Fatrank Podcast

Jason Barnard: Hi I'm Jason Barnard. A lot of people know me as the Brand SERP Guy. The Brand SERP Guy meaning that I'm specialised in the search engine results page for brand names and people's names. I talked to you James a few years ago about the importance of brand SERPs and initially you thought you didn't really mind it, it doesn't really matter to your business. Yet a few years later it's doubled the value of some of your assets. Can you tell me about that?

James Dooley: Yeah for sure. When we first spoke about branding and brand SERPs I always understood the importance of branded anchor texts from a backlink point of view. But when you started to open up the brand SERP itself and making certain that when someone was searching the company name or the individual's name, it could be an author or whoever owns the business, then it started to open up a lot of different avenues to me. I started to think actually there's so many additional benefits to this. Not just with Google’s E-E-A-T algorithms.

James Dooley: With regards to doubling the value, there were two assets that it doubled the value of. Both were in the iGaming sector. One was an online slots site, the other was a casino site about roulette and similar games. What happened was I helped quite a lot of other people as a consultant to get all the ducks lined up to sell. Places like Empire Flippers and Flippa normally give valuations of around 24 months profit. But I knew certain investors were paying up to 60 months and some even up to 72 months if everything was lined up perfectly.

James Dooley: I helped others get from two years valuation up to four or even five, which was 250 percent extra. So I thought brilliant, I know what I'm doing. I went ahead to sell one of my own websites. Due diligence came back from investors I already knew saying they would only pay me 2.5 years profit. I was thinking I should be getting at least five, sometimes six.

James Dooley: I asked them why. They said unless I sold my PBN network along with the website, they wouldn’t pay more. I told them I didn’t have any PBN network attached to it. What had happened is during due diligence they searched not only the website brand but me as the owner. They found a video from seven years ago in Amsterdam where I appeared with Matt Diggity and others talking about link building. In that video I said PBNs were a good link building strategy. Their due diligence then assumed I must have a hidden PBN network.

James Dooley: They couldn't find any PBNs but said I was still guilty by association. All because of one old video. I refused to sell at 2.5 years. The website growth had flatlined, maybe five percent growth. But then I went away and worked on my personal brand SERP. I started making sure I wasn’t connected online with only building PBNs. I needed to show legitimacy and trustworthiness.

James Dooley: They also said there wasn’t much information about me online. Another part is unless you've sold assets before, you might only get two or three years valuation. Once you’ve sold a site and it continues to perform for the buyer, your trust as a seller increases. It’s like car insurance. No claims means cheaper insurance. More successful sales means more trust. And trust behind the seller is a big factor.

James Dooley: That’s when the lightbulb moment came. My personal brand SERP matters. It's not just for winning new business. It affects your sale price. Thirteen months later I went back to sell and got 5.5 years valuation. More than double. It was a significant six-figure sum.

Jason Barnard: That makes total sense. As the face of the business your personal brand is important. People search you on Google. In your case it’s about distancing yourself from things that devalue your assets and putting the things that add value front and centre. When people search you they shouldn’t see old PBN discussions. They should see successful exits and proof of credibility. That pushes valuation up.

Jason Barnard: For me this is an incredibly powerful example of the value of a personal brand. It’s worth building a personal brand just for one or two big deals.

James Dooley: I didn’t see the value of a personal brand at first. People think a personal brand is just for E-E-A-T. It’s not. There are so many reasons why building up your brand SERP matters. It might not give you an ROI next week or next month. But the most important part is you are controlling the narrative of your brand. You display what you want the internet to show. Buyers see a trusted seller and that changes everything.

James Dooley: In my case it doubled my valuation. That’s why it’s so important.

Jason Barnard: One thing people miss is that a brand SERP is simply Google's reflection of the world's opinion of you. To make your brand SERP perfect you need to walk the walk and present your personal brand clearly and consistently across your digital footprint. Google and AI engines like ChatGPT, Bing, Perplexity will reflect what you're actually doing. At Kalicube we help people walk the walk and build the perfect brand SERP by focusing on credibility across their entire digital ecosystem.

James Dooley: This video wasn’t created as a sales pitch for Kalicube. It was to help people understand the value of brand SERPs during sales. But I'd strongly recommend anyone unsure about branding to hit up Jason. I tried doing press releases and digital PR myself but there are a lot of moving parts. You need to connect the data points perfectly. Kalicube’s tools have those data points. Anyone looking to improve their brand SERP or get a Knowledge Panel should hit up Jason at Kalicube. Leave a comment with your thoughts on branding or whether your brand SERP is strong or needs work.

Jason Barnard: I’ll add one thing. We do the heavy lifting for you. We free up your time so you can run your business while we correct and organise all the information about you. We push the right buttons in the right order. Time is what everyone lacks. If you want it done properly hit up Kalicube.