SHOWNOTES
In this brand new podcast episode, I chat with SEO and copywriting expert Brian Dean, (founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics).
When I ran across his blog a few months ago, I was completely blown away. In my opinion, Brian has mastered what it means to “give value” in his marketing. I started reading everything he was writing and have been studying his work very closely.
But I wanted to know more, so of course, I Invited him on the podcast!
In this episode, Brian shares
his process for creating his content
a game-changing lesson he learned from Gary Vaynerchuck
what he recommends doing before running out of ideas or topics to cover
the biggest trend in SEO right now that we should be keeping our eye on
how Google measures user experience on our site
what core web vitals are
quick wins that can make a huge difference in your traffic
why improving your existing content is the number one thing to improve your website traffic
the key to growing a successful newsletter
why you should be limiting images on your email newsletters
his formula for newsletter intros
Brian’s best copywriting tips
and more!
Don’t miss this episode and let me know your thoughts after you listen. I always love hearing from you.
RESOURCES
Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat by Michael Masterson
Zero to One by Blake Masters and Peter Thiel
I always love hearing from you. Let me know your thoughts after you listen in the comments below.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:04.980] - Gary Vee Hey, guys, it's Gary Vaynerchuk, and you're listening to The Front Row Enterpreneur Podcast with our girl Jen.
[00:13.740] - Jen Lehner Our guest today is founder of Backlinko and the co-founder of Exploding Topics. He's been featured on hundreds of major media outlets, including Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur and Fast Company. Welcome to the show, Brian Dean.
[00:28.410] - Brian Dean Thanks for having me Jen.
[00:30.420] - Jen Lehner So I don't know how I found you a few months ago, but I am so glad that I did. Your content has rocked my world. Not only have I learned a ton about SEO from you, but I've also learned so much about copywriting and content creation in general. Your content is so, so good that I don't know if your ears were burning, but you were the feature of one of my group coaching sessions recently.
Read more...
[00:56.640] - Jen Lehner I literally was like, go to this website backlinko.com, sign up for this guy's newsletter. His name is Brian Dean and just strive for that. Like we all need to be striving for this. Like this is the kind of content we should all be putting out. And since finding you, that has been my goal to create content more like yours. So before we jump into our chat about SEO, because there are like a million things I want to ask you, can you share with us your process for creating those amazing blog posts like a process?
[01:30.060] - Jen Lehner I mean, do you start with a bunch of notes in Evernote? Do you walk around with an old fashioned pen and paper? Do you use Google dictation? Do you have a team? Do you batch create your content like your content is truly just cream of the crop? And I'm so curious about your process.
[01:48.390] - Brian Dean Well, thank you. I appreciate that. So, I mean, my process was me doing everything and my content was solid back then, but it's got a lot better now that I have a team helping me out. So in the beginning, I would do everything myself. I would find the topic, I would outline it, I would write it, I would edit it or put it into WordPress. I would take the screenshots, I would do everything.
[02:08.940] - Brian Dean And I still do the writing part and a lot of the research myself. But it's now more of like a team process. And the main things that in terms of how to get that wow factor on your content, that that's worked for me. Number one is that when I write a piece of content, I always try to document instead of creating. And this is something that I heard from Gary Vaynerchuk back in the day. And basically his philosophy for content is if you're doing stuff, you don't really need to create content from scratch because you're doing cool stuff, you just need to document what you're doing.
[02:42.420] - Brian Dean So I usually don't delve into topics that I don't know about with first hand experience. And this is a mistake I used to make back in the day. I remember when conversion optimization was the big thing and like 2015, 2016, everyone's split testing their button colors. I'm sure you remember this, Jen and I was like, I need to get in that because that's the hot topic. So I started creating these blog posts and guides about conversion optimization, but they weren't very good because I didn't know anything about it.
[03:09.840] - Brian Dean Like I had run a couple of speed test, but I was no expert. So I tried to apply the same sort of process to these topics that I didn't know about, and the content didn't really do that well. So I think the foundation is really documenting what you're already doing and relying on people that have that first hand experience in the trenches experience.
[03:29.790] - Brian Dean And even if you mess everything up after that, you're content still going to have that certain cool factor that wow factor, that other content won't because it's written by people that have never done the thing that they're writing about.
[03:42.510] - Jen Lehner Wow. That's such an important distinction. The other thing I think that makes your content so good. I mean, there's so many things. And when we talk about copywriting and SEO in a little bit, this will all come up again. But one of the reasons I enjoy your content so much is that you will talk about something, but then you will give very clear examples. And I think that's where I get lazy. You know, I'll whip out a blog post, but giving all the examples is really time consuming.
[04:11.640] - Jen Lehner So is that a part of the process that you might outsource to one of your team members is like if in this section you need 10 screenshots of someone using a certain widget or something like that, then it would be a workflow for someone else to research.
[04:27.550] - Brian Dean Yes, that's a perfect thing to outsource because you can come up with the vision and what the sections should look like. But, you know, that research part is going to be super time consuming. You get down this rabbit hole and you're spending like fifteen minutes looking for an example or twenty minutes and you're like, this is not really a great use of time.
[04:45.990] Someone else could have found it. So yeah, I have a team that helps me with those screenshots especially and finding some examples, but I try my best to use examples from my own business as much as possible. Not always possible. You know, if you're doing like a pricing page out of a price page. So I need to find a good example or for a copywriting guide that I've wrote recently, there are a lot of examples that I didn't have firsthand experience in, like Saas, some other areas, so I kind of had to use examples from other industries and that's very time consuming.
[05:16.730] - Brian Dean And that's where a team, a researcher could come in and help with that. Yeah, I think that if you want to level up your content, I think the first thing I would recommend is trying to document don't create as much as possible include those examples from your own experience. People do want to hear that.
[05:31.520] - Brian Dean And it helps your content be really, truly original because no one else has those examples. They're yours. And then also having a team help you with some of these steps that you point out Jen that are just super time-consuming and don't really have to be you doing it.
[05:45.610] - Jen Lehner Yeah, I love that, and I think a lot of people are going to be very relieved to hear that, that it's OK, like you don't have to know everything about everything. Talk about what you're already doing. Document what you're already doing. That sounds like freedom to me.
[05:59.620] - Jen Lehner It was to me, too, when I heard Gary Vaynerchuk say that I was like, of course, took a lot of pressure off. You know, I don't really have to write about all this stuff. I just have to write about what I'm already doing and I'm already doing it. So I'm halfway there.
[06:11.650] - Jen Lehner But I will say, though, that you're content. I mean, it's so deep, you definitely could never be accused of being surface level. So you go very deep on all of your I mean, each of your posts could truly be published as a book. And I don't want that to intimidate anyone from looking at your content because it doesn't read like a book in that, you know, and I'm sure you'll talk about this in a little while, but you do such a great job of breaking everything up in a way that is the content is not overwhelming, even though it's like really super beefy.
[06:42.190] - Jen Lehner And there's a lot of it. It's very scannable, very easy on the eyes, short sentences and all of that. But I'm wondering if our listeners might be thinking, well, that's great. But I'm a coach. I'm a life coach. So, like, how deep can I possibly go and how many things could I possibly talk about before I really run out of things to say?
[07:05.320] - Brian Dean It's a legitimate concern for sure. I think what I would recommend doing if I was in that situation is go try to go an inch wide and a mile deep. So a lot of times we'll see a topic and we'll think, well, if I cover that topic in depth, then there's only like ten of those. And then I kind of run out of ideas. So what I do sometimes is I go one one subtopic under that topic and just drill down on that. So, for example, let's say your life coach and you wanted to write about how to set up a morning routine and like, OK, well, once I write that and I write the most in-depth morning routine guide ever, I'm going to be out of ideas.
[07:45.520] - Brian Dean But you can always create blog posts on specific segments of a morning routine, like getting up, doing a morning meditation or mindfulness, what to eat for breakfast, exercise, maybe do affirmations or something. Each of those could be a guide or a blog post on their own. And that's when you get really deep. Like it's one thing to do a guide about the morning routine. But if you write the most in-depth guide to setting up your morning affirmations as part of your morning routine, it's going to be way more in-depth. And if you have experience helping people with that, your content's also going to be really good.
[08:18.230] - Jen Lehner Oh, that's great advice. Great advice. OK, so now let's dig into your SEO genius mind. And I'd love to know what are some important trends in SEO that we should be keeping our eye on right now?
[08:31.630] - Brian Dean I would say the biggest one is user experience in terms of Google being able to measure user experience on your site. Now, before back in the day, someone would search something in Google, they would click on your site and it'd be kind of a black hole in terms of Google, right. They wouldn't know what they were doing on your site or how they're interacting with it.
[08:51.160] - Brian Dean All they could really measure is if someone went back to the search results, that was to Google. Not good. So if you're searching for, you know, the best coffee and you click on the first result and then you quickly click back, Google can measure that and they're like, you know what? That's not really a good result because they didn't stay on the page and they're still looking for what they're looking for. We haven't satisfied their search, as they put it.
[09:14.830] - Brian Dean So Google is actually going one level beyond that now. And when they crawl your page, they're looking at how good of a user experience that's going to be by measuring these things they call "core web vitals". And basically what they are is it measures how fast your page loads and how quickly someone can click on something, interact with it and whether the page moves around.
[09:37.150] - Brian Dean Those are basically the three things you can I have a guide to core web vitals if I may say if you want to learn more, but essentially if your site is optimized well for users, it loads quickly.
[09:46.810] - Brian Dean The page doesn't move around as you load and people can interact with it pretty quickly as well. Then you're going to pass these things and you could always see your core web vitals. You can go to Google page Speed Insights, have a tool to put your site in there and they'll show you exactly what's good, bad or in between. But Google is just getting good at measuring these user experience signals, and they're making them a bigger part of the algorithm, which just makes sense.
[10:09.850] - Brian Dean They don't want to send people to sites that have a bad user experience. So I'd say that's the number one trend to keep an eye on.
[10:17.300] - Jen Lehner I do a daily Amazon flash briefing and I just report like the latest news in marketing and social media and that sort of thing. So I reported I'm might get this wrong. But there was some statistic that I reported that was recent research that shows that some ridiculous percentage of visitors to like Google searches to websites that produce like zero clicks, like people are Googling, they're going places, but they're not clicking.
[10:46.460] - Jen Lehner But it didn't really expound on that. And I'm wondering is do you think. Well, first of all, is that true? And number two, do you think it's because now when you Google something, they do that thing where they give you all the information that you need without having to click on it like you see the whole summary of the article, because I use that all the time. Now, like I'll say, you know, what is the best way to clean my ice machine, OK?
[11:10.970] - Jen Lehner And then it'll pop up like four very clear steps. I don't even need to click on the website. It's it's already done that for me.
[11:18.560] - Brian Dean Yeah, I did see that study, and it was by Rand Fishkin at SparkToro, who is one of the people in the industry that I respect the most. So the data is 100 percent accurate. And it was I think it was 60 percent result and no click. Yes. Which at first the headline you're like, oh, no.
[11:38.390] - Brian Dean But if I read the study in depth, including the a lot of the details and there was a line in there that didn't get as much attention, which was even though, you know, the clicks are down in terms of percentage, there are more searches now and there are more clicks than ever for publishers. So it's like the percentage has gone down, but there's more people searching and they're searching more often.
[12:04.970] - Brian Dean So there's more opportunities to get clicks than ever before. So overall, it was actually good news, even though it's a little bit scary with that number. So, yeah, if you look at that study, there's a line in there that talked about just the gross number of clicks, the total amount of clicks, there's more. So it's actually, in the end, relatively good news. But it's definitely a concern that people in SEO have had for a long time that Google has, you know, there they have those things that you're talking about, Jen, which are called feature snippets, which make it so you don't really have to visit the website.
[12:36.650] - Brian Dean And is that really good for people that are creating content? Probably not. But on the other hand, the rising tide lifts all boats. And if that feature makes you Google stuff more often, you're going to click stuff. So I think it's not like this Zero-Sum game necessarily that we're going to miss out on all these clicks. So even though 60 percent of people are clicking, there are just more clicks in general, and I'd rather have that. So for me, I think that Google is definitely going to move towards giving you quicker answers and making it so you don't necessarily have to visit a website.
[13:07.490] - Brian Dean But it's never going to just burn all the publishers and make it so they don't send you any traffic. Because if you look at where traffic comes from online, it's like, you know. Seventy five percent Google, it's not even a close second. So it's still the number one traffic channel in terms of getting traffic. So even if it does go down a little bit, it's still just an awesome channel overall.
[13:29.570] - Jen Lehner OK, well, thank you for that clarification and like, shame on me for not really diving in and doing my homework because I was clearly reading the headline.
[13:36.620] - Brian Dean Well, you weren't wrong because the number is accurate and it's it's a concerning trend, let's put it that way. You know, I looked at the bright side part, but the downside is that if this continues, then we're going to be talking about fewer total clicks, you know what I mean? So I think your concern was definitely justified.
[13:51.890] - Jen Lehner OK, well, thanks. All right. So what are a few SEO quick wins that we could implement as people who aren't really experts?
[14:01.110] - Brian Dean I think the number one, usually when I go, if I'm back on my client days, the number one thing I would look at on a site is improving their existing content. So a lot of times sites have some content on their site that's pretty good, but it's right below that bar of where it needs to be to rank.
[14:19.770] - Brian Dean So instead of creating new content or trying to build links or working on site speed or any of the stuff that it can take a long time to put into practice, updating a blog post can take like two hours max. So usually I would go through your own content and be like, how can I improve this? How can I expand this and how can it update this? That's usually how I go through it. So the first is, how can I just make this better?
[14:42.720] - Brian Dean For example, you talked a little bit about the short sentences approach to writing online content. So can I shorten some of the sentences? Can I short some of the paragraphs? Can I add more visuals? Can I just make it easier to skim and find information? Then you want to you can update it as well. Maybe this is out of date, even if it's a topic that's not changing all the time, you know, like marketing or technology, there's still usually some innovation or change or something you can add that can make the post better.
[15:10.440] - Brian Dean And then the last thing I'd look at, how can I make it more comprehensive? Know, maybe my post was the most comprehensive five years ago since I wrote it. But today, yeah, it's least lot to be desired. It doesn't cover everything there needs to be. So maybe you could add a couple of sections and beef it up a little bit. And if you do those things, those are usually some very easy, quick wins that can make a huge difference in your traffic.
[15:33.650] - Jen Lehner I'm wondering, so I'm always trying to systemize everything, so as you're talking, I'm thinking like, could I create a template for my team, like an inventory right? To go to each of the blog posts and check for, you know, just an inventory of like does it have this? Does it have a subheading? Does it have whatever and then all the things that you just said and outsource that. I don't want to spend two hours on my blog post.
[16:00.620] - Brian Dean I know I don't blame you at all. Yeah, I mean, you could get to that granular level. It depends on how you want to do it. There's two approaches. One is, like you said, you could say, OK, here is sort of a checklist that the post needs to have.
[16:13.430] - Brian Dean And if it has it, good, if not, you need to fix it. So it has checks all the boxes. The other approach is you can show someone an example and be like it needs to be up to the standard. And I kind of prefer the latter approach just because it's hard to make content in that checklist style and say, OK, it's good because it could fit all the boxes technically, but maybe the conscious not really up to date or maybe it's not very comprehensive or maybe it's just not very good or readable.
[16:42.570] - Brian Dean It's just subjective part of it. So I prefer to just be like, you know, when you update it, make sure it has all these sort of factors as opposed to getting into that granular level, although I don't think there's a right or wrong approach. I'm just saying from my experience, I prefer just to show the standard and be like make sure everything on the site lives up to the standard.
[17:01.010] - Jen Lehner OK, so then the next question for me is, so my team is basically general virtual assistants. They're not copywriters or editors. So could this be a position that, you know, we have a lot of solopreneurs who are listening, either have a VA or are very, very small team. Could this be like a Upwork contractor that you hire on as needed basis? Or I mean, I'm sure you have someone in-house all the time, but is this a copywriter, I guess, or can it be someone else?
[17:32.570] - Brian Dean It could definitely be an Upwork project. If you're intimidated by this. It's not hard at all what we're talking about. It's intimidating. Yeah. Like you said Jen, if you're spending two hours a day, because then everyone's thinking, well, I don't have two hours to spend on this. So it's definitely something you can outsource. You don't need a professional copywriter or someone like that to do it. I don't think this is a great task for a VA necessarily, depending on their experience level where they are, things like that. This is definitely you'd want to essentially a writer to do this.
[18:00.800] - Brian Dean So someone is a content writer, but instead of writing, they're improving your existing content and usually it's very cheap compared to having them write something from scratch.
[18:08.360] - Brian Dean So, yeah, I would set up something out on Upwork if I had to do this. I have someone in-house, but if I had to do this on Upwork, I would basically set up a project that says now we need someone to go through X number of blog posts and get them to the standard and then obviously layout what makes that the standard. It's the quality of the content. It's the readability. It's the subheadings. It's the screenshots.
[18:27.320] - Brian Dean It's the visuals, the fact that it's up to date, the fact that it's comprehensive and then hire them for a test project, give them one blog post and give everyone the same blog post and see which one delivers the best result and then hire that person. That's how I've been hiring everyone I've worked. For everything. I always try to do that test project first and give them all the same project and see who turns out the best. That way, when you scale up to fifty one hundred five hundred blog posts however you want, however many you want to update, you have something there, someone there that's proven that they can deliver as opposed to handing them five hundred and kind of hoping for the best.
[19:01.550] - Jen Lehner I love that. And I teach this in a program that I have that shows people how to hire virtual assistants. We do something very similar. So you hire four or five people for a trial week and they all have the same workload. And you can actually see very clearly who the right person or people are for that job. But I never thought of doing that actually for an Upwork position like this. So makes perfect sense. I love it. OK, now I want to talk about you're absolutely amazing newsletter.
[19:30.350] - Jen Lehner I love everything about it. And, you know, a lot of people try to do newsletters and they're boring. They don't get good open rates. They end up like not being able to be consistent with it. And there's very few newsletters and I'm sure a lot of people would say that's a very few newsletters that people actually read because there's just very few that I think that are really, really good. But yours is one that I never miss.
[19:53.960] - Jen Lehner I don't even put it in the to read later folder like I always read it right there on the spot. So what should people keep in mind if they want to grow a successful newsletter?
[20:04.940] - Brian Dean So I would say then looking back, I've had experience with two newsletters. At this point. I have the BackLinko newsletter and have the Exploding Topics newsletter, and they're both totally different, like the Backlinko newsletter. As you've seen, Jen, is kind of here are things I've learned here, some content that I published. It's very much a personal one to one style newsletter. The Exploring Topics newsletter is more of a traditional weekly, you know, with a template that goes out to everybody.
[20:32.630] - Brian Dean And it doesn't talk about me or any of the people on my staff. It's just content. So looking at the common threads between them and what helps them get high open rates on both, one is the consistent format. So you want people to have what I call the Shark Tank effect with your newsletter. Which is, if I'm sure you've seen that show, Shark Tank.
[20:54.610] - Jen Lehner Oh, yeah, I love it.
[20:55.660] - Brian Dean OK, so you love it. So I do too. So I think one of the reasons that the show works so well is that it's the same format every single week. It's basically the same show every single week. But everything's different because the entrepreneurs are different. Sometimes the sharks are a little different. The deals are different.
[21:13.180] - Brian Dean It has that perfect balance between, you know, what you're going to get, but you don't know what you're going to get. So a mistake that a lot of people make with newsletter's from the first starting out is that they're all over the place with their format. And I think that's OK if you want to experiment at first, but you want to find a format that works and just stick with that and tweak it as you go. That way, people are going to know what they're going to get.
[21:34.570] - Brian Dean So if you're doing a newsletter about as a life coach, I would have five tips on a Friday to make your weekend awesome and make that your format, assuming it works and you're getting good responses from people. Just make that your format. The five tips are going to be different every Friday, but people are going to know what they're going to get and it's going to increase your open rate. If you send them random stuff every week or every couple of weeks, they're going to be much less likely to open.
[21:58.810] - Brian Dean So I'd say that number one thing is finding that format as fast as you can and then just sticking with that.
[22:04.330] - Jen Lehner Well, speaking of format, this has been gnawing at me for, like, I don't know, six years when, you know, I remember hearing maybe it was from Amy Porterfield, but I mean, she's not the only one who said it or is saying it, but that your emails, even your newsletters, should look like they're just coming from a friend without, like, the branded headers and footers and all that. And so I have followed that for the most part.
[22:27.730] I've got one sort of small newsletter I do with my VIP community that is definitely got the branding on it and it's pretty and I like it. And sometimes I get emails from people or newsletters from people and they do have all the pretty banners and I kind of like it. And then it makes me think I should start doing that. But so where do you stand on this issue?
[22:48.490] - Brian Dean I hate this answer, but it depends on the situation. It depends a little bit. And like I said, I have two newsletters that I'm running right now. One is one hundred percent plaintext. Looks like it's from your mom. And that's the idea. The other is the pretty graphics. The banner is all that stuff. And they both get, you know, really good open rate. So I don't think there is a one size fits all, but if I had to go with one, it would be the plain text.
[23:13.360] - Brian Dean So I agree with Amy Porterfield with that. And I think, like, if you're a solopreneur who's building a personal brand, I would 100 percent avoid the pretty stuff. If you want to have the connection with the community, I would go with the plain text. Now, there are cases like a VIP where you where it makes sense to add more, especially if the VIP you'll delivering the material in that email, then you want it to look good because people are paying for that. Same thing with our pro product that exploit topics.
[23:40.210] - Brian Dean We don't send a plaintext email. We send something that's very designed, even more than the free newsletter. I mean, it's like super designed. So usually I would be anti that. But I think there are a lot of cases where it does make sense. So you're trying to build a personal brand and just connect with your followers and build an audience, go with the plain text. It's easier. People like it. It has better deliverability. There's almost no downside to it. But if people are paying for that content, then I think they do need a little bit of a presentation to kind of justify it and to help it stand out from your free stuff.
[24:13.900] - Jen Lehner OK, yeah. And when I think about like one of the things I really do love about your emails is they really do that. They're short, they're sweet. You get right to the point. You link usually to your blog post, your content. And those are my favorite. But yeah, OK, good advice because Gmail will also penalize you if they read too many images in your emails, right?
[4:36.070] - Brian Dean Yes. You're more likely to go to the promotion stuff a lot more. Like I've I've studied this like a crazy, mad scientist. And there's only a couple of things that get you in that promo tab that almost one hundred percent of the time. And it's having a lot of images. That's number one, because if you think about it, emails from friends, email from colleagues, they might have an image or two, but they usually don't. But a lot of promotional emails do, especially e commerce.
[25:00.700] - Brian Dean So they tend to hit the promotions. So I try to avoid images in my emails as much as I can. But if you have really good with exploding topics, our free newsletter, we have tons of images in them and they do go to primary. But that's after getting like an insane open rate for a long time. It was on promotions for a while we sort of had to get out of that purgatory. So, yeah, I would recommend limiting images if you can, too.
[25:22.420] - Brian Dean And just I love using images, but it's a challenge to just have to kind of describe it with words. And that's what I do with the Backlinko newsletter. I usually don't include any images there for that exact reason.
[25:33.580] - Jen Lehner All right. Well, speaking of words, can you share some of your favorite copywriting tips? And I want to pause right here to remind our listeners that you have this incredible copywriting guide that you just published. It's at backlinko.Com. And you guys, like, grab it right away because it's like taking a fantastic copywriting course, but it's free and it's right at your fingertips and it's so, so good. So I feel like I am now copywriting expert, but for every just kidding.
[26:01.770] - Jen Lehner But because of your blog post, I absolutely learned a lot. Can you share some of your favorite copywriting tips with us?
[26:08.040] - Brian Dean Yeah. My number one that comes to mind, for whatever reason, is the beginning of your page or email or whatever. I feel like this is kind of an underrated part of copywriting is nailing that first sentence, that first paragraph, because if you don't really hit there, usually you're going to lose people. So what I used to do when I would write these long sales letters is I would spend equal time on the beginning, as I would with, like, you know, the middle.
[26:37.800] - Brian Dean And I realized that like 90 percent of people would read the first part in like twenty five percent would make it to the middle. So while I was spending so much time on that, so I said the number one thing is to master the lead. And in most cases, for most of the content we're talking about here, which is kind of that instructional helpful content, you just need to tell them kind of what they're going to see and then show them you're the right person for it.
[27:02.220] - Brian Dean So I use a formula for my introductions, for most newsletters that are, you know, have content in them or for when I'm promoting a blog post. It's just that today you're going to learn X. You know, this is the same strategy tip, case study, whatever that I use to get this result and a call to action. Here's how you read it.
[27:23.010] - Brian Dean And I found the simpler I get with my intros, the better my engagement is. Better I click through it is all that stuff which just makes sense. You're just cutting to the heart of it that you're kind of saying answering what's in it for them right away. You're showing some social proof that you used it or a client used it or customer used it to get a result and then a call to action that pushes them to actually check it out now, because most content is going to be there forever unless it's an Instagram story.
[27:46.650] - Brian Dean So no one is in a rush to check it out. So that call to action can help push them to actually read it when they see it for the first time.
[27:55.390] - Jen Lehner What about podcasts like subject lines from our podcast always wrestled with this because sometimes I'll put in brackets like podcasts and then the title of it beside that. But then I'm like, if I get an email like that and I don't have time to listen to a podcast, then I just don't even open the email because I know it's a podcast. So I'm wondering, should I check them a little bit? No, trick is not the right word. Should I entice people a little bit and just give, like, this really juicy title and then when they open it, maybe talk a little bit about the podcast episode, what we cover and then link to the podcast episode. That's probably the thing to do, right?
[28:30.370] - Brian Dean Yeah, I think that's probably best because like you said, the podcast, sometimes those parentheses things can really help your open rate. But I think you're right in this case, it could hurt it because people are going to think I don't have time to listen to a podcast, and especially because you don't have an opportunity to really sell the podcast in just a subject line. They really do need to, like, open it, see who the guest is, learn more about what they're going to learn.
[28:51.790] - Brian Dean And then, like, you know what? This sounds pretty good. I'll check it out. And as long as you mix it up, sometimes you send it articles, sometimes you send a video, sometimes you send a podcast. It's not like you're pulling a bait and switch. It's the same format of how you're getting people to open just inside. It's different content every time.
[29:07.640] - Jen Lehner OK, and some of your other copywriting tips that really grabbed me and, you know, and it's definitely a perfect example of how you write about the things that you actually practice, because we could see it in your blog post, in your emails and your newsletters.
[29:20.720] - Jen Lehner Is that the flow? What I think is amazing that you're able to pull off because of your copywriting is the flow of the words in that, well, you take out all the big words, so you replace big words with simple words, right?
[29:37.040] - Brian Dean Yeah. I'm not a big fan of big words, I think, because I know I never liked them in school. I can never remember them. So it comes natural to me. And every time I and I always kind of allergic to it, I just never liked. I remember I had to study for the GREs for graduate school and I remember that was like half of it is just learning these big words that no one ever uses. And I really hated that part.
[29:57.230] - Brian Dean So it's always stuck with me that every time I find myself using a big word, I was thinking, how can I not use the big word? I think it's just good writing in general, Jen. But also, you'd be surprised how many people from other countries are reading your content who speak English, but maybe their English isn't a native speaker level. And if you can write it in simple English, you get the best of both worlds.
[30:17.900] - Brian Dean It's easier for native English speakers to read and also for people that speak English as a second language. And in my business, you know, twenty five percent of our customers are from overseas. That's a good chunk of people from Denmark and Spain and China everywhere. And they speak English, obviously, they're reading my stuff and they're signing up for my courses. But for them, it just makes it a little bit easier. And it's not like the native English speakers don't like it.
[30:41.330] - Brian Dean So it's really a win win to simplify your writing as much as you can, especially like you said, and the words that you choose to use.
[30:48.380] - Jen Lehner Yeah. And the way that your emails are so short, because this also sometimes trips me up and I get comparisonitis or feel less than or like, OK, I got a really up my game when I get emails from content creators that are really, really long, like the emails themselves are like blog posts or journal entries or something, and there sometimes are quite good, you know, they're like really thoughtful and man, but that's so intimidating to me.
[31:19.870] - Jen Lehner I don't always have that much to say. And actually, if I do, I would rather it be in the form of a blog post. But there is this trend. I don't know if it's coming or going where people just write like tons and tons in their emails. What do you think about that?
[31:34.890] - Brian Dean I think I sent I sent some of those too, those longer ones that are just self-contained, but I
[31:41.130] - Jen Lehner Sent or send like past tense or present?
[31:44.270] - Brian Dean I still do still do.
[31:45.310] - Jen Lehner OK.
[31:45.850] - Brian Dean Yeah, I think I think it's a good part of a newsletter mix if you're doing the personal style, is to occasionally throw in the longer email. The key that I learned from doing this, the learned the hard way is I used to do it and I would have five tips for SEO and I had this massive email and just something about it. It's like a square peg in a round hole. People don't want to read five tips on an email.
[32:09.450] - Brian Dean In a blog post, they're happy to read one hundred tips. In email, yhey don't want five tips. They want one tip, max. So what I've learned is if you want to experiment with that longer form newsletter content, just tell stories. If you are sending stories that are like lessons, people are going to be very receptive to that. If you try to create a guide or a list post inside email, it's not really going to resonate. So in my experience, I've kind of ditched that whole trying to do five tips in an email.
[32:38.550] - Brian Dean And instead, if I go a long form, it's a story about how I tried something and it worked or it didn't work and what I learned from that experience.
[32:46.310] - Jen Lehner OK, you just saved my life. Thank you. I mean, because just the fact that you just said one tip, not five like that, you just solve so many problems for me, you have no idea. So thank you. All right. I've just enjoyed this conversation so much. I have learned so much from you. And I have one more question for you. And that is and it's going to kind of put you on the spot, but I'm going to do it anyway.
[33:08.860] - Jen Lehner What is the best business book that you've ever read?
[33:14.370] - Brian Dean It's a tie. Can I go two?
[33:17.450] - Jen Lehner Absolutely.
[33:18.210] - Brian Dean Maybe I'll go with "Ready, Fire, Aim "and "Zero to One"
[33:23.600] - Jen Lehner OK. I don't know either of those. Do you know who wrote them?
[33:27.530] - Brian Dean "Zero to One" is Peter Thiel. "Ready, Fire, Aim" is Chase. I'm drawing a blank on that.
[33:35.760] - Jen Lehner Well, I'll Google it and I'll be there.
[33:38.840] - Brian Dean Yeah, there are two of my favorites. I've read them a billion times.
[33:42.140] - Jen Lehner OK, why were they your favorites?
[33:44.150] - Brian Dean Well, "Ready, Fire, Aim", like the name suggests, it's about starting before you're ready. And it's the only book that a business book that kind of takes you through the whole like your business growth, like starting, kind of getting off the ground, scaling and then going huge. And it's the only book that covers all that territory. Most book is most books are designed for one part of that process, like when you're just starting out or when you're looking to scale or whatever, this takes you through the whole gamut.
[34:12.680] - Brian Dean And it's very tactical and includes tons of examples from this guy's experience. And "Zero to One", it's the complete opposite. It's not tactical at all. It's totally just a way to think about launching products and creating products in a way that they're totally original. And basically the ideas that you want to create your own monopoly as opposed to creating products that already exist and then creating like a better version. And that's his philosophy. He's the founder of PayPal and Palantir and a very celebrated investor.
[34:42.710] - Brian Dean So his philosophy is don't compete like competing is for losers. I think you create something totally original. The hard part is it's really hard to do. So when you read it, you've got to reread it a couple of times to really for it to sink in and to try to get your mindset to think in terms of creating products that are really different instead of just 10 percent different than what's out there.
[35:03.390] - Jen Lehner I love it. Do you listen to podcasts?
[35:06.890] Brian Dean Some, yeah, I listen to mostly sports podcasts, I'm a big fan.
[35:11.750] - Jen Lehner Oh, you lost me there.
[35:13.580] - Brian Dean Most of my ear time is spent listening to the stuff about the NFL.
[35:18.650] - Jen Lehner OK, fair enough. Well, thank you so much Brian for joining us, you guys. If you want to check, please check out Brian's stuff at backlinko.Com. And then his other thing is Exploding Topics. Is that your Peter Thiel like product or you.
[35:33.080] - Brian Dean I'm hoping.
[35:33.770] - Jen Lehner Yeah, but it is very cool. I'll let you guys just go and play with it and you'll see what it's all about. It's very, very cool and. Yes. So thank you so much, Brian. I really appreciate it.
[35:44.000] - Brian Dean No worries. Thanks for having me. Jen.
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