Today's guest is a former engineer at Yahoo who understands search engines second to none. We talk about all the ways to run an agency wrong, hoping to teach you how to be successful and do it right. He founded BlitzMetrics, a digital marketing company that provides training and mentorship for aspiring entrepreneurs across the globe. On a mission to create a million jobs internationally, please welcome Dennis Yu. Dennis Yu, it's a pleasure. Welcome to the Learning from Others Show. How you doing, man? Good, Damon, and it's awesome hanging out with you again. I wish it was in person like we were driving race cars in Vegas. I. That was fun. You know, we got a couple stories we could probably hit. Um, you and I have engaged on mostly Facebook over the years and kinda got a little friendship going on and, um, yeah, I, I flew out and I, every time I fly out somewhere I try and kinda keep track of who's where and, um, I. And meet up with somebody and establish a relationship a little bit better. So I appreciate the opportunity of you being willing to go hang out. And we did, we went and did a limo in race cars and um, I mean, you live in Vegas, but we, we did the tourist a little bit of the touristy thing. Yeah. Yeah. And, and thanks for taking the time. That was such an honor. And you know, you're one of the few ss e o people out there. I know this is being recorded. You're one of the few ss, e o people out there that is legit and drives results. And I am not being compensated to say this. But I've been sharing this and I'm, I know people that are watching this and have seen my Facebook posts. They're coming to you. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. It's, um, we'll probably talk 'cause you're legit about that today, you know? Yeah. Not, not about me, but about the industry. And, um, for, for me, that's been, uh, Good and bad to throw rocks at my own industry. Right? Like, it's unfortunate that that's such a valuable sales proposition to distinguish yourself as actually doing your job. But, but it is. So why don't we, why don't we start there? So, um, actually before we get into it, um, let's, let's have you talk about yourself the most, uh, enjoyable, comfortable part of a podcast. Um, I, I actually like how you put it on the intake form when, uh, so I ask the guests, you know, what's your elevator pitch that we can use? And Dennis just puts Google me. If we're talking about s e o and, and you don't have a knowledge panel show up when I Google you, you're a fat weight loss coach. Fat weight loss goes, where's, where's the analogy of a fat weight loss coach? Oh, fat, okay. Overweight weight, weight loss coach. That's overweight. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. So Dennis, um, has been in marketing for how, how long have you been in marketing? 30 years. Yeah, how'd you get into it? And I was one of the original people, one of the first people at Yahoo. So I built the internal analytics at Yahoo. So I'm a search engine engineer, so I'm not an S E o. I am the person who's trying to protect the results from the SS e o people trying to trick us. Yeah. Have you got jaded over the years knowing like how this works and being able to see the manipulation that's going on when it's not done for the right audience and the right users? Do you think that weight loss scams will ever go away? Every year there's a new scam, right? And people fall for it. 'cause they're just like, how do you not know that? It's a scam? Hey, if I take this one pill, you're gonna lose 30 pounds in 12 days. Like it's a scam, right? Mm-hmm. So the salespeople are always inventing new techniques. And I remember, this is like back in my day, we used to walk uphill both ways. I built websites by hand using Microsoft Front page. It was engineers that were building websites, people like us that actually physically knew how to do the thing. It was before the marketing people and all that came in back then. You remember it was called web mastering. Mm-hmm. Before it became digital marketing and social media and influencer and all these other words that are now really just buzz words, new words for the same thing. Mm-hmm. Right. And now I'm, I'm gonna blame the internet money Bross. Yeah. And the motivational speakers for now, all of them are ai. Experts and crypto experts and chat G P T experts and they're SS e o experts too. So all these people have come in in the last few years seeing easy money and now they're gonna start selling S E o. I was a Josh Nelson seven figure agency conference and Josh Nelson's amazing. I love the guy. They're people that come into that program 'cause they think it's easy money. And in the program Josh teaches you should sell s e o, but he also says you should also deliver s e o too. You should also understand what it is. Some agency owners, the guilty will be unnamed, are selling ss e o and they don't even know what it is, but they know that people want it and they need it. So they sell it for $2,000 a month and they're making all this money. This one company that I'm probably gonna release a full investigation later today is making three. Well, they're, they were making last month, $320,000 a month off of 150 clients that are paying for s e o and Facebook ads and websites and things like that. It is a scam. There's no way to defend it. It's a scam, but it's a sales guy running it. He has no operations, he has no marketing. He's a sales guy and some of them even white label their stuff out. So they have no idea what it is and someone else is doing it. They, the client doesn't know anymore. I mean, you know, they, but they're selling it 'cause they're salespeople. There's too many salespeople in the s e O space. Mm-hmm. We need more mechanics, not people in the car dealership wearing a tie. Slick hair saying all these things about the car. We need more mechanics that actually have grease on their fingers, like you and me. Yeah. I mean, I often get asked what, um, what should I know as I shop s e o and, and I think that why people are so attracted to, to you know, you and your transparency is because it establishes trust when you're willing to go, Hey, you know, One example, s e o takes time, but here's why. And then you explain it. Or, hey, not only here are the advantages of s e o, but here are the disadvantages because what they're getting pitched to you. You nailed it with the sales bros and not enough actual people doing the work is the majority of the time. These people that. Sounds smooth, are not the people that are actually doing any of the work. So they're gonna tell you whatever they think that you want to hear. And so when, when I get asked, you know, what should I be, be looking out for? And I'd be curious, some of the things that are top of your mind is, is my first thing is transparency. Like, they should be able to communicate. You don't need to know, you know, the, the full granular details of, of everything that's going on, but you should be able to clearly communicate, you know, here's. The intent behind why we're gonna focus on this thing in content, not just, we're gonna write stuff, you know? Mm-hmm. And what's, how, how are we gonna measure progress? Right. And how long is this gonna take and why? Yeah. But the majority of the people that are out there are just like, oh yeah, no, we'll get to it. You know, we'll get there, you'll see. And it's just like these vague responses, and I think that's become a thing of, of. Beyond just ss e o, but you and I are, are in that space more so just marketing in general is these constant sales bros of it's yell loud or talk louder or be flashier. Mm-hmm. And the emotions overtake the sales process. And then it doesn't matter, like right before we hit record, I was telling you about somebody that we're working with and they're killing it and the data shows they're killing it. But a, a sales bro got in their ear about, Hey, you need to be louder and flashier, and they're tearing it all down. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The sales bross are focused on collecting the money. I. They'll make huge promises. They're, they don't even know whether they can hit those promises 'cause they're not operators. The fact that you are posting screenshots, of course you're masking out like the client name and the keywords and all that, but showing the increase in traffic and sales, not just ranking on more keywords. 'cause you can rank on a bunch of garbage keywords and claim victory. Yeah. We need more people doing what you're doing and actually teaching the techniques. Not that these clients wanna learn how to, you know, who wants to learn how to change a transmission or, but at least if you know that that guy who is an actual mechanic is posting videos of him as he's, you know, working on the transmission and got grease on his hands as he's working on the car. There's a lot more trust there and especially if the mechanic shows what they're doing, right? I'd love to, you know when, when you go to a car or uh, you know the dealership and something's wrong with the car, they're gonna give you an itemized list. Of the things that are broken and what, and therefore the toll and you know, maybe the dealership will still overcharge you, but at least you know what they're doing, right? Yeah. If you're buying a new car or not a new car. So Damon, let's say you're buying a, a car off of whatever, like Facebook marketplace and the guy says, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always been in the garage the whole time and never been driven. And you see it's got 150,000 miles on it. I don't know if that's exactly true. Oh, it's, it's never been in a crash, really. I don't know. It just looks like some of these. Here don't look like they were the original parts. Are you sure? Oh yeah. It's brand new. You know, it's, it, I don't trust, I just hate to be cynical. I don't trust what other people have to say. So if you're gonna buy a car, Damon from somebody, third party, are you just gonna take what that guy says or
