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Special guest Tony Guarnaccia has lived. He faced homelessness (twice), made a cake for Jennifer Lopez (seriously) and rubbed elbows with executives at some of the world's most recognizable brands. Listen to him tell his story and discuss SEO, entrepreneurship, and resilience with Jeff and Francis. 

John Vuong, Local SEO Search owner, and Jeff swap odd-jobs stories (like the time Jeff was a professional mosquito mercenary) before diving into the world of local SEO. Learn, among other things, how not to respond to "getting Karened" on Google.

Clearscope is a tool that helps content marketers and SEO experts create content that will rank in Google Search. Co-founder Bernarnd Huang explains the shifting landscape of Google search and how marketers can use tools to stay ahead of the curve.

Will Stevens of Seer Interactive talks about how he kicked himself into gear to start writing his first book. He also shares predictions on the long-term business ramifications of the coronavirus lockdown.

How do the boys get such interesting guests? They get help, and one of those people is Jessica Rhodes and her company Interview Connections. Taped in the pro-COVID19 days, this episode looks at the business of getting guests on podcasts and why there's no uniform way to record them. Also y'all should thank her because without Rhodes this podcast would be a parade of Jeff and Francis' drunken marketing friends all whining about the same thing. 

The boys express the realities of the current crisis, only to find their footing again when they realize the one thing that will get them out of their funk - their hatred of LinkedIn sales messages. Better yet, they have thrown out a challenge to the collective LinkedIn community.

What did it feel like for New Zealand to be one of the first countries to deal with Instagram's new policy of hiding likes? Francis found a digital marketing veteran named Greg Roughan to speak for the entire country on this episode of Above the Fold. Full Transparency: We recorded this back in August of this year and Jeff just found it under a stack of spam emails. Loyal listeners may remember that we talked about Greg back in season 1, episode 3 when Francis messed up his last name. He still can't get it right.

Meredith Golden is the rarest type of person. That thing Golden does? People who can’t figure out why their online dating profiles repel romance come to her for help. And she provides it for a fee. As you might expect, this episode of Above the Fold quickly revealed itself to be one of the most intriguing yet. Here’s what’s inside: Lots of good advice about online dating A few examples of what not to do on Tinder. The eerie realization that online dating is digital marketing in disguise.

On this episode of Above the Fold, Jeff Baker is accompanied by the soporific stylings of Canadian entrepreneur, marketer, co-founder of Kula Partners, host of the Kula Ring podcast and semi-sonic doppelganger of the late, great Leonard Cohen. The discourse du jour: Reimagining the shape of the sales and marketing funnel.

The year was 2001 and Trent Dyrsmid - founder of the Bright Ideas podcast and Flowster - was earning $200k a year to play golf and go to dinner with stockbrokers. But he was bored and, in his mind, underachieving. Plus, he never cared much for golf. So, he did as the entrepreneurs do: “I decided that I was going to quit that job and I was going to sell everything that I own to start a business.” The odyssey that followed was both topsy-turvy and immensely illuminating. In this episode of Above the Fold, listen to the seasoned entrepreneur and prolific podcaster narrate his sidewinding journey to success.

To start season three, Mike Carroll from Nutshell joins us for a harmless discussion about how sales and marketing can work well together. Then, without warning, he turns into a rabid beast and goes nuclear on Facebook.  Baker introduced his guest, Michael “Mike” Carroll, head of growth at Nutshell CRM.  There was also some speak of all the weed Joe Rogan smokes - you know, the usual stuff. Anyway, the conversation tumbled its way toward sales enablement. This part was super insightful and got to the existential core of the age-old rift between sales and marketing. But then around the 35-minute mark, something extraordinary happened. Carrol, who must have ingested a Molotov cocktail before recording, verbally unleashed its fiery wrath all over Facebook.

Apparently, a great story plus great data can change a marketing campaign. This is a shocking development for Jeff and Francis. Join us and our guest David Lemley as we dig into why numbers and creative can fuel the bottom line.

Special guest Tommy Griffith of Clickminded talks SEO training courses, college degree scams, and how SEO media has turned into a clickbait industry.  2:00 - Starting a $100k business on the side.  17:00 - The state of the clickbait SEO media industry.  35:40 - Colleges selling worthless digital marketing degrees for $50-100k, before the curriculum is even set. 

An expose on the people who have to manually review and censor offensive and violent content on Facebook.  An influencer with over 3 million followers couldn’t sell 36 t-shirts.  Northface caught trying to hack Wikipedia. What?  Rand lays out the case against Google for the department of justice. Because, they definitely couldn’t figure it out themselves. 

Your brand is more important than your website when it comes to SEO.  What the hell does that mean? That's exactly what we asked Garrett Mehrguth, CEO of Directive, when he pitched us this podcast topic.  Garrett explains the value of not just showing up in search results for the keywords you are targeting, but also having your brand show up in search results that are not part of your website.  Call it SEO brand reach? Call it Call it guest blogging and online partnerships? Call it reputation management?  We don't know what you call it, but Garrett makes an interesting point that you shouldn't miss as a content marketer. 

We talk about data all the freaking time. Why? Because Jeff likes it and Francis cries when he has to think about charts.  But in this episode, we talk with Chuck Leddy, a lifelong creative who explains the importance of crafting a brand story. Because yes, a brand story CAN and DOES translate to revenue. 

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that puts privacy at the forefront of their business model. Seriously, you will get ZERO search customization, because you are anonymous. But is that what people want? Are searchers happy to give up their information in exchange for extremely customized results?  It seems to be a mixed bag. People seem to want the customization, but NOT the tracking. But what we can say for sure is that DuckDuckGo is gaining market share. 

Tim Soulo, CMO and product advisor of Ahrefs, and industry-leading SEO tool, joined us for a discussion on searcher-intent, and SEO trends. Tim explained how a simple modification to a high-value page brought their rankings from the bottom of page one to the top, effectively 5x-ing their traffic within days. Tim also dropped a bombshell on us; Ahrefs is creating something BIG. We are talking game-changing BIG.

What happens when you have a deep dive into AI for an hour? You find out Jeff is a closet Taylor Swift fan (according to a chatbot) and Francis has real fear of a robotic Barbie. This all happens thanks to author James Vlahos joining the show who, coincidentally, wrote a book about AI called Talked to Me: How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Think. That's right people, loopholes are real and they are spectacular. 

Eli Schwartz, former Direct of Growth and SEO at SurveyMonkey joined us to talk about all things SEO, search trends, and the value of surveys.  It's been a while hasn't it? This is what happens when your two co-hosts end up taking vacation on opposite weeks. On this episode we welcome SEO and survey expert Eli Schwartz as a guest to take the boys through the finer points of enterprise SEO and surveys. And interestingly enough, the conversation may just reveal a recipe for how content could go viral (spoiler alert: it's weird stats). All this and random sounds from Colombia as Jeff was still there when this was recorded.