Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Grumpy SEO Guy
This is Grumpy SEO guy, episode 78. There is no such thing as cheap SEO. You're listening to grumpy SEO guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy, and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more About SEO than 90, 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. I'm grumpy today because a lot of people are selling and are trying to find cheap SEO. In this episode, we're going to talk about why there is no such thing as cheap SEO. But before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical and based on my experience, this podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. So, look, I want to make a distinction here when we're talking about cheap SEO, okay? Because some people are going to misinterpret what I say, because a lot of people misinterpret what I say, and a lot of people do it purposefully. But I'm not saying that you have to have a budget of a million dollars a month to do SEO. That's not what I mean when I say there's no such thing as cheap SEO, okay? What I mean is when you're buying SEO, it cannot be cheap. Let me give you an example. Actually, I'm probably going to give you a few examples. So let's say you're getting ready to begin an SEO project. You're getting ready to begin a project, and you have no. You don't know what you're supposed to do. So you find somebody who says, I will do an SEO audit for you. And I say this because I see this on the SEO subreddit all the time. There are lots of people that do free audits. They say, oh, we will do a free audit. Just DM Me, we will do a free audit. By the way, that free audit is probably worth what you paid for it. Okay. I do know of a few cases where people who actually do SEO were doing. I wouldn't even say they're audits, but they were helping people for free. But that is not like. That's not what regularly happens. Okay. Usually. Usually. Okay, this is. Guys, this is what happens when somebody is off. Usually. Usually when somebody's offering a free audit, what they're doing is they're going online and they're getting some free audit tool, and they're just doing that for you. And then they're pretending like it's some program they have because they're like a professional SEO. But literally what they probably did was they went online and they looked for free SEO audit tools. And by the way, I would encourage you to do this. Go online and look for free SEO audit tools, and you will find some. Are they helpful? I don't know. Possibly. Depends on what you need. But probably there's a reason that they're free. Okay. Anyway, so they're probably doing this free SEO. By the way, this is like, this is how this whole thing works, right? They're probably doing this free SEO audit for you, and then they think that you will think they are so great at SEO because look at this. Look at this audit they did for you. Look at how good it is that you will, like, want to buy some service from them or something, whatever. But all they did was do a free SEO audit. Let me explain why this happens. If you're doing real research into somebody's website or keywords or competition, it is certainly not free. It costs you, like, among. Just excluding the knowledge that it takes to be able to do it in the first place. Okay. The tools that it takes to do a good audit, or whatever you want to call it, are expensive. So just in and of itself, nobody's gonna do it for free. But whatever, whatever. So anyway, if you really want a free audit, there's people on Reddit that are like, I will do a free audit for you. We'll do a free audit. I am an ed SEO expert. I have been doing SEO for however many years. I will do a free audit for bro. They're not doing it for. They're trying to upsell you at some point along the process. Trust me. But, you know, if you want a free audit, I guess go for it. Probably won't help you. It'll probably help you about as much as any free SEO audit tool will. Okay, Again, there's a reason they're free. With that said, whatever. I don't know. Anyway, so you're not gonna get an audit for free. You're not going to. Okay, now let's talk about people who will do free consulting. First of all, nobody will ever do free consulting. Like, I shouldn't say that because on occasion I help people for free. But I mean, like, overall, they're probably not going to. Not usually. I've got other episodes, right? Just rant about this, so it doesn't matter. But look, somebody who is good at SEO is going to charge you, you know, either for their knowledge or just to talk to them. Like, there's a lot of people on the forums that pretend to be SEO experts because as we've mentioned in other episodes, okay, there's no certification, there's no degree, there's no barriers to entry to do SEO. Anyone can make a website be like, I'm an SEO profess, I will do a free audit for you. It's like, bro, you probably just learned what SEO was yesterday. Like, just, just stop. Just stop. Anyway, but the point is that exists. Like, I just, I just had, I just had a meeting with somebody yesterday who had to deal with a lot of that nonsense. And I was like, yeah, it's not surprising. It's what happens in the SEO industry. It's what happens in any like, like Internet make money online type of industry, right? Like we talked about this before. Like, day trading forums are full of that nonsense. Like, real estate investing is full of that nonsense. Affiliate is full of that nonsense. Drop shipping is full of that nonsense. Anything where, like, anyone can do it, it's full of people pretending to be knowledgeable at it. Like, I don't know, just gotta like, you know, raise your online ego or something. Like, I'm so good at this stuff. I will teach you how to do drop shipping for free. First of all, just know. Anyways, look, so, by the way, don't like, I'm not even gonna talk about dropshipping, okay? So like, whatever you're thinking is right. Okay, so like, so there's that. But now I wanna talk about like that, that was, that was just a little like tangential, like, kinda rant about like free audits and free consulting and stuff. Okay, look, I wanna talk about like, backlinks. Cause most SEO is backlinks. Like, look, once your website is in like, great shape, okay? Meaning you don't have penalties, you have good content, like your layout and structure and everything makes sense, right? That's a whole other Topic anyway. Like, once your website is in. Is in good shape, then you build backlinks. Okay? And backlink building is probably, I think I've estimated before, like, 90 to 95% of SEO. I still, I still agree with those numbers. Okay? I may have jokingly in the past said it was 99%, but it's like, it's truth. It's probably between 90 and 95%. Like, authority is such a big deal that, you know, there's, There's. I don't know, like, all the. I'm gonna. I'm gonna do another episode on how to tell if something is valuable for SEO, because it's. It's getting. I'm getting. I'm scatterbrained today, and I'm getting ahead of myself. So let's take a step back. Okay, look, link building and Authority is like 90 to 95% of SEO, okay? And that doesn't mean that the other stuff is not important, okay? You have to have your website in decent condition before you start building authority so you don't get penalties or other things, all right? That doesn't mean that, you know, good content is a ranking factor. It's not. But you should still have relevant content that humans like. Okay? You need relevant content for SEO reasons. You need content that humans like for conversion reasons. But it doesn't matter anyway. Look, so Authority is like 90 to 95% of SEO. Okay? So then what happens is people finally sometimes realize that they need backlinks, and so what do they do? Because they don't know anything about backlinks, And I'm not. I'm not saying this to criticize people. Like, if you just learn that authority is important, you obviously don't know anything about backlinks because you're still like a novice, basically. So I'm not, like, mocking anybody. I'm just saying, when you think that you need backlinks, what do people do? They go online and they look for backlink sellers, right? And then they get brought to marketplaces that we're not going to talk about, and they end up buying backlink packages that look all fancy and they sound pretty cool. And it's like, whoa, I can get 800 backlinks for $20. Ooh, that sounds like a good deal. Like, 800. That's a lot. And they're all garbage. Like, they're literally all garbage. Because you literally cannot get 800 backlinks for $20, okay? Much less a lifetime payment of $20. If you're a beginner, go listen to episode 10 called why One Time Payments or lifetime backlinks are always a scam. I'm not going to explain how it works here. Just trust me. If you're pay one time fee for backlinks, you're getting scammed anyway. So people go and they buy the cheapest stuff. So basically, and then, oh, I'm sorry, I skipped part. And then it doesn't work. And then they're like, but backlinks that it didn't work. Well, I know that content isn't king and backlinks don't work either. I quit SEO. Like, no, the reason backlinks didn't work is because you bought bad quality backlinks. All right? You bought spammy garbage. It's probably forum profiles or blog comments or spun content on garbage pbns with bad IP addresses. Like, all of these things are addressed in other episodes, especially episodes 37 and 39, which are the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks. Part one and part two. I would recommend listening to those before you buy backlinks. But look, people go out and they buy low quality backlinks and then they don't work. Of course they don't work. They're low quality backlinks. Of course. Of course they don't work. Guys, just because low quality backlinks don't work doesn't mean high quality backlinks also don't work. It doesn't mean backlinks don't work. It means those bad quality backlinks are useless. Anyway, look, so here's what I mean when I say there's no such thing as cheap SEO. First of all, a good quality link vendor has spent a bunch of money building up his websites. He probably paid a lot of money for them. He's probably spending money on good content, keeping them active and all the things and managing them and doing all the stuff that is required to keep a website online. But more to the point, he had to spend a lot of money to buy them and pay for hosting every year and renewal every year may or may not be expensive, but that's not the point. The point is, it doesn't matter how much SEO you need. Okay? The SEO itself and when I say SEO here, I'm basically talking about backlinks. The SEO itself has to be correctly priced. All right? In other words, let's say you find. I'm just using like sample numbers here. This is not like an official quote and a yes, yes. I always have to give this disclaimer before I say anything because otherwise people will Say, well, you said that it cost this much money. If I say, look, there's. Let's say, let's say, for example, you're going to pay $50 per month per backlink, okay? If I say that as an example, people are some, Somebody's gonna go grumpy. SEO guy said that backlinks cost $50 per month. No, I didn't say that. I said, for the example that we're talking about right now, let's say that backlinks are $50 per backlink per month, okay? I just have to put that disclaimer in and people still are not understanding it, but, you know, that's fine. So anyway, look, let's say you find a backlink seller and I'm just using a pretend number. Let's say $50 per backlink per month, okay? Because remember, one time payments are always a scam. So $50 per backlink per month. So let's say, for example, then that you need a thousand backlinks. And I'm just, and I'm so, like approximating numbers right now. This is just an example. But let's say that you need a thousand backlinks and they're $50 per month, okay? So that's $50,000 per month, okay? That sounds like a lot of money. But maybe you don't need a thousand backlinks. Maybe you need five. I don't know what you're doing. I don't know what websites you're competing with. I don't know anything about you. I'm just saying maybe you need five backlinks, okay? In that case, it would be $250 per month. Now, because remember, $50 a month per backlink, okay? So look, if you need a thousand backlinks, okay, it's in your best interest not to go buy a thousand backlinks for $15. Ooh, I got my thousand backlinks. Because those aren't gonna do anything because they were $15 for a thousand of them. No, SEO doesn't work that way. In other words, what I'm saying, and I apologize because this is kind of like difficult to explain in a way that makes sense. And I think as soon as you say there's no such thing as cheap SEO, people like, kind of stop listing, right? They're like, well, I'm not going to listen to him anymore because he's not telling me how to do it for cheap or free. But what I'm saying is every, every component of SEO that you buy cannot be cheap. So you might only need five backlinks. Well, you should buy the ones that are $50 a month, not the ones that are like $2 for a one time payment for your five backlinks or something like that. I'm not saying your overall SEO budget is going to be expensive, okay? I'm not saying that you need like a million dollars to do SEO. You probably do not need a million dollars to do SEO. Okay? But whatever your requirements are, you have to buy good quality stuff. Okay? Like if you need. Let's, let's use this example again. If you need five backlinks, you should buy the five that are good quality. That in this example, this pretend example might be $50 per month per backlink. Okay? You should not go buy five blog comment backlinks. Yay. I got my five backlinks. And also I want to point out here that people are going to misinterpret what I'm saying as you need a specific number of backlinks. That's not what I'm saying. You can sometimes kind of estimate, but it's a, it's a generalized figure that could be plus or minus 30% at either end. The point is, whatever you think you need, you're better off not buying the cheap stuff. Okay? One backlink that you spent $50 on is better than a thousand backlinks that were $10 or whatever. I know I keep changing the price, but like, you get the point. Because people, backlink sellers try to compete on price and they're like, well, this guy's a thousand backlinks for $20. We do a thousand backlinks for $15. They're still garbage. It doesn't matter. Like, even if they were $1,000, they'd still be garbage, okay? Like it's still garbage. So look, every, every SEO thing that you buy has to be good quality. And it's not good quality if it's cheap, okay? Now conversely, just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's good. There are some scammers that. I'm not going to say who they are because we don't say bad things about people on this podcast. But there are some scammers that are charging thousands and thousands of dollars for basically nothing. And is it expensive? Yes. Is it good? No, it is not good. And here's the thing, this is why I try to tell everybody before you buy SEO, before you pay anybody any money for anything, whether courses or services or consulting or whatever thing you're thinking about giving people money for, you have to learn a little bit at least about it on your own, because otherwise you're probably dealing with, like, as far as the math goes, you're probably dealing with a scammer, because 99% of SEO providers are scammers, okay? I talked to somebody recently who dealt with a big scammer and spent a lot of money and got literally nothing for it. So I'm just saying. And, you know, person was a good salesperson, but they were still a scammer. So, anyway, look, you need to learn. And yes, yes, it is frustrating because sometimes you just want to be able to purchase the thing that you want and not have to worry about it. But SEO is not one of those areas, okay? You cannot just pick the highest rated guy. Or if you're on, like, a marketplace, pick the person with the most reviews because, well, the reviews are probably fake too, okay? Like, you have no idea how deep the fakery and, like, charlatan tricks go, like. And that's not just for SEO. That's for, like, all of Internet marketing. But we already did an episode on some of the hassles and scams involved in Internet marketing, so you can go listen to that one if you want. But anyway, look, the point is, you have to understand. That's why I always tell people, before you do anything, go listen to episode 21, learn why authority is important, okay? Go Listen to episode 39. Learn about the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks, okay? Listen to the episodes that explain why content is not an SEO strategy. Go listen to the episode that says, EEAT is not a ranking factor. And by the way, even Google says, E E A T is not a ranking factor, but you still have people selling EEAT services and content and audits, which even Google says will not do anything. But of course, then you have the people that are like, well, can't trust Google. And I kind of agree with that, but I strongly believe EEAT is not a ranking factor. Um, because it's not. It's. Well, we'll talk about that in the episode of how to tell if something really matters or not for SEO. But anyway, look, you kind of have to learn a little bit about it. And I agree with you. It is bothersome that you have to learn how to do it. Why can't I just. Why can't I just locate a good SEO professional and pay him money to do things for me? Because the industry is full of scammers, unfortunately, okay? So you got to learn how it works. You have to learn what is important for SEO, right? Go listen to episode 51. The four things you need to rank, understand them so you can have a conversation with whoever you're thinking about giving money to. Okay? If somebody sells you some nonsense about content is king, well, hopefully you listened to the episode that explains why content is not a ranking factor. If somebody tells you that they're going to make your website rank by posting more content, hopefully you listen to the episode called Content is not a ranking strategy. If somebody starts to lecture you about eeat, hopefully you understood the episode that eeat is not a ranking factor. Okay? And you just. Because sometimes the scammers will make themselves sound smart by using big words. Well, not big words, but you know, like fancy terms like E, E, A T and whatever else. Whatever. I can't think right now. But look, the point is you have to understand how it works so that you know when the person tells you, okay, These backlinks are $50 per month per backlink. And then you have questions for that person. You can get a feeling for if those are good quality backlin or if they're just selling you blog comment garbage for $50 a month. There is not a better way to do it. And yes, it's difficult because there's not a better way to do it. There's not a scammer detector test. I mean, you could hire me to talk to the guy and find out if he's a scammer. Actually, that would be super fun if anyone wants to take me up on that hellorumpy SEO guy.com But like, actually, side note, one of my friends, a previous, like, coworker in my coworking space that I was at on the west coast, got a voicemail from some SEO scammer. You know, by the way, I get these voicemails too. I was gonna post one on an episode and just be like, listen to the scammer. But I, I didn't. I think the voicemail got deleted anyway. It was, you know, you've probably gotten these voicemails and they're like, hello, we. And it's not even like, it's. It's just like, not even like mentioning you by name because they don't even know who. Because they have no clue who you are, right? They're like, hello, we noticed that your Google business profile is not set up correctly and there are errors on your site and this is preventing people from finding you. And it's funny when I get those because, like, I don't even use Google my business. So they definitely did not find my profile in the first place to find errors on it, but it's the same scammy message they send to anyone. So anyway, my friend got one of these voicemails and she kind of like got a little bit worried, but she's like, I'm pretty sure this is a scam. And I'm like, yes, it is a scam. And then she's like, well, I have a call set up with them anyway, like tomorrow or something. She's like, will you be on the call with me and just like, listen to what's going on? And I was like, yes, of course I will. And the person never even called. So I was like, all right, whatever. But then we looked into them and it was a super suspicious, like, guys, guys. It was like it was a real business, but it was pretty suspect. Like all the things I'm like, please do not give these people any money. Do not even like contact them ever again. If I can find that voicemail, I will do my best to upload it to a future episode and be like, haha, here's an example of a scammer voicemail. But I think it got deleted. Like, you know, after a certain amount of time, voicemails get deleted. Anyways, it doesn't matter. But I would, I would literally, I would go to a meeting with somebody who is dealing with a potential SEO provider and just, you know, I would tell them if they were real or not. From listening to them, I could probably end the meeting with like one or two questions anyway. But so anyway, the point is you have to learn how it works because most SEO sellers are scammers. Most people that you meet on the Internet who are trying to share their SEO knowledge with you are scammers. Most people trying to sell you SEO are scammers. Most people trying to make you buy audits or give you a free audit are scammers. Most backlink providers are scammers. Most people who talk about content in eeat are scammers. Most people that you find I can't even remember what I've said so far. Most people that you meet on any marketplace promoting their SEO are scammers. Most people who tell you that SEO is a change you make to your website are scammers. And if you learn about SEO, you can learn how to tell if they are scammers or not by having a discussion with them. But there is no other way, because literally everyone in the world will tell you, oh, I'm an SEO expert. I'm an expert. Let's talk about content. We notice there are problems with the content on your site. Oh, my gosh. Like, and just to be clear, I'm not saying that you can't have problems on your site involving content that are causing you to not rank, but probably that's not the case. And probably these people either think content is king or they're trying to scam you into thinking content is king. But I have many other episodes on that topic, so I'm not even going to cover it now. In conclusion, do not buy cheap SEO. There is no such thing as cheap SEO. And the final thing I want to say on this topic, and again, I'm not ridiculing anybody, okay? There have been times in my life when I made no money. Not exaggerating, literal, zero income. And I know what it feels like to not have a job or income and that kind of thing, okay? By the way, entrepreneurs actually not kidding. So I'm not. Look, I understand that people try to get things for free all the time anyway, because why would you pay for something if you can get it for free? Let's be honest. Like, for anything, right? But this is. This is how I feel, okay? And again, I'm not. I'm not criticizing anybody, but this is how I feel, okay? Because I get messages. Let's say, for example, instead of SEO, let's say I'm a Ferrari salesman. People will message me and they're like, you know what? Look, here's the thing. Gotta be honest with you. I love Ferrari. They're the best. Now, I would really like a Ferrari if I had a Ferrari, okay? People would like me, and I'd have the coolest car out of all my friends, and I'd finally be awesome, and I would have a Ferrari, and it would look so awesome. I would feel amazing every time I was. I was driving my Ferrari, and I would really like for you to sell me a Ferrari, but I only have $9. Can you. Could you. Look, I'm a really big fan of your podcast. Could you sell me a Ferrari for $9? And I'm just like, bro, no. There's a reason Ferraris cost what they cost, okay? You cannot get a Ferrari for $9. If somebody's selling you a Ferrari for $9, there's either something wrong with it or it's not actually a Ferrari, okay? I just want to be very clear about that, okay? Like, you. You maybe. Maybe you could buy a Ferrari for $9, but it might be, you know, a replica that's, you know, very small. Or it's probably, you know, the guy who runs the junkyard where it got crushed by the little thing that crushes the old cars. I guess that's a big thing. The big thing that crushes the old cars probably wants to get rid of it, and probably it's worth more than $9 in scrap metal, so probably that is not even the case. Or it's a fake Ferrari. You're not gonna get a Ferrari from that. Yeah, Scrumpy SEO guy. But you don't. You don't. You don't. I don't think you. You grasp what I'm telling you. I really love your podcast, and I really love Ferraris. And I have $9, and I really. I would love to have a Ferrari so I could pick up chicks in my Ferrari. And I have $9. Can I buy one? Do you have one in blue? I would like a blue Ferrari for not. I'm like, bro, you're about to be blocked. Like, stop. Okay? Like. And again, like, whatever. But you're not gonna buy a Ferrari for $9, and you're not gonna get good SEO for free or for cheap. Okay? You're not going to. But what about this other Ferrari dealer who said he'd sell me one for $8, but I'd rather buy one from you for nine? Bro, go buy it from him then. It's not a Ferrari, okay? He's lying to you. But if that's what you feel like you want to do, go buy it from that guy. It's the same. It's exactly the same in my industry, okay? Like, people are. SEO is very expensive. I even charge a lot of money just to talk to somebody in zoom, okay? Like, it's not. Like, I don't. I don't even. I don't even know what to say. I. I'm. I don't know what to say. There's no such thing as cheap SEO. I don't care what the seller told you. I don't care what the marketplace told you. I don't care what the review said. You get my point? Whatever. Look, there's no such thing as cheap SEO. Stop buying it. Stop buying it. And even more importantly, before you buy expensive SEO, okay? And you could also refer to that as real SEO, because real SEO is very expensive. I don't mean, like, overall. What I mean is, compared to the inexpensive stuff, it's going to cost a lot more than the cheap stuff that you're used to seeing, okay? But you have to understand it so that you know how to have a conversation with the person about it. Because. Because there's another kind of scammer. It's like if somebody's trying to sell you a painting by a master, okay, if the price is really high, it could be what they're saying it is, but if the price is really low, it's not what they're saying it is. So you have to understand it. And, yes, I'm going to say this another time because it's aggravating to have to go through these hurdles to get good SEO, but I don't know a different way to do it. There is no other way. That vendor, that SEO package that you saw online is probably a scam. So I tell everyone to do it themselves. Okay? That package you saw online is probably a scam. That seller that you met on the marketplace is probably a scammer, and that consultant that contacted you out of nowhere on Reddit is probably a scammer. The person offering you a free audit is probably a scammer. Okay? And whatever else is happening, there's a good chance that you're being scammed because we're talking about SEO here. Okay? I'm not sure how else to say it. I hope this episode was not, like, frustrating for anybody, but I'm just being honest with you because. Oh, last thing I'm gonna say. I know I told you that once before, but this is the last thing I'm gonna say. I often get emails, and I don't fault anybody because I would do the same exact thing. Okay? I often get emails, hey, grumpy SEO guy, what do you think about this package? And then they list some, like, popular seller or marketplace or website or whatever, where you can buy backlinks or, you know, whatever. And look, first of all, anybody who's emailed me knows that I don't make recommendations other than the things that I recommend on this podcast, like Serp Fox and Ahrefs and SEMrush and KeySearch. CO. Okay? Because I recommend those because I use them, not because I get paid to recommend them. The moment I start recommending things like backlink services, I look like I have an agenda. And hopefully everybody realizes I don't have an agenda, which is why I don't promote myself and why I stay anonymous and why nobody has ever heard me mention the name of my agency and why that is extraordinarily unlikely to happen on this podcast. Because my purpose is to teach you not to sell. You. Okay, those of you that want to do an advisory call on Zoom, yeah, that's a thing, but that's a different thing. And I'M not, like, actively promoting that, even though my podcast mentor says I should. And I might actually mention it on another episode. Anyway, I can't remember if I mentioned this in another episode. I think I might have. I think I might have, but I also think I might have. I might have edited it out because some of these episodes are really long and I have to, like, remove parts of them so they're not, like, just me rambling on forever. Anyway, okay, so I talked about my mentor. I have a podcast mentor. He's cool. I'm pretty sure he's listening this episode. So how's it going? Okay. Thanks for all your help, podcast mentor. Anyway, he's gonna call me and be like, I heard you. I heard you. I'm glad. I'm glad that you find it useful. Nah, but for real, he knows that I find it super useful. Cause I call him and bug him with podcast questions. Anyway, look, anyway, I just want to say something, just while we're talking about mentors, because a lot of people do not know this, and I know that people don't know this because I see these words used wrong constantly. Okay? Did you know that mentors and consultants and advisors and coaches are not the same thing? Okay. Did you know that? Let me tell you what the difference is really quick, just for fun, okay? A consultant gets paid to do work. Okay? A consultant gets paid to do work. All right? A coach gets paid not to tell you what to do, but to ask you questions that get you to realize the correct answer yourself. So for people who enjoy being told what to do and given correct answers to questions, you do not want to work with a coach, because that's not what coaches do. Okay? A mentor is somebody who teaches you whatever for free. Like, usually free. There's, like, paid mentorships, but that's really not what being a mentor is. Mentors mentor you for free. Okay, and then what's the other one? An advisor is paid to answer questions. Okay? Advising is not doing work. If you're paying somebody to build backlinks for you or, you know, fix your website or something, that is not advising. That is consulting, because you're paying them to do a thing. Anyway, this has nothing to do with anything. I just wanted to clarify, because people. People say that all the time. They're like, I want to hire you for consulting, but what they want to do is get on the phone with me and ask me questions. That's not consulting. That's advising. Anyway. Or like, will you mentor me? No, I won't. No. Like, Guys, I run an agency. Full time job. I run a podcast, which is mostly a full time job, okay? Like a half hour episode takes like five or ten hours a week at least. Sometimes it takes more, depending on how badly I need to redo the episode. And then I'm answering emails all day long too. I do not have time to mentor you, okay? For free. Because remember what we just learned? Mentor is for free. Usually, like pretty much all the time, right? I do not have time to do that. So no, I'm already. I already have like four full time jobs. Well, three. Agency is one, podcasting is one, and then email and Reddit combined together is probably like another one. Like, honestly, like. Cause like, we do an episode every week, right? And I said like five or 10 hours per episode, but sometimes more. So that's five to 10 hours per week. So that's 20 to 40 hours per month to make a free podcast. You're welcome. But no, I don't have time to mentor anybody. I appreciate the emails. Hey, will you mentor me? No, but you can pay me. You can pay me for my time. Anyway, there it is. Grumpy SEO guy selling things. He's selling his time. Yeah, bro, I am selling my time, all right? I'm not selling my knowledge. Let's be very clear. I don't gatekeep knowledge, all right? I don't put a paywall on my knowledge. This podcast teaches you more than anything else on the Internet dealing with SEO. And if I wasn't already certain that that was true, my inbox is full of people telling me how many thousands of dollars they've spent on courses and then telling me that they learned more from my free podcast than from those courses that they bought. Which, as you know, from my podcast is because most of those people who make SEO courses have never actually done SEO. So it's unsurprising. I truly think I'm not like people. People joke that I have a big ego, and I actually don't. I'm pretty obsessive about correct knowledge, but I do not think I have a big ego. In other words, as I mentioned on another episode, people say that I like to argue, but I'm not arguing from a place of ego. I'm arguing from a place of getting to the real knowledge, okay? I love being proven wrong, which is why I have a challenge to the world for all these scammers and charlatans that say they can write content that ranks without backlinks to show me a website that ranks without backlinks in a Medium to competitive industry. Despite that challenge being publicly presented to the world for months, zero people have stepped up and done it. Why? Because it's not possible. But the charlatans still try to sell you their good content that will rank without backlinks. Anyway, the point is, this podcast is awesome and it's free, but if you need individualized help, you are going to pay for my time to help you. You're not gonna pay for my knowledge. I don't put a paywall on knowledge. I don't say like, well, if you pay me this much money, I'll teach you this. But wait a minute. But if you pay me this much money, I'll teach you more. I'm not sure what else to say. In conclusion, don't buy cheap se. It's garbage, okay? Anyway, people always email me and they're like, what about this? What about that? And it's like, it's always like some cheap thing, right? It's like, it's like 900 backlinks for like $3 or something. It's like, dude, what do you think? Do you think it's good? Let me ask you a question. Do you think that somebody who has 900 high quality websites to provide backlinks on is going to sell them for $3? Now think about that. 900 backlinks for $3. That's. What is that, like 3 cents per backlink or something? No, it's garbage. Just stop. But I don't even. I don't even make recommendations ever, for any of that stuff. I teach you how to do it so you can figure it out yourself, because that's the only way to do it, okay? Because like I said, the SEO industry is full of charlatans and you have to comprehend how it works so that you know what you're buying. I do not have any shortcuts for that, unfortunately, but I probably have an episode that answers the questions that you have anyway. So go find it. Or you can email me and say, hey, I want to know about this. Which episode is it? That's cool. This episode is very long now, so we're trying to not exceed 10 hours this week for editing this episode. So I'm gonna end it now if this was helpful. In conclusion, stop buying inexpensive SEO because it's garbage. Okay? All done. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit, or you can email me@hellorumpyseoguy.com if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders, because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder, and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks, and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast, because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so@patreon.com grumpy SEO guy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday when we talk about mistakes you do not want to make.