Inside Marketing with MarketSurge

Speaker: Welcome to Inside
Marketing With Market Surge.

Your front row seat to the
boldest ideas and smartest

strategies in the marketing game.

Your host is Reed Hansen, chief
Growth Officer at Market Surge.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hello and
welcome to Inside Marketing with

Market Surge, and today we're diving
deep into the world of SEO, but

not the stale keyword stuffing, SEO
you've heard a thousand times before.

I'm joined by Jesse Ringer, founder
and CEO of Method and Metric, a CEO,

SEO agency, built on creativity,
data, and ethics with over a decade

of experience helping business
owners, entrepreneurs and marketing

teams craft winning SEO strategies.

Jesse is known for turning complex
search algorithms into simple,

actionable growth strategies.

He's not just about rankings,
he's about results, progress, and

building the kind of digital presence
that drives businesses forward.

Today we're gonna unpack what's
really working in SEO, most businesses

are wasting their efforts, and
how to think about search in a way

that's actually genuine and human.

welcome to the show.

Jesse: Yeah.

Thanks Reid.

That was a great intro.

Thanks.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Well, you
know, I, I find that things get off to

a really good start when I, you know,
fluff up the, you know, the guests.

Not that you needed any, um, any boosting
you, you do some really impressive work.

Jesse: Thank you.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: so
let's start with your story.

So, how did you get into SEO initially
and, um, you know, and then how did

that turn into method and metric?

Jesse: Yeah, I think I got into SEO
in a very similar way than most SEO

folk get into the industry in that,
um, I was trying to find my footing,

um, in, in a marketing career.

I, I think I'd always had a passion for
like, copywriting and, and Mad Men was

at its peak, so I thought working at
an ad agency would be the way to go.

Um, but it was shortly after the 2008
financial crisis and so a lot of.

People were not hiring.

And um, you know, I was doing
copywriting for various brands and,

and local things here in Vancouver.

And, you know, whenever a client or
person had some feedback, they'd be

like, I don't, I don't like your writing.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jesse: I didn't really
have a good recourse.

And, um, I'd kind of gravitated
to SEO like in my schooling

and, and realized that through.

Data and through analytics that I,
I kind of found my voice in terms of

being like, well, if you don't like my
writing, writing fine, but it also rate,

you know, several thousand dollars of
revenue it brought in all this traffic.

So, although you might
not like the writing.

It's proving to be quite effective.

And so as a new person in, in like kind
of the marketing world, uh, SEO and

analytics kind of really helped me gain
confidence and, and, you know, kind

of find my footing in this industry.

Um, and so from the early going,
I'd always been doing this

consulting work, contracting work.

Um, and it kind of grew organically.

Um, sorry for the pun, but
like it grew from that.

And I got to a certain point where, um.

I was at a, a party with a, a friend
who had a software company and he was

like, you know, if, if you are an agency
we could send you some big clients.

And, um, you know, the next day I went in
kinda incorporated and, and started to,

to build an agency beyond just myself.

Um, and that's kind of how
Method of Metric was born.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: That's awesome.

Well, you know, I, um.

I mean, this might be the
first, um, SEO person that I've

heard referred to Don Draper.

So I think that's, um, that's
a first for our show that

Jesse: Great.

Yeah,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
yeah, uh, um, you know, show.

Troubled, troubled character there.

Jesse: yeah, for sure.

Kyle, although like all of that, you
know, just, yeah, there's a lot about

that show that beyond Don Draper being
like, this is what I want to be like.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jesse: Um, and now I look at myself,
I'm like, oh, I'm nothing like that.

I know that, so I don't know
what happened, but here we are.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: it makes
you wonder like, you know, what

would Don Draper be doing today?

I mean, would he be, like, would he
have like some LLM or would he, or

would he be like a cryptocurrency guy?

You

Jesse: Yeah, crypto.

Crypto, bro.

Yeah, for sure.

I could see that.

Absolutely.

Just full into it.

Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: he was, uh,
yeah, we will see, you know, he was,

he was pretty, he was pretty trendy.

Jesse: Yeah.

Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: So,
well, sorry, back to SEO and

I'm sorry for the, the, um,

Jesse: That's great.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: but, uh, now you
talk about the Democrat democratization.

I, I wrote it

Jesse: Yeah,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: but I
didn't practice pronouncing that

democratization of technology.

Jesse: yeah,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: what does that
mean to you in SEO and digital marketing?

Typical.

Jesse: yeah.

I think

there's this assumption that.

Data and information.

I mean, it is, it is a
currency at this point.

You know, you can look at Google and how
much they're hoarding information, um,

and how much data they have on people.

Facebook meta is another great example
of that, but there are a ton of tools and

opportunities for regular folk to, to, in.

Amass and gather information about
their audience or about, you know,

certain industries and be able to
leverage that for their own business.

They don't need to be, you know, a
multi-billion dollar, uh, business.

You know, the information is out there
for people to gather and I think.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Jesse,
can I pause you just one second?

I, I might have to ask
that question again.

Somehow your mic muted itself.

Uh, I don't know if it got disconnected
or, yeah, there you're back.

Jesse: Strange.

Okay.

I can

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: yeah.

Do, do you mind if I ask
you that question again?

Jesse: not at all.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: I'm sorry.

It, it was, um, you, you, you were
a couple sentences in and then

all of a sudden it just muted.

Um, alright.

Fortunately we're not, we're not live, so,

Jesse: Great.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: I'll, I'll,
I'll just ask the question again.

Um, so, so you talk about the
democratization of technology and what

is, what would you say that means to you,
you know, from your purview in SEO and

then also broadly in digital marketing?

Jesse: Yeah.

I think that, you know, there's so much
data out in the world, you know, and, and.

A lot of businesses have com
turned this into a currency.

You can see like what Meta and
Google have done, um, with their,

their access to, to information.

But I think for a lot of regular folk
and business owners and companies out

there, there's so much information
that we can leverage to improve.

You know, not only like our offerings
and the products that we sell, but like

how we communicate with our audiences.

And I think that not enough
businesses take advantage of that.

And when we work with clients, we
really want to bring in that kind

of idea that there is so much data
out there to better understand your

audience and your ideal customers,
um, that you really should be trying

to put that into use so that you are.

You know, optimizing your business
processes, you know, choosing the

right products, choosing the right
services, and communicating that

in a way that is most effective.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah, and you
know, as you're talking, you, you're

starting to remind me less of Don
Draper and more of like Billy Bean from.

I don't know if you've

Jesse: Oh, yeah,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: that
movie, but the, you know, like

Jesse: I,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: you know,
your example earlier of content

that, maybe your, your client didn't
like but was generating revenue.

And, um, but you know what's funny too,
I've observed in, in the agency space

is sometimes even when you show 'em the
data that it's converting, you know,

that's like more effective this approach.

They still don't, they still won't

Jesse: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: you know, like.

Jesse: No, and, and you know like
that's true like the, but man it is.

We think that we are really.

Devoid of emotion when we're
making business decisions or

we're aiming to be like that.

And it's, it's impossible, you know, even
when you see information that contradicts

your worldview or a business opportunity,
like if you think it's gonna be good like

you, there's, it's hard to turn that off.

You know, we.

Our lived experiences create a system
in which like, I know that this is

going to work, even if there's data
that supports the other side of it

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jesse: that it won't.

So it's very hard, and I've seen it
thousands of times with our clients

and other business owners, um, you
know, entrepreneurship will, will have

information like, be like, no, this is.

Bad idea and be like, Nope,
we're, we're going for it.

And you know, on the flip side of that,
people will be like, that is a bad idea.

And then you watch it work.

And so it's, it's really challenging.

And when you have limited resources,
I think data is a very good baseline

for making a decision and then using
your own experiences and your own

knowledge to kind of like push ahead
and figure out how to make that work.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I, I, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

And, I guess I've been, sometimes I've
been in the client position where I'm

like, I don't, I don't want to do this.

And it does take a little bit of mental.

Um, exertion to sometimes

Jesse: Oh yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: to the data.

so let's talk about SEOA little bit.

Um, you, you know, you're, you've been
doing this for a while and, uh, you

know, so you've seen a lot of changes in
the internet, you know, and how Google

ranks, uh, sites and, and now like AI is
everywhere and really affecting things.

So what would you say is.

Uh, we'll come to the AI part later, but
what, you know, and today, what would

you say is the biggest misconception
that a lot of businesses have about SEO?

Jesse: Hmm.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: you know,
anything, anything that you like a, a

Jesse: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: or challenge
you keep seeing over and over.

Jesse: Yeah.

This has been a, I'm gonna say a
challenge that I've faced probably since

before I had Methody Metric, was that.

People see SEO as a siloed marketing
initiative, that it is one thing.

It is creating content to show up
in Google and bundled with that,

that it is a silver billet for
everything that they're doing.

That, you know, you write 10
blog posts, you're gonna make

millions of dollars or hundreds
of thousands of dollars, and that.

Isn't true.

It's, it's much.

Obviously my opinion's biased, but
I think that having a website that

is well optimized serves everything
else that you do from your social

media to your, you know, offline and
out-of-home efforts to podcasting

and, and, you know, pr like everything
goes to your website at this point.

And if that's not optimized
for an ideal experience for

your customers, you know, it's.

It, all the other things
are gonna fall flat.

And so I think that that's one
misconception is that people think that

SEO exists in a silo and it has no other
benefit other than to rank well in Google.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I think that that's,
well, uh, well said.

Um, so let's jump to the
AI piece of this now.

Um, even people that haven't
been doing anything about.

SEO uh, you are are asking questions like,
well, so, you know, how do I rank in chat

GPT searches or how do I, um, you know,
they're, they're hearing about, you know,

the, um, AI generated text that's coming
up in a lot of Google searches and, you

know, wondering how to deal with that.

So how, how would you say
it's reshaped your approach?

Um, is it a big part or the, are
the fundamentals still the same?

What, what would you say.

Jesse: I think it's somewhere in between.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Jesse: I'm gonna, I'm
gonna hedge on this answer.

'cause I think it's both of those things.

It's like, you know, if you're
choosing to ignore AI and its impact

on the search industry, I think
that that is your, your failing.

Um, you won't survive if you don't adapt.

I don't like saying you're gonna
die 'cause it's not fatal, but like,

you're gonna have a really hard time.

And that's kind of where yes,
you have to learn to figure out.

How consumers and your clients are
using these platforms now, like

Chachi, PT Cloud, what have you,
Google's, um, you know, AI overviews.

How are people interacting
with those things?

Because at the end of the
day that that behavior.

Is going to shift how people
think about your brand and think

about how they conduct business.

I don't think AI is going
to take over search.

There's a lot of data right now that's
showing that like people are using

both of them equally, but at the same
time, like how do you ensure that your.

Your brand, whether it is,
you know, a Fortune 500 or

you know, a one person shop.

How do you ensure that your brand and your
information is getting into those answers?

Because that's where people are going.

And maybe that's not gonna last forever,
but, um, it's a big part of that.

But to answer your point about the
algorithms, I think that ai, and I

don't think AI things are, are just.

Predictive text on steroids.

It, it's answering what you, what
it thinks you want to hear, and it's

using word after word after word.

And so you can kind of use old school
SEO tactics, uh, to help perform there.

Um, and you can also train these ais to,
to show your content a bit more by asking

it questions about what it thinks your
brand does and, and things like that.

So I don't know where it's gonna
go, but for right now, it's a.

We're, we're using the same kind of
ideas to adapt our SEO strategies so that

they can also work well in the AI world.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Okay.

That's, that's great.

And, and I mean, that's been my
experience as well, and not that, um.

You know, nobody has
like the magic bullet.

It's like, uh, here, you know,
throw away your, uh, traditional

search, you know, do, do all these
new activities to now rank in

Jesse: yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: You

Jesse: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
you know, I think the, um,

Jesse: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: activities
are the same, but you know.

Jesse: Yeah.

The other thing too about this
is like, it's, it's shifted how,

like how we think about content
and how we think about marketing.

Because you know, you can just
go to Chacha team and be like,

Hey, gimme a business plan.

Or Hey, write me a thousand paid
word blog post on this topic.

And people are like,
that's good enough, and.

I think what we're seeing is that that
good enough is really dragging down the

average and is allowing people that are
writing content for other people to like

really lift up and like do, do better
with their, their marketing efforts.

Then someone who's just phoning
it in with a chat GBT blog post.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah,
no, that, that's, I agree.

Um, so, so Jesse, you're a data guy,
and, um, one of the tricky things

with SEO, you know, pitching it,
whether you're the marketer inside an

organization or from the outside as
an SEO consultant is, you know, how,

how am I even gonna tell that you're.

Making progress and you know, and
then there are, also the concerns of

has, I mean, there's a lot of data
to track and, uh, some of it is,

you know, what people are calling
like vanity metrics and some of

it is actually really relevant.

Um, what are, what are some of the
metrics that you think are most effective?

a business, and I know
it'll, it'll vary from

Jesse: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: but
if you have some examples of,

Jesse: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: know, like data
that isn't just a vanity metric metric in

Jesse: Yeah, yeah.

You know, my view on the, on metrics and
so is like, it's greatly shifted in 2025.

Um, there's way more vanity
metrics than there were before.

Um, and, and that's because
like impressions and visibility

don't lead to more revenue.

And so I think at the end of the
day, revenue is obviously the

biggest and best metric to measure.

Um, you know, whether you are
e-commerce or product based

service, like revenue is huge.

Um, if you're service based, again, lead
scoring, lead quality are very important.

Um.

You know, average order value, average
cart size, how many orders you're getting,

those things are really important.

Um, and then, you know, to a lesser
extent now, clicks, I think, are on

the cusp of becoming almost irrelevant.

Like, yes, we want to see traffic.

Yes, that's very important, but if
all that traffic doesn't convert.

If no one's buying from you, like, then
you just have a hobby and not a business.

Um, so that's, that's
one thing that I like.

Anything before clicks,
like ranking spots.

'cause those are changing constantly,
especially with AI overviews like

the, the keyword tracking tools.

Now say you rank number one,
but you rank like number 1.5

out of 10 within that AI overview.

And that's, that's.

Quite problematic impressions, I think
are more or less like just useless

at this point because even if, you
know, we show up in a Google search

result, you're competing now against
like 20 different links, not just 10.

And so clicks would be the
first kind of interactive

behavior that we would consider.

Like this is a metric
that we would measure.

Um, but engagement, um, and quality
of leads, and quality of like the, uh,

the sales initiatives are probably the
biggest things that we care about Now,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Yeah, no, I, that's, that's very helpful.

Do you, do you find that, um, you
get, I mean, do you find that that

clients are evolving with you or is
it kind of a tough sell sometimes, or?

Okay.

Jesse: slowly, you know, like.

Y Yeah.

The ones that are really into
this do take pay attention.

Um, you know, on the paid media
side, we have clients that like focus

on cost per conversion a lot, um,
rather than like return on ad spend

or say like average order value.

Like there's certain, like they,
they almost say the same thing, but

they all are kind of different and
they all produce different results.

So I think.

One thing that we're doing
with our clients is just

making sure that we're aligned.

If they care about average order
value, but we're only caring about

actual, like total revenue, there's
still gonna be a disconnect.

So we're, we're trying to meet them in
the middle often, and so they're, yeah.

You know, I think anyone now
doing business online has to

be aware of data and analytics.

You can't just.

Hope that, you know, producing content
or, I don't know, improving, like

improving your checkout process is
gonna have an impact without any

understanding of what your audience wants.

So yeah, it's kind of like meeting them
in the middle and bringing them along so

that they don't feel like they've been,
you know, excluded from that decision.

'cause they're gonna care about
things way differently than we do,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Right.

Jesse: and so we have to
consider that as well.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

So, um, you know, a lot of people
in my audience are in the small and

medium sized business space, and I know
you've worked with the whole range.

You know, you've

Jesse: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: uh,
really big companies as well.

Do you think that SEO is becoming
more or less accessible for like

small and medium sized businesses?

Jesse: Um, good question.

Um,

I think it's becoming.

More accessible.

I think that small business owners
can, and, and companies with like

small marketing teams can get quite far
with SEO before it gets into like the

really nitty gritty technical stuff.

I think content is still hugely important.

I think, uh, linking, uh,
site architecture, those

kinds of things are really.

Impactful for the search algorithm.

Um, and being active on social media
and things like that really do boost

things, especially now in the age of ai.

So I think that it's more accessible
and there's way more like free resources

and more information than ever before.

And so I think that if people
and business owners are keen to

do it, it's all there for them.

Um.

And yeah, so I, I don't think
it's becoming less restrictive.

It's becoming more competitive for sure.

But I mean that's, yeah, I think that
that is a benefit and it ensures that

you're finding the right audience and
building a very tight, solid strategy.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: That's awesome.

Yeah.

And you know, good, really good to hear.

Um, I'm sure some aspects, like you
said, the competition is, is greater.

Um,

Jesse: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: uh, you
know, and that makes the details,

the, like dotting the i's and crossing
the t's more and more important.

But, um, but I agree with you.

I think there's like a lot of AI
enabled things that uh, can, can

help and, and a lot, a lot of vendors
in this space, you don't have to

Jesse: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
science degree to do it.

And um,

Jesse: I have a marketing
certificate, like

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: yeah.

Jesse: have computer science background.

You know, I took communications.

Um, you can learn this stuff.

Like I learned, got a lot of my
learning from the early days of Twitter.

Like, there's so many people out there
that love to share their knowledge.

And I think now, like Reddit is kind
of like the platform for that too.

Like people would be like,
Hey, I have this problem.

And literally like people from Google
and like folks that have been in

this industry for decades, um, will
be like, this is how you solve that.

And so there's so much info out there
and so much resources and yeah, SEO

folk love to share their knowledge.

We love, uh, we, I don't know,
there's something about it.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jesse: It's different than
other industries for sure.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Maybe
it's a little bit more, you know,

maybe the nature of the backlinks.

Maybe that makes it just a
more collaborative community.

Maybe you know that like

Jesse: yeah, maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like it's all about
credibility and trust and like

it's very experimental space.

So people, I don't know.

I don't know.

I just remember it and I still see it.

Right.

People are just like, oh,
Google changed this today.

Like, here's the volatility
chart for keyword rankings.

Like, everyone's like algorithm update.

This is what we're seeing, and

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: No.

Jesse: it's super helpful.

Um, so I think it's always there.

I think it's just if you, and obviously as
a business owner, you don't have infinite

time and your attention goes everywhere.

But if you can dedicate some
energy towards your SEO, it'll

serve everything for sure.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Awesome.

Jesse, you, you've got so much,
uh, there's so much value here in,

in what you, you shared now, if
somebody would like to work with you.

you know, as a SEO consultant or,
uh, maybe they'd, they'd love to

just, uh, connect with you and, and

Jesse: Yeah, I am.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: What, uh,
what are the best places to find you?

Jesse: Yeah.

Um, I, I mean our website, um, is
probably the easiest place to get in

contact, uh, method and metric.com.

Um, I'm also very active on LinkedIn.

Um, you can find me there and, um,
yeah, we kinda dabble a bit in Blue Sky,

but that's still kind of, kind of new.

But, uh, our website in LinkedIn for sure.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Fantastic.

Well, I'll include those
links in the show notes.

Um, thank you so much for
joining us, Jesse, and I look

forward to future collaborations.

Jesse: Yeah.

Thanks Reid.

This was a great conversation.

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: Want to stay ahead of what's
actually working in marketing right now.

Head over to Market surge.io

and see how we're helping businesses
grow smarter, faster, and louder.

That's market surge.io

because your next breakthrough
shouldn't be a guess.