Some people will tell you that SEO is dead, but Adam McChesney is proof that it’s still alive and kicking. Born and raised in St Louis, MO, Adam spent 5 years in medical device sales after getting out of college. With that job he was able to travel the country, make great money, and gain a lot of sales experience. After a promotion that had him making $200k/year, Adam started looking at the people ahead of him. What he found was that they weren’t making much more than him, but were working much longer hours, and were super stressed. He realized that wasn’t the path for him, and he started looking into the next Ebay or Amazon drop shipping. What he found instead was an opportunity in digital real estate, but with digital marketing. He learned how to build websites, rent them out, do paid ads, and ultimately sell them off. 

In 2018 he ended up starting an auto glass company. Not knowing the first thing about that industry, he was still securing a top rank on Google just by utilizing SEO. Adam got married at the end of 2019 and knew he wanted to design his life around when he wanted to work. He decided 2020 would be his year to dive into digital marketing full time. Then, the pandemic hit. No longer traveling for work, Adam had a lot of time to work on building more websites. In 6 weeks time, he went from making nothing with digital marketing to $10k in recurring revenue. So, in July 2020 he put his 2 weeks notice in and went out on his own. A couple months in, Adam realized he didn’t know as much as he thought he did, so he started investing in mastermind courses and coaching.  The investment paid off with his business taking off at the end of 2020. Because Adam knew how to do everything, he tried to do it all himself. Quickly realizing that wasn’t sustainable, Adam started bringing other people in. 

Adam’s company works with a lot of local businesses that have several locations and want to take their business to the next level. Knowing that each platform has its own algorithm for SEO, Adam utilizes two components, Google business listing, and website. There are a lot of ways to get SEO, and there are different things on the back end of a website that Google is looking at. Two main things are the number of words on each page, and quality of content being written. Each page also has a tag and description that only Google and SEO providers will see. Adam says that any image or video on your site should also have keywords added to them. Every time you add a new piece of content to your website, it will start to come up for more keywords. While SEO is great, it doesn’t happen overnight, so about 25-30% of Adam’s clients will still utilize paid ads in the meantime. He says that one reason they’re so successful is because everything they’re doing for their clients, they're also doing for their own businesses. So many people will try to sell stuff they’ve never even done for themselves.

Adam attributes his strong work ethic to his father who worked as a lawyer. He started out working for a large firm, but started his own firm when Adam was in 8th grade. Around this time, Adam started working at his grandparents bakery. Just before Adam went off to college, his parents ended up getting a divorce, but he says they still both remained very supportive and got along great. One thing Adam did learn from his father working so much, was that he didn’t want to become that guy in corporate America that thinks the only way to make more money is by putting in more hours. 

Adam has a strong plan for the next 5 years, but he admits he wasn’t always good at planning for the future. With employees to think about now, Adam needs to think about how to get the agency to a place where it can provide for the entire team. Having grown from zero to 7-figures in 18 months, they’re on pace to do $1.5million+ this year. Thinking of the big picture, Adam reminds himself that bigger is not better, better is better. One thing he has learned as an entrepreneur is that shiny object syndrome is real. A mentor taught him that your main thing should be fully automated to run without you for a month+ before you should go start something else. 

On a personal level, Adam says he had an aha moment a month ago about becoming the person he wants to be. He’s now 3 weeks sober and ready to step into the next season and level of his life. He says that season will most likely include becoming a father. Through his journey, Adam has learned the importance of two things, the importance of core values, and why you need processes and systems. He says with core values you’ll make better decisions and attract the right people and clients. With processes and systems, you can remove yourself from the business so you have more than just a job. 

What You’ll Learn:

• How SEO works and why you need it. 
• The difference between having a job and having a business. 
• What being involved in sports can do for your character.
• How to overcome shiny object syndrome. 

Favorite Quote:

“Google is a beast, and you want to keep feeding the beast.” -Adam McChesney

Connect With Adam:

Website

How to Get Involved:

Get podcasting help here.

For more on how to grow your business, check out this episode. 

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