Grumpy SEO Guy
"Secret Sauce" is Super Scammy Nonsense - Episode 67
This is Grumpy SEO Guy, Episode 67. Reasons to be cautious of agencies and consultants who use the term secret sauce. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy, and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy. Let me tell you why I'm Grumpy today. I'm Grumpy today because a lot of SEO agencies and a lot of SEO consultants use the term secret sauce on their website, and they use this as a promotional thing. As in, we are going to rank your website using our secret sauce. This is some very questionable marketing, and in this episode, I'm going to tell you the reason. But before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started, everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical and based on my experience, this podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. Now, in this episode, we're going to talk about why that's dumb, why you should never work with anybody who talks about secret sauce ever, whether in SEO or another industry, and what if there was secret sauce, and there's not, but if there was what it would actually be. Okay, so here we go. Why does everybody, and I don't actually mean everybody, but like, let's be honest, I've seen it a lot, okay? Why does everybody talk about secret sauce? Why does anyone say it? It suggests scarcity, okay? It suggests scarcity, okay? So if I tell you that my agency has secret sauce, for example, what do you immediately think? Well, you should think ew grows. What do you immediately think? You think, hmm, this person's agency, they seem like they understand SEO. I mean, they have something that is so powerful and useful, it's a secret, and they can't even tell me, ooh, I really wanna work with them, right? So that's what it makes you think, or that's what it's supposed to make you think. On that note, I feel like grumpy SEO guy listeners would not fall for that, because I feel like grumpy SEO guy listeners are very smart, and I appreciate that about you. Anyways, here's my point. If a person who hasn't become aware of marketing, okay, if they see secret sauce, they're gonna think, ooh, yes, I wanna work with them. See, ooh, secret sauce, that sounds awesome, it sounds like something that no other agencies have, right? Like, because that's what it's designed to do, okay? But here's why it's a big red flag in SEO, and by the way, it's a big red flag in any industry, and we're gonna talk a little bit more about that in a minute. The SEO industry is very shady. Would you agree? I think you would agree. That's probably the other reason you're listening to this podcast, right? 'Cause you wanna make sure that you do not work with some dishonest SEO agency, okay, and we spend a lot of time talking about common scams. I even have another episode called Six of the Most Common Scams in the SEO Industry or something like that. Anyway, look, the SEO industry is shady. So if you are working with an SEO agency who is not telling you what they're doing, probably don't work with them, right? Secret sauce implies we have the secret techniques that we're not going to tell you what they are, but trust us. Your response to that should be, yeah, all right. Like that was sarcasm, by the way. I'm not saying yeah, all right, I'm saying yeah, all right. I can see somebody like reading a transcript of this. They're like, ooh, Trumpy SEO guy says yeah, all right. No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying run away from that person because they're being dishonest. You haven't even given them money yet, and they're already being dishonest with you, okay? So by the way, real SEO looks like this. Hello, Mr. Prospect or Mrs. Prospect. We're going to do the following for you, blah, blah, blah. We're going to do this, and we're going to do that. We're going to, you know, whatever content, whatever backlinks, and here's how we're gonna do it. It's not going to say, we're going to use secret sauce, and we're not going to tell you what we're doing. Look, SEO is so shady anyway. Do you really wanna work with a company that is not going to tell you how they're doing SEO? What if they're doing some black hat nonsense? By the way, let's have a little talk about black hat versus white hat because these terms come up commonly, and I feel like you probably already know what they are, but I'm going to explain them. Anyway, in SEO, there are some terms that get used. One of them is white hat, one of them is black hat. All it means really is, well, okay, white hat refers to playing by the rules, okay? Like doing things the way the search engines tell you to do them, right? In other words, the goal of using white hat SEO is to avoid penalties, ultimately, okay? And if you remember from episode 51, the four things you need to rank, the highest priority in SEO is avoiding penalties. I'm not saying you have to do everything super white hat. We'll get to that in a minute, but I'm saying your highest priority is avoiding penalties, okay? Anyway, so theoretically, if you do white hat SEO, you are playing by the rules and you will not trigger a penalty, okay? It's debatable. It's also debatable if white hat SEO works, which we'll get to in a minute. Then you have black hat SEO. Black hat SEO is doing whatever you want, not caring and well, that's really all there is to it. If you get discovered using black hat SEO, you usually get a penalty. Sometimes you get de-indexed, okay? And I'm, you know, this is a high level discussion here. So like just somebody, if you disagree, you don't need to email me because I know, okay? But this is just a quick definition of it. So look, I'm not gonna give black hat strategies here, but I'm gonna give you one example, okay? One example of a black hat technique is showing different content to the search engines than you show to a human visitor, okay? And if you don't know why you would ever need to do that, that's probably a good thing because you probably don't ever need to do that. So I'm just gonna leave it there. But if you get discovered doing that, guess what, you might get a penalty. Now, there's another term that maybe you've heard. It's called gray hat, okay? What happens if you blend white and black? You get gray. Yeah, it's clever, right? Okay, anyway. Anyway, gray hat is kind of in between the two. I would argue, and I'm being honest here because this is what my agency does, I would argue that most link building is gray hat, okay? Because let's take a little step back here and talk about how you are supposed to get backlinks. You are not supposed to actively build backlinks because that's manipulation, okay? So what's supposed to happen is you have a really good website and people naturally find it and they think that it's so amazing that they link to it on their own. Now, why is that important? Because when they're linking to it on their own, you're getting backlinks, which is going to help you build authority. Obviously, authority is main ranking factor, okay? But here's the problem with that. If you have a new website, for example, or maybe you have a website that you've had for a while, but you're not ranking for anything, nobody's gonna find it because you don't rank for anything, okay? So how are you supposed to do white hat link building, right? And by the way, I'm doing air quotes on that when I say white hat link building. How are you supposed to get any, how are you supposed to build any white hat backlinks if you're not ranking for anything? Nobody can find your website because it doesn't rank for anything. So nobody's gonna build backlinks to you, okay? And then so what happens, what happens? Those people, they go and they hire an SEO agency and that SEO agency lies to them and says, we're gonna write really great content and that will make you rank. That's not how it works. And you know that from Grumpy SEO Guide. Lit, if you don't know that, go listen to Grumpy SEO Guide episode 21 after this one, okay? And it will explain to you why authority is important and why content doesn't matter the way you think it does. Anyway, look, so they're gonna hire this agency and say, well, we'll write really good content and you'll rank and then they won't because good content is not a ranking factor, okay? Good content is more likely to get backlinks than bad content, okay? But that presupposes that somebody can find your website in the first place, okay? And if you don't have authority, you don't rank and if you don't rank, nobody can find you. So the argument could actually be created that white hat link building doesn't work, okay? Because you're not going to organically get backlinks if you don't already rank and if you don't already have authority, you're not going to rank. So there you go. Anyway, I think, I've cleared that up. If you have questions about white hat versus black hat or, you know, whatever, let me know. Anyway, so let's talk a little bit more about secret sauce and why it's so foolish. Okay, I feel like we're still kind of lost in this SEO feeling right now, okay? So I wanna give you another example of how absolutely ridiculous this is, okay? I want you to imagine you're having car trouble, okay? And you take your car to a mechanic, okay? And the mechanic says to you, he says, okay, cool, we're gonna look at your car and he looks at your car and then he comes out to you and he says, yes, you're having trouble with your car. Don't worry, we're gonna fix it for you. Don't worry, don't worry. We're gonna fix it with our secret sauce. Okay, here's your bill. Do you think they would stay in business? Of course not, because they wouldn't even tell you what the problem was or how to fix it or specifically what you're paying for or any of that, just, oh, yeah, secret sauce, really? Anyway, yeah, so look, can you even imagine that? Or another profession? Can you even imagine, now to be fair, there are certain customers of mechanics who don't care what the problem is and they just want their car up and running again, like they literally don't care, okay? And that's fine, that's fine. But those mechanics will still probably give you an itemized receipt. Hey, we had to fix this pipe. It was this many dollars for the part and this many dollars for labor. Hey, we had to fix the other thing. It was this much for the equipment and it was this much for the labor, okay, okay, cool. Can you even imagine though, if you gotta receipt and it was like secret sauce and then it had a price? You're like, so what was the problem? He's like, oh, bro, don't worry about it, we fixed it. We fixed it with our secret sauce, don't worry about it. Do you think anybody doing that would stay in business? I doubt it. But for some reason, that's allowed in the SEO industry. Seriously, okay, so you're gonna pay somebody money who's not even being honest with you before you, before you even start working together. Like, they're already not being honest with you. We're gonna use our secret sauce. You're gonna pay them? Or like, can you imagine if your computer wasn't running properly and you brought it to some store, okay? Like some computer repair shop. And then you went to go get your computer later, they're like, it's fixed, come pick it up, and then you went to get it. And then you're like, oh, so what was the problem? And they're like, oh, you know what? Don't even worry about that. We fixed it with our secret sauce. You'd be like, no, like, I mean, I would, like hopefully you would choose to avoid doing business with people like that. But listen, why is that annoying? Okay, it's annoying, right? But also, the reason it's annoying is because the nuance here is they want to tell you that they used secret sauce because they want to feel better than you. They have secret knowledge. They're not going to tell you what it is. Therefore, they're better than you. Do you wanna deal with people like that? I would recommend that you do not deal with people like that. But why is this okay in SEO? But it's not okay in any other industry. By the way, it's also not okay in SEO. But like SEO agencies don't seem to understand that, which is why they keep talking about secret sauce. My highest recommendation, okay? Like, aside from understanding that content is not the reason you rank, okay? I guess that's my highest recommendation. My second highest recommendation is never work with an agency who talks about secret sauce who is not explicitly clear with you about how they are going to do SEO for you. I guarantee you it will not go well. Now, since we're being explicitly clear, does that necessarily mean that actual private blog portfolios are bad? Like if they're not showing you where you're getting the backlinks. Because some people are like, I want backlinks, but I want to see the websites where the backlinks are. Okay, side note, when private blog portfolios become public, they lose their effectiveness, okay? I'm gonna talk a lot about that in the future. But for now, I'm gonna tell you that if you trust the person, okay? It is not a red flag if they will not tell you where the links are coming from. I feel like if you talk to the person enough, you will get a feeling for if they understand SEO or not. Because now, why is this a thing? Why is this a thing? When PBNs originally came out, okay? PBNs, private blog network, 'cause that's what they're called for a long time. When PBNs first came out, you were getting backlinks on unknown sites. Why? The first P is for private. Well, I guess in PBN, there's only one P. The P is for private, right? Not P, BP, private blog portfolio, but PBN, private blog network. A private blog network means all the sites are linked together into a network, okay? A private blog portfolio is just a lot of sites that you own, but they are not linked together. Do not link your sites together into a network. It is a footprint, it is a bad idea. But the two terms are kind of used interchangeably. Anyway, they're private, privately held, but also sometimes they were private, you would not even know where your link was. Is there a problem with that? Wow, there can be, there's tools that will find it, but then there's also ways to hide it from those tools. So, you know, it's kind of like, I don't know, it doesn't matter, it's a different topic. But anyways, look, publicly available lists of backlinks will eventually stop working. Let's just put it that way, okay? If you buy your backlinks off of a menu, they will eventually stop working, okay? When one person knows about them, everybody knows about them, okay? So, what I'm saying here is do not, different topic, but don't buy backlinks off a menu, okay? If somebody says, here's a list of our websites that we are selling backlinks on hard pass. Because look, if they're gonna share it with you, okay, conspiracy theory time, put your tin foil hats on, but I'm also being serious. If they're gonna share it with you, they're going to share it with everyone, which means one, people could just spam them like crazy if they felt like it. If you were bored enough, and all you wanted to do was damage someone's SEO services, you could spam their PBNs, okay? I have another episode about this. It's called the Secret World of SEO Agency Warfare, okay? But, reason number two, if you're an employee of a search engine whose job is to find PBNs, okay? Well, guess what, you just revealed your entire list to that person, enjoy being de-indexed, and there are cases of this having happened. In the past, I think I mentioned one on another episode. I'm not gonna mention it again, because I don't remember specifically what I said, but I was really trying to not name names, but there was a, I think I can tell you this, there was a well-known, I'm air quoting, there was a well-known PBN service with a specific name that I'm not gonna say. The service said it was undetectable by Google or something. This was like 10 years ago, probably longer, it was undetectable by Google or something like that. That was, don't quote me on this, that's not exactly what it was, but it was something along the lines of undetectable by Google, right? Until a Google employee discovered it, de-indexed it, and then posted a tweet about it, and said something like undetectable by Google, huh? So, I don't know, it was a big deal back in the day. But my point is, how do you think they found it? Anyways, that's all I'm gonna say about this for now, but just as a reminder, don't buy backlinks off a menu, and we're gonna talk more about that in the future. But anyway, like for example, our agency clients who are getting backlinks from us, we do not provide a list of backlinks for them. Some people have asked, and we do not, not gonna talk right now about blocking them, because it's possible to hide your links from things like Ahrefs and stuff. I'm not even gonna talk about that, because that is a different topic, but we'll talk about that in the future, we'll talk about don't buy backlinks off a menu, we'll talk about why publicly available SEO services eventually stop working, and we'll talk about why you may or may not want to hide your backlinks from services like Ahrefs. Anyway, I'm really gonna get back on topic now. I just said that, but I'm gonna get back on topic. So, it's like, it's pretty shady, and it's trying to create scarcity, and it's trying to construct a differentiation between them, the smart agency, the smart consultant. They are smart, they are so smart, they can't even tell you the way they're gonna do your SEO. And you, you just, you know what, it's secret sauce, and you wouldn't even understand. If we tried, if we tried to just, just don't, you know what, just don't worry about it, just don't worry about it, it's our secret sauce. Just trust us, like really? Like I get it, I get it if you're like, if you're having your car fixed, right? 'Cause like people don't understand, like cars, like I don't really understand cars, I'm gonna be honest with you guys. But like, so if a mechanic is like, we did blobby, blah, blah, I'd be like, all right, cool, I believe you, you know? But like, but like, if a mechanic was like, oh yeah, bro, don't worry about it, it was our secret sauce, I'd be like, whoa, guess who's never getting my business again, ever, because they're shady, you are. But like, I don't, I can't, I don't know. Like, and another thing about secret sauce, it's saying secret sauce, it just smacks of insecurity, it really does, like why, what are you afraid of? Like, why can't you tell people, why can't people that are paying money to you? You can't tell them how you're doing SEO, and like, what even is your secret sauce? Maybe it's some garbage, like blog comments, okay? Blog comments is a pretty garbage SEO strategy. There's just a post, I'm probably gonna delete this part from the final episode, but I'm gonna say it anyway. There was just a, be funny if I leave it in. If I leave it in, I'll leave that comment in too, okay? But anyways, there was just a post on Reddit recently, on the SEO subreddit, where somebody was saying that they work for an SEO agency, and their goal, they had to do like, they had to build like 100 backlinks a day or something along those lines. I can't, I can't remember exactly, 'cause I like just kinda glossed over it. But like, and it was like blog comment links, and I'm just like, oof, like I didn't, I don't wanna, well I don't know who the agency was, so I'm not calling anybody out. But like, wow, I hope nobody is paying you to do anything, because blog comment backlinks, whether you're doing 100 a day or zero a day, are going to have the same effect, because that's a pretty useless SEO method. But the point is, like, what if it was some agency, and they're like secret sauce, and like, that was their secret sauce. Like, I'm just, I'm just, I'm not even, like I'm not even, I can't, I can't even think of the words to finish the sentence right here. Like, I truthfully, it's just ick. Like, secret sauce is gross. Why do you think I spend so much time on the podcast, telling you how to do SEO and how it works? It's so you keep from doing business with these secret sauce agencies that are just gonna do some dumb nonsense that isn't gonna help you at all. But it's secret sauce. Like, secret sauce doesn't mean good, or effective, or anything. It just means we're not telling you stuff. Do you really wanna work with an agency that doesn't tell you stuff, really? 'Cause that's probably not a great way to do it. But, I mean, you can do whatever you want. I'm just telling you, like, it's weird. Now, we're gonna talk about what SEO secret sauce actually is. I already said that there's no SEO secret sauce. That's just a marketing term, okay? But if there was, the secret sauce would be this. Okay, so this is SEO secret sauce. Now, remember, there is no such thing as SEO secret sauce. And what I'm gonna tell you, it's not even secret. It's just SEO, okay? But, whatever, let's just get started. Okay, the first thing, the first part of SEO secret sauce, okay? We should call it the first ingredient, okay? The first ingredient of SEO secret sauce is... Make sure you don't have a penalty. Whoa, shocking. But seriously, make sure you don't have a penalty because when a website has a penalty, it doesn't matter what you do to it. It's not going to rank because it has a penalty. So, make sure you don't have a penalty, okay. Number two, the second ingredient in SEO secret sauce is have content. Just have content, it doesn't have to be correct, it doesn't have to be helpful, it doesn't have to be good. Those are not ranking factors. But you do have to have content, okay? Look, I don't wanna argue about if it's possible or not to rank a website that doesn't have content. There's no reason to do so, right? So it doesn't matter. But look, you need content to establish relevancy, which we're gonna talk about shortly. Number three, the third ingredient for SEO secret sauce is you need authority. Authority comes from backlinks. There's more to it than that. But for now, just grasp the fact that authority comes from backlinks, okay? And the fourth ingredient in SEO secret sauce is relevancy. What is relevancy? Relevancy just means what is the website about? What is the subject of the website? If your website is about washing machines and dishwashers, but it's not about blue widgets, then you don't have relevancy for blue widgets and it makes sense that you wouldn't rank for that keyword. Anyway, episode 51 goes into detail for all four of these things, okay? It's called the four things you need to rank, okay? But look, these things, they're not secret, okay? It's just SEO. If somebody asks me, how do you do SEO, that's the things I would tell them. Now, to be clear, those four things are like 95, maybe like 90% of SEO. Yes, there is a couple other things, okay? But like ultimately, most people aren't even doing these parts of SEO properly. So like other little things aren't even gonna matter. Anyway, let's go over them again. And I'm not saying, let me be very clear because I don't want anybody to misinterpret what I'm saying. I'm not saying that if an agency or a consultant talks about secret sauce, that this is what they are going to do, okay? Most people do not do these things correctly. What I am saying is that if an agency or consultancy talks about secret sauce, they're probably trying to fool you into thinking they have some like professional knowledge or something that you are not aware of, okay? Like literally saying secret sauce is misleading and dishonest because why are you keeping secrets from your clients? And you guys listening to this, why are you paying people to do things when they're not telling you what they're doing? Please avoid working with those people. But look, I just wanna be very clear. So like, I'm not saying that people that talk about secret sauce are actually doing these things and they're just not telling you. They're probably doing bad SEO if they're talking about secret sauce. But what I am telling you is these four things, no penalties, content, authority and relevancy, okay? That is SEO, that is how you do SEO. And those four things are like 90 to 95% of SEO, okay? So just there is no secret sauce. So anyway, my point is just there is no secret sauce. And if there was, it's probably something that you would not want them doing in the first place. Like it's probably some weird black hat stuff that probably is not going to help you in the long run. So probably don't use any black hat tactics even though they might have a time and a place. I'm not recommending them nor am I teaching them. But look, there is no secret sauce. The only secret sauce that exists is doing good SEO. And how do you do good SEO? Those four things, one, avoid penalties. Two, have content. Three, have authority, which comes from backlinks. And by the way, if you're curious about backlinks, you should know there's four ways to get backlinks and surprise, surprise. I have an episode that describes them in detail. It's episode 49, it's called the four ways to get backlinks. And number four, have relevancy. That is like, that is SEO, okay? That is SEO. There is no secret sauce. So let me just say this one more time. So there's absolutely no confusion. There is no secret sauce in SEO. And you should be very suspicious of anybody who tries to use the words secret sauce in their meetings or in their marketing or at any other point in the journey of trying to get you to be a client because there is no secret sauce. And anything that could be considered secret sauce is probably something that you would not want them to do. So ask yourself, what is the reason this agency is not being transparent or forthcoming with me about how they do SEO? That is the question that the word secret sauce should make you ask. And I would encourage you to ask them if you're talking to somebody and they say, oh, we're gonna use our secret sauce. I'd be like, okay, well, let's wait a minute. Can you explain that to me? What, look, I know it's a secret in everything, but what is your secret sauce? And watch them squirm because I bet A, they actually do not have a secret sauce and it's just marketing. And B, I bet they won't know what to say because like, or you might get some nonsense like, well, you know, we don't really share our strategies. Okay, immediate in the meeting. Like, actually not kidding. If they're not going, if they want you to pay them, okay, and they're not going to tell you what they're doing with your money, that is not a company that you should hire. I mean, you wouldn't do it for another business. Would you pay a mechanic who doesn't tell you, now, this is different from if you don't care, okay? But would you pay a mechanic who wouldn't tell you the way he's fixing your car? He's like, oh, it's trust me, bro, secret sauce on your engine. Like, of course, I hope not, I hope not. That would never be allowed in any other industry. But for some reason, SEO people are like, oh, secret sauce, oh, well, that's cool. They must know how to do good SEO 'cause they have the secret sauce. Like, no, no, stop. If you learn anything from this episode, it's that secret sauce, they're, okay, there are numerous red flags, okay, for an SEO consultant or agency or whatever. We're gonna talk about more of them in the future. But secret sauce is one of them. So please, do not work with an agency who advertises secret sauce as their method, okay? Transparency is key, even us, okay, with our backlink building from our portfolio of law. I tell everybody up front, that's what we're doing. Like, because that's how you do SEO, but that's a different conversation. Anyway, look, nobody's ever been like, hey, grumpy SEO guy, that's not really my name, but, you know, they're like, hey, grumpy SEO guy. Take our money, but don't tell us what you're doing. And, yeah, like, all kinds of clients, I don't know, man. Anyway, here's the point. Let me say this one more time. Number one, there is no secret sauce. If there was, which there is not, but if there was, it would just be good SEO, which is what, no penalties, content, authority, and relevancy, that's it, that's it, okay? Number two, any consultant or agency that is trying to use secret sauce as a reason that you should hire them is dishonest and they are trying to confuse you to make it seem like they are smart and you are not. So you should be immediately questioning what's happening if an agency or a consultant ever says to you, yes, we are going to rank you with our secret sauce. And I feel like they would probably say it that way too, with our secret sauce. Like, they would just be like, yeah, we're gonna use our secret sauce. No, because it's a secret. We're going to rank you with our secret sauce. That's probably not how they talk, but I imagine that's how they talk, you know. Anyway, so in conclusion, stop buying things from SEO agencies that are not being honest with you about how they're going to do the thing that they're going to do. And secret sauce is just a way of identifying this thing because ultimately it's a bunch of nonsense. I mean, like look, like seriously, if they're being that dishonest with you before you even pay them, do you think it's gonna get better if you pay them? Like maybe if I pay them, they will tell me what their secret sauce is. Oof, no. Okay, I think I have made my point. So thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe. And if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is GrumpySCOGai. You can visit the GrumpySCOGai subreddit or you can email me at hello@grumpyscogai.com. If you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so at patreon.com/grumpyscogai. And I will talk to you later. You're listening to GrumpySCOGai, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday when we talk about why you should stop focusing on number of backlinks. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]