Double Tap For Better SEO Tools: Dragon Metrics Simon Lesser

In this episode of the Simple and Smart SEO Show, Crystal Waddell is joined by Simon Lesser, co-founder and CEO of Dragon Metrics, a powerful all-in-one SEO software platform. 

Simon shares the journey behind Dragon Metrics, and explains how DM competes with larger tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush.

Key Takeaways:

1. Founding Story of Dragon Metrics: Simon Lesser "quit his way to the top" by pivoting from an SEO agency to creating a top-tier SEO tool.
2. SEO Tool Competitiveness: Dragon Metrics competes with major players like SEMrush and Ahrefs by offering a product-focused, cost-effective solution with unparalleled customer support.
3. Changes in SEO Industry: The past 18-24 months have been the most turbulent in SEO history, with shifts in algorithms, AI advancements, and economic factors impacting the industry.
4. The Future of Search: AI is dramatically shaping the future of search and content creation, with new challenges and opportunities for SEO professionals.
5. Actionable Advice for Small Businesses: Play to your strengths by doing what others can't. Focus on offering unique, non-scalable services to build your brand.

Memorable Quotes:

• "I quit my way to the top. Every time I quit, the job kept getting better and better." - Simon Lesser
• "SEO tools are fully complementary to Google Search Console. They fill in the gaps, offering insights Google can't provide." - Simon Lesser
• "You can create the best product in the world, but if you don't tell people about it, you'll fail as a business." - Simon Lesser

Listener Action Items:

1. Explore Dragon Metrics: Sign up for a 30-day free trial of Dragon Metrics to see how it can help improve your SEO strategy.
2. Take a Product Tour: Schedule a demo session to understand how Dragon Metrics can specifically cater to your business needs.
3. Focus on What You Do Best: Identify services or features you can offer that larger competitors can't, and capitalize on those unique strengths.

Connect with Simon Lesser:
Linkedin
Dragon Metrics

Chapters

• 0:00 you should align the company to what you're best at.
• 0:44 Introduction
• 1:59 Dragon Metrics Founding Story
• 3:49 Competitors and Market Position
• 4:44 Customer Support and Onboarding
• 5:58 SEO Industry Changes
• 9:22 Word of Mouth and Brand Perception
• 12:33 Customer Feedback and Product Focus
• 12:42 The Culture of Leading with Product
• 13:04 Hype vs. Substance in Business
• 13:44 Balancing Product Quality and Marketing
• 14:11 Imposter Syndrome and SEO Challenges
• 15:29 History and Evolution of SEO Tools
• 18:23 Google Search Console vs. Dragon Metrics
• 22:37 Future of Search and AI Impact
• 26:52 Advice for Small Business Owners
• 28:15 Connecting with Dragon Metrics

Transcript

[00:00:00] Crystal Waddell: welcome back to the simple and smart SEO show podcast. I'm so excited that you're here. 

[00:00:05] And I am super stoked to talk to my guest today. 

[00:00:08] He is Simon Lesser and he is co founder and CEO of Dragon Metrics. Which is an amazing SEO tool.

[00:00:15] And we are going to be talking all about SEO tools today. 

[00:00:18] So Simon, thank you so much for joining me. 

[00:00:20] Simon Lesser: Yeah. Thanks, Crystal. It's exciting to be here. 

[00:00:22] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. I met you last year in San Diego at the Brighton SEO event. 

[00:00:27] Your booth and your setup. And, Sarah was there. 

[00:00:31] You guys were just so kind and welcoming.

[00:00:34] And, I later found out that you might've had some sort of cookies and wine or something. 

[00:00:38] I don't know. I missed that part. 

[00:00:39] But I thought that was amazing. You guys really stood out to me from that conference. 

[00:00:44] I wanted to say, thank you. 

[00:00:45] Simon Lesser: Oh that's great. We love to hear it. We put a lot of effort into our booth presence. 

[00:00:49] Where we lack in like the size of, we don't have the biggest booth out there. Or the most intricate one. But we make up for it with first of all chocolate bars that we hand out and also just trying to be friendly and, we're not trying to make a hard sell.

[00:01:01] We're trying to make friends. 

[00:01:02] Crystal Waddell: That's what it was. 

[00:01:03] You did offer me a chocolate bar. And I did politely decline.

[00:01:07] Simon Lesser: We'll be back. We'll be back in the fall again. So you can have another chance. 

[00:01:10] Crystal Waddell: Yay. That's awesome.

[00:01:11] I'll be there. So you guys will be my first stop for sure. 

Dragon Metrics Founding Story

[00:01:15] Crystal Waddell: I did listen to some of your previous speaking on podcasts. And I'm not sure which one I picked it up from. 

[00:01:21] But I heard you say that you quit your way forward as CEO. And that stuck with me.

[00:01:27] So I was like, could you please refresh me on that story and tell our audience all about that. 

[00:01:31] Simon Lesser: Sure. Well, Dragon matrix is an on one SEO software platform. So it's an SEO tool that kind of has all the SEO tools that you need to do your job. 

[00:01:40] So it's got everything all in one place.

[00:01:42] And we do a really good job at connecting that data. And helping you report on it. And so the I guess founding story that you're referring to that I tongue in cheek referred to quitting my way to the top. 

[00:01:52] What it was is I was working at an SEO agency. And in Hong Kong actually.

[00:01:57] And they made their own SEO software just to do their job internally. And so I came on board just as an account manager for SEO. 

[00:02:04] And, with a background in computer science and programming and product development, I helped out. 

[00:02:10] To get get the software better and got to a certain point where we we're spinning it off. And I had to leave Hong Kong to go to Boston and I said just for a year and I'll be back. 

[00:02:20] And my, my co founder boss at the time said, don't quit you can't do the agency stuff remotely cause it's different times and stuff like that. But you can do the software stuff, I said.

[00:02:29] Great. I prefer software to account work anyway. But that was just supposed to be temporary. So then I was supposed to come back and then continue with the agency. But my wife got a job in New York. 

[00:02:38] And so I was like, you know what? I'm sorry. I got to quit again. I'm not coming back to Hong Kong at all.

[00:02:43] I'm going to New York city. He said, don't quit. Let's just. Do the software full time and spin off, make it its own company. 

[00:02:49] And you'll be CEO and and co founder. And so that's how it happens. So that's why I say, every time I quit the job, just kept getting better and better.

[00:02:57] Crystal Waddell: That's awesome. So when was this, when did it spin off and become Dragon Metrics? 

[00:03:01] Simon Lesser: This was 2013, I believe. 

[00:03:03] Crystal Waddell: Oh, wow. 

Competitors and Market Position

[00:03:04] Crystal Waddell: So tell me a little bit about like your competitors. 

[00:03:07] Because I know you've talked about being a smaller company compared to some of your competitors, but you've been around for a while, which is awesome.

[00:03:15] Where do you fit in terms of like other SEO tools? 

[00:03:19] Simon Lesser: Our competitors are the typical ones that if your audience is doing SEO they're probably using: Ahrefs, SEMrush, the and the like. 

[00:03:27] They've we have been around for 12 years.

[00:03:29] I think it's coming up on, on 13 years before we were actually called Dragon Metrics, we were called something else as well. 

[00:03:35] And from a marketing brand recognition standpoint we're pretty far behind, we're pretty small. I'll be the first to admit that from, but from a product standpoint, we go head to head with the biggest tools out there. 

[00:03:47] And we can do, we've got some really innovative features and just simple and cheaper than the big tools out there.

[00:03:54] And we've got a lot to offer that that you're not getting in, in, in those typical tools. 

Customer Support and Onboarding

[00:03:59] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, one of the things I really liked is when I signed up, you guys, did an onboarding call with me, which was huge. 

[00:04:07] Part of what I teach and share with people is not just, what to do, but how to do it.

[00:04:13] And so I was really impressed with that. I don't know. Do you guys still do that for people? Oh, absolutely. Okay. 

[00:04:19] Simon Lesser: Regarding your previous question. 

[00:04:20] There's some things that we can't do. 

[00:04:22] Because we don't have a thousand employees or more.

[00:04:24] But there's a lot of things that we can do that they can't do. And so we, every company should play to their advantages. 

[00:04:30] And one of the things that we can do is offer just unbelievably stellar support. 

[00:04:33] And that's what we do. We say, our prices start at 82 USD a month. And we say, we offer unlimited training session.

[00:04:39] What does that mean? 

[00:04:40] I say, if you want a training session for two hours today. And two hours tomorrow and two hours the next day. Forever. Even at that 82 a month, level. 

[00:04:48] We'll do it. And people say no, that's not gonna work. And I said, we've been doing it literally for 12 years and we haven't gotten in trouble.

[00:04:55] Tools love to say, Oh, our software is easy to use. But we try to put our money where our mouth is because our first software wasn't easy to use. Then there's no way we could offer that level of support. 

[00:05:04] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, and that just reminded me that I need to sign up for some more sessions. 

[00:05:08] Simon Lesser: I know. We've been launching a lot of new features lately.

[00:05:10] So we'd love to show you what's new. 

[00:05:12] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. Okay. 

SEO Industry Changes

[00:05:13] Crystal Waddell: So a lot has changed even in the last year since I met you. 

[00:05:17] And SEO, like how have you guys responded to that as, a service provider, within your tool? 

[00:05:23] Simon Lesser: Yeah, I've been doing SEO since 2007. And the past, I guess 18, 24 months has been the, there's no question.

[00:05:31] There's been a lot of turbulence over the years. The past 18 months has been the most turbulent we've ever seen. 

[00:05:37] In every aspect from, turnover to layoffs, agencies and how that scales to Google making, massive changes in the algorithm. On a weekly basis to the rise of a generative AI and everything like that.

[00:05:51] So it's been a massive shakeup. 

[00:05:53] And at Dragon Metrics, we have to stay on top of all those things. Some of those things we're responding to the marketplace. 

[00:06:00] One thing that we've seen is starting about last year when people had a lot of fears about the economy A lot of people got really price conscious. 

[00:06:07] And while our competitors were raising prices, we haven't changed our prices in the past 10 years or so.

[00:06:12] And so that makes us we've been a little bit more generous on a few things. So that's one thing that we've responding to. 

[00:06:18] And a lot of the things are not necessarily things that an SEO tool has to respond to. 

[00:06:22] Because if Google changed the algorithm, most cases. That doesn't require anything new from the SEO tool provider.

[00:06:29] We just need to help make sure that our customers can understand what's going on better. 

[00:06:34] There are things like like AI overviews that is important that we keep an eye on. 

[00:06:39] That we're able to offer, features to our customers and things like that. 

[00:06:42] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. So I'm wondering over the last 10 years, because I just got here like 18 to 24 months ago.

[00:06:48] So it's so funny to say 

[00:06:50] Simon Lesser: it's a pretty crazy time. 

[00:06:52] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. So I'm like ping, you know, like there's so much going on. 

[00:06:56] But I love it, because that's how my mind works and it works quickly. And thankfully when I arrived on the scene. As like a Shopify store owner. 

[00:07:03] I was seeing how some SEO advice might have been tailored to say a blogger. But wasn't relevant to me as an e commerce store. Or at least not in the same way.

[00:07:13] And so it, I had to think about things differently. 

[00:07:16] And so then as. The changes were coming. I was like, Oh, this makes sense. 

[00:07:19] I understand why this particular thing is happening. 

[00:07:22] But, over the years, like from a business perspective, how did you guys continue to grow and acquire customers?

[00:07:28] I'm just so curious about that. As a software company, what's that like? 

[00:07:32] Hmm. 

[00:07:32] Simon Lesser: I think our strategy, because we're bootstrapped. When we started the company, so many years ago, I thought that it was impossible.

[00:07:38] To to do what we did. I never in a million years thought we would make it this far because all our competitors had, more than 20 million in venture capital. And we were just completely bootstrapped. 

[00:07:49] And so we had to find our own approach.

[00:07:51] We didn't have the marketing budget that our competitors did.

[00:07:54] And we primarily have grown through word of mouth, the other major channel. 

[00:07:58] We want to practice what we preach.

[00:07:59] So we chose a, a hard market to get a lot of organic search.

[00:08:02] Now we certainly do get a lot of traffic from organic search, but we had to be strategic in what those things are. 

[00:08:08] It's hard to rank for the term SEO tool, and we don't. 

[00:08:10] And conferences. As how we met you, has been a really big driver. 

[00:08:14] Because what we find is that because the product is so strong. 

[00:08:18] If we can get people's eyes on the product.

[00:08:21] They're going to like it.

[00:08:22] And conferences are a great way to be like, Hey, I've got 60 seconds of your time to just look at this one feature. 

[00:08:28] And that'll get you interested in and keep you coming back. Where advertising or other things you don't get your product.

[00:08:34] So front and center, and we've been a very product focused company. 

Word of Mouth and Brand Perception

[00:08:37] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, I think it's so interesting that you said it's been word of mouth. 

[00:08:40] Because like over the decades. That has been the one enduring practice, no matter the technology. 

[00:08:48] I'm just like, what will that look like in the future? 

[00:08:50] Crystal Waddell: And I love that you said you were bootstrapped. 

[00:08:52] That, your company didn't start with, lots of money injections coming in. 

[00:08:55] Because I think people listening right now, they're also in a harder time. 

[00:08:59] The economy is going through some changes and people are having to shift and get creative and that type of thing. 

[00:09:04] But I love the fact that it goes back to something that we can control. Which is the perception of our brand. 

[00:09:10] And how we serve other people. 

[00:09:13] I feel like SEO is only one part of this word of mouth referral circle. Because it's almost like somebody will tell you about it.

[00:09:20] Crystal Waddell: And if you don't have a chance to directly speak to someone, say at a conference. 

[00:09:22] You might look them up. And then, want to see whatever your perception was validated. 

[00:09:27] Or not, but how can we build that relationship with people who would be interested in, in, that solution we provide.

[00:09:34] Simon Lesser: Yeah, for us, we've been very much leading, trying to lead with the product. 

[00:09:39] We put the product forward and first. 

[00:09:41] And what that leads to, is. You or your listeners may have heard of the concept of net promoters. 

[00:09:46] You've probably at least seen email that says, take this survey. 

[00:09:50] And it's just a score.

[00:09:52] There's one question. How would you rate us on a score from 1-10? 

[00:09:55] There are no follow up questions, nothing, it's just one score like that. And what they're trying to do is is find their net promoter score. 

[00:10:02] And what the main concept is that, normally you'd think a seven is a pretty good score.

[00:10:08] That's a, that's pretty good rating . Or an eight would be good. And it's no. 

[00:10:12] That's not what we're trying to get. You certainly need that. 

[00:10:14] And you want your average to, to maybe be there. But we're really trying to do is get people in that nine and 10. Because those are the people who are going to spread the word.

[00:10:24] They're going to be promoters of your app. You don't want just, somebody who's at eight, they're a satisfied customer. Somebody who's a 10 is going to say, I've got this thing that I gotta tell everybody about. 

[00:10:34] And that's, what's going to spark the best word of mouth. And so instead of trying to be like, let's get, a thousand people or 10, 000 people to give us an eight rating, we would rather have, a far fewer number of we'd rather have more tens, a smaller number of people with tens than an average of eight.

[00:10:53] That's that concept. Because those are the people who are going to drive you forward. Instead of trying to do everything to everybody. Be really strong for certain requirements, 

[00:11:01] Crystal Waddell: Oh, that is such a, that's such a deep piece of advice there. 

[00:11:04] Because in a time when the more likes you have, the more followers you have. 

[00:11:09] Like everything's about the numbers, right? And a lot of people, myself included get, Distracted by the numbers when they first start in SEO, like traffic. 

[00:11:17] It's Oh, let's get more traffic. Woo. And just a funny side story.

[00:11:21] I got my website up to 20, 000 visitors a month and I was like, this is great, but where's the money? 

[00:11:27] Like I wasn't getting the revenue. So I know exactly what you're talking about. It's like that net promoter. I've seen that word. It was on one of my review apps, net promoter score. I never knew what it meant.

[00:11:38] And so I'm like, Oh my gosh. Okay. So that's what that meant. I had no idea what that was. It's genius to lead with the product. 

[00:11:45] As a e commerce seller. I'm forced to do that. You know what I mean? 

Customer Feedback and Product Focus

[00:11:48] Crystal Waddell: Like I sell a physical product. So I get a lot of feedback from my customers. I get to talk to him about the product, but what does that mean for you guys?

[00:11:56] I just want to dive into that deeper. 

The Culture of Leading with Product

[00:11:58] Crystal Waddell: What is it to lead with the product? 

[00:12:00] Simon Lesser: It's kind of culture in a company. And I never realized this just how much until I became a co founder my myself. 

[00:12:07] But culture in a company and values stem very much from the founders and stuff like that.

[00:12:13] And certainly even more a decade ago Silicon Valley and startups and software as a service is just. 

Hype vs. Substance in Business

[00:12:19] Simon Lesser: Fueled by hype. By massive amounts of hype. And even today people, hustling and trying to be like, how do you grow, how do you create a business in 2024? 

[00:12:27] Where you get a huge audience and then you say, now I got this audience, I'm going to create a product. And don't try to create a product without an audience. 

[00:12:35] And that's just antithetical to, to who I am as a person. 

[00:12:38] I can't stand hype. I live in New York city and just if there's hype, I just avoid it, cause there's so much, amazing things that don't need the hype really.

[00:12:46] I've got engineer brain in, in some ways in that I can strip things down to their core. 

[00:12:51] I can see through marketing. I can see through hype. And just what does it actually do? Don't tell me what the marketing says. It does. What is, what does the product actually do?

Balancing Product Quality and Marketing

[00:12:59] Simon Lesser: And because that's how we how I operate, that's how the company has operated. 

[00:13:04] Is just worry about the product first and hopefully the product will sell it, not just a team of highly incentivized people. 

[00:13:10] Salespeople will sell the product and I'll be the first to say that we've maybe followed that to too much of an extreme. 

[00:13:18] Because a company also inherits the the flaws of their founders as well.

[00:13:23] But that's I think what we mean when we say we lead by the product. 

[00:13:26] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. 

Imposter Syndrome and SEO Challenges

[00:13:26] Crystal Waddell: It reminds me so much of just like imposter syndrome. 

[00:13:29] When you enter into a new role, as either a leader or you're starting a business. 

[00:13:33] Or you're just trying something new that you know, A lot about kind of around it. But maybe not a lot of experience in it.

[00:13:40] And that's how I felt since I moved into SEO. 

[00:13:43] Because it wasn't just like an internal feeling I had. I had some, some data to back it up. 

[00:13:48] But it wasn't what the hype said. 

[00:13:50] And so when the hype's on the internet and everybody's, saying do X, Y, Z.

[00:13:55] And I'm thinking, Yeah, but they're not buying my product. That doesn't make sense. 

[00:13:59] It's hard to go against that, so I think it's really special that you're a leader that said, Hey, I'm gonna be able to focus. And peel away the noise to get to what's important. 

[00:14:09] And I think every business owner that's listening right now, can take a little comfort in that.

[00:14:14] And then know that just because everybody doesn't endorse what you're doing, doesn't necessarily make it wrong. It may not make it right, but it definitely doesn't make it wrong. Just because you're doing it your way. 

[00:14:25] Simon Lesser: Sure. And there's a balance. 

[00:14:27] You can create the best product in the world, but if you don't tell people about it, you're going to fail as a business. So it can definitely go to too far of an extreme.

[00:14:33] You need all sides. But at least for me, where I say, if you're going to fall to one extreme rather than the other, I would rather go to substance than then flair. 

[00:14:41] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I really appreciate that. Okay. 

History and Evolution of SEO Tools

[00:14:45] Crystal Waddell: So tell me about the history of SEO tools. If we were to have some giant rocks timelines, what's the evolution there?

[00:14:53] Simon Lesser: That's quite a big topic. And I, quite frankly, I don't even know where to start. Or if I'm the best person to provide the history of SEO tools. 

[00:15:03] Just Talking about it in broad strokes in the sense that, there were a bunch of free tools as far as SEO.

[00:15:11] And then, some companies started, bootstrapping. And, had proof of concept of an actual real product that you could start selling. And other new entrants use that as an example of say, Hey, there's, this is really something here. 

[00:15:23] Starting around maybe about, anywhere from 12 to 15 years ago. And using that to attract VC funding. 

[00:15:30] And back in the heyday, round maybe 2010 2011, 2012, there were a lot of companies that Everybody's looking for the next big thing.

[00:15:39] And some of those companies VC funding, we like to say is like a jet fuel. You either go to the moon or explode on the runway. 

[00:15:46] And those are the two options for VC funded startups. 

[00:15:51] And so some of them blew up on the runway. And some of them have gotten acquired. 

[00:15:54] And some of them, ended up where they are today. 

[00:15:57] So we, the grid on G2 or whatever that shows all the different products in the SEO tool space. 

[00:16:03] I think last check I saw there was a 400 different tools. 

[00:16:06] It is a a very crowded market. It has gotten less crowded finally in the last five years.

[00:16:12] And that has pros and cons to it. Because it's. For the longest time, a surprising amount of time, it was not a winner take all kind of thing. And there was the pie of SEO just kept getting bigger and bigger. 

[00:16:22] More tools were entering the market. And nobody was really losing market share.

[00:16:27] There was just room for more people and nobody was really the clear leader. 

[00:16:30] Until we did see about five years ago that We started to have kind of two clear winners, which was AHREFS.

[00:16:37] AHREFS and SEMrush took to the front and then SEMrush went public. And so that has changed things.

[00:16:42] When 12 years ago, when I first starting the sales pitch was you need an SEO tool and here's why. 

[00:16:49] Because people didn't even know that SEO tools were a thing. Now. It's a much harder job in, in some ways, because replacing an existing tool is a lot different than replacing nothing. Or pencil and paper kind of a thing.

[00:17:02] So now we need to say the tools that you're using right now, here's how we're better. And here's how we're cheaper. 

[00:17:08] And here's how, we can help you. And that's a harder sell. 

[00:17:10] And that's how everybody is in the market aside from the top two players.

[00:17:14] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. Okay. So I have to jump back really quick. You mentioned something called G2. What is G2? 

[00:17:20] Simon Lesser: G2 is a software review site. 

[00:17:21] Crystal Waddell: Oh, okay. Cool. See how I just said there's things I learned all the time. Like I didn't even know that existed. 

[00:17:26] And I'm like, there's 400 SEO tools. That would be a fun roundup. I can see that.

[00:17:31] Simon Lesser: I would, a lot of the tools that end up on in that category, I would not consider SEO tools. 

[00:17:35] But there are companies that say they're SEO tool. 

[00:17:38] Crystal Waddell: Gotcha. Okay. 

Google Search Console vs. Dragon Metrics

[00:17:39] Crystal Waddell: So I feel like I feel like I can ask you this question because, you just seem so, transparent. 

[00:17:44] But it's like, when you think about a tool like like Google search console. 

[00:17:49] Why would you recommend someone have Dragon Metrics in addition to something like Google Search Console? 

[00:17:55] What are the gaps? Or what are the advantages of using Dragon Metrics? 

[00:18:00] Simon Lesser: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:18:01] Google Search Console is the best SEO tool on the market.

[00:18:04] It's fantastic. But it's incomplete.

[00:18:07] And so all the third party tools including Dragon Metrics are fully complimentary to Google search console. 

[00:18:14] We provide features- when I say we, I don't just mean Dragon Metrics- third party tools. 

[00:18:18] Are able to provide. 

[00:18:19] A huge number of features that Google search console does not.

[00:18:23] But on the flip side Google search console can provide features that we cannot. So for example. 

[00:18:27] Google search console is the only tool in the world that can show you the clicks and impressions for a specific query. 

[00:18:35] Nobody else is going to have that data. 

[00:18:36] Nobody else should have that data because it should be private.

[00:18:40] And so Dragon Metrics can show you rankings as well. Which is similar to Google search console. 

[00:18:44] But we can't show you how many people are clicking on that query. We can't tell you how many impressions that query got. However, Google search console only shows you your website. 

[00:18:54] And they show you very simplified rankings. 

[00:18:57] Where Dragon Metrics, we can show you tons of information about SERP features. 

[00:19:01] And what your competitors are doing. And trends over time for certain, for SERP features. 

[00:19:05] Or URL cannibalization. 

[00:19:07] And you can tag keywords and compare different segments of your site.

[00:19:10] Essentially, the entire full set and functionality of Dragon Metrics is things that Google search console can't do. That doesn't mean Dragon Metrics is better. It doesn't mean Google search console is better. 

[00:19:19] It just means they're completely complimentary. 

[00:19:21] There is no competition between the tool and Dragon Metrics on the other hand, we pull in all your Google search console data. 

[00:19:28] And then we build on top of it. And we provide so you can compare the impressions that Google search console shows to search volume.

[00:19:35] And to see, are you getting the entire impression share or is there, there's some you're missing out on Google search console shows average position. 

[00:19:44] Dragon Metrics, we collect a SERP, directly from Google. And that is a place in time. That is one single SERP on that day in that location at that time, which is different than an average of every time, every location, every, whatnot. 

[00:19:58] And to show both of those next to each other, like you can see in Dragon Metrics, that's even better data. 

[00:20:03] So we combine the data together. It's fully complimentary. 

[00:20:06] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. Okay. So is there a way that you intuitively connect search and brand?

[00:20:13] When you are using an SEO tool. 

[00:20:17] Simon Lesser: Sure. There, yeah there's countless ways. 

[00:20:19] What comes into mind first of all, is a tool in Dragon Metrics that we call search demand trends. 

[00:20:23] So it's common to track your traffic. Either with Google Search Console or Google analytics or another tool or tool like that, to see how much traffic, how many clicks you have from organic search.

[00:20:32] And then of course you're going to monitor your rankings to see your ranking performance. 

[00:20:36] And when figuring out if traffic is going up or down, typically people are looking at one one or two of those things. 

[00:20:42] But there's a really important part that people aren't considering, which is the demand of those search terms. 

[00:20:48] And demand has been changing dramatically and how people are searching, especially how people are searching for their brand.

[00:20:55] So a search demand trends, what that tool does is it tracks longterm search volume trends for your tracked keywords and especially for your branded keywords. 

[00:21:03] What you can do is you can tag your keywords. These are my brand keywords. These are not my non brand keywords. Because there's not just, most companies don't have just one brand term.

[00:21:12] If it's one brand term, it's really easy to see are people searching more or less over time. 

[00:21:15] But if you've got, 30 or. A thousand or 10, 000 different branded or trademark terms. We can sum the monthly search volumes for every single month. 

[00:21:24] To see how is demand for your branded terms changing over time, because when you see traffic going down or up, it's not just your rankings, it could be people are just searching differently.

[00:21:35] Crystal Waddell: And is that something you can look at retroactively within Dragon Metrics? 

[00:21:39] Simon Lesser: It depends on the search engine and depends on the exact set. You can always see at least 12 months. In some cases you can see longer. 

[00:21:47] Crystal Waddell: Awesome. Awesome.

[00:21:48] Simon Lesser: Once you start tracking it, then it carries forward. 

[00:21:50] Crystal Waddell: Okay. What do you think is going to happen?

Future of Search and AI Impact

[00:21:53] Crystal Waddell: What other changes do you think are coming for search? For business owners should be aware of. 

[00:22:00] Simon Lesser: Ooh. On one hand, people say, making predictions is Only win. Because if you're right, then you can point to it. And if you're wrong, nobody remembers.

[00:22:09] Crystal Waddell: That's true. So just throw it out there. 

[00:22:11] Simon Lesser: Yeah. I think the biggest thing that, that on everybody's mind right now in, in terms of the future of search is how AI. Is going to affect search. And that's going to be in multiple dimensions. 

[00:22:21] In, it's our AI overviews going to affect traffic to, to your website.

[00:22:27] Are AI powered search engines going to take share away from Google? Or people just going to use AI tools to search for information instead of Google? 

[00:22:36] And there's also content creators. And are, should we be using AI to create content for our site? And what things can AI do for us from a marketing perspective?

[00:22:47] I'd say those three are the biggest unknowns and the biggest changes to, to search that we're going to see. 

[00:22:53] And very important, luckily so far I famously predicted that AI overviews would never go live. 

[00:22:58] That it was just something that Google was doing to appease their stockholders to say, Oh, we actually invented that technology that open AI is using.

[00:23:06] And so we didn't get left behind. We're doing this other thing. But they wouldn't ever release it because the quality is so abysmally bad. 

[00:23:12] But they. Released it and they didn't improve the quality. 

[00:23:16] And it was a big embarrassment and people were putting glue on pizza and they had to walk that back.

[00:23:21] I think what it, what AI overview show us at the very least is this is what this is Google's fever dream of what they want to do. 

[00:23:28] Just cut out the middleman. We don't need these websites. 

[00:23:31] We're just going to take all their information and just put it on on Google. 

[00:23:35] And you can say on Google, cause all we're trying to do is give you the answer in the clearest way possible.

[00:23:39] So if Google could do everything from AI overviews. It certainly seems like that's what they're trying to do. But they're not there yet. And so the question is when and how that transformation takes place and what role do publishers have? 

[00:23:55] Because of course, if Google does do that. And expands the role of AI overviews, the doomsday scenario, if you take it to its furthest conclusion. 

[00:24:04] Is that nobody clicks on websites anymore. And so websites say there's no point in creating content anymore.

[00:24:10] So then google has no information to feed its models. So then google's ai, Technology stops being relevant. And they've, shot themselves in the foot that in that way. 

[00:24:20] And that could change the entire internet as or web as we know it. Will that happen? I'm guessing not. That's the most extreme doomsday scenario. 

[00:24:29] But certainly AI is going to have a big effect on the SERPs and how we do SEO.

[00:24:34] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, and that's one of the things I really like about Dragon Metrics is you guys include data from different search engines. \ Because I think a lot of people don't realize that. Yeah, Google's got its own search. Bing's got its own search and there's some differences there. 

[00:24:47] But my question is, will you be able to do that with say, search GPT?

[00:24:52] Do you think you guys will be able to bring in something like that? 

[00:24:55] Simon Lesser: Such as chat GPT, like track performance in chat GPT. 

[00:24:59] Crystal Waddell: Basically, yeah, basically everything Dragon Metrics does right now for, let's say like Google or Bing, but like when search GPT is released fully, to the public. Do you think that's something that you guys will be able to.

[00:25:12] You know generate the same type of data that you do for other search engines? 

[00:25:16] Simon Lesser: I think it's fundamentally a different model In how it works and it certainly wouldn't just slide right into Dragon Metrics. And you just add another search engine. 

[00:25:24] Like you add google and bing you would add gpt because they just work so so unbelievably different And, search engines are volatile too.

[00:25:32] And it depends where you're searching and the time of day and all, and which device and that kind of thing. 

[00:25:37] But the way generative AI works is it's not giving the same answer every single time. So that volatility also affects things too. 

[00:25:44] And I think it just wouldn't be a fit for what Dragon Metrics does right now.

[00:25:49] That's not saying that we refuse to change the product to go where the market is. 

[00:25:54] But if that is what happens and that pulls away searchers from going directly to Google. 

[00:25:59] We're going to have to think of a new paradigm in Dragon Metrics and tool sets.

[00:26:02] That we can't just, add it as another search engine, cause it's just a different paradigm.

[00:26:06] Crystal Waddell: Oh, that's really interesting. Okay. 

Advice for Small Business Owners

[00:26:08] Crystal Waddell: So last question, because I always love to leave my audience and my listener on the other side with something tangible that they could do today. To improve their brand's presence online. 

[00:26:21] So just from the perspective of advising a small business owner, what do you think is the something they could do that would have the most impact for their optimization online?

[00:26:32] Simon Lesser: Yeah, I think this is, slightly out of my specific area of expertise. 

[00:26:37] But I would say more, maybe a little bit more broad strokes is to certainly for small business and even for businesses of any size. 

[00:26:44] You should align the company to what you're best at. 

[00:26:49] Take advantage of what things can you do that nobody else can do. 

[00:26:54] Or what things are you good at?

[00:26:56] One advice that was given me is do things when you're small, do things that aren't scalable. 

[00:27:00] There's things that other companies would like to do and just can't do it. 

[00:27:03] Because it doesn't scale well as a small business, you don't need to scale right now. When you grow the business to be huge, you may not be able to do it that way.

[00:27:11] So figure that out at that time. But for now, turn your weaknesses into advantages, and do things that you can do that others can't. 

[00:27:18] Crystal Waddell: Wow, that is fantastic advice. I will follow up in an email of why that's so fantastic, but we talk about this in my small group, the SEO squad. 

[00:27:25] So you've just given us two activities to do as a group.

[00:27:29] So I'm super excited about that. 

Connecting with Dragon Metrics

[00:27:31] Crystal Waddell: But if people are interested in, signing up for Dragon Metrics or learning more. Getting a demo, that type of stuff. 

[00:27:37] Where would you like me to send them? That 

[00:27:39] Simon Lesser: Yeah, you can just go to Dragon Metrics. com and the best way to see the product is either a free trial, which is 30 days free, no credit card asked. 

[00:27:48] Or you can just sign up and go right from there or with a demo.

[00:27:52] And I know a lot of people say Oh, I don't want to talk to a salesperson. I just want to get in there and explore the product on my own. And that's fine. 

[00:27:57] And you're certainly able to do that. We do really recommend signing up for that demo because we don't have any salespeople at the company.

[00:28:03] What we are trying to do is, it's such a huge platform. It's easy to use, but it's so big. 

[00:28:09] It's great to have somebody who can be, who can understand your business and say, here's how we can help in this way and point towards the best features for you. 

[00:28:16] Because when you're just exploring on your own, it's easy to miss some of the best stuff.

[00:28:19] So there's a big demo, but an onsite or free trial and those either or both of those options are a great way to, to see what Dragon Metrics is about. 

[00:28:27] Crystal Waddell: Awesome. Idea number 15. Thank you so much. And then if someone wants to connect with you personally, is there a best place for them to go? 

[00:28:34] Simon Lesser: Yeah, probably LinkedIn.

[00:28:36] Crystal Waddell: Okay. And I'll drop that link for Simon in the show notes and just all the information that he shared, whatever I can link to, I will. 

[00:28:43] And I appreciate your time so much today. Again, you have been so gracious, from the beginning and it makes sense because your brand has a graciousness to it.

[00:28:52] Well done. 

[00:28:53] Simon Lesser: We Really love working with you and thanks for having me on today. 

[00:28:55] Crystal Waddell: All right. I'll see you guys next time. 

[00:28:57] ​

[00:29:02]