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Verbatim text
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to episode number 133 of the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee. And on today’s show, we’ll be talking with Chris Castillo. He’ll be sharing his journey from web designer through to SEO specialist and marketer for businesses around the world. A brilliant story, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. This podcast is brought to you by the Agency Trailblazer community. Is agency life stressing you out? Then it is our mission to help you build an agency that you love. We’ve created a community which includes the agency reset roadmap that will allow you to get your agency back on the right track.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
We also have lots of noble straight to the point, easy to consume workshops. We have a thriving community of other agency owners. And we all wrap up every month with a mastermind call with myself and sometimes a special guest where we unpack your questions. For more details, check out agency trailblazer.com. Welcome to a conversation with me, your illustrious host. Yes. That’s my new title. Lee Jackson.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And today, we have on the show from sunny Toronto in Ontario, Canada, mister Chris Castillo. How are you today?
Chris Castillo:
Good, man. How are you?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. I’m I’m doing alright. I’ve I’ve already had, about 8 coffees. I mean, it is 5 o’clock in the afternoon for us, so I am completely wired.
Chris Castillo:
That that’s about that’s boud par for the course for me as
Lee Matthew Jackson:
well. Yeah. But it’s kind of midday for you now.
Chris Castillo:
It it is, actually. Yeah. It’s actually, almost lunchtime, but by this time of the day, I’m usually about 3 cups in, so I’m a little bit behind you.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No worries. Now I love the fact that you’re saying aboat because that is a classic Canadian accent. And I just love the accents that we get on this show. And people will know I hail from Canada too, and I sound nothing like you. Yeah. That’s true. I wish I had your accent, mate.
Chris Castillo:
Oh, really? Slightly jealous. That’s interesting.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
We’ve got recordings of me as a little kid with a little Canadian accent, and then I pretty much lost it the minute we came to England and started going to school here and everything. That was it. All all all remnants of my accent gone forever. I try and catch it on purpose, but I just can’t.
Chris Castillo:
But but you got Maybe I should have missed that point. Yeah. True. Well, I I like your accent better. It’s very it’s very elegant, and, and, it it sounds it sounds better than than a boot, I would say, I would argue.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I love it. I just love the Canadian accent. And my favorite film well, one of my favorite films is also Canadian Bacon. But anyway, have you seen Canadian Bacon?
Chris Castillo:
I have not. I haven’t seen it. You’ve got
Lee Matthew Jackson:
to watch Canadian Bacon. It’s a John Candy film. It’s a classic from the eighties. It’s actually a really rubbish film, but it’s got John Candy in it, so it’s just really funny. And America declares war on Canada, because they need to boost the economy. And it’s just a brilliantly funny it’s a brilliantly funny movie.
Chris Castillo:
That’s hilarious.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But anyway, that is completely off topic. Folks, if you don’t know who Chris Castillo is, and you all know I do this every single show. I’m sorry. Chris Castillo is a digital marketer from Toronto. So for anyone who doesn’t know what a digital marketer does, Chris, do you mind just telling us a little bit about yourself, and what you do?
Chris Castillo:
Yeah. Sure. So, so I actually started my business a couple of years ago, and I started out sort of coincidentally by accident, I would say, or or sort of by coincidence because I, I was on Facebook, and there’s just somebody in in my Facebook group, I guess, of, extended friends, let’s call it. And, they, they need help with a with a website, and so I I have I’ve had I’ve I’ve always fiddled with, Internet technologies and things like that. So was definitely able to help them out. And, so I started a company back then, doing web design, and it was very shortsighted. I actually named it named the business was called Code Arts, and the the idea behind it was that, you know, code is art and that you’re putting together something from pieces. And, didn’t really I I learned a lot of lessons early on and and transitioned, eventually from just doing web design to doing more, sort of, like, holistic type services where I not holistic, that’s the wrong word.
Chris Castillo:
Essentially, where I where I’m providing sort of, like, a one stop shop for everything that a business would need. And so Mhmm. You know, that’s where I I I sort of branched off into being more of a digital marketer as opposed to, like, a web designer or anything else.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Chris Castillo:
So, you know, I I I focus a lot on the business side of, of their kind of digital strategies. Right? And so that’s kind of what I do, and I have a, my my company now is called Propel Digital Media Solutions, and so that’s sort of what what I aim to do is try to help businesses grow and get their products and services in front of more people.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I do love your original title, by the way, but I am a developer. So, obviously, I’m gonna warm to that. It sounds like a beautiful a beautiful company name. So so my understanding then is is that you are more of a consultancy as well as providing some of the physical services or digital services that go with it. So you would go into a business, and you would say, okay. Let’s take a look at your digital strategy. Okay. Alright.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’re missing social. You’re missing, I don’t know, SEO. You’re missing, content marketing. You’re missing all of these. And, also, we can provide you a range of services to help support you with some of these and or all of these. Would that be a fair summation of what you would be up to nowadays?
Chris Castillo:
You did you did a really good job, Lee. Yeah. I I I mean, that’s basically it. I mean, I think I think the reason why I don’t sort of, out of the gate, promote myself as a web designer is essentially because everything else that I do is based on a company having a solid website in the first place. So Mhmm. Sort of positioning myself in marketing all of the other services indirectly sort of really like, it has a nice segue into promoting, like, the web design side of things. So, yeah. Absolutely.
Chris Castillo:
I I I I look I’m trying to look at basically where opportunities are that a business can, can capture to be able to get more, customers, get more traffic, get more leads, all that kind of fun stuff.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Now a lot of people listening are web developers. We build websites for companies all around the world. And one of the problems is we aren’t all digital marketing experts, which I think is a it’s it’s difficult, isn’t it? We understand how to build a website. We understand what a client may want, but we we we and the client may not necessarily have the bigger picture, may not necessarily understand the strategy, or we may not be SEO experts, for example, in being able to build something that is going to enable said strategies or empower that SEO, etcetera. So, I mean, is there any advice you could give people who are planning web builds? Like, what sort of questions should we be asking from the get go before we even get to the point of building a website?
Chris Castillo:
That’s a really good question. You know, there’s there it is really tough because there’s so many topics, under the digital marketing kind of umbrella that you can really get carried away in terms of all the different, sort of tangents that you can go into with with regards to your learning and things like that. You know, you go you go from things like conversion rate optimization, then you get, you know, SEO, obviously, and and you have all sorts of other things that that come into play. And, yes. Like, one of the things that I find is really, one of the most important things to really get a good grasp on early on is to get an idea of, like, what what the the client’s target audience is. Like, who are they, and what are their interests? Right? And, like, a lot of the times, you know, you’re kind of you’re sort of guessing a lot of the times, obviously, using some some information that you have about them, but you’re you’re making educated assumptions about, you know, what what these people are and what their interests are. But, you know, by by setting some sort of, like, a baseline for that early on in a project, you can start to make start to plan things and, implement things that then later on, you can start to it’s like the whole saying. Right? Like, what what gets measured or what what what gets tracked gets measured.
Chris Castillo:
Right? I think that’s the same. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, early on, getting a good I idea of what the the target audience is, their sort of personas, you can start to implement changes down the line and and and get an idea of how that how those personas are reacting to those changes. And because you’ve already set established sort of, like, a baseline for what that persona’s interest and stuff are, then you can start to, iterate on that and make changes that will kind of appeal more and more to them. Right? So, I think as, like, as web designers, we get kinda stuck in this in the design cycle of, you know, wireframe like, get the client brief, and then you go through the wireframing and fidelities, and then you get and you get stuck in this kind of normal pattern, but I think trying to think outside of that, and I think sometimes peep maybe people are afraid to kinda step outside of that pattern because, you know, maybe it they feel like it’s not really their space to be, you know, asking certain questions and things like that. And I I definitely felt like that at one point. But Yeah.
Chris Castillo:
When you start asking really, you know, really deep questions about the business and their clients and things like that, like, it definitely it definitely helps to to position you sort of differently than than any other web designer out there. Right? It really helps the client to to to to get understand that that you really want to understand their business and help them. Right? So I think that’s really, really crucial early on.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I absolutely 1000% agree. You know, who are they? So who is who is the website being built for? But, actually, who is that who is your client serving? What are they interested in? What are the problems that your client are fixing for this audience, etcetera? And then everything else goes from there. And a website actually becomes just a very small part of it, doesn’t it? Because, you know, what is it that you want to achieve? Alright. We need to generate leads. How can we generate those leads? Well, there are multiple channels, one of which includes having a website. And by having this conversation of starting with who first, that actually opens up a hell of a lot more opportunities than just a web build. But, like, I think like you said as well, it also even if all you build is the website, it also gives the client that feeling of, holy crap. This this company really cares.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
They wanna they really wanna help us achieve our goals, etcetera. And that makes you stand out way above anyone else who simply says, how many pages? Okay. So you need a 5 page website. You’ve got a brand? Great. You’ve got a brand. Okay. Fine. So, so we’re good there.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Alright. What color schemes are you looking And all that sort of stuff. And send us a list of links that you really like of other websites. It’s I mean, they’re all great questions, and you can produce a beautiful website from that. And that’s not terrible. That’s not bad. But having these really important conversations, I think, are absolutely a game changer. And I assume, like, if we go back into a time machine, at what point did you realise that? Can you kind of share any stories of when you came to this realisation and how things changed for your business? Because I presume you were starting in a similar vein of just building websites.
Chris Castillo:
Yeah. Absolutely. I I learned I learned a few really big lessons early on. One of which was that, you know, a website in and of itself is a fairly it’s like an empty vessel. Right? Like, you don’t really have anything that’s gonna propel it forward. And so Mhmm. That’s one that was really one of the biggest reasons for I mean, I was only, I think, about 6 months into my my business when I decided to rebrand the whole thing. And, and and and that’s when I when I went over to, you know, Propel as my as my my business name because, you know, CodeArt was just so so, you know, it was so specific to just web design that I didn’t wanna just be locked in that.
Chris Castillo:
I wanted, you know, businesses to know that I can do more than that, and and that and they really do need more than that. Right? I mean, just a website on its own is not very effective. And so I actually invested, quite a bit of money. Actually, back then, it was pretty much all the money that I had accrued from my business at the time, which is only about 3,000 or so dollars, but I invested pretty much most of it into into into learning marketing. And so I did it through, a, sort of like a mentorship, like a coaching program, with a gentleman named Steve Dean, who’s actually part of the of the Facebook group. And he runs, a a a course for, to to help people build a high ticket SEO agency. And so I went through his program. And, I mean, I’d always known SEO, and I’ve always known a certain, marketing components and things like that.
Chris Castillo:
But, I really wanted to fast track everything because I did not wanna just, you know, kind of trickle along. And so I did that, and and it was actually a a really, really good investment for me. I I was able to, transition over from, you know, just building websites to actually focusing on sales and, and things like that for businesses. And so one of the things that one of the reasons why I did this also was because I had the first client that I got, early in my in my business. You know, their website was great, and they were super happy with it, but they just were not getting any more business from it. And that’s sort of what they they they wanted or expected from it. You know, obviously, in in in my in that project, there was never a discussion about increasing traffic or increasing leads or anything like that. That was never discussed because I didn’t know that that was important at that point.
Chris Castillo:
And so, but, you know, then I I really wanted to go back to this client and say, you know advise them and say, this is what you need. Right? Like, I have a solution now for you, and and this is what it is. And so I was able to do that, and, within 3 months, I actually had them on the first page of Google search results for a lot of their highly relevant, highly, sought after keywords, and their business just started increasing. And that’s when I realized I had this big epiphany that I was like, wow. This stuff really works. Right? Like, you know, SEO and marketing and and it was it was more than just SEO because they also had a a few other things going. Like, they were building an email list and and remarketing to those people, which is obviously a really, really, really powerful marketing tool. They were doing a lot a lot of other things like social media as well.
Chris Castillo:
But, you know, their their SEO was just growing and growing, and it was just continually performing better and better. And and just I think it was I think I think it was probably earlier in this year around, February, I wanna say, that I posted an update and, to to the to the Facebook group, and I showed them how their their traffic essentially tripled since we launched that site. So they were getting roughly around, like, I think it was about just under a 1000, monthly visitors. And, in March April, they broke the 3,000 visitor mark. So it was, like, really, really cool to have been a part of that throughout their journey to be able to to actually say that I I I I I helped them grow their business significantly, which is really amazing. That’s cool. I know that’s probably a really long winded answer, but, I mean, essentially, you know, it was kind of
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I I like long winded answers because it allows me to draw from that, a, some lessons, but also a whole load more questions. And one of my favorite questions to ask people who love on SEO, and I will let you know I’ll explain something that happened to me recently as well after your answer. But we’ve had now, I don’t know, maybe 5 or 6 different SEO people on the show. And my favorite question to ask, not because I believe in in the statement, but I love hearing it different people’s answers is I hear a lot of the time because of social media that SEO is dead. So what would your opinion be on that?
Chris Castillo:
So, yeah, I I hear it. I mean, even in SEO groups, you hear it. Right? It’s this, like, doomsday theory that that that SEO is going under and that it’s it’s not effective. But, you know, I I passionately disagree with that. And, simply just from, like, a practical standpoint, just from seeing results I’ve I’ve achieved, I mean, it’s hard to to, denounce SEO if if you’ve actually gotten results from it. So but, I don’t think it’s I don’t think it’s dead, and I don’t think it’s dying. I think it’s just evolving. And I think that’s probably I would I would guess what the other SEOs that you’ve had on this podcast have said.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Pretty much exactly the same. Except someone said the word changing instead of evolving, you went very fancy with a big word there. So I like
Chris Castillo:
Well, it it is. Right? And I and I say and and it I I I think evolving is a better word, if I may say so. And the reason for it is because you really have more technology that’s being introduced into the whole landscape that SEO sort of operates within. You know, you have things like voice search. You have things like Google Lens, which is, changing, like, the local SEO landscape. You have all sorts of these, like, you have Alexa and these, virtual assistants that are changing things out. And so it just it’s just evolving, right, in how we interact with these tools, to find the information that we that we’re looking for. So there’s always gonna be op there’s always gonna be ways to optimize for those technologies.
Chris Castillo:
You know? Is it gonna be more difficult? Maybe. But I would I would argue that it’s gonna be more difficult if you don’t have good quality content and you’re not actually providing value back to people. That’s when it becomes more difficult. Right? And I think that’s how it’s always been. Right? You’ve been able to get away with a lot of things in the past, manipulative sort of strategies, and little by little, they get knocked off the map. And it’s just sort of how the how the game goes. Right?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I totally agree. SEO is definitely changing. And I’ll be honest with you, mate. I mean, for a long time, even having interviewed a lot of people, with regards to SEO and and reading up on a lot of articles. I’ve always assumed, however, that the most reliable way of generating leads was through social media. And I can’t remember if I shared this on the podcast before, but something happened to us very recently. I mean, we’ve just recorded a whole slew of episodes, so I may have mentioned this to listeners before. If I have, I apologize.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But recently, we’ve had 4 leads, for big projects from New York. And I’m like, how the heck is this suddenly happened? Why why are people from New York filling in our form? So somehow, accidentally, unbeknownst to us, we don’t know how or why or what search terms, but somehow, we’re ranking really well in New York right now. And we’ve had 4 different companies connect with us for big projects. We’ve sent out 4 proposals based on that. Okay? So I have done no specific SEO, but I do know that somehow something has worked on our website that has made us rank very well for something along the lines of WordPress agency in that particular region, which is therefore led to 4 inquiries, which is 4 more inquiries than all of the money I’ve ever spent on social media marketing, which really, like, blows my mind and has massively swayed my opinion. And I think someone said a few few months ago on one of the episodes that we had and we did touch on SEO was they were talking about buyer intent. And I’ve often thought that I need to put my ad with a compelling message in in social media to say, hey, Look at my widget. It’s amazing.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That sounded wrong, didn’t it? Oh my gosh. But I’m gonna leave that in, and I’m sure all the dirty minded people are chuckling right now. Shame on you. But anyway, let’s keep going. So, yeah, I’m like social media. Hey. Look at my widget. But the problem is is someone’s on social media.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
They’re not actually looking for that thing at that at that moment. And I have to come up with a really compelling message to draw them in. However, you know, there were 4 different companies in New York that were all specifically looking for something at that time. They had buyer intent. They were looking for that thing. And they found us because we ranked higher than maybe some of the local, WordPress agencies. And we, therefore, attracted those 4 inquiries. And it’s, you know, I’ve learned it’s it’s frustrating, I I think, the way us humans learn.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You see, I already knew most of this, but it actually took those 4 inquiries a couple of weeks ago to allow me to put all of these different threads I’ve been slowly learning over the last 2 years And to come to that eureka moment of holy moly, you know, that is really something in SEO. And the reason me and you are talking is because I’ve literally just been, I’ve been I found your I was introduced by I think it was Kyle Van Dusen who’s been on the show before. He’s been doing your SEO course, and he’s encouraged me to jump on it as well because I was explaining to him, you know, exactly what’s just happened to me. He’s introduced us, and we’re getting you on the show as well. So, folks, if you wanna check this particular, course out, it’s on agency trailblazer.comforward/superchargeseo. So if you’re listening to this, be great to know if you’re gonna go on this, course as well. And let us know in the WP Innovator group how you’re getting on with it. I’m gonna be sharing my experiences as well, of the course because I’m really excited to go through that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But can you just tell us a little bit more about your course, what what it entails, why you started it, and all of that good stuff?
Chris Castillo:
Yeah. For sure. 1st first of all, I I I do wanna say it it is really frustrating how how we as humans learn because I’ve had so many situations where I know that I need to do you know, that something is a is is a really good thing for me to be doing, and I just it’s not until it really kicks me in the in the in the in the butt that I really actually go ahead to it. And it, yeah, it’s frustrating, but and and that’s kinda how how I’ve how how I’ve experienced, like, you know, the like, one of the one of the clients that I had actually, the the lady that that I built their her traffic up to to 300%, she she actually, was just, like, really, really opposed to like, she did not believe in SEO, did not believe in SEO. And then it’s like, as we were seeing these numbers grow, I said, look. Your your traffic’s at a 125% of what it used to be. Do you believe now? She’s like, no. I still don’t really believe.
Chris Castillo:
And I said, okay. Well, let’s just give it a little bit longer. Traffic goes up to a 150%. Do you believe it now? And she’s always, you know, I just really you know, I’m not sure I’m not too I’m not too sure that it’s it’s all SEO. Okay. And then when she got when I got to 300%, and she then she finally caved in. Said, okay. No.
Chris Castillo:
This SEO stuff really that really does have some weight to it. But, you know, when I came up with this course because, you know, in the in the making money with web design Facebook group, I’ve I’ve been a fairly active member there where I post up regularly about, you know, just thinking about my business and try to help other people out with information that I have that I can share that can can benefit them. And, you know, so I I post up regularly about some of this progress that I would make with certain clients. And and people would ask me, you know, like, well, how how are you doing your local SEO? How are you doing your keyword research? How are you doing like, how are you how are you, projecting, like, the returns that you’re getting to to people? How are you, how are you actually, you know, coming to the conclusion that you can get them onto page 1? Like, all these questions that, I mean, I know I have all the answers to, or at least my answers to. But, it’s just so such so much detail and so much information that goes into them? Like, you can’t really answer any one of those questions succinctly. And so I have I I just said, you know, maybe there’s an opportunity here where I can produce some video content for people, where I can reach out to I I can extend my reach out just past one person and and kind of cover, you know, this, like, a larger demographic of people that are looking for this information. And so I reached out to Rob from the Facebook group. He’s the one that that that runs the Making Money with Web Design Group and and sort of proposed this option for him to for me for me to create this course.
Chris Castillo:
And, he loved the idea, and and we started just started working on putting it together. And the the whole basis or the whole premise behind it was to to help people who like web designers or anybody that’s creating websites to create websites that are actually based off of research and and and that will have some sort of a strategy in it in that project that will actually improve the the overall success rate of those websites. Right? And it’s been the success rate obviously being measured in either, you know, sales or or traffic or it could be followers. Right? Because even, you know, some some websites, maybe that’s what they need. Right? So, but and so that’s what the the the goal was, was to try to educate web designers in in a kind of, like, a short and succinct way. I mean, it’s, like, 17 video modules, but I don’t know if that’s really succinctly. But, you know, it it’s really it could be really, overwhelming to try to collect all of this information from all the resources online and and and filter out what’s what’s right and what’s wrong and what’s effective and what isn’t. And although there are a lot of resources online, it’s just, it could be quite time consuming to do all that, and and and there’s a lot of guesswork sometimes that’s involved in it.
Chris Castillo:
So, yeah, I just wanted to put together something that can help others to achieve similar results to what I got. Right? There there so the the whole course is 5 and a half hours of continuous video. Every single one of these modules are built around a very specific, topic, and they all piece everything together. And, every one of them, as far as, you know, the feedback that I’ve gotten and and my intent behind was to make sure that they were actionable and that I can give you practical ways of doing them. In fact, I actually rerecorded a whole bunch of video modules because, originally, I was, like, my my sort of SEO tool, my go to tool was SEMrush. But SEMrush, you know and and any of these sort of, leading tools, look, that they’re they have a pretty hefty price tag. Right? Like, s SEMrush, I pay, like, a 100 year a 100 US for for per month for my subscription. And I didn’t want any, you know, what like, if if you’re doing web design, obviously, you’re not gonna wanna pay a 100 US for a per month for one of these tools.
Chris Castillo:
But so I I I actually realized that Ahrefs actually has a 7 day trial for $7. And I thought to myself, you know, that’s actually a really cool opportunity because, I can show you how to do all of the same stuff I do in SEMrush. I can show you how to do it in Ahrefs. And if you have a project that’s coming up, you can you can sign up for a 1 week, 7 day trial with, bang out all your research, and put together your your strategy, and then you can you’re you’re off to the races with your project. Right? And so I actually ended up rerecording a whole bunch of videos so that I can just show how all of this stuff is done through Ahrefs. But I also kept the the SEMrush video in there as well just in case anybody wanted to to to take a look at that tool as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So that kind of lowers, I presume, the the cost of entry for certain people because something like a SEMrush is quite expensive, isn’t it, as a as a tool?
Chris Castillo:
Yeah. Absolutely. And that that’s one of the things, like, what one of the reasons why, you know, I moved to promoting my my business as more of digital marketing is because, like, it just sorta covered all the costs of all the software. You really need to be pushing the service more and not just doing it as sort of, like, as like, a value add, if you wanna call it that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. You don’t want it to be an afterthought. It needs to be a part of the initial plan, doesn’t it?
Chris Castillo:
Yeah. Absolutely. And and, you know, obviously, a lot of designers right now probably haven’t factored that in, and so I wanted to give them an option where they can, like you said, it’s a lower lower barrier of entry. So, hopefully, I mean, it’ll help people to sort of get their feet wet with some of these tools and see what Yeah. You know, what what kind of information they can really extract that because they’re they’re really great tools.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So so what I’m thinking and and our our strategy for taking on this course is this this we wanna do twofold. We wanna learn SEO for ourselves to work out how the hell we ranked for New York, and how we can replicate that, and actually become very targeted with regards to what we’re doing. But also, by learning that, potentially, we might then be able to offer this as part of an overall strategy on future web builds that we’re doing, where we can instead I mean, we do tend to get third parties involved very early on or agencies approach us who already have SEO experts, etcetera. But very often, it’s a thing that is missing in a lot of key areas of agency life. So it might be something that we could potentially offer. Or if we don’t offer it and we still continue to partner with people, I feel like we would be better prepared, as it were, or have a better broader understanding of the the ever changing world of SEO to actually have better conversations with these SEO experts or with our clients. So for any agencies that are listening in, what would be a a good approach to starting to bring in the new SEO skills that they may be learning either from you and your course or through, any sources that they’re learning? Because I I guess there’s a bit of a fear factor of, or I’m only just I’ve only just learned some of this, who am I to start selling SEO, or who am I to start advising. So have you got any kind of advice or any pep talk that you could give listeners to help them, kind of, evolve their business beyond maybe just the web build?
Chris Castillo:
Yeah. Okay. So that’s a great question, and I’m I’m glad that you asked it. Like, I think I actually talk about this in the course about how one of the modules is actually upselling web design with SEO. And Mhmm. It goes into how you can leverage SEO to produce, obviously, to produce better results for your clients, but but also to to position yourself differently on a on a higher sort of level than the other, companies or or contractors or, web designers that are gonna be pitching any particular product. And, so what I would and and and so in the in the module, I talk about all the all the different types of questions you can ask a client early on in the sort of client discovery phase, that that’ll help you, to get a better understanding of their business, but also to get a better understanding of how you can produce better results for them. And the reason why I included this module in the course is because I’ve actually this is what I’ve used to to dis to differentiate myself from everybody else in my particular city.
Chris Castillo:
Like, I’ve I’ve been up against agencies. In fact, I just had a project that I closed at roughly around the $5,000 price point for it was a simple it’s a simple 5 page website. Right? Mhmm. And I closed that at 5,000, and the, the business owner was actually pitched. He told me he said, I I got I got, pricing anywhere between from, like, $500 for my site, and I had one agency pitch me 13,000 for the site. And he goes, you’re somewhere in between there. But the reason why he ended up choosing to to go with me was because I was so focused from the very beginning about learning his business and how I can increase his sales and traffic and all that good stuff. And so, you know, I didn’t I do I I could have easily have closed that, that deal at, like, 2 or 3,000 and still, done a done a decent job for myself in terms of revenue.
Chris Castillo:
I I close that at 5 because I know the value that that, obviously, the project’s gonna bring to them. But what I would suggest for agencies is, you know, leverage leverage this information to close your projects, to to to differentiate yourself from other people, and establish better rapport with your clients. And don’t necessarily charge more for your first project. Just just use it to close the project and then use it to deliver better results. And then once you start seeing those results, then you can use that, the the the proof in the pudding, as as the saying goes that you can get those results to then upsell your designs down the road knowing that you you, you know, the work that you’re putting together, the research that you’re doing is all actually producing the results that you intend. And so that’s kind of the way that I’ve done things, and it’s worked out really well for me and, the the the the sort of the path that I recommend to anybody else that’s looking to undergo the same sort of, venture.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I love that answer because you’re not saying, hey, go and do a course, any course, and then instantly sell SEO services. What you’re what you’re saying is it’s something that, we’ve often done is start to learn something for yourself, then start to apply it where you can as a value add. You don’t necessarily need to charge it necessarily to your clients at first because you’re you’re you’re you’re giving your client extra above and beyond service whilst you continue to learn the craft as it were. And then when you’ve built up that confidence, by all means, that can now become a line item. That can become a monthly or a yearly contract of a particular service. But it’s it I think what you’re saying is it’s all about defining the way that you do things, as a company, and and being able to kind of almost productize those skills once you’ve got that experience and what you once you’ve got those results as well, like you were explaining earlier. Saying, well, when we did this, we were able to produce these sorts of results. Therefore, we can really approach this, and we can recommend what we did last time along with the following other options as well.
Chris Castillo:
Yeah. Absolutely. Like, one of the things and the the reason why I sort of, go with that recommendation too is because, like, in the course that I’ve put together for Rob’s group is I, you know, I I don’t go into, like, advanced SEO, like, things like link building and and and content marketing and outreach and things like that. Like, that’s the whole course on in and of itself. Right? And it really once you start getting into that kind of stuff, it really gets very, the work the workload gets a lot a lot, greater. There’s a lot more time investment and things like that that go into it. But, you know, just doing the basic stuff, I mean, it’s really not complicated. It’s just a matter of not knowing it.
Chris Castillo:
Right? Like, a lot of us just don’t really know, all the things that we need to be considering when we’re when we’re putting together a website from an SEO perspective. And it’s it’s just knowing these basic things can produce, like, especially for local businesses. Like, that’s one of the things that I try to focus on as well is, like, it it like, it all the SEO really comes down to, like, the effectiveness of it or the or the results that you get from, like, the certain work that you put into it all comes down to sort of the the comp the competitiveness of the market that your clients in. And so, like, for, like, local businesses, a lot of the times, the stuff that I teach in in the course is, like, really all they need to be able to get up to the first page of of search results. It’s just the stuff that I teach plus some good content, and you’re and you’re, like, just you’re off to the races. And so, you know, it’s really, the I think the course is a very, very good entry point into understanding SEO. And then from there, deciding whether you want to start branching out into more advanced things like content marketing and, link building and things like that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Think as well, it’s it’s good to start with that sort of base, isn’t it? Understand it as an agency. I I will definitely hold my hand up. You know, I’ve I’ve interviewed my fair share of SEO people, and it’s only been the last few weeks after my little moment and those experiences where I’ve kind of realized that I actually need to become a bit more intentional because, you know, I’m very great I’m very good at putting my stake in the ground and saying, hey, I do this one thing, and I do it really well. But, actually, I can do that one thing really well and better if I can broaden my own skills. I don’t necessarily have to, provide those skills as then an add on service. It could just be that I generate better leads for my own business doing what I already do. But it also potentially means as well that when I’m building websites, if I can understand in more detail Chris Chris Castillo’s and other SEO experts’ world a little bit more, then that means that I’m going to be hopefully, I am going to be better at building those websites because I’m not going to be making some mistakes that I’m sure I’m probably making when I’m, you know, setting up the permalink structure of WordPress or, you know, integrating with a third party SEO plugin, and when I’m advising on what on a page builder or what plugins are being used and all of that good stuff. So I’m excited.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m gonna be letting people know how how my journey through your course is going, on, inside of the Facebook group. Folks, if you are not a member of our Facebook group, you should be. It’s over on wpinnovator.com forward slash group. If you’re interested in finding out a little bit more about Chris Castillo’s course, you can head over to agency trailblazer.comforward/superchargese0. That’s superchargese0, all one word, no spaces. I’ll make sure there is a link in the show notes. But, Chris, thank you for sharing with you with us. No.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Thank you for sharing with us your journey. It’s most appreciated. And thanks for creating this course. Like I said, I’m really excited to be going through this. And, and also thanks for helping me unpack my own brain because, essentially, that’s what I do on this podcast. I chat with people, I learn from them, and it’s like getting free consultancy. So, yet again, I’ve managed to nail some free consultancy from someone online in the guise of a podcast. So I really appreciate you giving your time.
Chris Castillo:
Oh, it’s very, very cool to be here, and I I look forward to hearing, what sort of results and and things like that you get from from the course. So, tag me when when you when you post up.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I will. And we’re now Facebook buddies as well as of recently, so I’ll certainly be reaching out and letting you know how that one’s going. I I wanna try and replicate the New York results somewhere else, so that should be interesting. Mate
Chris Castillo:
Yeah. For sure.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Last thing then, how can people connect with you? And then we’re gonna boot you off the show.
Chris Castillo:
So, yeah, that’s great. You can connect with me through Facebook. 1st and foremost, I’m pretty much, I live on Facebook, sadly to say.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s cool.
Chris Castillo:
Zuckerberg has probably more of my information than anybody else’s. So you can connect with me on Facebook. I’ll, I think it’s just facebook slash Chris Castillo, but I can’t remember exactly what the link is.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Do you not pronounce the l’s? I’ve been pronouncing the l’s the whole time, and you didn’t correct me.
Chris Castillo:
You know what, mate? It’s fine. It’s just a common thing. I I I’ve I’ve grown accustomed to it. I don’t correct people anymore because
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No worries. I I’ve grabbed you a URL. It’s not what you said, but I’ll put it in the show notes. So people can connect with you
Chris Castillo:
there. Yeah. Thanks. And and if you could you can also visit my website at www.pdms.ca if you wanna, take a look there as well. It’s not, quite finished, but, you know, I’m too busy with all this client work that I haven’t finished my website, so shame on me. But eventually, I will be, getting it up and I will be posting, getting my blog up and put it posting a lot of, good, useful content there. So look out for it in the future.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And I love the cartoons and the rockets and all of those sorts of things on the on the site. I was looking at it earlier absolutely loved it. The kind of the moon and everything you had going on on there so that’s pdms.ca all over the links are in the show notes and with that mate thank you for your time we will bid you adieu.
Chris Castillo:
Cheers, Lee.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And that wraps up today’s show. In next week’s episode, we’re gonna be talking with Adam Hempe from Better Proposals, talking about all the things that I’m probably doing wrong with my own proposals, as well as celebrating the few things that I’m actually doing right. And it is a really practical episode full of brilliant advice that I was able to start jotting down and actually start actioning within minutes. So brilliant episode. Can’t wait to share it with you. If you are an Agency Trailblazer community member, then you can access this episode in just a couple of days. So be sure to check out the resources area over on Agencytrailblazer.com. Have a wonderful week, and we will see you in the next episode.
