218- Navigating Tech and Social Issues with Zhe Scott (The SEO Queen)

But since some of my audience are not the most technologically savvy some of you are , some of you are in the middle to insult you for a second we're just gonna going to go with the basic playing field . So make sure everyone has the basic understanding of what the heck SEO means . Right ? Heard this before .

You've seen this before , especially those with a heavy tech background . They know what this is To them . This is their ABC . Their SEO is their ABC . That is the basic foundation for them . Versus , like me , I say I'm moderately tech savvy . I can throw myself in the middle of that category . I can figure out basic to immediate problems .

When it comes to real advanced stuff , you're talking to the wrong guy . Okay , don't ask me . You're wasting your time . But I have a guest here who is a lot more technologically savvy than I am and she even graduated for MI I know I'm throwing acronyms at MIT . What does that stand for ? Massachusetts Institute of Technology , see ? So she's a tech expert .

Okay , if you haven't figured that out , and before she introduces herself this episode , I'm going to warn you might be laced with some history and I don't mind that . I don't mind it at all because I'm a history buff , and if I don't know it , I'm going to certainly learn it . And there's just so much history .

I always consider it as an incomplete picture that continues to build , builds , builds , builds . As well as established knowledge . New knowledge is coming out , debates coming up because of new evidence , archaeological findings , whatever . Right , it's a developing picture .

That's what I love about history , but sometimes history can be very forgetful because we humans choose to be forgetful . I'm going to cherry pick this . So I like this fact , but I don't like that fact and that's how history could be revised and written . I don't like that , and people , countries were known to do that and I don't want that happening in America .

Can you lean left or right ? Before I go into that , I want to go back to the tech route . Okay , I could talk history all day . Some of you may love it , some of you may fall asleep . I have a guest here . Her name her short version of the name at least , I'm going to say like that is Z Scott .

If you could pronounce a full name which I'll put in the description , I'll try and I'll give you money . Oh no , I don't trust you . You could AI . You could just AI , generate your voice and get it right . I don't trust you , so you're not getting prize money for that . I need to see that live Okay and I need to make sure there's no ai trace of that .

Yeah , I don't trust people easily . I'm from new york . I'm bringing my new york roots into this . I will smell bs even through the computer screen . All right , it's not just in the streets . So let's welcome z scott , also known as the seo queen hello , hello , nice to be here with you , elias I donas .

I am happy you was able to make it and , as this is one of my missions for this season especially , is to diversify the guests . If you've been paying attention audience there's been a lot of , you know , guests of a certain skin color . I'm not wrong with that , but I believe variety is life right . I'm probably saying that wrong Absolutely .

We like variety , life , right , I'm probably saying that wrong Absolutely .

I was hoping more like a 24-minute window . No , they've been like 30 minutes to an hour window , and I call myself out on that . It's a lot of good content . Yes , I'll perform my expectations . What do you expect ? You can attack me all you want in the comment section . Okay , hey , content . Then don't come here . You want your mind to be expanded ?

Well then , I don't have fun in the streets . Trust me , if you're in new york city right now with the homeless crisis is not the worst in the country . It's probably one state that does that .

There's a story that just came out on Mother Jones 40 Acres and a Lie , and it's really interesting to see how , you know , in the past , when American descendants of slaves were released and given 40 acres and a mule , and then it was taken back and then they were thrown out on the street and just all the , the , the things that have happened over time .

So it's , it's been a lot of inequality in this country that has occurred for political or economic reasons , and , um , it isn't pretty nope , and me I don't .

And you know , and I think twice now I have talked about black achievement that I don't think gets recognized enough , even latino achievement and a little bit of Asian .

They're not owners of the intellectual property and the trade secrets and everything that goes into making that whiskey . And , upon discovery of this , that's how Uncle Nearest was born and now is a billion dollar brand . And so I heard that I believe his name is Jalen Rose , who has just gotten the biggest NBA deal in history .

He was talking about the wealth gap and the inequality in the economy and his desire to fix it . And that's actually one of the reasons why I launched the SEO Queen is because I wanted to assist Black-owned businesses in helping to grow their brands .

Because I saw , first of all , when I built my first website back in 1996 as an undergrad at MIT , I really was sold instantly on the power of a webpage and I knew it was a great way to get your business , your brand , out there .

And then , as I went and got my master's degree in public policy at University of Michigan , Ann Arbor , and studied domestic and foreign policy .

I also worked at other tech companies and agencies and I realized that you know , my approach to helping Black-owned businesses would be very different and since then I've been able to launch and grow over a six-figure business and grow over a six-figure business , helping businesses get on Google page one through website design and everything else , and it's led to just

being able to go successfully through the Goldman Sachs program 10,000 small businesses . I've been able to be recognized by designrushandexpertisecom as one of the top seo companies in the city of long beach and I've also been able to drive um with all of our clients combined since our launch in 2017 , a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue for our clients .

So we've been busy working and helping brands grow and thrive online .

Watch YouTube videos Actually , youtube videos weren't a bad example or look for a particular video on a specific subject . Yeah , you want to be on page one . I mean , people these days , I'm sure , are ready to click on rarely click on page two , three and so on . You're page one . I'm not a tech expert . Leave with me that . I'm just saying like it is .

It's usually pragmatic , abc , basic sense . I don't call it common sense because it's getting rare . Six cents thinking , I think I I don't know what to call it , maybe sense . I'm just gonna call it sense ain't common . It's not common anymore .

I know I'm being I'm being a smart alec , but it's getting rarer and rarer and it actually scares me and I used to be someone who lacked that quote , unquote common sense . But I think I've gotten better of it , gained better at practical touches as I got older . I was one of the bookworm as a kid and I got computers .

Ironically , yeah , I think my first computer I touched I was a 95 . Yeah , I was like in kindergarten . I destroyed , I destroyed the right , I practically destroyed that computer . Well , that's how I learned off my parents . That's my very first exposure to a computer . Wasn't groundbreaking ?

Wasn't a genius there , but it was more trial and error , just like a lot of people . But that's my very first experience with a computer . I just learned how to use Microsoft Paint , play games Nothing groundbreaking .

I will respect , because that's such a ancient , ultra complicated to me , that's calculus . How you figured that nonsense out ? Yes , I'm going to call it nonsense because I'm a proud hater . I said wow , wow . But if you do it through canvas , oh , I'm not surprised . That's smart , but it's not me .

To some extent it's kind of true . I won't deny that , um , but let's you know , let's get back to that 40 acres

land . You know some that abraham lincoln tried to do but was thwarted by that , by that backstabbing andrew johnson and rutherford b haynes . He was such a weak cop and ever since it's been a permanent effect of Black and Latinos . Black and Latinos used to be in the Republican Party back then 30 times .

Ever since then , even to today , fast forward to today the Democrats still haven't decent lock . Well , latino , but latin population , their lock is weakening a bit and when it comes to blacks , I'll say democrats have lost just more like the young black man population . Just a little bit of that . Let's keep the just to preserve the content .

Because because , trust me they're they're not getting much . On that I don't want to say oh , donald trump is getting every single black person . That is obviously fake news . That's obviously misinformation . He's only able to take like five more percent at best on some of these polls but sadly for the republican party , that's probably enough for them to win .

Um but um , yeah , ever since those compromises and not trying to fight , I would say strongly , with such laser focus for those disadvantaged populations .

And in fact , I think a lot of the pain of the descendants of slaves is discounted and it's just an evolution of the dehumanization that happened during the time of slavery . Dehumanization that happened during the time of slavery .

And so , you know , when you look at the work , there's a book by Dr Joy DeGruy called Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome , and in this book she goes through the history of scientists and how they created nomenclature to explain the animal kingdom and then also to explain , you know , um black people , and they would call them feeble-minded or um juvenile or different things .

This is the type of language that , uh , margaret sanger used to launch the american birth league , which we know now as Planned Parenthood . And so you have this dehumanization that takes place to discount the humanity of those who are being oppressed , and this continues to this day when people discount the effects of this 400 years of no payment for labor .

And you know when I'm ? You know , when I was in high school I was a Young Black Scholar At one point I was the team captain for the Young Black Scholars Black History Quiz Off team and I really was optimistic in high school , going into college , that you know America really could be this salad bowl country .

You know , the salad bowl being a metaphor for a diverse mixing of people that really respects people's differences . But what I've discovered in my personal life and just watching how things transpire is that certain categories of people are more protected .

I literally stood in a co-working uh some years ago and this white man who was gay proceeded to tell me about how he was so oppressed because of his , uh , sexual orientation and as a black woman , as a heterosexual black woman , you cannot tell me that a white gay man is more oppressed than a straight black , like where they do that at I mean .

Now I'm so happy that Mother Jones has came out with the research and the receipts to confirm and to solidify these things that we know from personal experience .

You know , as a business owner , as I'm working with businesses building their brands , you know , and just seeing the amount of wealth and revenue I've been able to generate in less than a decade of my business being being in existence , it brings home every day what has been lost at .

You know , from 400 years of labor that with no , no interest , no payment , no asset accumulation , no , um intellectual property protections , you know , when you look at that it's , it's a very stark and bitter reality that somehow , you know , as the SEO queen , I have to acknowledge and still press forward .

You know to move beyond and the only thing that keeps me from just burning this whole country to the ground is just my faith in God and knowing that the battle is the Lord's , not mine .

No , it's going to be a long , hard , dirty and even , at times , bloody battle .

He was a white , white man . And after , you know , getting married and having kids and just living in in this country with him , I soon realized how real racism was and I just had to completely reject the cultural propaganda that is forced down a lot of our throats on a daily basis , that you know , people are treated equal .

There really is no such thing as a meritocracy and fairness in America . There really is not

. And I , like you , I do not have a loyalty to a political party . The only loyalty I have is to my Lord and Savior , jesus Christ . You know I really believe that a lot of politics is a sham and you know I've studied it . I have a degree in public policy , so I've studied how laws are made . I've studied the process . In fact , I'm a city official .

I sit on , you know , the Long Beach Redistricting Commission and you know I just have found that a lot of the things that happen in this country is just a sin and a shame . It's a sin and a shame and it's really unfortunate and it's really , it's really a tragedy .

I mean from just the Tulsa , oklahoma Supreme Court literally telling the survivors of the Tulsa Oklahoma bombing of official Black Wall Street that they have no recourse . There's no justice in this land and when there's no justice , our justice system is broken . It's an injustice system . It's a farce .

Anytime you have people saying , oh , you can't define what a woman is , or you can't define what a man is , I mean this is crazy . Since when does biological classifications become a hot button issue ? Unfortunately , in the United States there is precedent for that . This madness has just went way , way , way too far .

It's more TBD , tba , whatever the heck , whatever acronym makes you feel comfortable . Tbd , tba , whatever the heck , whatever acronym makes you feel comfortable , because some of this I mean I'm sure some of you have different texts . Oh no , this country is equal . It is based on that . It's not working .

All right , look , all I'm going to say is this For her to reach her milestone , she could not be lazy . All right , that's not . Can you be in a lazy mood for a few days ? Yeah , but that doesn't make you a lazy person . But having laziness as your main personality trait , I doubt you will be here . I doubt you become the seo . Oh , not trying hard enough .

She got a business that looks beautiful .

No , it will eventually crumble , right yeah , so my , my family , my mom's side comes from arkansas , my dad's side comes from louisiana and my boo's side comes from Louisiana . So I'm going back to my Louisiana connection and there's just a long line of successful people .

Mean I have airline pilots in my family , I have very successful entrepreneurs , church founders , many , many church founders and missionaries , elected officials , a whole nine yards and a lot of the success of my family , in addition to just hard work , is just faith , faith in God .

Put it real , real short , it was a huge mess . I thought it was wiser . There's plenty of biblical quotes of people who prompt themselves as wise are really foolish . I mean , I could come up with a lot of modern examples . Look at some politician . Okay , I think they could get away with slick talk and all that , or even act in a certain way .

And I'm going to use Jamal Bowman , for example . He thought he could win with him trying to act like the stereotype of a street Bronx person . That didn't work because he I'm sure he didn't forget he overestimated , I guess , about how strong this conservative , right-leaning pact is , the A-Pact .

They threw over $15 million that's the most money ever spent in a primate ever just to make sure Jamal Boner's flushed out , I have to say , a pretty savvy politician who knows Westchester and the 16th District of New York covers 85% of that district is covered by Westchester County .

That's where George Latimer is very big , in only that small 15 percent co-op city . Yeah , so going real local here , or even that , I think , part of Vanquan Park at that very northern tip of the Bronx , not even Riverdale Riverdale is different . Let's cover out Jamal Bowman .

So him performing that so-called Bronx stereotype wasn't gonna help , even if every single person came out and , uh , look my position of the whole hamas israeli thing . Just real quick peace , two-state solution . But you have to do certain drastic thing . Hamas needs to be taken out and you need to replace bb , that yahoo and that government .

Okay , that's the way you're gonna get real chain two-pronged . Pretty controversial because I'm taking either side . If anything , I probably side slightly to center because a lot of leftists push for more too . He was more . Some of his rhetoric sounded more pro-Palestinian .

I'm sure he didn't mean it to come that way , but some words come to bite you and they use that again . And apac was very furious . They dumped a lot and they got democrats in a lot of republics . That's the organization , by the way , that's making republicans look hypocritical on free speech . Do not listen to republicans on free speech .

They're being hypocritical right now , pushing that anti-semitism bill , essentially . Put it in plain english you criticize israel anyway . You're anti-Semitism . That's anti-First Amendment . Even if it's legitimate criticism , oh no , that's anti-Semitism . I can choke for that . I hope the Senate don't pass that bill . So Senate , just let it die . Do the right thing here .

I'm very disgusted with the Republicans and the moderate Democrats on this issue . I'm not progressive , by the way , but that's all I want to say about that issue and that's why Jamal Baldwin has lost brain . All right , I think that's the most succinct thing I can keep before I go deep into it , because I don't want to . I want to make it more about you .

You have so far , you have explained your genealogy . So success of business is in your blood . See , people , it doesn't have to be no white , clean dressed looking man being successful . We want successful , to look diverse , to look at least like the current population . Right , I mean , that's the ideal . At least that part I'll probably say .

I'm still slightly naive .

New York is number one . You know what I'm saying . No , yeah , my bias be right there . I'm gonna be on the bash , on the shame . So it has to be someone from high midwest who can't beat this guy . This guy has a clear conflict of interest . I gotta side with peace , just saying .

But , um , let me get back to seo queen here , how she could help you outsmart this rigged algorithm that favors certain I don't know IP people . Whatever , I'm sure there's a bias there . I'm sure .

So , with that in mind , you can really leverage the algorithm in your favor by , you know , having the right content management system . I'm seeing websites uh , years ago , um well , when I first launched my company , wix was not really ranking , it really wasn't working , but now Wix is performing . So Wix , uh uh , shopify , squarespace and WordPress .

I prefer WordPress because it's an open source software and it's a website that you can literally download off the internet onto your computer and move to another server , and you don't have to worry about having to rebuild your website like you would with like Shopify or Wix , because Shopify and Wixcom are the only places that you can host a Wix website or Shopify

website . So I'm all about being platform independent as much as possible and owning your data , and owning your data is really important , especially in the algorithm age . As a business owner , like three things that I would encourage businesses to do so they avoid mistakes is number one .

You know , really own , understand how your ideal customers are looking for your products and services and then , once you understand how they talk about it , you want to create content that speaks to the questions that they have , and you want to keep an open mind and leverage all the free platforms that are available , including social media YouTube , facebook , pinterest ,

linkedin because part of the algorithm age is having a brand and that brand being able to send the signals to the algorithm so it knows that you have the experience and the trustworthiness in order to rank higher on search engines .

But there's some that struggle and stagnate because they don't have the capital and access to more capital .

We already have seen the demise of affirmative action , but Black-owned businesses get less than 3% of the venture capital that's out there 3% of the venture capital that's out there and most Black-owned businesses have to . Their shoestring budget is so thin that when they get investment , they're able to scale in a big way .

So there's a lot of movements to stop different grant programs that were designed specifically for Black-owned , black women-owned businesses that have been under attack . But people are fighting and , as the SEO Queen , we have a lot of free resources and expensive resources to help businesses at every stage in their journey so that they can grow and learn .

Seo is a powerful way for businesses to really connect with their customers , whether it's business to business or business to consumer , at the exact moment in time that they're looking for their products and services , and so SEO is really powerful and I highly recommend it , and you can always connect with me at seoqueencom or on Instagram at theseoqueen .

I'm a hardcore capitalist on that , yeah , but shove it in there , so she's perfectly relevant . I'm fine with it . Even it's not so relevant . I just probably just cringe a little bit like , no , I expect that . But okay , well then , that's so good . Then then you form your own thoughts or opinions . I'm not gonna give you the answer to that .

I want to keep it covered . What was in eliza's head when this person just threw a random plug-in that has nothing to do with the subject you talk about ? Um , flowers . This person plugs in the ice cream product . What , how we get from flowers to ice cream . I'm sure there's a way . You just don't plug in it . You know , hey , whatever .

So far I've known one that's done that at the random plugins . That's normally for the end especially if it's not relevant this conversation , then it's not like that or whatever . So listen so far my guests . They have mastered that . Naturally , I don't instruct them .

They do plugins at their own discretion if anything I encourage them to do more , especially if it has a nice tie , a nice relevance . This is a note to you future guests . Okay , okay , note , take note . If you ignore this , I cannot help you . I can't Sounds cruel or heartless , but I can , okay . Anyways , let me get back on track before I do so .

How can I'm sure AI could assist so much ? Tools for it , by the way , I think that would be . I think I won't be surprised . I'll be one of your competitors , just AI tools out there . I'll be one of your competitors . Just AI tools out there . It's helpful as SEO . How can AI help um help these businesses become more searchable ? I'm sure there are ways .

You can also use AI to help you come up with content ideas based on the data that you pull on how people are searching for your products and services searching for your products and services .

So if you use ai for those two things and implement the strategies that you are able to uncover um , you should be able to to get some additional traffic online won't be visible , right even this podcast , this podcast . You know that was a great question yep that .

lot of product . It all takes a uh , google search or whatever search engine you use . If you want to be more first amendment more private , brave , and if you want to be half private , you just um , whatever . But if you want the best search results you generally use , if you want more privacy , I recommend . So it's enough of me , um , saying that .

So everything's about data . If you can read data or take on the prompts , that maybe chat gpt will help you with , or or there's other ai tools out there , especially if you follow their . No , follow her . She would give you some some advice . Right , follow the seo queen . I'm sure she will help you out with that .

But I got to cut that part a little short because I want you to contact her . Yes , I am somewhat artificially moving traffic . Yes , blame me , I don't care . Go to her , she'll have a lot more ideas , okay .

I know some of you lean to the right , some of you are just scared centrists . But okay , look , I have opinions and some of you are good to screw , but fortunately I wrapped this up . We got other things . We need to do so from wherever you're listening to , blessed day , afternoon or night .