we can actually say, hey, literally, this is not working. And this is why. So we’re kind of doing that. So we’ve kind of moved up, like quite a bit in stead of saying that they are a lighting solutions partner, which we knew wasn’t a great SEO term to now an LED lighting manufacturer, so we’re able to do some of those things. But what my question to you is, I heard you say something about a grant with Purdue. Is that something that as an agency, we can connect with you on and go back and forth with two professional lines trying to figure out how we can do better for this client.

Curt Anderson 1:27:09
That gene, are you still with us? Gene might be on a cost.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:18
I’m still here.

Curt Anderson 1:27:19
Perfect. So Kelly was asking. She met you. We talked about the grant program, either cat question. Yeah. Okay. How would your thoughts?

Unknown Speaker 1:27:29
Um, yes. I mean, if if you are if you’re in the process of of working with an Indiana manufacturer or engineering service provider, Kelly, I’m assuming that your company is a marketing firm as well.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:45
We are and we’re actually located here in downtown Lafayette.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:49
Awesome. So I mean, sure. I mean, our resources would be available to your client as well. But you know, it’s a little tricky, right? Because we’re, you know, we’re partnered up with, with Kurt and Nicole. It’s, it’s certainly not something that’s exclusive. But we do let’s let’s have outside conversation about helping helping you help your clients

Unknown Speaker 1:28:14
that way. And I didn’t know exactly because I don’t know if you talked about that grant, I missed the whole introduction of what it was. I just heard it as a mention. So I didn’t know if it was working with like Curtin, a call for that. And we could utilize as a sounding board to try to figure out how we can do better. So that’s an opportunity. That’s okay, as well.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:30
Yeah, just mean, it is an opportunity. There’s, we have two major we have two major grants, right. There’s the Department of Defense grant that’s focused on companies within the defense industrial base, right. So if anybody if the company is the manufacturer or engineering services company is selling within the the Department of Defense industrial base at any level, right? It could be could be a bolt, it could be a bracket. There’s there’s this federal money that can help them enhance their capability. There’s also Indiana next level jobs. Next level jobs. You’re familiar with that one? Yes. Okay. And then, you know, if they if they have specific needs in the area of cyber, we also have some Indiana P TECH funding.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:20
Okay. Is it something that you can just send me an email and maybe we can connect or connect through LinkedIn or something? Okay. Perfect.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:28
Yeah, yeah. You? Yes. Yes. I’ll go. I’ll go back to the chat and pull down your LinkedIn information. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

Curt Anderson 1:29:39
Perfectly. Again. There’s tons of business going around. So Kelly, that is phenomenal. And so you know, this is partnering with a Purdue MEP, especially with you right in Lafayette is a great opportunity. And as you’re trying to help you know this and be more competitive. That’s a great, great opportunity for everybody involved. So any other questions there that you had? As far as this goes, No, thank you. Alright, well, thank you for joining us. We’ve got Chris Harrington here today, Chris, my friend Happy Wednesday to Oh, are you. Anybody else? Any other questions before I know we’re running over and Chris Pearson, I want to be respectful of your time, my friend. I know we’re running into time here. Any other questions? Anybody else out there that you guys want to ask? I’ll stop sharing. Anybody else? Heather. Thank you for joining us. Addison. Maddy. Anything else? Jean, thank you, dude. This was great. Chris Pearson, man. How about Chris on the stage today? What a great

Nicole Donnelly 1:30:38
job. Good job. Great job.

Curt Anderson 1:30:42
Thank you. Thank you so much. So we have the recording. We’ll have the transcription, Chris. So anything else that we can get out of that for you? Right? We’re going to be lazy and get that information to you? That’s right. So all right. Um, if there’s anything else, yeah. Chris Harrington. How are you? Hey, Chris is a veteran a gene. This is my friend Chris Harrington. Chris Harrington. Gene Jones from Purdue MVP.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:08
Hi, Nicole. Hi, Chris. Great to see you. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:16
I got to listen to quite a bit of it. So thanks for all the great information. So

Curt Anderson 1:31:21
Chris is a fierce advocate for US manufacturing. She’s up the road in Milwaukee. She’s a veteran. God bless her. And she’s a CEO of Gen Alpha technologies. She’s helping manufacturers with E commerce. She’s a great advocate for manufacturing. So, Chris, it’s a privilege to have you here today.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:39
Thank you, Kurt. Always Thank you. I love that Einstein picture in the background. I was looking for Norman Schwarzkopf or somebody like that to know their background. And you know, let’s see. Nicole’s got the star earrings, though. She is a star. But you know, Kurt, I want to see you with some star earrings. And

Curt Anderson 1:32:03
I did my hair for the program today. You know,

Unknown Speaker 1:32:07
you did a great job. Thanks. Nice job, guys. Appreciate.

Curt Anderson 1:32:11
Jean. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Thanks for the call. Thank you, everybody. Still on the call. Guys. Reach out to us reach out to Purdue MEP. And if you need anything, would you mind giving a first impression of Smith? Yeah. If whoever needs to wrap up, take off. I’ve got a couple of minutes. I can jump on the Smith website. And who is that Heather? Or Addison? Oh, Addison Smith, I guess. may not call me Dick Tracy. Jean. I figured that one out, didn’t I?

Unknown Speaker 1:32:34
Yeah, you You’re sharp. You’re sharp today. It’s Tuesday. Wednesday,

Curt Anderson 1:32:39
sharp as a tack RNA. Alright, let’s pick out Smith. Let’s see. I you know what, and I am a little bit smart because I put everybody alphabetically today. How’s that? So? All right. Addison, how are you? Is she there Edison?

Unknown Speaker 1:33:07
Hey, can you hear me now Kurt?

Curt Anderson 1:33:09
There we are. Yep.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:10
Ah, sorry about that. I couldn’t get my mic to work.

Curt Anderson 1:33:13
No worries. How are you today?

Unknown Speaker 1:33:15
I’m pretty good, sir. How are you?

Curt Anderson 1:33:17
I’m doing awesome. So let’s tell us a little bit what’s going on with Schmidt metalworks. And what’s happening in

Unknown Speaker 1:33:22
your world, just a one man service shop. And I don’t like to. I don’t really tell anybody or make them aware that it’s a one man shop because we do offer quite a bit of services as far as welding fabrication machining. And so basically, one, what’s your input on that? Should I be telling everybody I’m a one man shop and letting them know that it’s that they’re dealing with one person? And maybe that’s a there’s a plus side to that? Or should I continue to try to hide that I’m a small one man shop that I offer all these things?

Curt Anderson 1:34:02
You know, the call I’d love for you to chime in or anybody else? I guess

Nicole Donnelly 1:34:06
my question to you is what are your customers tell you about the customers that you have now? Is Is that something that they value? And you do they value that you’re one have you gotten feedback from them saying man we love that you’re a one person shop?

Unknown Speaker 1:34:20
We think with you I think it’s more of a I’ve got a good name going for for quality of welding. So I’ve got that, you know, going good for me because they know it’s it’s it’s me doing the welding instead of, you know, a hired welder

Curt Anderson 1:34:45
Well, here’s so here’s my answer. I’m a one man band, right? I’m a solo and I don’t try to hide it. I don’t pretend that I’m not I just put it right out there. You know, and I guess, you know, being a one man band and It’s Addison. Right? Do I have that correct? Yes. Okay. Do you? How capacity? Are you? Are you looking for customers? Are you like, are you? You maxed out? Like, where are you at? As far as that goes?

Unknown Speaker 1:35:13
I am maxed out. But I’ve been, I recently, just so I had the, you know, our Google ads. I kind of stopped all that for a couple months. I recently just turned it back on because you know, you, you mentioned the long game. And so come next year, we’re looking at, you know, obtaining some, some ground building a new shop and hiring some, some some individuals. So I’m trying to play the long game and work on my ads work on the website. But as of right now, I am at capacity as far as taking on work. You want to get bigger, you want to scale? So? Yes.

Curt Anderson 1:36:04
Yeah, I think I absolutely love the video right here. That is phenomenal. That’s if you go to Edgerton, they’ve got a great video, you have all your processes here. Again, for one man band, that’s a lot. The chat, you know, these, you know, from, as we were talking about, like broad terms, you know, design, welding, fabrication, CNC, those are pretty broad. Now, you know, what’s a case or a situation that somebody’s going to do a search to find you right? Now, if they know the name, you’re doing a great job here. This is that Google business profile that we’re talking about, look at that big chunk of real estate that you have, you’ve got three, five star reviews, or you’re doing a great job there. Here’s your website. Here’s Facebook, Facebook. Here’s your LinkedIn profile, which is great. So you’re doing a nice job there, you know. So on some of those fronts, you’re doing decent Now, you mentioned Google ads, and isunshare. A little bit like as that driven leads, what are some of your keywords? What does that look like?

Unknown Speaker 1:36:58
So when we had Google Ads turned on, we were really wasn’t generating good leads were getting calls from people out of state that we couldn’t even help them. So they so really, are the leads we were getting were were bad leads. I did just turn it all on. I don’t you know, right now my it says my Optimation score is 76%. And one man band, I’m a welder. So that’s all just kind of gibberish. It’s not gibberish. But you know, I don’t understand some of it.

Curt Anderson 1:37:43
I guess. So here’s my feedback here on a couple of fronts would be Nicole, and I’d love for you to chime in is, I’m a big, you know, we’re all here today. The only reason I’m connected with LinkedIn or with the Purdue MEP is thanks to and through that through LinkedIn. That’s why I’m with my dear friend, Nicole two, I’m my dear friend, Chris gene. So we’re there’s a nice, wonderful community of folks that are dedicated on LinkedIn to manufacturing, Chris Harrington was just here a few minutes ago, there was a woman named Diane buyer. You know, it’s a nice, wonderful group of people that are just fiercely dedicated to manufacturing. So Addison, if I was in your shoes, one thing to consider is I can maybe get a little bit more active on LinkedIn, and Nicole, what does it cost to be on LinkedIn?

Nicole Donnelly 1:38:29
Zero, and I will second that I have seen so much, just opportunity and new partnerships that have come from LinkedIn. And it hasn’t, it hasn’t cost me a dime, but except my time. So I would, I would agree with that.

Curt Anderson 1:38:43
We had a client that we’re working with in Chicago, it’s a husband and wife team. And they have so man, they’re four times the size of us, and they have two employees. Plus a husband and wife, the wife works her part time. So they’re about three and a half times the size of you. But you know, very, very tiny shop there in Chicago, and the husband is just he’s constantly on LinkedIn, constant on LinkedIn. And just like liking, commenting, just you know, that’s where he’s at, you know, you’ve got a nice video here, oops, you’ve got a nice video here, you know, maybe consider, you know, hey, you’re young guy, pull out your phone, maybe drop a couple of videos here and there. And then my other suggestion would be, if I’m in your shoes, I would double down on Google business profile. The reason I would go double down on Google business profile is because it’s going to be more local. So though, maybe you can tackle things nationally. But since it looks like you do some of your different processes, maybe you want to find somebody that more in your area, your region in Google business profile would help you do that. So now if you shot a video, man, you could drop it on LinkedIn, you could drop it on Google Business Profile doesn’t cost you a penny. You could do that literally in about five minutes. And now you’re creating a little bit of a presence in a close always talking about that consistency. That would be a great place to potentially start and you’re not spending any money doing so.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:01
Okay, I’ve no, I really appreciate that. I thought, I’ve really thought about the videos. And I definitely think it’s a great idea.

Curt Anderson 1:40:13
So, you know, just, you know, just so I’m not like just talking to talk, right? If I go back, let me get rid of this if I go here. So I post on Google Business Profile multiple, multiple times a day. So let me let me let me do a Google search. And Nikolas like the other day, all over again, right?

Nicole Donnelly 1:40:33
up to my current job.

Curt Anderson 1:40:35
I don’t even know what’s happening here. Right. Okay. Let’s try this again. b2b tail if I do a search for a b2b tail, and okay. See over here, see all these videos is perfect. Man we did an interview with with your colleague right here, man, Jeremiah was phenomenal. But I do all sorts of these LinkedIn lives. And Chris, you know, man, I don’t know if I told you we interviewed Jeremiah on Monday. Yeah. Oh, my God, here. Oh, so just so take a look. If so, Addison, if somebody’s out there, like somebody came to this webinar today. They’re like, what was that dude’s name? You know, he had some goofy business name, it was b2b Tell if they do a search for me. See, I have this big chunk of real estate over here. And what I’m trying to do is like that know, like, trust. So here’s all these videos over here. Take a look at this. All of these are videos as well. So I’m trying to get as much real estate as I can on that particular page. And I’m just using videos. Now. Does it cost me time? Absolutely. Does it cost me any money out of pocket per se? No. So that’s the value of videos and Google business profile, just from my perspective. Okay. Okay. So hopefully that helps. Any, does that any, any additional thoughts questions? Or what do you think? And?

Unknown Speaker 1:41:55
No, I absolutely appreciate that. And I can think of some videos and and I’ll definitely have to look into that and see if I can get that done.

Curt Anderson 1:42:06
Absolutely. Well, hey, well done. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today, again, we know is, especially as a one man band, we know how busy you are, you know, definitely connect with the folks at the Purdue MEP. They have all sorts of different resources. And even we interviewed this just this gentleman here. Jeremiah works at the MEP. And he shared I think he started in 2017 ish, and even came out and said he’s like, Man, I wish I knew about the MEP, when he was one running a manufacturing operation back in his previous career. So, you know, reach out to Jean or any of the folks at the Purdue MEP, there might be some additional resources that could help you solve Heather Eris. Yes, sir.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:47
I mean, I know Addison is not in into training but I just had a company this week asked me if we knew any, any companies that could train their welders and so that I connect that with the videos. But looks like not only is Addison a welder, buddies, high level sort of artistic type welder so videos perhaps with what it what’s processes and procedures and techniques and tips, set your welding apart from other welders, right, not just the basic TIG and welding. What is it that you do that takes your work to the next level? Those kinds of videos on your, on your website as a as a as a potential idea.

Curt Anderson 1:43:37
Exactly and and Addison as you’re exactly with what Gene seen, and since you’re doing like some it looks like some fun unique things or you know, with a metal works or whatever direction you’re going. Now, quick question. Can you make earrings that look like Nicole’s? I’m just I’m just kidding. But Addison is you’re doing some cool things maybe like hey, just look what came off hot off the press here at Smokey. I’ll pay for

Unknown Speaker 1:44:02
a set to be sent to you Kurt.

Nicole Donnelly 1:44:07
That would be awesome.

Curt Anderson 1:44:12
James, truth be told, I think I need a halo. You know, just being seen. Right, Chris? Do

Unknown Speaker 1:44:21
I think you need to call in the other Anderson’s. There’s two other Anderson’s that I need to get their opinion on whether

Curt Anderson 1:44:29
and thank you, thank goodness my wife saw she’s she’s somewhat probably spending my money. I don’t know if she’s, I’m just teasing. So but yeah, yeah, Halo trouble. The Halo might not work so but are there any questions? Chris any other Chris Hatsan any questions that you guys have on your your your business your website in why you’re thinking Addison, so you know say you did something hot off the press. Put that keyword put the name With a product in the title of that video, put that title on your use that keyword on your website. Hey, look at this cool cutting edge thing that we make at Schmitz, right? Look at this product. Look at this widget. Look at that, Rick, that we were talking about earlier. So that would be a really great SEO strategy on your end, post that on LinkedIn posted on YouTube posted on Google business profile. It just takes a matter of minutes to do it. In that I mean, say if you’d like considered like when Nicole’s term like say every Tuesday you came out, or you know what? Schmidt metal work Mondays or something like that. Every Monday, you’re gonna come out with a new video, just getting that cadence. And boy, you’re just going to see a lot of improvement.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:39
Awesome. I appreciate it, guys. Thank you so much.

Curt Anderson 1:45:44
Absolutely. Well, guys, I know, man, we got to get back to work. Nicole, we can’t have fun like this all day. Right. So if anybody has any questions, please reach out to Nicole reach out to me. One more round of applause for Chris Pearson for joining us today. Chris Pearson. I know you’re super busy. Thank you for joining us. Hi there. Chris Addison. Thank you guys. Reach out to Jean. Jean. Thank you. Let’s hear another round of applause for Jean at the Purdue MEP. I want to run applause for Nicole Donnelly. She’s over here on my screen the call way to go. So I guess a god bless everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you have an amazing rest of your week and we’ll talk to everybody soon.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:26
In the coffee, Chris.

Curt Anderson 1:46:27
Thanks, guys.