00:00:12: What everyone this is Christoph from LinkResearchTools and this is my link building and SEO podcast and today we got a very special guest a longtime friend Alex Gopshtein of Pitchbox. hey Alex.
00:00:25: Hi Christoph I'm really excited to be here.
00:00:28: I'm excited to have you here and that's always a pleasure to hang out with you and discuss business and for those guys that don't know if im Pitchbox is.
00:00:37: The product is the Outreach software outage automation software the only one that linkresearchtools with its not,
00:00:44: Emmaus pamuk to or something you don't like a bulk mail or something that you might have seen somewhere for cheap it's the real deal for reaching out and getting links and this is why linkresearchtools integrated with it,
00:00:56: early on many years ago I think in 2013 or 2014 early 2014.
00:01:02: So that's how linkresearchtools and pitchbox belong together or anyways since so this is Friends game.
00:01:09: Yeah absolutely love love linkresearchtools and actually really enjoyed working on the integration a couple years ago as well I was definitely lots of fun.
00:01:19: Bro it's what's your background on History you know your what is you know what your company do at just said but how did you get into señora link building link audit Outreach.
00:01:29: Right right yeah so I am I started my career as a software engineer has,
00:01:39: this was a long time ago 20 years ago as the web started getting more and more,
00:01:44: popular I kind of saw obviously some opportunities there moved into a bit more and development on the website of things then obviously realize that,
00:01:54: you know as you're developing for the web your website is just one amongst millions or billions Iris Lee you need to,
00:02:02: marketing on the web turned into SEO and that's how I kind of ended up in the SEO space now I have very,
00:02:10: answer for Newell mine I'm an entrepreneur at heart,
00:02:13: not even when I was in high school I was trying to lunch businesses here in there and my family was always doing some things so I realized that I've kind of have this enterpreneur passion I want to lunch,
00:02:26: that's how I started my rent I started an SEO agency,
00:02:32: ran the agency for good ten ten years or so and as the,
00:02:39: SEO obviously evolved funeral primarily focusing initially on the on page,
00:02:44: then we got into the offpage and content we started obviously just like many other agencies offering the link Building Services realizing that you know sharing content getting links is extremely important.
00:02:58: And quickly sort of this this complicated.
00:03:06: Process that needed to be automated,
00:03:09: I'm also just like you Christoph I like automating things I like a lot of tools we started looking for different tools could that could help us automate and ends kind of stay organized,
00:03:20: with the entire link building process and every time I would find something it kind of felt short for me.
00:03:26: I so I then met kind of my co-founder Michael gianellas who is co-founded Fish Box with me.
00:03:36: We we met and we kind of here and an agency as well here in Philadelphia area and he also kind of felt the same that he couldn't see no couldn't find the tools really,
00:03:47: automate a lot of those things,
00:03:49: creating helping create a process and store can I so he also comes he also a geek like me comes from the software engineering background says look we could probably put something together and just to help our own teams be more,
00:04:03: and we decided to put something together we but six months it took us to build the software again it was meant for in-house it was dog ugly butt,
00:04:12: it really work that really done really well for us was that again and organized so,
00:04:16: being in the business for so many years we kind of shared it with some of our friends that we build over the years they loved it and said we want access we want access so Michael and I thought that point realize that I think we have a product,
00:04:29: so we made it pretty we gave it a name pitchbox and yeah and that's from that point it was history.
00:04:36: That sounds very familiar and very,
00:04:41: very like linkresearchtools moss created out of the need of ghetto just finding links and evaluating links with reliable data reliable data that you don't was just a couple minutes old enough,
00:04:54: diesel weeks or month old like it happen for me and my very small team in 2006 already and the same kind of.
00:05:03: Pay for the getaway have a product we want access happened to be three years after as well how long was it for you how long did you use your product yourself before you know it became pitchbox.
00:05:13: I think we used it for probably like a few years maybe like yeah but maybe yeah maybe I maybe a year-and-a-half to two years.
00:05:23: We use that we use that a lot of self sand pit boxes with an Outreach platform Ryan said takes a lot of testing to make sure it right,
00:05:31: no it was actually fine because initially when we were building the software,
00:05:36: we kind of we wanted to package with features and we've have so many things it just packing and packing and packing and then we went to one of the lunch conferences what we we lunch,
00:05:46: the TechCrunch but then we started going to these,
00:05:48: Rupp conferences and we met this one gentleman who was I don't remember his name but he said I'll help you guys out of love you and I loved the idea and we were in San Francisco and said when I get back home to New York she was one of the feces.
00:06:03: So one of those one of the Venture capitalists and the companies and he said I'd love to get a demo and so we said sure So we got on a demo.
00:06:12: And the demo to a kitchen. It was a two and a half hours.
00:06:16: Two and a half hours man we were exhausted I can't imagine what this guy was feeling what he was going through and we took his guys busy in his running a company we took two and a half hours of his day I mean I can't imagine somebody doing that to me today,
00:06:30: so at the end of the end of the call he's like,
00:06:33: Gus's a really really great tool but one suggestion I said yeah you have to freaking cut the demo you know it cannot be two and a half hours if can't take half of my day as a chip.
00:06:47: I said we have to now we have to start stripping it so the first year we were building features the next year we were taking them away.
00:06:55: Because it was just so many things and and we worked so hard and it was just a bit it paid off and it was a lot it was lots of lots of lots of fun.
00:07:04: Yeah but you know obviously then getting people to use the softer own boring the software for so many different cases was harder than it was now than it is now right.
00:07:15: Yeah absolutely
yeah absolutely.
00:07:18: Which leads me to the next question you know about the biggest issue that you see that companies in general have with SEO or or maybe agencies.
00:07:28: Companies with Su I think that makes a big difference you know 11 Hunter agencies and then there are brands that do as you for themselves what do you see and what's the biggest lure again.
00:07:40: Problem for adoption or getting stuff done right I see so many mistakes having so many things going wrong every day what do you see.
00:07:50: Yeah well I think that the biggest will the biggest issue for us when when we were in agency,
00:07:57: prior to launching pitchbox was was really staying organized creating that collaborative environment between the team members and being able to scale,
00:08:06: and and even well still today and and I think that's,
00:08:11: that's why we build pitchbox and we've kind of saw this problem and we try to fix it with with building a software and that's exactly what we did so a lot of the agencies and SEO teams from brands of come to us.
00:08:25: Primarily for one reason,
00:08:26: because they are feel like they're dropping the ball on the lot of the sort of you know day-to-day things that they have to do.
00:08:36: They're not you know there's this lost connection between the team members and also having,
00:08:42: you know there's there's this process that you know every agency will Define you know they'll have to be there link building or they're doing some other things they'll to find some type of a process and I believe in workflows and a lot of times that I see there's this lack of work law,
00:08:56: right there's these the segmented things off of to Do's or,
00:09:02: tasks and they don't really have this nice flow to them so there's really no true beginning and an end and somewhere at some point,
00:09:11: false a lot of the agency's come to us they might have you know a thousand different spreadsheets in Google Sheets,
00:09:19: and nobody knows who owns what and you know they have to follow up and then when they're for example doing Lynn building or Outreach.
00:09:27: They're reaching out to somebody and they riding themselves a task to follow up,
00:09:31: and then if they are truly truking looking to scale and doing a lot of the Outreach they might be spending sending 100 150 200 emails a day maybe even more and have the follow up with everyone of them well then you need to have a task system that's going to,
00:09:45: keep you organized and keep you reminding but then I can't imagine getting a hundred reminders five days down the road so you got to follow up with these people right and God forbid you follow up with somebody who actually did already respond.
00:09:58: The biggest issue is truly to stay staying organized but at the same time being able to scale.
00:10:04: And that's and I think you know I know you said that it's different from brand for Brands and it's different for agencies I think the SEO,
00:10:13: itself may be slightly different but I think if you take the really the issue out of it and just put you know that,
00:10:21: it's kind of a work that needs to get done I think it's very very similar for for Brands and and the agencies.
00:10:29: Judging by that what do you say is that you don't actually the problem gets bigger the bigger the company that we get a brand or the bigger the agency right.
00:10:39: Absolutely I don't hear the Brand's I don't think so much I think the agency's very much so because with the agencies as they as they grow and they acquire new clients.
00:10:52: It's basically like Brands could never really.
00:10:55: Do that I mean unless they're kind of venturing off into different areas or maybe acquiring some new web properties and things like that.
00:11:03: Some clothing Unicode clients with 70 countries where they operate in that do old and Link building in old.
00:11:06: Sure sure absolute.
00:11:08: Languages.
00:11:10: Absolutely yeah when there's that sort of that segment but with agent with it with agencies I think the agency's soda.
00:11:16: Get to a bigger problem my faster because you know for somebody for a larger larger company to launch another country is so much more difficult than for an agency to pick up another client.
00:11:28: So I see that agencies are scaling in or looking to scale a lot quicker a lot faster.
00:11:34: And and sometimes they just don't have the tools to support them to do that.
00:11:42: No way no way yeah yeah exactly exactly that's very much those so.
00:11:51: No biggest take away something to share for people doing SEO link building link audit some golden nuggets to know because we're already at 12 minutes I'll keep it short and sweet.
00:12:03: Yeah.
00:12:04: Go quick so I think that we work with thousands of different folks every day and what I see a lot of times we'll kind of set themselves or management will set themselves some type of a Kohl's in terms of Fina from a link building Spurs,
00:12:19: you have to build X many links per month or whatever and they just kind of like they're running after this no matter what and then in every single month they're trying to hit that number and a lot of times I feel like they're just forgetting why are they doing it,
00:12:33: you know it's just doing it for what for link building now you're doing it to improve your website's performance improve doing this to improve the rankings so a lot of people I see where they actually forget to start tracking things,
00:12:45: images,
00:12:45: go back to Google Alex take a look how you improving you know yes the link counts are important in a lot of times you report back to your management or the client so I think that the biggest thing is just kind of pause for a second and what am I doing link building for,
00:12:59: I'm doing it from proving rankings and overall so you always going to want to go back to some type of a tracking system that you haven't placed and see has my.
00:13:08: Has my traffic increased have my rankings improved if it has let me try to figure out what type of Link actually cause that really just looking at tracking the results of my initiatives and I'm just doing more of that.
00:13:23: And I see that a lot of a lot of people it's a simple very simple but a lot of people are just forgetting it they're just running after numbers.
00:13:30: Are getting overwhelmed baby and I want some like a lot of work a lot of work to me.
00:13:36: And no doubt absolutely also that's the business as the business were in right if it was easy everybody being at doing.
00:13:42: Exactly but I just think that some people you know what just because it's so much work you know I'm basically lost interest in it you don't compare to many years ago where you could just go to a text broke out like broke up at by you know take a credit card and buy,
00:13:57: Wings by the twin links that you promised to the client it doesn't work like that anymore so.
00:14:02: I love my work now so it's a lot less attractive to some people may be right just to do that kind of work because they don't have that all Nation it don't have to tracking app.
00:14:14: Yeah yeah absolutely yeah you have to you have to track you and if you look if you get overwhelmed then go into social media and nothing but you can sit there and click follow unfollow every day.
00:14:28: Oh there's a lot of social media managers that even as your background and call SEO being dead you know what this is.
00:14:37: It going on for fifteen years or so 1997 was the earliest Occurrence at found where and she has been called that in all those made attacks and Alta Vista search engine have no future that's what they wrote back then.
00:14:50: That's no damn it that's what 20 years ago what 1997 man I'm.
00:14:54: We're getting old.
00:14:57: Frank Adolfo gosh okay yeah so maybe you know some hidden tools and pay for trig some final take away for the audience something that,
00:15:08: they will love you for the role of pitch books for and go sign up for you.
00:15:12: Well I mean I love it.
00:15:13: I love I mean I love your tool set Crystal I think that you know linkresearchtools has and a super super,
00:15:22: extensive database it's I mean we love it here when we have to you know help a client sometimes to come up with some strategies and and and things like that Bop is kind of like,
00:15:33: yeah I know it's very nice sort of most like I don't you probably have obviously the date on what you're most most popular tool in your tool set,
00:15:42: will pee in a.
00:15:44: Link detox of calls for people to keep track of all the stuff that is coming in,
00:15:49: you know where you were just recently added so much more extra there there's actually like a new generation of Link detox calling dietrich's next generation of something that we have in place for a couple weeks now.
00:16:01: Yeah yeah.
00:16:02: Even more interesting.
00:16:04: Absolutely I got a lot my lot more data now you're displaying
just huge amount of data points.
00:16:11: Yeah and I also really like the the qdc quick domain compare,
00:16:15: that's really that's really cool like when you're just starting to look at a particular site and figure out how am I what am I going to do,
00:16:22: what's my first steps that's always it's always a tool that ironic EDC figure out how I compared to some other competitors and always able to identify some low-hanging fruit.
00:16:35: Some quick competitive research.
00:16:38: Some quick on federal research exactly.
00:16:40: Alright so Alex Hospital Fletcher for me we are at 16 minutes here I think you very much for this brief interview I would love to have you again on the show.
00:16:54: Michael pitch box on the show talk a lot more about link building Outreach agencies all these things in the future all of you guys out there thank you very much for listening this was Alex cover stain of fox.
00:17:06: Absol thank you thank you thank you for having Christa appreciate it was lots of fun we should have.
00:17:12: Appreciate to thank you very much and talk soon bye bye guys.
