The One With Francesco Baldini

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:33]:
Hello. Hello. Welcome back to another episode. Thank you once again for joining us. As always, if you enjoy these, please do give us a like, a share, a comment, a subscribe, give us a rating. It all helps to share the, podcasts and the messages far and wide. Now today’s, episode, I have, a guest with me today, A guest called Francesco Baldini. Now Francesco is an independent SEO consultant based in the UK, where he lives with his his children and his better half.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:06]:
Originally from Italy, Francesco has spent the last 10 years as an expat living in Canada and Ireland. With over a decade of experience in digital marketing and business consulting, He supports brands and entrepreneurs worldwide, and he supports them to successfully grow their business by converting targeted organic traffic from Google into leads and sales. What does all that mean? How do you how does someone even get into that in the first place? And why why would we want to use any of that? Let’s find out. And the best way to find out is if I bring my guest in. Hey, Francesco. How are you doing?

Francesco Baldini [00:01:44]:
Hello. I’m good. How are you?

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:46]:
Yeah. I’m very good. Thanks. Very good. Thank you for joining me. So we’ve heard your bio, but who is Francesco? Who is the man behind it all?

Francesco Baldini [00:01:56]:
Okay. Okay. I’m Francesco, first of all. I’m Italian, as you can imagine from my accent. I’ve been living in few countries, Canada, Ireland, and then the last 5 4 or 5 years here in the UK. In in where Ireland, I met my better half, I’d say. And, we moved to to she’s in English. We moved, to UK.

Francesco Baldini [00:02:25]:
We have 2 kids, young kids. So it’s a, life is a bit different from from the past. I can imagine. And, yes, I moved, like, to Ireland, like, 10 years ago. A few days, like, actually, a few days ago was my anniversary, my 10 years anniversary. Oh, wow. So it was a quite interesting time. And, I’ve been working for several years with, agencies, in house, from businesses.

Francesco Baldini [00:02:58]:
And then now I’m independent, or independent SEO. And, this is more or less my life in a few words.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:08]:
Lovely. Nice. Nice. That’s that’s that’s cool, and and congratulations on your 10 years as well. Thank you. Nice. Now just before we explore how you came to be doing what you’re doing, most people probably know, but for for there may well be some people listening who are quite sure. What what is SEO? What’s it? What what’s it all about? Why why should we

Francesco Baldini [00:03:30]:
Okay.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:30]:
Yes.

Francesco Baldini [00:03:31]:
SEO stands for, s e sort of Search engine optimisations. Essentially, it’s a way to, to make sure that your your website gets traffic from a search engine. Here in the UK or Europe, US essentially is, mostly, Google. There are there are other search engines, of course, Bing or Yandex and so on. But it’s, the main, the main traffic source in this from this point of view is Google. So it’s it’s a way to attract users on your site. And then once you you get users, you they become leads. They get in touch with you, or they buy something, depends on on your site or they join your mailing list and so on.

Francesco Baldini [00:04:15]:
It depends on what your your goals are. Or the or they can call you.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:04:22]:
Okay. I I think I get it. So when when when I go to go to Google or whatever, I type stuff in and results come up. So, that’s me looking in the search engine and SEO search engine optimisation is how you, the the person with the website, make sure that when I search for the things you wanna be found for, Google Blakemore likely to show you than than anybody else.

Francesco Baldini [00:04:46]:
Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:04:47]:
Got it. Okay. Cool. Nice. We’re gonna take it we’re gonna explore a little bit of little bit of that a little bit later on, in in this episode. But before we do, how how did you I mean, I presume you you you weren’t sort of from a young age going, mommy, daddy, I wanna be an SEO consultant. What what how what’s your journey? How did you you get to be doing this?

Francesco Baldini [00:05:08]:
How I got this, in the okay. When I was, well, quite young, around 9 18, 19, I created, I started to create a few websites for friends or family members, so, but I learned, the how to create a website with the DVDs, what we’re talking about long time ago.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:33]:
Yeah.

Francesco Baldini [00:05:34]:
And then, I created with, HTML on my computer. I spent quite a few, afternoons in my my bedroom. Mhmm. And, after that, I needed, the the the website was on, but no one was visiting them. Just Yeah. Was on just, I was the only user on the site. And then after a bit, I learned that there was, this, thing called, well, yes, called SEO, that made, people to reach, to reach your website, to Google at the time, was other web other searching search engines at the time, but Google was the was the the biggest. And then I started to learn how to optimise to to improve, the site to make sure that, it’s Noble.

Francesco Baldini [00:06:29]:
It’s not just a brochure site that once people get there, they can’t do anything or just, you don’t you don’t ask them to do anything, or, the other side is they they don’t reach you. They don’t they don’t and I’m not able to to find your your website at all. So, yes, I’m learning HTML, then I said, okay. Let’s do I worked for an agency for a few couple of years, in one agency in Italy. Then, I, yes, I started to to work on my own, website, and then this, was a process that’s still ongoing. Yeah. Still learning.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:13]:
There there’s there’s always more to learn with these things in there, especially as, I know Google and and presumably the other search engines, they’re always tweaking and and adjusting their their algorithms for how they they decide what goes where. So Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. So so a lot of of what you’ve learned isn’t just reading it in books. It’s it’s it’s you you’ve learned it by using it, by doing it, by seeing what works, and learning from real world.

Francesco Baldini [00:07:44]:
Yes. I mean, this is the on the the most important part. If you don’t have your own, website to websites, you can’t you can’t, you can’t experiment on your clients is, is not is not very

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:59]:
accurate. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, without for that, I’ve I have seen some sites in the past where it’s clear the developers just experimenting with their client’s live website to see what happens. Like, no. You can’t do that.

Francesco Baldini [00:08:13]:
Yeah. That’s nice.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:15]:
Cool. So, okay. So suppose suppose I’ve got a website, and, I’m I’m very proud of my website. It’s it’s got lots of lovely stuff, and I think the world needs to needs to see this, but I’m not getting any visitors. And when I when I do a search in in Google or or wherever, it’s like page number 50 that it appears. What what how can I get started? I mean, I obviously, SEO is gonna is gonna be a top a huge topic. We’ve only got a short time. We’re not gonna be able to cover it all.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:46]:
But what are some things I could start to look at to to talk about?

Francesco Baldini [00:08:51]:
The first thing is there’s a one term that is very well known in the SEO world. It’s the word depends. Depends, depends, who you what kind of a website you have, how technically it’s structured, what, what kind of market, what kind of competition you have around you, what pages do you have. There are many, many questions that you need, you need to address before even starting to to think about the the SEO part. Generally speaking, I’m just generalising this. The first thing thing that you need to to ask yourself is what do you want from your website? If you want sales, if you want, people joining your mailing list, getting in touch with you, and so on is, we need to understand what what what is the goal from one side. From the other side, who are you talking to? Who, who are the people that you want to in do you want to attract? Essentially, who wants who your visitors are. Yeah.

Francesco Baldini [00:09:56]:
Sorry. Who do you want your visitor to be? Yeah. Once you you identify these elements, you, the first advice that I I give usually is to create your, your commercial pages. Commercial pages are, service pages. I do this, this service. For a roofing company, for example, is a, I don’t know, roof repair, for example. Or for a software company, it could be, I don’t know, optimizing, this, a page. Just just giving very different, very different, aspects.

Francesco Baldini [00:10:34]:
And or for ecom an ecommerce page, an ecommerce website is product, category page, more product and category pages. There are many, many ways, to to usually, not always, but there’s a less competition Mhmm. With that. And then you can create more educational content to attract more users and then drive these users on the commercial pages. The commercial pages are the one that creates actually revenue, but they can can they can be hidden in the 5th page or, or can be very competitive. The market depends on the market. Local bit local, SEO is different from, national SEO or international SEO where, you need some it’s sometimes easier. You need more, local signals, with the with the other kind of, SEOs, ecommerce, or, ecommerce or, software or other service, mission wide service, you need, more backlinks, for example.

Francesco Baldini [00:11:45]:
Good good backlinks, not don’t go and buy 50,000 backlinks for £5. This is, pretty clear. So you it’s and backlinks, essentially, the, the 3 pillars of SEO are content, technical, and, external signals. Content is what you produce on your website, and how it aligns with the with what user search. For example, if you want to sell red shoes and you write an ultimate gay guide, a guide long form guide of, about shoes, you don’t have any any hope to rank for that. You need, you need to have a category page, with a a listing of your products. So Google Google know that people looking for red shoes are looking for a product. If you want a a guide on how to clean your kitchen, or how to cook something, need to be to be in different formats.

Francesco Baldini [00:12:48]:
This is the the content side. Then you create content supporting content around specific topics. The other side is, technical. Technical, it usually is, depends on if you if your site is a content site or a small website, doesn’t require, much, effort. It’s more for ecommerce or more advanced website with, I don’t know, 1,000 pages, 1,000,000 pages. Depends on the on the site. It’s technical. It’s it’s something that can be, not, well, not fully considered.

Francesco Baldini [00:13:23]:
There are some the basics need need you need to be in place. Mhmm. But it’s not something you need, to overthink. And backlinks, or external signals are a way to to make other website to suggest you, to endorse you. If you have, website from links from, I don’t know, the New York Times or, The Sun. They’re alternative website that give you, give your website, more, an endorsement. Or if you have links from, your same industry websites, I don’t know. For a roofing website, for example, backlinks, from the roofing magazine is a is a good backlink.

Francesco Baldini [00:14:10]:
If it are backlinks from random or, you buy backlinks, I don’t know, in in in a different language or that something doesn’t make any sense or it’s clearly both, they they tend to not work. They I’d say they tend because Google is not perfect. There are many mistakes that Google makes, especially in the last year. And, that’s the that’s the the point. You need to to be to base Keith every choice you do based on your audience. It’s not, you don’t need to consider, SEO like a technical, technical activity, but you need to be, about your audience. You need you are the the first, that, consider your audience.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:58]:
Okay. Cool. So there there’s there’s a few a few things, to unpack there. But if if, if I’m understanding you correctly, basically, we we should we shouldn’t think of Google as something that’s that we’ve got to fight against, to fight to get our pages. Google simply wants to give people who are searching, Google wants to give them the best information for what they’re searching for. So for us to appear high in the lists, a big thing to concentrate on is make sure we give them a website that is worth their time reading. It’s gonna give them the information they want. Is is is that correct?

Francesco Baldini [00:15:35]:
Yes. Yes. No. Exactly. I mean, you need to consider Google is not your friend because Google, wants to keep users on their on their website. But, yes, you need to to provide, your users with the best contest, with the best type of information as Noble.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:54]:
Okay. So so first and foremost, concentrate on creating great content that’s relevant to the things that you want visitors to to come for. Make also make it easy for them to to to navigate through. So if you’ve got you’ve got your page about shoes, and they can then find more information just about red shoes. And and then if they’re thinking, yeah, actually, I’d quite like to to buy some, then they can it’s easy for them to to to flow onto the the page. But above all, make sure it’s good quality relevant content that’s teaching them something, giving them giving them what they what they what they want.

Francesco Baldini [00:16:32]:
Yes. Yes. Exactly. And then there’s also the other side where once once people land on your website, you need to, make sure that they do something. They do what you you want. In in the case of ecommerce, it’s easy to buy. And in the case of, service page, it’s easy to get in touch. I got I worked on the client a few months ago, where, with the the same essentially, the same traffic, they went from, I don’t know, £700 to 20,000, just just because, we made the process of getting in touch with the with the business much more.

Francesco Baldini [00:17:13]:
They went from 2, 3 leads per, per month to 2, 3 leads per per day. Wow. So people were were, was difficult to get in touch with them. So people were landing on the site, but they didn’t do anything. Once that we made that everything simple, they get in touch and then they convert the from 2, 3 leads, per day. They converted to 2 of the those 3 leads were becoming clients Yeah. From them.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:41]:
Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. I I can think of times where I’ve seen a website and you thought, oh, I wanna find out more. I wanna get in touch. There’s no way no way to get in touch. Oh, I’ll go somewhere else.

Francesco Baldini [00:17:51]:
Yep. I

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:52]:
guess the the other key thing is if you want people to do something having read your site, tell them. Tell them explicitly what to do. Did you like this? Do you want to find out more? Click here. Or

Francesco Baldini [00:18:05]:
get in touch. Or get in touch.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:06]:
Or Yeah.

Francesco Baldini [00:18:07]:
If you want, for example, if you want to repair, it’s not just like, not not just get in touch. If you if if your page is about, fixing, for example, fix fixing a roof.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:18]:
Mhmm.

Francesco Baldini [00:18:18]:
Do you want to fix a roof? Get in touch. Now give give them be relevant with the with the same page. So this is this is more likely to convert into a a lead.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:32]:
Got it. Got it. So so our keys are make sure there’s plenty of relevant, unique content that’s going to give the person exactly what they’re looking for, and then tell them what their next next step is. Invite them on to that that next step of that that journey with you. Don’t don’t make them have to read your mind and guess what they should do next. Tell them what to do.

Francesco Baldini [00:18:57]:
Yes.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:57]:
Got it. Okay.

Francesco Baldini [00:18:58]:
You just said you said that nicely much nicely.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:19:01]:
Thank you. Thanks. Okay. So the 3rd pillar that you talked about is so let let’s just round things off by spending a few minutes looking at this this third one. This is external signals. So this is, you’re saying if, for example, the New York Times links to you, that tells Google, hey. This this is a piece of information which the New York Times thinks is relevant, so I’m gonna assume it’s it’s highly relevant. So by having good quality, links and good quality references coming coming to your page.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:19:38]:
But you said don’t don’t buy back because I know there are plenty of places that say, buy a 1,000 backlinks. So are you saying avoid why why should we avoid those? I mean, is backlinks is gonna help, isn’t it?

Francesco Baldini [00:19:51]:
This is one of the topics that are more, more difficult, let’s say. Okay. For let’s say okay. Let’s let’s split in 2 areas. The local, local websites, they mostly need essentially 2, 3 kind of, backlinks. 1 is Noble directories. If I’m, again, if I’m a roofer, if I’m roofing company, I need, to be on Yelp or Yelp, depends on where where you are in in the world. Yeah.

Francesco Baldini [00:20:22]:
Or, directories with Keith businesses. So this is, someone someone else directory’s business directories talk about you, more or less. Then the other kind of link is, if you can, in the local, local news, Noble newspapers, Noble, news outlets, so you can get in touch with some Noble saying, okay. I’m an expert in this sector. This is happening this moment, or this is a way to fix, and then they they can get in touch. They can, talk about you, their citations, or where you can or look or relevant websites about your industry, or senior. If you’re a roofer, for example, a builder it’s fine. Or, what what what this the the business is real, essentially.

Francesco Baldini [00:21:22]:
And the other side is when when you have some qualifications. If you if you need to be a roofer, I don’t know. You can have links or you can have qualifications about some courses that you need, some qualifications, some, regulations that you need to follow. So you’re certified in a specific area. So the the the website, can include, include, your your your code, your, yes, your your name, your number. Mhmm. And then, so this is this makes makes sure that Google realize that, it’s called EEAT, expertise. It’s it’s a it’s a way to, make sure that we will trust you.

Francesco Baldini [00:22:07]:
It’s a it’s a trustless signal, essentially.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:10]:
Right.

Francesco Baldini [00:22:11]:
And, this is the for the local website. And then, the other website is, if you have a ecommerce or a bigger website, relevant website from other, other other other third party website. If they’re relevant, better, if they’re not relevant, they need to be. It’s there are plenty of way to get backlinks. It’s one of the most, difficult and, misunderstood activities in SEO, because, businesses can can spend 1,000 and 1,000 in with, no results from this point of view. And, you can, okay, you can buy backlinks, but you need to know what you buy. Right. This is, it don’t suggest to your business owner to buy backlinks without, a consulting from someone because, it’s very easy to buy, I don’t know, one backlink or for, £100 or, for 1,000, depends on the site.

Francesco Baldini [00:23:16]:
And sometimes, this is, we all receive emails or LinkedIn messages. Oh, can you I have a list of 10,000 website, high quality back back how close the websites with high high quality, content by a link. Usually, these are scams. Mhmm. If they get in touch with you like that, it’s mostly no. Not not not everything. Mostly scam, and it can be very expensive very expensive, very sensitive because, in two ways. 1 is you when you buy the the backlink.

Francesco Baldini [00:23:57]:
And 2, if Google decide to penalize that website, and then they can understand that every link that on that website are both, and they don’t like it. Their guidelines that are not low because, yeah, their guidelines from Google, They if they decide that you want they want to penalize everyone connected, they can potentially, they can eventually, demo to your website. Penalization is a big word, but sometimes happens in the last few weeks, days. Like, we will launch the new a big update. We are in March at the moment. So this is again, you can buy backlinks, but you need you really need to know what you buy, because it can be expensive twice. But if you if you get in touch if you if you are, the source, for example, for news outlets or for relevant website is, is ideal is ideal. So, again and you can write some content on someone else’s website.

Francesco Baldini [00:25:07]:
Again, you need to know what what to do because not every not every website is, is ideal for you, and, not every content is ideal there. Websites that are the only goal is to sell, guest posts, for example, and this, sometimes helps, sometimes doesn’t.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:27]:
I get it. Yeah. That that makes sense. So to to get the external signals, try and get mentioned in pages which are highly relevant to what you’re doing. The sorts of pages that if somebody saw your mention by those, they’re gonna go, oh, okay. That’s that’s good.

Francesco Baldini [00:25:44]:
Yep.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:45]:
But don’t don’t go for the ones which are just sell huge lists of

Francesco Baldini [00:25:50]:
Yeah. It’s a bit can be a bit better better. Yes.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:55]:
Yeah. Okay. I suppose it’s like when we get recommendations. If if you get a recommendation from someone who says, Francesco’s brilliant with SEO. This is what he did. This is how he helped me. You need to check him out. He’s brilliant at it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:26:08]:
That’s a great recommendation. On the other hand, if if you just say, right, here’s a list of a 1000 people who who have paid me to say they’re good at SEO. It’s like, okay. Well, I’m not really gonna not really gonna put much faith in that. And so Google kinda does the same. It looks for who’s talking about this website and who are trustworthy talking about this website. The more trustworthy ones, the highest it’s gonna rank you. The more spammy ones, the less it’s gonna rank you.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:26:36]:
Yep.

Francesco Baldini [00:26:36]:
I mean, this is generally speaking. Oftentimes, Google Google can, can reward also the backlinks. But it’s I mean, if you need to, to decide, just pay attention what what to do because this can be can be dangerous.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:26:54]:
Sure. Sure.

Francesco Baldini [00:26:55]:
And and so sorry. And, yes, you used used the right word. There are recommendations. Backlinks are act exactly recommendations, endorsements.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:27:03]:
Okay. Thanks. That that makes a lot of sense. I’ve picked up a a a few a few useful things there. Thank you. Thank you, Francesco. We I mean, we could talk about this for a a lot longer. Unfortunately, time is is marching against us as it always does.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:27:17]:
For people who’ve been, catching this and thinking, I wanna find out more about this or maybe even I wanna get in touch with with Francesco. What’s the best way for them to to find out more or to get in touch?

Francesco Baldini [00:27:28]:
K. I’m quite active on LinkedIn, so you can find, my name, Francesco Baldini, on LinkedIn. It’s better to to follow the links in the the link in the in your, notes on your page. It’s easier to

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:27:43]:
Yeah. Translate it. So, yeah, Francesco has given me a few links. They’re all gonna be in the show notes. As always, go to Keith Noble/ show. Look forward to one with Francesco Baldini. You’re about to find the the links to find him there, or check him out directly on LinkedIn. Find him, follow him, see what he’s up to, get in touch with him there.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:28:06]:
Francesco, thank you so much for for taking taking some time out to to give us a little bit of an insight into just what SEO is, why it’s important to us. And I think that’s given us some things we can think about, and it’s also given us an, an idea of why perhaps it’s worth actually working with with SEO experts to to help us once once we’ve created that con but the first part is is down to us. Create content that’s worth Google sending people to, then you can work on helping Google to to realize it’s it’s worth looking at.

Francesco Baldini [00:28:41]:
Yep. And, yes, thanks for having me. It was, was nice, to have a conversation about, these, these elements in my life. Uh-huh.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:28:52]:
Well, thank thank you so much. Thank you, Francesco. And thank you, dear viewer, dear listener. Hope you’ve enjoyed it. Do remember, give us a like, comment, share, subscribe, give us a review, and I’ll catch you in another episode very soon. Meanwhile, do go check out Francesco on LinkedIn, and, see you in the next episode. Bye for now.