Speaker A: What are you doing to adapt your online business to the fast changing world of SEO and digital marketing? Anatoly, an SEO expert, explains why adapting to technology and AI means creating tools to improve your SEO, build brand awareness, and get ahead of the competition. Welcome. I'm Nan McKay, the voice behind Trailblazers impact, your beacon to extraordinary women trailblazing unique paths. Our podcast spotlights luminaries whose life stories inspire and empower delivered to your ears bi weekly. Buckle up for another episode packed with powerful narratives and empowering journeys on trailblazers impact. Stay with us.

Speaker B: Welcome to our latest episode where we are thrilled to have Anatoly Ulitofsky join us. He's a seasoned entrepreneur and he's also an SEO wizard. Anatoly's journey is a remarkable tale of resilience, innovation and strategic thinking in the digital world. Starting in 2008, he ventured into the online business realm with an electronic gadget shop in Ukraine developed in partnership with his brothers. Despite its initial success, Anatoly quickly realized that paid advertisements weren't enough in the rapidly evolving online market. And this realization propelled him into the world of SEO, where after overcoming challenges with marketing agencies and adapting to major Google algorithm updates, he not only boosted his business, but also mastered the art of online visibility. So today, Anatoly stands as a beacon in the SEO industry, leading his own SEO consulting agency on Miss, his podcasting and blogging, and continuously exploring new creative ways to enhance online presence for various businesses. His story is not just about adapting to change, but thriving in it, making him a go to expert for anyone looking to understand the power and the potential of SEO in today's digital landscape. So let's dive into his insights, experiences and uncover how he navigates complex and competitive the world of online marketing. So welcome Anatoly.

Speaker C: Hi, how are you? Yeah, thanks a lot for this invitation. It means a lot for me. I never thought that I'm so good like you mentioned about me, because I'm student on this life, I keep learning. I made a lot of mistakes, keep doing them. It's part of my process to learn, to keep going ahead. And one more thing, I love what I do. I can fail, but I never stop because of loving is my passion. It's not about SEO. I like to get organic reach, I like to get traffic, I like to find new ways how to go ahead. I'm not special, I'm just student who wanna change the world.

Speaker B: Well, that's all about being what an expert is. You know, as an expert, you have to never stop learning because things keep changing, right?

Speaker C: Of course, yeah. Digital marketing, SEO, I think it's quickly changing wealth. And I compare data with other niches. For example, when AI build, probably, I don't want to say a hundred percent, but it's close to this number of marketers adopted to AI. According to data adopted strongly. The rest are looking for ways how to do it better. And I, compared with other niches like accounting, people don't use AI, ignore this tool. I think it's a big mistake because we don't know what we'll bring next. AI calculations are great. Probably today they can't help a lot in accounting, but definitely in the future we will see this switch and changes as well. And in digital marketing, it's very important to adapt fast. You know, I'm on the second stage. I can't create new chat GPT, I can't create Microsoft Google, but I can be in the second stage when all these innovations are coming, we need to adapt fast. Because in digital marketing, if something works today, doesn't mean you can get results tomorrow. You need to move fast. You need to think fast to adapt fast, then results will come.

Speaker B: I totally agree with you. When we look back, a lot of people are kind of afraid of AI and chat GPT. But the reality is if we look at the Internet as an example, people felt that way in the very beginning of the Internet, oh my, steal my data. Or, oh, and of course that's partially true. Good. But on the other hand, the benefits outweigh it. And everybody's on the Internet, so I think it's going to be the same thing. We just have to use it judiciously. But for content creation, it is amazing.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think we still have time before terminators will kill all human beings. Because today, you know, because today AI can help a lot marketers. AI, it's a must have tool. When Cha PT appealed, I grew my results a lot. And I disagree when someone can tell Google hates AI. No, Google loves AI. If you use it smart, if you can use this tool to create high quality content. We grew some projects from zero to plus 2000 people a day in a very competitive niche with AI content. It's not because we can game this. I don't know how to game the system, but I know how to create high quality content with AI. So if you can do it, then results will come. If you can't, then you need to understand that someone can replace your AI tools can't replace you, but someone who can adapt to AI tool, they will replace you. If you don't move fast. So for me it's a new journey. And today it's the best time, the best time to adapt to AI. When Internet appeal, that was the first best time. Today it's the second. So any new technologies like Facebook, TikTok, when they pull, people have time to adapt fast, to move forward. Then it's much simpler to compete with others. Today you have this time, we still have a lot of time, a lot of opportunities to adapt to AI, to create high quality content, to get great results. Just think how you can do it. It's not like for you can do it for a few days. It takes time, you know, to craft, to play, to fail. I can't say how many times I fail. When I decided to write press releases, I use AI and I failed with all my press releases, I pitched all of them. I wrote a bunch of press releases. Today we got mentions on CNN, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Investing.com, big websites, popular website. Because of failing, we failed. But from the way how to do it better.

Speaker B: Yeah, I totally agree with you. Let's go back and reflect a little bit on your journey. How have do you think effective SEO strategies directly benefited your online business? And the second question that you might segue into is what was the most significant change that you noticed after implementing the strategy?

Speaker C: I think SEO strategy takes time and it's very important to spend this time to collect data, to analyze, to think about customers, even more about your products. Because most marketing guides tell you need to know your audience. Of course you need, but you need to understand product first. For example, when I decided to promote online games, the first thing what I did, I played these games. I played a few days on these games. And when my son phoned me and asked, what's going on? You told me I need to read books. But you play online games and disallow me. No, no, no, I replied to him, you know, someone paid me sixteen k to play these games. What? Sixteen k? I play a lot more, have extended experience than you, but nobody pays me to play this game. But it's another story. Someone paid me to learn the product, to understand how to market the product. So I played when I got experience, why people can play these games, how they can reload their mind, to spend time, to enjoy the process. I started to learn about buying Persona, about customers, users. I collected data. Then when I know the product, when I know about target audience, I can craft the strategy and it's very important to do it right because I see when some projects can earn a lot of traffic good traffic but can't sell products. And I spoke with one master who lost 400,000 traffic, a lot of traffic. He spent so much resources time to get this traffic, but he can't monetize this traffic. And for me, it's more important to get traffic value, to get traffic that covers buying Persona. And when you find topics that you can take your sales funnel, buying Persona, their journey, then you can go ahead to choose priorities. Because priorities are key. And I see when projects create a plan with 100,000 keywords and they don't know what to create, even bigger companies have limited resources. I usually spend time to choose topics one by one that we can where we can create great content. If I can't feel that we can create great content, we skip them. We can find other topics. If I see that my competitors have great content, why I need to compete with them. Okay, you have it. I can leave because I can find other topics. It's important to create content plan where you can provide something new, valuable, much better content then to cover with your brand Persona, to submit this call to action and think more about quality than quantity. I like quantity as well. Let me explain why. Because it's tough to create quality without having experience with quantity. That is why I write a lot. I love writing. I write plus thousand words a day because I want to craft the skill. I want to get great results. And if you want to win in SEO game, you need to create high quality, super high quality content for your blog, for your website, and crafting your skills on social media. Because on social media, some posts can die for a few hours, a few days and nobody cares about them. But you need to write to think about your target audience, to bring value on social media and get more experience with writing. Even today when content creators use chat, GPT and any other AI tools, if you don't know how to write, if you have no these skills, you can create great content. You need to know the topic, you need to know how to write and the best results are coming from someone who have this experience to write. So I write a lot. I recommend to all my clients to write. Then when you have the skills, when you know where you can bring a lot more value, you can create the right content. Plan to schedule some posts when they will come and something like this. And think about other metrics like competition, about sales, how many sales you can get from specific boss, how you can provide something new, valuable. Because it's not only to create one more piece of content. You need to stand out from the rest. It's very important in digital marketing. So I recommend to anyone if you want to win today in digital marketing, spend more time to learn product, to learn customers, to create the right content plan and find people who can help you to implement all your ideas.

Speaker B: Well, I think every business owner wants to increase website traffic. What initial actions do you think they should consider?

Speaker C: I think initial actions, it depends on the project. I can't say that we have one template that works for anybody else. I usually start to learn competitors. I usually start to check what actually works for them. Then when I have a list of ideas, think about my strong side. For example, let's imagine you are good writer. Why you need to film short videos for TikTok if it's not your strong side? If you good with filming, then film. Forget about writing. I know some projects have no SEO traffic, but they are good with YouTube, TikTok to get sales from these channels. If you can hire someone who can decide these problems, then yeah, use them. So first you need to think about your strong side, then to analyze weak side of your competitors. If you see that you are much better than your competitors, jump. If you can't skip it, you don't need to create one more piece of content. It's like to write a new book. When we have plus thousand books, I often ask my friends about new movies and the most common reply, nothing special. I watch many similar movies with the same plot. Who cares to watch one more movie? We want to watch something new. It's the same with digital marketing. If you can't skip it. But if you can, then think, can you do it better? And think about your strong side. So when you know strong side, when you know competitors know your customers, results will come. Just be patient and go ahead, step by step.

Speaker B: Can you share an example of how maybe a creative and a non standard SEO approach significantly boosted a website's traffic? Maybe their overall online presence?

Speaker C: Yeah, my last example about trading news and when I got this client, it's like three years ago, he gave me website with a bunch of filters. And even when I checked this website, I got the feeling I can't help this project. It's better to create a new one. Forget about this website because everything was terrible. Black hat SEO, obsolete content written for search engines. Nothing special, but we got good budget, good money. So we started to rebuild everything from scratch to update content. We spent time to find great people who can write for Forbes, Bloomberg, big websites. We hired them to rewrite all this content. We changed, uh, link building. We changed PR we got great mentions, links, we created a bunch of tools. But what I did, I didn't listen to advice from my customer. He told me, okay, let's check these competitors, analyze them. We need to do the same. I replied to him, no, no, we don't need to do it. Let me explain why. Because your competitors do what you did before, you got punishment first Google phone and filter your website. Your competitors, I don't know, probably Google will take them, catch them, I don't know. Or they will work. But they can grow fast. Today, after three years, this website is growing. We got a lot of great traffic, big traffic. We have many new goals to grow this traffic. But competitors are decreasing. All competitors are decreasing because of using obsolete strategies. Of course the strategies work, that works well. But as we started this podcast that digital marketing is a quickly changing world. We need to adapt fast. We need to go ahead so we change all approaches. And we were a patient, patient with results. So nobody works overnight. Even a few months are not enough. It's not like six months, you can get results. No, it takes years. I spoke with Lily Ray on my podcast and she replied to me, some projects take a few years to see first meaningful results. Because many competitors, many websites wanna get this traffic. Of course we can find much faster way, but it doesn't mean that we can game the system and to get results fast. It takes time to craft the process, to hire right people. And in my agency I usually find people, I reach out to them. I don't use support I used before. But right now we reaching out directly to great offers. We created the process of PR link building and that is why we are growing. So I recommend to anyone, forget about best practices. You can learn best practices, but if you feel that best practices are related to your strong sign, do it. If it's not, forget you know. Yes. Self Gordon doesn't film short videos on TikTok. Stephen King ignores TikTok, but he's good with writing. He can write great pieces of content. So great books. You need to do similar. Just think about your strong side, about your passion, even more about passion. If you love something but have no strong side, then be consistent and results will come. You can build a strong side. Just love the process if you hate it. Many content creators give up so fast. They give up because they don't see results. I have no idea how to do it fast.

Speaker B: So answer is just be patient.

Speaker C: Yeah, be patient and love what you.

Speaker B: Do and love what you're doing in managing your SEO agency. How do you tailor those SEO strategies to diverse clients to ensure that they achieve noticeable improvements in web traffic and online visibility.

Speaker C: I think even biggest agency can't hire all best experts. So I remember in 2008, we hired a team of writers who wrote about anything. I gave them topics, all topics, anything. Weight loss, finance, accounting, anything they wrote, Google Rank, then Google updated algorithms many times. And today we are looking for experts who, who know the topic, who can write only about one specific topic. So Google fired all this team. Okay, I fired this team. But Google helped me to fire people who can write about anything. And today I outsource writers who write for big publications. And even, let's imagine when I paid for pr, $6,000 for one press release. And I found all these PR agencies charge good money for one press release. And what they usually did, they write themselves. Even today they understand journalists. They understand what people are looking for and can write press releases. But they are not experts on these topics. They far away from that. So what we change. I paid for a while this money. And then when I got it, I need twelve press releases to satisfy intent of my customers. A week, it's like more than seventy k a week. And if we account for a year, it's $3,700,000. It's a lot. So. And I got it. It's tough to pay this money. It's really hard. Then we phone experts who can write for big publications. They usually write for our blog and I explain them how we can write press releases. I showed the process, we failed many times. But today when we got mentions on CNN, Bloomberg, we got it. Wow, we changed the game. It's another experience. So can I allow these people on my team? No, I can't because they work on Forbes, they work on big publications, but I can outsource them. It's like ghost writing, you know, people are looking for passive income. You can find these people to agree fix price. You can learn how tools work and create the process. If you got much better results than if we pay 6000 per person, much better results. We checked and we analyzed PR agency who can write this press release. They're not experts, but we get results from experts. You just need to teach them what kind of press releases to write, why journalists can post those press releases, and how to pitch all these press releases, right? So my advice for anyone learn, think, can you do it differently? Then results will come.

Speaker B: Okay. Given the intense competition in the online space, what key advice would you give to businesses about the benefits of SEO and how to leverage these strategies to stand out in what's a saturated market?

Speaker C: Yeah. Okay, about this market. Extremely competitive, market saturated, overwhelmed. I want to say you need to switch your attention or start to switch your attention from writing blog posts. Let me explain why. In 2008, we created ecommerce content that was simple to game the system. Google didn't recognize user intent that Google can do it today. Today, blogs get more traffic than any other channel. 56% of all traffic are coming to blog. That is why all websites have blocks. I think it's a good idea to start blogging content. But the first thing, it's extremely competitive today. Plus, 7 million blog posts appeal every single day. You need to create blog posts and you have no idea. Can you get results or not even big websites can get results with blog content. Neil Patel shared that most of his blog content don't get traffic. Yes, he got a lot of traffic he gets, but most of content are dying. If new puzzle can't, let's imagine about others. You know, it's. It's really tough. The second I'm not sure about the future of block content. You know, when the feature snippet appealed on Google, many content creators complain that Google can steal our traffic. What about today? When chatbots can still rewrite your content and even without linking to you, Google at least linked to our content. And when someone can tell that SEO will never be dead? I'm not sure about that. I think everything has the end, including SEO. And here are two reasons. Today, when chat GPT appealed, 12% of people use chatbots to search for information, including me. I speak with chatbots more often than with my wife. I love my wife, but. Yeah, but I can ask a lot of great questions on chat GPT, and 12% of people can do it. When I search something that it's tough to find on Google, I still have these questions. Like for example, I decided to open new business in Florida. I needed a list of documents. I asked this question on Google and I got a lot of information about business. Why it's important to open business. What is the difference in for it? I don't need it. You know, of course it's valuable, it's helpful for someone, but I don't need it. I needed a list of documents. That's it. So chat GPT gave me answer for a few seconds. Yeah. Yes, the same with Bart. I asked about can I use self drivers feature on Tesla? And Bart gave me answer for a few seconds on Google. If you ask this question, you can get a lot of information about Tesla, about electrical cars. Why it's important for our environment. Of course it's important. I don't deny it, but I don't need it, you know, I don't need this information. So I think it's only beginning of chatbots evolution. More and more people will ask questions on chatbots. The main problem with chatbots, they don't link to our content. So they can rephrase, rewrite, provide information. And that is why I think we need to move fast. It doesn't matter that blue content will die. New York Times, Forbes were created before digital. They adapted to digital, they adapt to any other environment. So today, it's important to have strong brand recognition, to build brand awareness when people open your blogs and wanna read you. So to get direct traffic. The second SEO doesn't teach us how to rank on Google, of course SEO can teach about that. But SEO teaches how to create high quality content, how to earn authoritative, relevant backlinks. It's not only about to get ranking positions, it's more about to create brand awareness. If I get mentioned on CNN, Forbes, it doesn't mean that it's only for SEO. It can help to build my recognition, my brand, so you can use insights that SEO teaches us and to switch attention to write less blog content. Even if it works today, probably if you can do it today, if you're great with that, probably you don't need. But if you start a new website, it will be tough to win this game. So I recommend to switch attention to create simple tools. Simple tools like calculators, converters, like any other tools, you can find a bunch of tools and we have great results. With tools, it's not competitive, it's not tough. People, content creators usually craft blog content, but they ignore tools. And on this niche, you can still get a lot of traffic. Chat bots are not ready to replace tools today. What you can do with tools differently, for example, you can find a calculator. Let's imagine, I don't know how to lose weight calculator. Yes. So you can use how many calories to eat a day. You can consider your age, sex, everything. Yeah. And you can find tools that get million traffic. If you adapt to AI, it's simple. Just go to chat GPT and ask, okay, I want to create this tool, but I want to create something better. Chat GPT or bar can listen updates that you can make much better. Then you can unite and connect Appian and create much better tools or any other tools are not ready to replace such tools with user friendly interface. SEO brings a lot of traffic to tools. So if you wanna think about the future, you need to understand today, jump to tools, you can get great results. And I do it. I get a lot of traffic to tools. We create simple tools, we submit our call to action. We grew a few projects in very competitive niche for a year. If I do it with blog content, we still use blog content, but most traffic are coming to tools because it's not competitive. You still have room for that.

Speaker B: Now that's really interesting. I'm looking for a tool and I'm thinking to myself, I wonder if I put that I want a tool that creates simplistic games related to courses that I put up. Have you ever seen anything like that?

Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Because I help with creating online games and if you want to unite with specific projects, yeah, it's possible. It's not tough to do it.

Speaker B: So if somebody wants to do something, whether it's SEO and build a new website, go back to their, as you said, go back to their buyer Persona, create that and start all over again. How can people contact you and what would you suggest? Just promote yourself a little bit.

Speaker C: Yeah, I want to help you with your tool about gaming. So the right way? Yeah, to show the right way. If you want to create a game, you can use website unity.com. It's popular website where you can find a lot of templates with sounds design customizable to any tools. Then when you find great asset, you can ask people on upwork to develop this tool for you. And it doesn't cost a lot of money. It's not expensive, crazy money. So you can do it probably for a few thousand dollars. You can create great game and show to your customers, users even to get aco traffic. Just use unity. We have another website. What is that? Quote quote kenyan I can send the link canyon yeah.com let me write to you.

Speaker B: Well that's okay, I'll get it after people can, but how can they contact you?

Speaker C: Yeah, the best way to contact me to reach out on LinkedIn. But please add the message I ignore. When someone reaches out to me without the message, if I see the template on this message, I still ignore. But if you write personalized message then I will reply 100%. You can reach out to me on my website unmist.com. So to ask anything that I can help you to lead in the right direction. So I'm open with that. I'm active but super busy so be patient if I can't reply immediately.

Speaker B: So UnMISS unmiSs.com and contact you on LinkedIn and maybe just say from Nan's podcast or something like that so that, you know, they're legitimate. Whatever. Well, thank you so much for all your time and appreciate everything that you've done to give us some good advice and bring us up to date with what's really happening.

Speaker C: Yeah, a big pleasure. Thanks a lot for inviting me, for asking all these great questions. It means a lot for me. I love to share value. I love to help others. So if you wanna invite one more time, I will bring more value. Guys, ask me any questions. Simple, stupid, smart, I don't care. Ask anything. I will reply to all of them. Thank you.

Speaker B: Well, thank you, Anatoly. Thanks for being with us. Have you seen our new podcast and YouTube website, trailblazersimpact.com? Join us there and please leave a review on iTunes. Check out our new shorts on our YouTube channel, trailblazers impact interviews. Until next time, check out my newsletter on LinkedIn. Also, I host a new lead and succeed community to quickly accelerate your leadership skills and explore our regular website, namackconnects.com with new resources.