[00:00:05] Matt Diamante: So this might be counterintuitive, but stop working in your business as much.

And start working on your business more.

Let's say you're a nail salon. And you're like, well, I'm sitting around. I'm just waiting for somebody to walk through the door.

I don't have any appointments today.

Whatever it might be. Open up your laptop, open up your computer, grab your phone and start creating content.

[00:00:21] Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO Show

[00:00:21] Crystal: Welcome to the simple and smart SEO show podcast!

I'm your host, Crystal Waddell, here to bridge the gap between SEO strategy and real world business success. By bringing you insights, stories, and conversations from the SEO community and beyond.

Grab a coffee. Or your favorite tea. And let's dive into Smarter SEO for your business.

[00:00:39] Get Found Book Intro

[00:00:39] Crystal: you've recently wrote a book called Get Found.

[00:00:42] Matt Diamante: Yeah, I have it right here.

[00:00:43] Crystal: Why does it need to exist right now?

[00:00:45] Matt Diamante: So in this book I break down like all the different elements of SEO.

I wrote this for like if you're 10 years old, you should be able to understand this. Like my parents who know nothing about the internet basically.

Can read this, understand it, and you know, really start [00:01:00] optimizing their site. So it goes from everything from like, what is a heading tag or what is a title tag? If you don't know what that stuff is, like you should read this book.

But it talks about that all the way to how to do SEO on your site. How to find keywords, what keywords are, right?

What are the different types of intent that people are, going to Google? Like are they looking for information? Are they looking for a product? Are they trying to buy something? Are they trying to you know, compare options? Like what part of the journey they're on? We talk about, I say we, I talk about you know, what types of keywords, what types of intent.

What types of content you should be creating on your website. And also like words like content. People don't understand that. So like all of that is broken down in this book. So it is a complete like start to finish, everything you need to know about doing sEO.

[00:01:43] Crystal: Awesome. So it's not just for people who want to become SEO experts. It's

[00:01:49] Matt Diamante: No.

[00:01:49] Who The Book Helps

[00:01:49] Crystal: business owners who are looking for clarity. And understanding.

[00:01:53] Matt Diamante: That's the biggest audience. So I've, I've sold like thousands of copies of these. Which is insane. That like one, you know, writing a [00:02:00] book is like a whole thing, but then like selling the book and marketing the book is a whole other thing.

But most of the people who are buying it are small business owners who are like, I just want to understand this stuff.

I wanna be able to do it myself. 

[00:02:11] SEO Trust Issues

[00:02:15] Matt Diamante: And or maybe they have an agency they're working with and they're like, I don't really trust these guys. Right? Like I've been burned in the past.

I run, also run an agency that we do this for clients. Most of the clients who come to us are like, I've been burned in the past, right?

SEO doesn't work. SEO is a scam. SEO is this, that, whatever. And I'm like, well, you know, first of all, if you want to know exactly what it is, like I wrote an entire book about it. So you can go check that out. But additionally, like if they wanted to do it themselves, this book empowers you to do it yourself.

[00:02:38] Crystal: So your visibility online has gotten you in front of and connected to people like Stu McLaren.

[00:02:45] Matt Diamante: Yeah.

[00:02:46] Crystal: talk to us about how those types of connections happened for you?

[00:02:49] Matt Diamante: Okay. 

[00:02:50] Meeting Stu McLaren

[00:02:50] Matt Diamante: Stu lives like half an hour away from me. Which I had no idea. I was like, oh, there's this big like membership guy. And my, one of my friends recommended following him. He is like, yeah, he [00:03:00] also lives local. I was like, that's crazy.

So back in, I think it was 2023 or 2024.

Instagram had a program where they basically were trying to coach Canadian creators. So I got lumped into a group with Stu, amongst a bunch of other people. And we kind of hit it off.

And we just started connecting outside of the group and like sharing advice and sharing tips and all this kind of stuff.

And then Stu was like, you should come down to my office. Like, we need help with SEO.

I want you to like, not train my team, but like, give us some pointers. And I was like, absolutely. So went down you know, chatted with his team, all this kind of stuff. 

[00:03:34] Membership Growth Breakthrough

[00:03:34] Matt Diamante: I have a membership called the Hey Tony Insiders. And I was like, Stu, I'm not getting like people in.

I'm kind of skeptical about what you talk about online. And he, he was like, just do this. And I was like, I don't know, that doesn't seem like it's gonna work. And then I just did it. And then all of a sudden now, I have like hundreds of members in my membership.

All because I was like, What should I do? And it's just really following the, his like expert advice on the topic. But I am digressing so far.

[00:03:59] Crystal: It's okay! [00:04:00] I've taken Stu's program, back when it was Tribe.

[00:04:03] Matt Diamante: Yep.

[00:04:04] Crystal: and so, and now I think it's what membership.

[00:04:07] Matt Diamante: The membership experience.

[00:04:09] Crystal: experience. Yeah. And he's got a app and all that

[00:04:11] Matt Diamante: I.

[00:04:11] Crystal: of stuff.

Watched your membership grow and you know, I'm over here trying to grow a membership.

But I'm in the same spot you were because I'm just like, how could I make people see the value in this?

So it's like how did you make people see the value in it? And how did you keep them once they saw the value?

[00:04:27] Matt Diamante: it's really just the same concept as SEO. People have a problem and they're looking for a solution, and maybe they've tried. You know, taking a course or reading blog posts or watching YouTube videos and they haven't seen success.

And it's like, well, no, it's just because you were doing the wrong stuff or you weren't committed to doing it.

So I'm just solving a problem for people. People take a course, they don't take action. People watch a video, they might save it. They might you know, go through and write blog posts for a couple weeks. Or optimize a couple pages. And be like, this takes too long. I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, right.

[00:04:59] Weekly Work Sessions

[00:04:59] Matt Diamante: And I'm like, [00:05:00] okay, well we're gonna show up every single week. We're gonna do the work together. So what we do, like in my membership.

Is on Mondays we have work sessions. We literally get on Zoom and I'm like, cool, we're gonna write a blog post today. I spend like five minutes going through a couple, you know, here's, you know, an idea that we could all do today. Or, you know, here's how to find a keyword.

And we spend the next like hour using ChatGPT, writing content and editing content and then publishing it. And people are actually getting more SEO done than they've ever got done.

Because they just have that accountability, right? So it's like, problem, solution.

[00:05:30] Crystal: Yeah, that's, that's brilliant. I mean, we meet once a week.

But the topics change and my members have actually requested that same thing of specifically: Hey, can we do one thing. And get one thing done before we leave? You know?

[00:05:44] Matt Diamante: Yeah,

[00:05:44] Crystal: ' cause it's like nobody is at a loss for ideas I think at this point.

[00:05:48] Matt Diamante: There's so much information out there.

[00:05:50] Crystal: yeah.

[00:05:50] Matt Diamante: So it's, it's taking, people don't need more information. They need more action, right? Like, how do I get from where I am to where I want to be? I have the information [00:06:00] already, but like, show me the roadmap. Help me get there. Right there, it's the, like the old Star Wars kind of thing where you are Yoda.

Right. Luke has all the information. He knows, you know, the force, he knows all this kind of stuff.

But like you are the Yoda. And they're Luke. They're the hero of the story, and you're just helping them get from point A to point B.

[00:06:16] Trust Through Consistency

[00:06:16] Crystal: I'm thinking that trust in this digital revolution that we're in, feel like trust compounds faster than anything.

[00:06:24] Matt Diamante: Yeah, and like how do you gain trust if you're not showing up? If you're not showing up for your business. And if you're not doing it consistently.

Like, that's the other thing too, is like if you. Post, let's say one blog post a year ago, or one Instagram video a year ago.

And somebody wants to, you know, say they're looking for a nail salon, they're like, well, is this business still active?

Do they do anything? Like, should I trust them? Should I go to Google Maps and type in the address? Or type in the business and actually go there? Are they gonna be open? Have they been updating their Google business profile?

All that kind of stuff. So for me, I'm like, if somebody watches one of my videos, and they go to my profile like, oh, he's posted like 10 more times since then.

Right? [00:07:00] This person's active. They are actually doing this stuff right now.

It's all about showing up consistently and gaining that trust and you gain trust by being there.

[00:07:08] Crystal: One thing that's kind of funny, like an example from my business, I make wooden letters and

[00:07:12] Matt Diamante: Yeah.

[00:07:13] Crystal: an artist of like the sports art.

I had a photographer who found me on YouTube.

And then he panicked because I hadn't published a YouTube video in months.

And he contacted me, thank goodness he contacted me.

But he's like, are you still in business? And I'm like, yeah, I'm still in business. But because I didn't post on YouTube, which happened to be the one place he was looking.

[00:07:32] Matt Diamante: Yeah. That's the perfect example to what we're talking about here, right? And if you are posting on all these different platforms, regardless of what platform somebody's using. Whether it's to find you or to just scroll through doom scroll content. Like your content will be there. Right? You'll still show up.

[00:07:48] Handling Idea Theft

[00:07:48] Crystal: let's talk about the fear that a lot of people have, and that is that you're gonna put your amazing ideas out there. And then somebody's gonna steal it. And I noticed I saw a post that you made that right after you [00:08:00] launched the book, somebody ripped it off.

Yeah.

What happened there?

[00:08:03] Matt Diamante: So somebody made like a workbook with like almost the exact same color scheme. The same first part of the title, Get found. It was like get found official workbook or whatever. And like to me, I'm like, okay, well somebody's just trying to make money. I looked, they make workbooks for a bunch of other people's books.

And I'm like, you don't need a workbook for this.

Like, literally, it just like tells you all the steps to do. You don't need to write things down, like you don't need to do all of that.

So I posted a video about it. I sent it to my email list, just being like, this is not my book. Don't buy this thing. And then a bunch of people responded like, oh my God, thank God you told me I had ordered it, but I canceled my order.

And I did not tell people to do this, but a bunch of people went and basically negative review bombed it. And it was like, do not buy this book. Like One star.

Matt wrote Get Found and he said, there's no workbook. This is not by him. This person's trying to make money. All this kind of stuff.

And then that book got taken down. Yeah. So I don't know if the author did, or like the, I'm not gonna call them an author, but the person who basically made lined paper in a book [00:09:00] form. I'm not sure if they took it down.

Or if Amazon took it down or what. But that's gone. But I just want to kind of touch on like, putting ideas out there and being worried that somebody else is gonna steal your idea.

Do you know how much work it is to execute an idea? Like, I can, I can talk about like, oh, I, I'm making an AI that does SEO for you.

And here's, you know, all the steps that I use. Most people aren't gonna do that. Like some people are, they might try, maybe one or two people might actually do it, but who cares, right?

If you're showing up consistently over time, that other person's not gonna show up consistently over time, right? And if they do, maybe they deserve to win. But I'm not worried about people stealing ideas because. It's just an idea until it's, you know, created.

[00:09:36] Crystal: That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that.

What about people who are overwhelmed? Overwhelmed by SEO. They're overwhelmed by social media. Now it's ai.

[00:09:45] Matt Diamante: Yeah,

[00:09:46] Crystal: one mindset shift you feel like you could share that makes visibility feel more doable and sustainable?

[00:09:53] One Idea Many Formats

[00:09:53] Matt Diamante: it's not about creating a whole bunch of different content.

Let's just say you start with SEO, you're like, cool.

What's the hottest hot sauce in the world? [00:10:00] Right? That's a question somebody's asking. You write a blog post, answering that question. And in the blog post you say like, ours isn't the hottest in the world, but it is the tastiest, right?

Go check out our hot sauce. So, so you start with that blog post.

Then you go and say, okay, well that's a actually a really great topic to create a video about. So get a bottle of that hot sauce. Or even just like film it on your computer screen, be like, this is the hottest hot sauce in the world. Here's how hot it is, right?

Or it's like me trying the hottest hot sauce in the world.

That is a social media clip that you can post or a video that can reach a lot of people.

That you're not recreating or coming up with a different idea. It's the exact same idea that you just talked about, but you're formatting it in a different way, right?

So. I think the overwhelming thing is like, I don't know what to do on all of these different platforms, right? Whether it's SEO, email marketing.

And even if you're like, cool, I wrote the blog post hottest hot sauce in the world. I post the video of me trying the hottest hot sauce in the world.

Now you can email your newsletter or your, your customers and say.

Hey, I just tried the hottest hot sauce in the world. Here's what happened.

And link to your YouTube video. Or your social media video, or your [00:11:00] blog post that has the video in it. And with that in mind, it's like you're not creating a bunch of new or different content. I mean, you are, but you're also, you're just feeding the ecosystem.

[00:11:10] Crystal: I love that framework! The idea of: I just dot, dot, dot something.

Here's what happened, dot dot dot.

[00:11:17] Matt Diamante: Yeah.

[00:11:17] Crystal: do, because it's so simple, but it's something everybody understands. It is like, I wonder what happened?

[00:11:22] Matt Diamante: Right. So it's like you have that curiosity. And people are curious. They want to know. What happens, that's why we watch social content. Oh my God, have you seen lately that monkey punch that's been going around where he is, he is like bullied by other monkeys and it's like his parents didn't love him and there's like another monkey pushing him away.

And then he has one of those Ikea little monkey guys. Like the plush. And he, oh, there's, there goes some fireworks if you're watching.

But he has this like little plushy and he keeps going to it. And. It's like, what happens? What happens to this guy? Like, I've seen so many videos about like, oh, he's okay now.

Or like, here's how he's doing today.

All this kind of stuff, and it's like, oh, I want to [00:12:00] know how this ends. I need to know this information. Even if it's just like entertainment, right?

[00:12:04] Crystal: Yeah. That's so cool. Now I'm curious. I'll probably go look it up. 

[00:12:07] Word Of Mouth Still Wins

[00:12:09] Crystal: And that reminds me too, of the power of that verbal recommendation.

Because like you're telling us right now, whoever listens to this, if they've not seen it, they'll probably go search it.

When you mentioned to a friend about what you're working on in your business.

And then he said, oh, there's a guy, Stu that

[00:12:23] Matt Diamante: Yeah,

[00:12:23] Crystal: with memberships.

That was a verbal

[00:12:25] Matt Diamante: a hundred percent.

[00:12:26] Crystal: exchange and recommendation. so much is available online, but so much communication about it still happens offline.

Some of the most meaningful close to conversion communication happens offline.

[00:12:38] Matt Diamante: Oh, a hundred percent like recommendation from a friend or somebody you trust is still the most valuable, like conversion currency.

[00:12:45] Promote Your Business Daily

[00:12:45] Crystal: to help somebody kind of get unstuck.

If someone's trying to do everything, what should they stop doing immediately?

[00:12:51] Matt Diamante: So this might be counterintuitive, but stop working in your business as much.

And start working on your business more.

If you're not busy in terms of like actually serving a [00:13:00] customer and helping them get a result.

Let's say you're a nail salon. And you're like, well, I'm sitting around. I'm just waiting for somebody to walk through the door.

I don't have any appointments today. Whatever it might be like, open up your laptop, open up your computer, grab your phone and start creating content.

I spend four hours a day telling people about my business in, in various different ways. So I might be educating them and then they're gonna say, oh, this guy helped me.

That's a really good tip. Right? Maybe I should take his course or join his membership or buy his book. Or hire him to do my SEO for me.

You need to promote your business 'cause nobody else is gonna do it.

[00:13:29] Crystal: That's the mic drop right there.

I've been doing x, Y, Z for two years. And this is the first time I'm actually talking about it, you know? And I'm wondering why people aren't coming over here being like, why don't you do this for me?

And it's like, I had no idea you did that. Because you never talk about it. Like, I talk about a lot of different things. And even making the wooden letters, I don't talk enough talking about that.

[00:13:48] Matt Diamante: It's where you're like, well, I already published a video about that. People are gonna get tired. They're gonna get annoyed. They're gonna. You know, just think that I'm being lazy. Whatever it is. 99% of people haven't seen your video.

[00:14:00] 99.99999% of people haven't seen that first video. Like there are only so many topics I can talk about relating to SEO.

I have to find other ways to talk about it. I can publish almost the exact same video just in a different location. Which might appeal to somebody, right? There might be something visually that hooks them in.

But talk about the same thing over and over and over again, right? Not the exact same thing, the exact same way. But you can talk about like, oh, I made this, you know, wooden letter. I'm just, I'm calling it a wooden letter, but I made this wooden letter. Or I make these, here's what they look like. Or you can be like, oh my God, I was just walking by and somebody put this on the front of their house, right?

Like, that's a whole other video. And you can stage that video.

You can put it on your own house. Like I just found one out in the wild, right? Don't necessarily lie, but there's a bunch of different ways that you can do that. And talk about the same thing over and over again.

[00:14:43] Crystal: Those are some amazing ideas. I can't wait to get off of here and like start

[00:14:47] Matt Diamante: I wanna see them. You better tag me in those. 

[00:14:49] Crystal: Yeah, I will for sure. And I typically do like a rapid fire thing. Are you ready?

[00:14:54] Matt Diamante: I'm ready.

[00:14:54] Crystal: Okay. 

[00:14:55] Rapid Fire And Wrap Up

[00:14:55] Crystal: Number one, one SEO myth you wish would finally die.

[00:14:59] Matt Diamante: [00:15:00] One SEO myth. I wish, I know this is supposed to be rapid fire, but that's a really great question. One SEO myth that I wish would die. That it doesn't work. That it's like a scam industry. I mean, there's a lot of scammers in the industry, but if you arm yourself with something like my book Get Found you'll, you'll know all the answers.

[00:15:15] Crystal: What about your favorite underrated marketing tool or platform right now?

[00:15:19] Matt Diamante: Email. Email is the most. Highest converting platform there is. And most people don't have an email list. They don't email their customers. Right? Your customers already bought from you. They're probably gonna buy from you again.

[00:15:31] Crystal: So true. What about one in marketing or tech that everyone should be following?

[00:15:35] Matt Diamante: Ooh, that's, that's tough because there's so many amazing people out there. Let's just go with Stu McLaren. He's so good. His information. It's so helpful. And he does focus on memberships, but he also talks about marketing.

He talks about email, he talks about ads, he talks about all that stuff.

[00:15:50] Crystal: What's your go-to source for creative inspiration outside of SEO?

[00:15:54] Matt Diamante: Ooh. Outside of SEO? Literally just sitting in a room thinking. Like put yourself in the room and say, I have to do this right [00:16:00] now. That's it.

[00:16:00] Crystal: And finish this sentence: in five years, search will be

[00:16:04] Matt Diamante: Evolved. It'll be different.

[00:16:06] Crystal: Okay. One follow up. How so? What? What's it gonna look like?

[00:16:09] Matt Diamante: What's it gonna look like? Well, I mean, it's impossible to tell. Because five years ago, like who would've been like, oh, AI's gonna come out and we're gonna have ChatGPT and AI overviews, all this kind of stuff. It's gonna be different.

We don't know necessarily "how." But I am saying this right now.

The core fundamentals are gonna be the same, where people have problems and you're providing them with solutions.

So the way that you provide them with the solution might be slightly different, but they're still fundamentally looking for a solution to their problem.

[00:16:33] Crystal: And then, what do you call it? Like A-I-O-A-E-O-G-E-O-S-E-O.

[00:16:40] Matt Diamante: That's like marketers have come up with a bunch of acronyms for SEO. Getting found on Google. And I think it's to confuse people or make themselves sound smarter or be able to charge more money.

[00:16:52] Crystal: Okay guys, this is Matt Diamante. And Matt, where can people go? Number one, to buy your book. Number two, to follow [00:17:00] you online?

Where would you like to send people if they're interested in your membership? Any of the stuff that you've talked about today?

[00:17:05] Matt Diamante: You could go to, heytony.ca. You can search hey, Tony on Google. You'll see all my social platforms and any platform you go to. If you type in, Hey, Tony or Matt Diamante, you will find me.

[00:17:15] Crystal: Find his book on Amazon! And if you're wondering why Matt has a business called, Hey Tony, go back to our previous episode where we interviewed him the first time.

And you can hear that origin story. But Matt, I am, I'm so touched that we could catch up today and that you'd come back on the podcast.

So happy for you all your success professionally and personally.

And thank you so much for coming back on this simple and smart SEO show.

[00:17:41] Matt Diamante: Oh my God. Thank you for having me. This was so fun.

[00:17:43] Crystal: All right guys, I'll catch you next time. Bye. 

​