BluShark Digital
Welcome to the SEO Insider with your host, Seth Price, founder of BluShark, taking you inside the world of legal marketing and all things digital.
Seth Price
Welcome, everybody. We're thrilled to have the one and only Jason Hennessey of Hennessey Digital. Welcome, Jason.
Jason Hennessey
Man, it's such an honor to be here, bud.
Seth Price
Well, we've known each other for a minute. I think in fact, that I was the first paying client back at your, the beginning of your digital days.
Jason Hennessey
You were.
Seth Price
You know, it's great, great to have you here. Is it, are we, are you broadcasting from the, the epicenter of the, of all things Hennessey Digital?
Jason Hennessey
I am, no, you know, I'm working from my home office. I kind of rearranged the office a little bit. You know, I've got my Inc 500 plaque back there, which I know you've made a couple of years in a row and then the famous Louis, Louis P. He's an opera singer from Italy. Very proud of that.
Seth Price
You know, what I wanna know is, how you get work in between the social media jarrings, with a gift card fraudster and coming up with individual podcasts. That is one of the reasons you must have such a large team which is like, half are doing SEO and half are creating social media instigation?
Jason Hennessey
You know what, if we're not having fun, we're not living right. And it's great. We built the business, they let me play around now. But yeah, I guess I can pull this off the wall here. So I never knew how much you look like, like Louis P. It's kind of interesting, my friend.
Seth Price
Brother from another mother. I could actually be the Jeopardy-
Jason Hennessey
I think so. By the way, for those that don't know, this is Seth, I am a jokester, and I gave him a little mustache and curly hair and it's his profile photo, so. But I noticed that well enough. Like I said, we go back many years that I could open up the podcast that way.
Seth Price
So I'll take a hard pivot. So what, so in your, in your digital world, what's exciting you these days?
Jason Hennessey
You know, I'm really excited about a studio that we're building in Hollywood, California. You know, I've been focusing a lot on my Instagram followers. I think I'll probably hit about 100,000 followers today. We did a promotion with Floyd Mayweather over the past couple of days where he's been promoting, lifting follower count and stuff. And, and so yeah, I'm doing a show, I'm going to do a podcast show similar to this. But we're doing it live from a studio in Hollywood, and there's going to be post editing and it's going to be a lot of fun. So I think podcasting is kind of the new world that we're entering here.
Seth Price
No, it is interesting. I'm amazed at how much content is being consumed that way. And I'm always like, we both lived through the Google Plus era. And like, whether or not like what, what vehicle will work, you know, Twitter obviously has remained a constant in certain venues, news in particular, you know, curious to see things like Clubhouse, how much stickiness is there? And how much is that like, the bright shiny object of today, and if it's gonna pivot to something else tomorrow?
Jason Hennessey
No, Clubhouse is I mean, oh, we can turn to a whole podcast on that. I know. It's so new. And there's not a lot of people in there yet. But the people that are in there are really leveraging that as a tool. I personally haven't done business there. But I see all kinds of groups and forums that I am, I come in and out of, like there's a domaining thread where people are selling like high value domains. And then, then the one that I saw that was really telling that gave me a lot more respect for Clubhouse was, it was like, Clubhouse loves Texas. And so they had all these people that needed water and food and shelter. And then you had all these people that kind of were in different areas in Texas that are willing to help. I've even seen one person that had a big tractor trailer that on that call, volunteered to drive his tractor trailer all the way to Atlanta, right, where they can get plumbing supplies and bring stuff back. So like, it's so powerful that app, but it's like-
Seth Price
But why that app, like why not, like to me, where you have to be called up to stage, why not something more egalitarian? Like, you know, a Facebook group, we've seen stuff take off there or you know, through Instagram, like why, you know, why Clubhouse. Right now it's not open to non-Apple users. And it just seems like one of those things, is it you know, it's obviously great for an Elon Musk to come on and get audience quickly. Right. Yeah. You know, is this the, the mechanism of choice, or is it going to just be a bunch of people talking past each other? I, you know, right now obviously, it's in infancy so everybody there is an early adopter, right? Every time you get one of those early adopter type things, it's really, really cool. The question is, when everybody's there, what will it be like, comparatively?
Jason Hennessey
Yeah, you know, and it's just taking three steps back, you know, I think we're so like, into these Zoom worlds and instant messages, and DMs, and we're, you know, we've taken out the human being of just kind of communicating. And I think that's what they've done. Like, there's no video, it's just kind of all voice. It's like, back in the day when we were kids and you had a phone line and you got you know, you're excited when you could actually get three people on one line in all kinds of, have a party line together, right? So it's, we're taking a couple steps back.
Seth Price
You're even a little too young, but so am I, but there was a party line. That was how they used to be able to like plug in, and anybody who got on that line could talk before you would have a direct phone call.
Jason Hennessey
That's what Clubhouse is, it's a modern day, yep, party line. Yep. Agreed.
Seth Price
And so you know, it again, like anything else, it's, and I think one of the things that I always focus with clients on, I know you're big on this, is understanding what is, where your potential clients are. And what worked for a marketer when I put my marketing hat on or, you have your your Hennessey hat on, that that may or may not be the same thing that works for a single event, PI lawyer or an immigration lawyer, the different elements that where an immigration lawyer who has the entire country to go to, something like Clubhouse might be more powerful. Whereas if you're going for a little swap of real estate, and you know, you know, a 20 mile radius of your office, it may be less powerful and like figuring out where to allocate time and resources because you only have so much time and money to allocate around.
Jason Hennessey
Yeah, you know, it's fascinating, like the all of these new apps come out, like, you know, when TikTok first came out, right? It was like, all of these young influencers that are making these short videos of them doing silly stuff in Walmart or whatever else, right? And you don't think like, how can you kind of leverage this from a business perspective, right. But it's really interesting. Like, I've been kind of following what John Morgan has been doing on TikTok, I'm not sure if you've been keeping up with it.
Seth Price
Yeah I saw it, he got a meat suit from Arby's.
Jason Hennessey
It's amazing to me, because like, people don't know the true personality behind John, right? He's kind of a jokester, but he's serious. And he means business. And he's very successful, obviously. But you only know him from the 30/60 second commercials that you see on TV like, hurt in a car wreck call Morgan & Morgan, right? You know, and so this kind of allows him to kind of show the true personality behind the successful businessman, right, and leveraging that platform. And so it's fascinating when you can kind of pick a tool like that and leverage it.
Seth Price
Absolutely. Like, it just gets more eyeballs. And I guess the larger your catchment area, the better, but it was really fascinating. He went on a rant about Arby's, and it was like, I haven't been there 15-20 years, and they sent him a meat suit. And now he's asking, can he buy a franchise in Maui?
Jason Hennessey
And he probably will do it, right? From you know, like, why not? You know, he, and he was really funny. He's like, yeah, I think there's money laundering going on, or some kind of Mafia play with Arby's, right? And it's just like, it makes for good, you know, good humor, right? And so sure enough-
Seth Price
Look at, but look at Arby's itself. And some of these other limited number of corporations, that, Wendy's is another one where they, they have somebody there, behind the wheel, and it's so tough. I remember when Twitter first came out, and I was like, I want to consult to, teach me, how am I going to leverage this for business, using it for yourself, you can be yourself right, share things you do, but like to do it as a business, that it's very few people did it well. It's, you know, you don't want to be too far over the line. Because you see the ramifications when you make an off color joke. People have really paid pretty significant prices when you go wrong. So how far do you want to delegate? Who do you trust enough to push the envelope while not pushing it too much. Morgan, it's himself, so, but if you're not doing it yourself, that's a pretty dicey place to be, how do you push enough without not, without pushing too far?
Jason Hennessey
Oh, yeah, there is a huge liability aspect and I would think, you know, because like, you know, with like, like, I know friends that do SEO at Home Depot and all these big kind of sites right? Like even to change a title tag's gotta go through like six layers of legal, right? You know, so in order for like, when you're doing these like live, like Wendy's did a live roast, like two weeks ago, right? And they're just roasting people and you post a photo and within seconds, you're getting like these kinds of responses, right? And there's no legal that's doing responses that quick, right? So they looks like they just got free reins to kind of just say what they want on behalf of the Wendy's brand on social media. It's interesting.
Seth Price
Right, part of that comes over time and trusting them, but it is pretty special when you see it done at the corporate level because it you know, it is so hard to do that at scale. And without getting your, like, and without pushing yourself too far.
Jason Hennessey
You're right. Yeah. I completely agree.
Seth Price
And I think that's a lot of places where law firms get, and I can speak for myself, you know, you're starting to get to the point where you want to be, you want social, you want that interaction. But it's very hard. And one of the things I've always struggled with is, if you're going to do it yourself, like a Morgan, God bless, like, I have always strayed away from paid organic social, that 9 times out of 10, it's nonsense, and you're taking people's money, and I've lost quite like, no, we want you to do it. I'm like, it's not, there's no ROI there. Again, if you want to do what Morgan's doing yourself, God bless, who'll coach you, you have a staff member, but to get a third party person to tell you that it's National Redhead Day, while I may have a cute picture of my daughter, it got it's not gonna make you any money. And you know, and with each of these things, you can build a following. But the question is, is it monetizable?
Jason Hennessey
Yeah, you know, what, we made that same decision, as far as, it's interesting, you bring up the organic social aspect. So, two stories on that. A, you know, we ended up doing that, like, you know, client asked, and you're like, Sure, we can do it, right? And so we started to do it. And, you know, you schedule post, and we had something scheduled for St. Patrick's Day last year for a client. And it was like, Hey, Happy St. Patrick's Day, right? And it was like a shamrock or something, right? On behalf of XYZ law firm. Well, that was right at the time that you know, COVID was starting to break, and people were going to hospitals and pandemic and schools are closing and everything else. And so we had already had this scheduled for weeks in advance. And so it just kind of went live, right. And so next thing, you know, my phone's calling me and they're blowing up my ear saying, "What the f are you thinking?" You know, our firm is like, you know, people are dying. And you're talking about Happy St. Patrick's Day, right? And so I'm just like, oh, you know, I'm trying to scramble and get that removed, you know, but then I thought about it. And so I went to lunch that same day, and I was sitting in the In 'N Out drive-thru, because we have that out here, right? And so, sitting in the drive-thru and waiting in line, and I get to the register, or the drive-thru window, and they're like, "What would you like?" And I'm like, I'd like a double double and water or whatever, right? Sometimes if I'm in the mood, right? Sometimes, yep. And so I ordered that right. But I had to imagine, right, you know, at some point, there was probably somebody in that long In 'N Out line that said, "You know what, I don't want a burger, I want a chicken sandwich, can you guys make me a chicken sandwich", right? And they did not do that, they've been doing it for like 75-80 years, and they've never pivoted, they have a very simple menu, it's like one, two or three, that's it and get out of the line if you don't want it, right? And so that's kind of, and that from that moment, and like, you know, we're never going to be world class at this organic social media. So, why even offer?
Seth Price
And also anything, it's, two things, it's very hard to do well at scale. Right, and very hard to do, which is off at scale, without being instantly, intimately familiar. Meaning if somebody has somebody in-house, great, they can pop into a partner's office, get information and make it a real conversation. It's genuine, as opposed to scalable nonsense. Very fresh again, this just for anybody listening, you're not talking about paid social, or mass tort, you're talking about the idea that somehow through organic social, you're gonna get a following large enough, be meaningful to get ROI.
Jason Hennessey
And it's almost impossible to gain an organic following without, you know, paying to play, it's really hard, man. Like, your posts are not that interesting.
Seth Price
Speaking for myself, I get it. And I remember, somebody pitched me, they, like a LinkedIn contact. You know, it was, I'm in town, I just left the mega firm on marketing, I'm on the market. 20 minutes later, they're sitting in my conference room in DC, and they're telling me about how they attempt, you know, 10,000 followers, and every time they post something, I'm looking there, hundreds of likes, dozens of comments, on, you know, cancer, different issues. Like this is amazing. And so I called a partner at that firm. I know it's I don't know anything about this. We got me the guy in charge. But no no no, we spent $10,000 a month promoting that. So meaning many things that seem organic, really aren't. There's nothing wrong with that, again, if you have a formula, but I think that I have to agree with you, staying in lane to the stuff that you do well, that is scalable, and monetizable. Very important. And it, sure, I've had, I've had somebody on at least one occasion, say, "Well, if you won't take my money for this, I'll find somebody who does everything." I'm like, great, you know.
Jason Hennessey
Yeah, you'll find people that'll do it. Yeah. Yeah, there's people that will do it. Yeah.
Seth Price
So, as you look at you know, we're in COVID. We hope to at some points, you know, we see light at the end of the tunnel of inoculations and you know, I'm in Florida where there is no COVID.
Jason Hennessey
Still, they're still, still there now.
Seth Price
But it is, they don't, they don't have palm trees in Maryland. We don't have palm trees in Maryland. But the thing that I'm curious about is, I feel like we've had a boon with search. LSAs came up with, you know, which is, which was a boon we've had, you know, more and more eyeballs, curious, just like sort of, you know, you've always been virtual with Hennessey. Have you thought about, what happens post COVID? Are we gonna do, you know, do we, do we forecast lightly less eyeballs in front? Or is it now it's just gonna be on mobile, whatever the number was before it's gonna it's exponentially more, that people just aren't sitting at a formal office setting. You know, dayside looking, looking at search, you know, what are your thoughts? Just bigger picture on what we'd expect through 2021?
Jason Hennessey
Yeah. So I think, you know, you mentioned LSAs, I think that was, you know, Google, like, people, a lot, there was a lot of people that were pulling back budgets, right, because it was all uncertain, you know, uncertainty, right, from restaurants to law firms to, and then there's other people that got more aggressive, right? But majority of the people, I think Google lost a lot of money. And you know, and just the traditional pay per click, right?
Seth Price
Absolutely, because hospitality and travel was just done.
Jason Hennessey
Gone, right, exactly, right? And so I think that, and the LSAs have been around for many, many years. And other verticals and niches, right? But legal was one where they kind of introduced it and the timing of when they introduced it was interesting, because legal is a big moneymaker for them, right? You know, you know this, right? Hund-, couple hundred bucks a click, in some cases. We wouldn't be talking if it wasn't for that, right? Exactly, right? And so, if lawyers are pulling back budgets, because you know, they're paying per click, but they're not getting the phone calls, then, you know, they're, they're looking at their budgets, and they're saying, "Hey, how can we can reduce, how can we reduce?" and people pulling back. So I think the timing of when they rolled out legal had a lot to do with COVID. And, you know, and they were, this was their angle to try to produce results for these lawyers and getting them to spend more money instead of reducing budgets.
Seth Price
So you're, you're much more benevolent in your thinking. To me it's like, how do we squeeze that, it's been in the, you know, since '17 they've had it in the home improvement space, and they had, there was a real need. That's why I'm a little more cynical, there was a real need in the locksmith space. The most corrupt mix lawyers look straight and narrow, right? In the middle of like, Beverly Hills Boulevard, you know-
Jason Hennessey
Robbing, robbing homes and stuff, right? Yeah.
Seth Price
So the idea that there was a, you know, some sort of test to go through, because there is no locksmith licensing test, you know, the fact that there was that great, but with lawyers, you're bored. So again, there is lead gen, they want to get maybe some of that out. But clearly, you know, this was a money grab. And I also like I always related it to like a drug dealer giving out cheap or free samples, knowing that they're about to jack the price up, once they get you addicted to turn down when the I've already seen it downstream in the non-PI space. And while it looks like a panacea, or like calls for about the same as clicks, very often, they're not monetizable calls, they're valid calls, you're not gonna be able to challenge them. But the, you know, there, there is definitely people sort of higher dollar fee for service areas that are getting calls, where it's not as quite as much of a panacea as one might wish. And so, curious to see, I know that we both spent a lot of time in the PI space, you know, as that auction starts, will this be like we're going to a conference, and there'll be a legion? And they're going to be saying, "Oh, well, a cost of a case is $1,500." And you'll get a case every three calls, we're gonna get this up to 500 bucks.
Jason Hennessey
Yeah, yeah. No, it's, it's an interesting thought. And it's a new world. And I think once, once the conferences start to open up back up again, you know, be interesting to kind of see different angles and new companies coming in and the new services that they're all selling. Yeah, you're right.
Seth Price
So let me, let me ask you something, you, you may be a bit ahead of your time going fully virtual, you started virtual with this organization, as a second chapter for yourself. What, you know, what are some of the things that you saw having built that way, rather than pivoted that way? Some of the things you were, you know, really, what are some of the things you think, are the greatest strengths? And what are you, what do you view as some of the detriments, you know, as somebody who has designed his business that way rather than retrofitted their business that way?
Jason Hennessey
Yeah. So this is, this is by design. You know, I think, you know, everybody's different. But for me when we were building Ever Spark Interactive, which was my first agency, you know, we had a nice office, it was on the 28th floor of a nice building. You've, you've seen it, right? You know, you came out to it, you know, and, you know, but the problem was, when we wanted to recruit talent, like we were, like, we were kind of being forced to kind of recruit the talent from like a 10 or 15 mile radius of that office, right? And so, you know, after I had sold my interest in that and packed up and moved out west, you know, I said, if I do this again, you know, probably just kind of do the whole virtual thing, you know, to save on the overhead, and to be able to kind of recruit talent from wherever. And so that was, you know, everybody has their own different kind of ways that they operate. But that was the reason why I decided to go that route. And, and, you know, so that's one of the, I guess, benefits in my, in my eyes. But there is a lag-
Seth Price
For a lot of people, law firm and marketing companies, the idea that there's a national talent pool, and now an international talent pool, is pretty cool. That's very liberating, there's only so much you can get within 20 miles of your Atlanta office before the commute became onerous. And look in DC, not only is it expensive, you know, something I've talked to you about over the years, you know, the moment SEO is on a resume, within the DC metro area, wherever it is not homegrown, that there is such a premium because of all the organizations that you're almost guaranteed like an 80 to $100,000 salary with nothing other than SEO on your resume. Like you may know nothing about SEO, other than to put on your resume. And then all of a sudden, you get a certain level within the, not even corporate America, within the organizational America, which is key to see all these different orgs. But any any challenges as far as like, yes, you can do your meeting by zoom. But the serendipity is always what I have struggled with, where you can go and have that cup of coffee with somebody that right now either has to be more planned out, you know, or not happen at all. But is it worth it? I'll give you the positive from my end, in office drama, in the millennial sector in some of the administrative sector, huge drama in your inner fighting interpersonally over the years at different points in time. I've seen that disappear. But I've also missed the interpersonal component.
Jason Hennessey
Yeah, so. So a couple of things that, you know, from the, you know, what you had mentioned. A, you know, again, recruiting as far as even finding a good SEO, you know, they don't teach that really in college. There's like basic classes and stuff. But what really stands out to me when I'm looking at a resume is like, whoa, he worked at this agency for so many years. How awesome is that? Or whoa, they lead like, we just brought on a senior director of SEO that led the digital strategy at IHG in Atlanta, right? You know, and regardless of where he went to college and what his GPA was, you know, I mean, I wasn't looking at that on the resume. I was looking at the experience that he had kind of in practice doing digital, right? So there's that. But the, the, you're right, like the other, the other issue that I had with having like an office at Ever Spark, and one of the reasons why I wanted to sell my interest was, you know, sitting in my office, and random day, three o'clock, you know, somebody comes into my office knocks on my door and says, like you said, the drama. It's like, "Hey, can I change my cubicle because this person and I aren't really getting along?" And I'm like, What am I doing, man, I'm like, we're starting to get too corporate, you know, and I'm like, it's not really this doesn't excite me like having to go out there and change cubicles and stuff like that. And so that was another reason why I decided to kind of go the whole virtual route. But on the negative side, I guess of that, like you do have, you know, you miss out on the beer Fridays and the ping pong and, you know, just kind of like the culture, I guess, right. So it definitely hurts culture, like, it's really hard to kind of build a virtual culture. We brought in a director of people success recently, that's kind of helping to kind of rebuild the culture, and I think she's doing an amazing job with some of our other team members. So that's a problem. And then just the other thing is, like, you know, just kind of walking the floor as a manager, right, and just kind of going in and popping your head into a meeting and seeing what's going on over here. And, you know, so I guess that could be a blessing-
Seth Price
It cuts both ways. I see myself from that when COVID hit. But part of that is good, because you find pockets of "Oh shit", but part of it is bad. And that is very disruptive. So that's right. And I've always struggled with that because I, when I popped around, you find shit you didn't want to see at the same time. You know, it was even you could be just there as a you know, the fact that that then gets "Oh, he's gonna find stuff", even when you know, to people who are doing their job. That creates issues and you become, like you want to avoid the boogeyman manufacturer at the same time. You don't really want stuff buried in somebody sitting in Albuquerque who you can't know that there's nothing going on, you can you know, you can, you can track and track and track as best you can. But people are pretty good if they want to play games to hide stuff from you.
Jason Hennessey
Oh 100% Yeah. 100% So, you know, there's no right or wrong answer it is what it is. And I think, you know, a lot more I, some of our clients are like shutting down offices and going to go full virtual now, you know, after they kind of got a glimpse of this for a year, right? So, you know, it'll be interesting to kind of see what what happens here in the next year or two.
Seth Price
In a city in the DC market, you know, my theory along with my co pilot there is to like potentially try a Clubhouse environment where you have executives with offices and enough room for people to pop in when they need to get out of their home environment. But you know, the idea that you can get a nap that you're, I really used now just rip the band aid off that you do have a national pool of people to go to I think it's great I liked the idea of a core locally but that may just be old school it may be that the future is they can be anywhere and I think what we found is the good employees have excelled virtually and you know that from your, your setup and the people who were poor that would have been poisonous in the office find a way to be not as disruptive but at least unproductive virtually.
Jason Hennessey
100% Yep. And, are you drinking your, your latte?
Seth Price
As you can tell I have a little bit of a sore throat, so this afternoon despite my two earlier lattes, I'm going with tea this afternoon to try to get through this.
Jason Hennessey
So Seth, anytime you go to a conference, right, his, his drink of choice, and he got me hooked on it and you probably got a lot of other people hooked on it, is the, the iced soy latte. And what I'll do is, I'll do like a pump of vanilla just to give it a little bit of taste.
Seth Price
I only do that if it's a free drink now. That's my treatment to get the Starbucks free one. Yeah. I look, I used to be able to say I wanted to be the Jared of Starbucks when I dropped 30 pounds a couple years ago was with that drink. But then that's bad meaning the Jared of Starbucks.
Jason Hennessey
Not nowadays. Yeah. Exactly.
Seth Price
You know, I have thoroughly enjoyed, you know, our time together over the years, and I can't wait for our next three-way with Valencia, oh that came out wrong. Dive deeper into the nitty gritty, but what I love is being able to sort of just talk from the top level. Any final sort of thoughts on, you know, things that are exciting you right now, things our audience here should sort of like, "Hey, you should be considering, you know, looking at this or that", what do you, what gets you, what gets you jazzed in the morning?
Jason Hennessey
Um, so for me right now, I'm learning a lot, right? Um, you know, I woke up one morning, and I'm, like, I need to start to build and I wouldn't have been able to do this if I didn't build up a team, right? So now we have a team. And there's layered management, I used to do everything right, you know. And so now we've got teams that kind of do things, and there's organization, and we're using a tool called 7Geese, and there's an OKR system and director of people success and senior director, you know, it's like, we've got a whole team now, right? And so I can kind of go off and, and so I've been focused on kind of building out my personal brand now. I'm writing a book, which I'm really excited about, it'll probably come out in like, April, that, that basically, is where I spent most of my COVID time in, in, you know, locked up in this office here. But you know, I think as far as like, what the listeners can get, from my experience in kind of personally, branding myself and working on that is to pay a little bit more attention to PR. You know, I think that is, like digital PR, even John Mueller came out and said like, links are bad, but digital PR is okay.
Seth Price
And that's what links are. I mean, like we, you know, it is, it's the ugly term links, good term digital PR.
Jason Hennessey
But like in, in all seriousness, you know, I think, like, there's the whole "EAT" right, Expertise, Authority, and Trust, and then digital PR, and they kind of all play well together, right? And so, it's interesting, because I'm seeing sites that are ranking for competitive terms that don't have like 1000 referring domains linking back to them now, you know, like, you're seeing sites rank that only have maybe like 100 referring domains, but those 100 referring domains are really strong domains.
Seth Price
I assume you're referring to when Mueller just either tweeted or said publicly the other day, about the number of links being irrelevant. So we were identifying what they're, what we've known for a long time. You're the one who taught me one good, you know, CNN link is worth better, more than 10,000 other links. I think at some level, they've always aspired not to count on links at all, but it for the foreseeable future. As you know, our friend would tell us it's, it's still, it's still a major factor.
Jason Hennessey
And it is 100% major, but I'm saying like, just start to think about how can you contribute on other sites you know, so like, like, right now I'm writing for entrepreneur.com, I'm writing for Inc., I'm writing for Huffington Post, like I'm really starting to build, and so like, not just me can do this. Like all lawyers can do this, you guys are business people, like think about how you can actually start to become a contributor, a thought leader in the space, because every time you publish something on the byline, you're getting links back to your website. And one link from a byline from entrepreneur.com could mean the equivalent of 200 referring domains from guest blog posts, right? So, you know, just food for thought.
Seth Price
Something I've talked to a bunch of guests about, because you're gonna get this question. I get it, appreciate it, live a parallel life, you know, as far as these different thought leadership places, and agree that clients should be looking to them too. But the question you're gonna get is, okay. Follow versus no-follow links, many of these authoritative places like follow, or no-follow? Do you sort of say, "Hey, I still want them in the in the mix", obviously, versus you don't really care whether it's follow or no-follow?
Jason Hennessey
Personally, I don't care. You know, I've always been a believer that I don't, I don't look at follow versus no-follow, especially with those kinds of links. You know, when you look at like a domain rating, like Wikipedia is a no-follow link. And it's the strongest link date on the web, in my opinion, right? And so, you know, I personally don't look at, at that, you know, I just try to get as many good high domain rating links, because there's, you know, there's PageRank, that flows over from a follow link, but there's trust rank, too, right? And so like, the trust rank is a signal, in my opinion. And so I don't really kind of put too much consideration if it's a do follow or no-follow.
Seth Price
Well, that is awesome. Well, I appreciate, like we did a pretty good job of talking top level here. And I can't wait for our next talk where we can get some more detail and nitty gritty, get our hands dirty. But to take a moment or, let's take a step back, I appreciate it. But I think you're exactly right. That the personal branding, whether it be a John Morgan, Jason Hennessey, or law firm X, I mean, that is what it is. I mean, it is the intersection of PR with with content that is, it has SEOs, when you get somebody in a local market that doesn't, you know, doesn't equate to a national figure. The question is, how can you paint the picture as the most authoritative in their market at very least.
Jason Hennessey
And one last thing before we wrap up, a little tip, like you can leverage these authoritative websites, even though it's no-follow/do follow, you can leverage them to rank on Google because how powerful those websites are by titling your post. So like I'm doing that right now. Like I'm writing for National Law Review, right? And so I'm writing content on there. And I'm very specific about like how I'm titling my post. And then after I publish it a couple days later, it's ranking like number one on Google, right? So like, you can be very specific and you can end up getting cases that way, if you're smart about it.
Seth Price
Right, no, what I was just saying, it's like the early days of, where you could, Superlawyers was selling a product similarly, where they were sort of selling out their domain authority where you could put a blog post on a very specific topic and try to rank for that topic.
Jason Hennessey
That's right. Yep. Well, listen, man, this has been awesome. I know. We're about an hour, we're a little bit over, appreciate that Louis P. had to kind of jump in there, here, by the way, you check out he's got a new album. It's on YouTube, Spotify, Louis P., opera singer from Italy.
Seth Price
I appreciate it, it's been a fun ride over the last 15-ish years. And to have that smile and laugh and keep, keeping it light has made this journey that much more fun. So thank you, Jason for, for being there on the ride.
Jason Hennessey
You're a good friend, man. And I've got a lot of respect for you, my friend. So thank you for having me on the show, man.
BluShark Digital
Thank you for tuning in to the SEO Insider with Seth Price. Be sure to check back next week for fresh insights into building your brand's online presence. Episodes are available to stream directly on BluShark Digital's website.
