Adventure & Activity Marketing Pros - The Podcast

Is Omicron the Final Boss, or are we just getting to the 2nd level? - Episode 26

AAMP Agency

Just back from a nice Thanksgiving break and to get the week rolling we now we have a new Covid variant, called Omicron.  Which to me sounds like it's a member of the Decepticons, but what do I know.  But here we are on month 20 of the Covid-19 Virus, and with a new variant, what is that going to mean to the Arival Conference coming up  February 1-4th in San Diego, and the bigger question, is what does that mean for tourism and international travel. Pretty crazy stat but Global Tourism and Travel are down over 2 Trillion Dollars in 2021.  Can these tour operators and travel related businesses actually stand another round of covid shutdowns? We also somehow went down the rabbit hole of backlinks and what it actually means to buy or get backlinks to your website.  But we would love your thoughts or take on how this Omicron variant affects tourism moving forward or when and if things ever return to "normal".  



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Jaden Cymbaluk:

321 welcome to the podcast everybody. My name is Jayden Assembla. With amp agency it is the amp podcast here live in the amp studios. What's going on? Steve, how are you today?

Stephen Edwards:

I am wonderful. It's Tuesday yesterday felt like a very gruesome day. Today feels pretty easy.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Yeah. So, yeah, we're here in the studios today. Me and you. We're gonna talk about some things. It's the first of the month, we started getting back in the routine of the podcast. And

Stephen Edwards:

we're getting there. I mean, yeah, two in one week. What the hell, if we even knew?

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Yeah, so some news today? Or yesterday, I guess. You know, after the holidays, things had to be brought back to, to light.

Stephen Edwards:

Yeah, you know, nothing can go smooth. Nothing is easy.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

So we have a new variant of COVID Oh, my

Stephen Edwards:

God, what is it? No, I already know what it is, but makes me feel some sort of way.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Yeah. Because, um, it's kind of goes into like, we're going into holiday season. We're going to travel season we're going to I mean, tourism travel destination, this is affecting it again.

Stephen Edwards:

Yeah, and it feels like we're on like, day 10,000 of this already. So you know, obviously, the internet is full of memes. Everybody picks us side of the aisle they believe in. But yeah, this is a this is shitty to say the least. I mean, you know, the markets are affected, you know, travel is affected. They're already talking about like delays and travel. And, you know, some states are already losing their mind about it didn't New York, New York just they did a state of emergency. The second that they heard about it, like they've got a new state of emergency in place for the the new variant just so that they didn't, so that they had, I guess, safeguards in place in the event that it's bad. What is the new variant called AMI Cron? That sounds like a transformer, Omni Cron? COVID? That sounds like who the so what

Jaden Cymbaluk:

I heard what I heard, this is the Do you know, the reason that it is called that I read it somewhere, but I couldn't get it back to COVID. There was COVID-19, I guess, right? So the numbers, then COVID. 20 is in Chinese or something like that would be technically like COVID New. And so they didn't want to call it COVID New because then people would think this is a new version of COVID. Okay. And then COVID 21 or something like that is called. It's called something that they didn't want to call it either. So they said Omicron

Stephen Edwards:

that sounded like he was part of the Decepticons. Dalna

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Omni Cron. Yeah. So I was actually just looking through my email. And, you know, every morning, you know, open it up all 12,000 emails, haul 12,000. But so arrival actually sent something out. And I thought this was interesting. And I thought, You know what, I mean, maybe we should talk about this and talk about kind of the stats, and they have their big conference coming up. And it's coming up in

Stephen Edwards:

February. Yeah, yeah. And it's already a postponed arrival, because there was one scheduled in Florida. Yeah, it was pushed back. Yeah. So this is 2.1.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

So with it being postponed, okay. Already, yeah, again, and a half how many times they said this past week was a reminder that the pandemic is far from over, started on a high. You know, we just talked about a peak announced 80 million in funding. Thanks I'm traveling was approaching 2019 levels that sort of said. At the same time, several countries across Europe are imposing new lockdowns to combat rising the case numbers.

Stephen Edwards:

I think it's you know, there's a rival going to get canceled. Are we too soon to tell?

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Well, they already have their state of the industry. It's almost like state of emergency but state of an industry or State of

Stephen Edwards:

the Union address. Is this.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

How it's going to get affected?

Stephen Edwards:

How is it going to be affected? You've read this further than I have. I'm excited to talk about it. I'm opinionated on the Tato

Jaden Cymbaluk:

the travel, see here, so the travel industry revenue change sector, sector Airlines has been down about 40% though. Hotels, about 40 Little less vacation rentals down about 30% of tourism attractions have been down 75%

Stephen Edwards:

So I read a read a I don't know, glamorized or exciting headline that tourism has been affected Since COVID started in the in the amount of like $2 trillion and$2 trillion already in in lost revenue and lost earned money. I mean, that's a that's a pretty big number it's I have no idea I mean, we know a lot of guys have had really really great years and we've also had some guys that are on the struggle bus so and they're saying not like tour operators in general but tourism as far as hotels travel, you know, like you brought up Airbnb is when you think of like $2 billion, that's a huge amount of money and, and what we're hearing now is the bleeding isn't gonna stop.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Yeah, so like, just from us even going from that watersports forum and Douglas Quimby was there, he brought up you know, what I mean? The points of how water sports is not the norm of numbers compared to the bigger numbers of tourism in general. Right. He brought up you know, buses and how like, you know what I mean buses and also the places where people go right like he you know, Paris they always use that one and I think that it's an interesting one anyways, but

Stephen Edwards:

is that where you would go if you could go there's a lot of fun you go to Paris compared to

Jaden Cymbaluk:

his to his numbers. There is a lot of fucking people that go to Paris. And and and I think it's, I think it's just it's mind blowing the comparison of the amount of people that go to Paris compared to the amount of people that go to Jacksonville, Florida or

Stephen Edwards:

Well, I hope they're not going to Jacksonville, Florida because, I mean, unless you're in Jacksonville, it's great.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

I didn't want to say destiny, because destiny is great. Destiny is great.

Stephen Edwards:

I think, you know, Jacksonville isn't exactly a hotbed you know, welcome to Omaha. Yeah, nobody's going to Omaha

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Happy Birthday, by the way to your your best friend.

Stephen Edwards:

Yeah. Kevin. happy birthdays. 29 I think 29 Yeah, well, so because we're talking about tourism. I know he's, he goes away like I want to say tomorrow to you know, a big Costa Rica. 10 day travel extravaganza him and his wife and

Jaden Cymbaluk:

coaster he Kushtia Banga, the amount of bullshit

Stephen Edwards:

for him to go. And come back is, I mean, it's a lot it is a lot of hurdles to just, I don't know, I say it's not worth it. I I'm not I haven't lost anything in Costa Rica, though, either. So he's going on to like a, somewhere between a Ritz Carlton and a mud hut vacation. So,

Jaden Cymbaluk:

so. Okay. That's the crazy thing that you're already seeing, like all the hurdles that he has to go through, right. And it's like, this is the first week of Omni Kron

Stephen Edwards:

Yeah. Oh, and that's so another, you know, the amount of like, new information and how rapidly like people are making decisions on this. Like, our you know, we've already the US has blocked travel coming out of Africa. What is that going to look like? I mean, you know, 10 days 15 or 12 days or whatever however many days he's gone. I mean, do they do they tighten up the borders again? Obviously he'll be able to get back he's an American citizen. Not a huge deal. But you know, it's not an easy thing they're not certainly like come on into America we welcome you

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Yeah. From from what I kind of found or from my research it's everybody's saying that there's really no lock lock downs on the plate like even I searched i i do search UK right? Sure. I mean, UK because UK is a pretty big part of the world and they're always doing shit. Stir it up. And Boris Johnson or Boris or whatever his name is and I can't speak. I don't know. He's thought it. You know, lockdowns are not really on the table. But then I also I also thought that this was so interesting. How come they found this variant in Australia? And isn't Australia the most fucking lockdown place?

Stephen Edwards:

Yeah, I thought that they had to, like, you know, protesting in the street and it's like, you know, pretty tight over there. They're not letting people go out on shenanigans. I don't know man. This is it's, it just feels like version 8000 And I mean, and and, and depending on your take or what stance you have I mean, this feels like I mean, do I? You know,

Jaden Cymbaluk:

let's let's go on to your to your. Let's go do Steve's take for a minute, my Gentlemen welcome Misty. Yeah, take real quick.

Stephen Edwards:

Please don't cancel me.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Let me just play a little, little sound effect here for everybody welcome to Steve's take.

Stephen Edwards:

I hope this is good tech. So my take is that we're like everybody, you know, we've preached vaccination everybody, everybody should get vaccinated vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate, and the vaccination hasn't exactly shown that it's like stopped people from getting it, it hasn't slowed it down, hasn't, you know, there's still like a huge amount of people dying. And now we have another variant. And it's another reason that, you know, hey, we need more vaccination, you're going to need a booster, you're going to need the Omicron variant booster, you're going to need something to just keep living. And, you know, I think my rub behind it, I am not against anybody getting vaccinated, I am about everybody, you know, doing what you feel comfortable with. But now, when you're hearing like some of these companies don't want to release, like the cause and effect of this for like 50 years or want these want that sealed up for such an insane amount of time. That's where I'm just like, is this? Is this a media spin? Is this real? Are we like, is this something we need to be concerned about? Are we you know, are we in March of 2020? Like, where shits about to hit the fan? Or are we? You know, because let's be real, I don't think the economy, I don't think most people's businesses can take another full blown round of COVID

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Unless they're giving out the money again. Yeah, I

Stephen Edwards:

mean, unless, you know, well, and even from the business owner, side, I know a lot of like, the people listening are, you know, small business owners. Hopefully, all of you guys were able to collect on your, like employee retention credit. But now as they have, you know, they just did that infrastructure bill, everybody that was getting that employee retention credit, lost it for quarter four. So, you know, that booster to help small business is now gone. And now we're, you know, we're approaching like this, you know, inflation is at an all time high. There's some crazy number that you're losing 1% of your cash wealth, like, every 30 days, at the current level of inflation. So, you know, the cynical like, What the hell is happening in the economy world portion of this scares the shit out of me?

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Yeah. Well, because I know, even in my, in my take of it, just seeing the things that happen, living in two different places, right, like us coming from, like, Midwest and now living in Vegas. Right. And, and I think the the international travel thing, Vegas cannot continue to live without international travel at all.

Stephen Edwards:

Yeah, and nothing is happening in Vegas. Like it was?

Jaden Cymbaluk:

No, I mean, they're saying numbers are, you know, higher travel, because people were ready to get out, which is good, because that shows, you know, I mean, signs of the economy was in a good, good place, right. And so a lot of people were able to go. I mean, it's, it sucks to say, because I see that a lot of that also came from the regulations that were you know, I mean, the money that was given out and all that stuff is like a booster, but it's all it all it did was just inflate everything, right? Goods are going to be inflated, people are going to be buying stuff that they can't afford, or they're going to be overpaying for it. And then they're going to be expected to get reimbursed somehow down the road. And because it's not worth that,

Stephen Edwards:

well, and I mean, it's especially prevalent in like the car market groceries. I mean, just, you know, I did a trip to the grocery store the other day, and it's absurd, what groceries cost? And I am, you know, I'm not the guy who's sitting in like debating the cost of a gallon of milk. But I mean, it would be a lie to say it's not noticeable. I mean, gas gas is notable. I think this is like we're at a weird, weird spot, because now we've already dealt with the COVID, you know, affecting small business affecting operations for two, almost two years, what is it 2020 months at this point? And at 20 months, now we're going to introduce the next variant and is it going to be as bad or when do people say enough is enough, and we have to live our lives. And this is going to go on for the rest of our existence, this COVID variant? And it is what it is, but I don't feel like I feel like the mainstream media is never going to let that happen. Yeah,

Jaden Cymbaluk:

I will. There was another variant I mean, delta right. And before

Stephen Edwards:

that they had the Libra or that may have not Libra as another version before.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

This is the this is the thing that's bullshit to me is just the whole had Thanksgiving. Right? Okay. The reason that they're not not saying releasing it, I mean, there always is going to be other variants that are going to come out and due to science, right? Science is great. They want everybody they want more and more people to get Vax vaccinated. And so and so this is part of that side of things that hey, oh, we released all the vaccinations for children five and up, right?

Stephen Edwards:

Mm hmm. Yeah, you've got kids. So that's its own separate.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

So let's, you know what I mean, let's release another variant. You don't mean because it seems that it's not released another variant? I hate to say it like that. Like, they're just like, opening the cages. You know what I mean? Like, release the Omni Kron

Stephen Edwards:

This is? Uh, yeah. So okay, so we had share your screen

Jaden Cymbaluk:

if you want to do if you want, we can. Yeah, we can. We can do a couple things. I could pull it up here.

Stephen Edwards:

All right. Let's see what we got here. I don't have all the variants pulled up, but I was just doing a search for that. Let's go to right here. I have the arrival site up earlier. Look at that. I'm excited. You know, I was excited to go we had so much fun at the watersports conference said I am ready to go to a rival I want a rival to happen. It's happening in San Diego. It's right down the road. You know, I say right down the road. It's just a quick five and a half hours down the road. But I love it San Diego's great other than the fact I'm going to push Duggan like why February February in San Diego. I mean, April in San Diego is notice

Jaden Cymbaluk:

but I'm glad that a rival 360 decided to sponsor this podcast in the segment right here so thanks to arrival the live conference to the best part of the travel return San Diego first through the fourth February 2022. That Astra Connect Center is just a speck speck of dirt almost

Stephen Edwards:

no I sponsored us use promo code

Jaden Cymbaluk:

amp Ay ay ay ay MP for full price.

Stephen Edwards:

Yeah, and if that doesn't work, just click the Buy Now button yet register now. Yeah, so so this is already I mean, you know, this is our news already. Omicron already already playing havoc with travel and tourism. Already has bed. Well, now we're on the Omicron version, which is I mean, that's the biggest boss we're almost out the biggest boss I think

Jaden Cymbaluk:

it's funny it's funny you say that I was playing Mario. Mario super set superstack And remember like how bows are I mean, bows are was the main character you know, it was our bows it was the bat and even uh yeah, the kids brought up you see you always play to defeat the boss. You know what I mean? Like so. So now

Stephen Edwards:

I mean, do we think Omicron is gonna be the final boss? I don't think so.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

No, because there's always a there's always there's

Stephen Edwards:

always a trilogy or a sequel I don't want to be in the trilogy of I would like to not be in the trilogy yeah travel bans being updated our

Jaden Cymbaluk:

you know what I think is crazy about the whole what I thought that was like a live the mask Okay, so it's holiday travel right? Holy fuck, like what how come how come they're not saying though that I don't know this is this is the part that I just get. So like, are they're they're running around just when they don't know what they're talking about. It's like remember when it first started right? It was this is from Baton Rouge This is from Spring Breakers you know this is from this right? So it's like why why now there's no tracking no you know what I mean? Sure. Like was there was there a huge surge somewhere because everybody got it at the at the Bon Jovi concert

Stephen Edwards:

well remember like when it was gonna be installed on everybody's phone the apple and like it was going to track who had what what fuck happened all that shit. Well, now everybody's had COVID So now it's like what is he gonna track? Is that is that the reason why well so you know remember that movie that they put on like Netflix like when it first when COVID first started and it's an old movie but Matt Damon and

Jaden Cymbaluk:

I'm good at this game Penny

Stephen Edwards:

was he was penny in Iron Man or the his wife and Iron Man. What is her name? She was married to Coldplay guy anyways,

Jaden Cymbaluk:

oh Sandra Bullock

Stephen Edwards:

No. Damn it. You can't be say you're good at this game. And then like I know I'm married to a gold play lead singer. Gotta love how my brain works when I Gwyneth Paltrow. Okay, when it's Paltrow was in when US, I should just go to IMDb. Let's do that instead of me continuing to Google. Like I know what I'm Chris. When it's beltro IMDB.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Hey, why does that Chris man pull up first and Gwyneth Paltrow his name?

Stephen Edwards:

I don't know. Oh, yeah, she she created that goop thing that was a good thing for such a weird scented candles. You needed a vagina scented candle. Seriously? Ah, yeah,

Jaden Cymbaluk:

that's a goop is well, she

Stephen Edwards:

a couple years ago she had the thing about her vagina scented candle. And that No, I mean, no, no. I mean maybe people are running out to buy it. What was God dammit. This is where we need like somebody sitting in the back contagion

Jaden Cymbaluk:

ah ad when he was going with Emily's blame.

Stephen Edwards:

What is it is lame, but it shows like she was Agent Zero.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

movie sucked.

Stephen Edwards:

You thought it sucked? I didn't think it suck that bad? Well, why why are we hating on us? I don't know why I mean, so first off, she was like Agent Zero. And I mean, we're getting a little left of center here. But I do think it is interesting that like, about now everybody just has it now everybody's had the virus everybody's infected. I don't know, disinfection. What else is there? It's interesting. I mean, they're saying tourism lost or is going to lose in 2021. Today I

Jaden Cymbaluk:

leave that leave that up. Global tourism sector last 2 trillion in 2021.

Stephen Edwards:

That's a that's a small number, right? Although not to

Jaden Cymbaluk:

okay, even to like, I mean, this is just me knowing some local local politics or some local stuff. The State of Nevada. I wish I could pull up the numbers. I don't have them in front. But I think I told you this one time, and I says their projected revenue budget, right? It was already like 2 billion or two to 2 billion. It wasn't it was like 120 million or something like that. Short.

Stephen Edwards:

You know, what I love is like, there's that statistic that like 90% of statistics are made up?

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Yeah, 90% of them come from me.

Stephen Edwards:

Just like, ran

Jaden Cymbaluk:

well, you gotta you gotta act like you

Stephen Edwards:

know, I'm just as guilty of it like 98% of the time something happens.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

I always I always use the I always use the example to have like, like think I mean, I was owning a media agency and like, you know, the graphic designers it's like, hey, guys put this put this on our infographic. You know what I mean? Like, who's that who fat? Check them. You know, Kevin, Kevin a fact checking that so

Stephen Edwards:

nobody's fact checking anything. I mean, that's also half the problem with mainstream media's who's fact checking the mainstream media. Oh, man shooting in Michigan. Like who even has time for that? Don't we know that we have the AMI AMI Cron. And we got

Jaden Cymbaluk:

scooters? I don't know Razor scooters. That was one thing. That's horrible.

Stephen Edwards:

Yeah, that's not good. It's cold there to Michigan. Oxford, Michigan. Now I feel like we're the mainstream media. Yeah.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

So we're pulling up as a 15 year old sophomore in custody. It's called midday headlines with Steven Jaden the three people of color

Stephen Edwards:

I don't think bad timing, bad timing. So yeah, I am I have no idea how this plays out for the rest of time. Are we just always going to be in a COVID variant? I mean, we're you know also I will say after traveling and going to some places spending some time in Florida and they're not being like mask restrictions. And it feels like a huge and I know they just reinstated mask restrictions and Denver have colleges will even ours it all over Colorado. I thought they just Denver, but then that was even the craziest thing too. So they started putting like Matt masks enforced in this building. Like got aware and trust and

Jaden Cymbaluk:

do you think that's why they haven't you think where is this lack?

Stephen Edwards:

Isn't he's up in Carson City. And I mean, like I think he lives in Vegas physically. No, he's in Vegas an awful lot.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Reno. Big Reno's where they are. It is where

Stephen Edwards:

should we google though. Where does slack live? Those so lack love. Steve says lack

Jaden Cymbaluk:

the governor's mansion is a snag in Carson City as governor mansion. Triggers ads running Reno

Stephen Edwards:

Spring Valley

Jaden Cymbaluk:

that's where the governor's mansion is. It

Stephen Edwards:

says his residence is

Jaden Cymbaluk:

I know no shit. That's here.

Stephen Edwards:

I mean, I'm I'm not. I don't know, man. I don't I'm sure Yeah, governor's governor's mansions in Reno and he's like, he stopped there twice. Like, it's like, I don't want to stay there. He's like, I don't want to live in a reno

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Has anybody ever donated to Wikipedia is fond of you?

Stephen Edwards:

Never know. Have you ever contributed? I've added to a Wikipedia once.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

That's all you said. Yeah.

Stephen Edwards:

Oh, when you I thought you meant like dollars like contributed to their cause? No, like added competing. Yeah, I did once in my life. And then I realized that that was like never going

Jaden Cymbaluk:

to be what was the reason is just because you had your pay pal was an easy Connect.

Stephen Edwards:

No, I really wanted to make sure that I had my correct Wikipedia information out there in case I ever got famous.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Oh, so you don't need to?

Stephen Edwards:

That's not true. Not true at all. I if I have a Wikipedia page,

Jaden Cymbaluk:

type in type in on news up there. It watches for it just in Google. Is this this is where I, this is how I kind of do it? No. So go not for slack, but just type in type in California tourism? Because because a lot of people talk about California.

Stephen Edwards:

California tourism. Yeah. Okay, not a lot.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

See. And this is this is what I think is is interesting, right? Because they've spent a buku bucks of relaunching their, you know, we are open campaign and all that stuff, because they're the last state that's open, right? I mean, all I'm saying is where is all that money going?

Stephen Edwards:

This could have been us we could have been the one leading the charge on the visit California. First ever campaign where we add on that did Yep. Yeah. That's what happens Omicron Florida's Tourism Board will pay me

Jaden Cymbaluk:

click on that were the top travel destinations for 2022. Okay.

Stephen Edwards:

I mean, this is awful website have never heard of. It doesn't news, it was like this is just a backlink farm. Maybe. So I so because they're showing arches, you know, we have quite a few Utah clients. And I'm kind of curious how this is gonna play out on the international travel. I know you'd brought it up, but are they going to basically cease? You know, they just opened it up, we're finally starting to see some of that international travel, like we're Germans, and some of the people from England are coming, or, you know, UK, France, that sort of thing. You know, there's a lot of like Vegas II type businesses that really depend on that international, and the National Park business is a huge draw for a lot of that international travel. Is that I mean, I still open today we can't You know, I don't want to be negative Norberto but are they going to keep that going? How long what kind of like, action would it take for him to like, yeah, we got to stop this international travel again.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Like, hey, like asking me like,

Stephen Edwards:

it's like, I'm asking you if you have the actual answer to this. So

Jaden Cymbaluk:

has a behind five representative of the United States. So I this is what I think is crazy. Think about think about how we're talking about this right now. Like it's in the mainstream media. Yeah. Remember when they first talked about how they're already late behind the eight ball of banning stuff? Okay. So it's like is, is Biden gonna get shitted on if? Oh, 100%. Is it? Is it his fault?

Stephen Edwards:

It was on the prior presidents shoulders when stuff went down. Why wouldn't it be on this President's shoulders when stuff went down? I don't know. He's, I mean, again, we're trying to avoid cancellation over here. I mean, you can't cancel the cancelable but you know if you don't want to listen or you think I'm too right leaning I get it, but yeah, this list. I don't know who wrote this. Shit. Top 10 like top 10 regions to visit Iceland. West Virginia. China. What is that? No idea. Top 10 Cities to Visit Auckland New Zealand, Taiwan. Taipei. Freeburg, Germany, Atlanta. clavos Nigeria. I think this list is a sham.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Yeah, look, we're great source spice polar observation gas here.

Stephen Edwards:

Yeah, please guys come follow us for up to date info and news.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Best destination for extended trip. Is a Wyoming

Stephen Edwards:

anybody's ever been to like Wyoming is like Yeah, I did that once was enough. Oh my gosh, see getting inundated

Jaden Cymbaluk:

here. Hang on Forbes. backlinks.

Stephen Edwards:

This is like a backlink farm. This is not real information.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Tell us tell us what a backlink is. See, that's actually a good

Stephen Edwards:

so a backlink is when you find a relevant article. Like we're searching right now tourism right. And let's say you wanted to find the best let me give a non let's go to the best foodie tour in Chicago. Right? Right. And you're the owner of this foodie tour. Yep jams Jason's Jane's Chicago's walking foodie tour in Chicago dogs and he's trying to increase his SEO biggest winners and the blog. The biggest winners in Chicago is on Jason's walking tour. Wait till you put this in your mouth so So Jamie. So Jaden goes out and he buys some backlinks and those backlinks like

Jaden Cymbaluk:

where do I buy him from like because honestly we're gonna dump born to dumb this down for people we're dying to get like a baker's dozen backlinks do I get so is about like buy one get one buy three get

Stephen Edwards:

they can be. So there's a lot of websites you can search by backlinks. A lot of you know, this is like this is a slippery slope like it's some of its can be good and some of it can be bad for your business. But the best backlinks are from major websites like Forbes and the hot you know, and Huffington Post and some of these other major publications TechCrunch, US insider Business Insider, where the domain has a lot of power already. And the goal is to get an article written about best things to do in Chicago. And in that article, and the best things to do in Chicago article. Jason's dog Aiden's walking tour, hot dog tour has a backlink to his website. Now you do that over and over and over and over again, you have a you have you end up owning a website with an intent like a ton of power and ranks really well for the keywords you're trying to rank for. Right?

Jaden Cymbaluk:

So when somebody does that, okay, when you have good domain authority right now, explained to me what a good looking domain authority on a website is and and like let's say, a non domain authority or non index website, right?

Stephen Edwards:

So so getting a good domain authority is like a combination of having great on on site, SEO, making sure your pages content is relevant, what you're trying to rank for, and making sure your backlink presence is not full of spammy backlinks. So the problem with buying backlinks on the internet is for you to go buy a backlink from TechCrunch Business Insider, something like that. You could pay, you know, three to $1,000 per backlink. Well, nobody wants to pay that. So what they do is they go to websites like Fiverr. And some of these, you know, and they buy guest posting backlinks for $100 for 50 backlinks. And they're put on a bunch of foreign websites and blog posts and bullshit articles. And what you end up with is I mean, it happens, I mean, it happens to everybody's, you end up with some sort of backlink that has a toxic domain, it has spam associated. And that lowers your level of credibility, because now all of a sudden your domain ends up being associated with spam.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Yeah. So who's looking who's looking for those non associated spam backlinks?

Stephen Edwards:

Google? Google's the sheriff. Yeah, the sheriff called Google? Well, and the challenge with this is like today, this is like what this you know, I am not your, like, hardcore SEO expert, I know enough to be dangerous, or, you know, talk to Irfan. And some of the guys on the team that are deep in the SEO side, they get pretty in the weeds on this stuff. But when you look at how this affects, I mean, this is the plan for Google today. And tomorrow, Google could be like, Hey, we were going to completely changes. The challenges is Google makes all of its money from Google ads. So Google has no no value in telling you how to rank organically. Yeah, without Well, anyways,

Jaden Cymbaluk:

I mean, it was interesting when you pulled up that article, and like that came up and it was under news right under that keyword.

Stephen Edwards:

Yeah. 22 best places to visit. I mean, you know, and then to this October 22, Cago, Best Tours.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

I got to pull I get to share the screen back up. I took off just because I didn't want to I didn't want to say this podcast is brought to you by Capital One Venture Card

Stephen Edwards:

Chicago. That's top Viator Here we go. 14 best Chicago tours, US News.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

There's gonna be a nice backlink back there to somebody's website. It's probably the Shedd Aquarium, Chicago Food planet. But what if there's a couple in there? Oh,

Stephen Edwards:

I mean, that's what makes these websites better. That's what makes a page rank even better. This year ranks number two for best Chicago Go to work

Jaden Cymbaluk:

as as US news week selling these to these people that like is that

Stephen Edwards:

somebody probably wrote this John rodwin. I mean, there's probably some authentic ness to this. But this is probably bought and paid for lanes

Jaden Cymbaluk:

as like a advertising package you'd buy through like, yep, media company. Somebody

Stephen Edwards:

you know, he's like, I'm gonna put out an article on the 14 best Chicago tours.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

You want to be on it? Yep. So and it's gonna cost tours or so click on what did pop up when he hadn't been booked tickets. Nothing. Oh,

Stephen Edwards:

I'm looking at the domain down here. Oh, yeah, that's what I'm firing because this is gonna take me

Jaden Cymbaluk:

see what booking engine again. Still little still a little taste bud tours.

Stephen Edwards:

food tours. I hope this is fire. Oh, oh, which one? FH fareharbor. Let's see. Does he have any availability? Got a call to book tomorrow?

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Okay, I did notice a lot of people are putting called a book on fareharbor size.

Stephen Edwards:

Maybe it's full? Maybe his maybes. Are the letters full either doing that. I have no idea. Chicago prohibition tours. See if this one's fine. So yeah, this is I mean, should you do it? Yeah. If it's going on a credible website if

Jaden Cymbaluk:

it's already I can already tell what this is. Is a fair harbor?

Stephen Edwards:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is. Obviously, fair, Harvard is working pretty hard. And that Chicago market? My book this? Yep. We cannot look sorry. amate we're going 45 bucks. We're

Jaden Cymbaluk:

actually have a brew tour. December 10. Early downtown, you know,

Stephen Edwards:

be fun. Yeah. Who's putting that one on? Um, is it part of the part of the territory thing? Yeah,

Jaden Cymbaluk:

I think it is. It's a they we met him in there actually. New groups. I know. He was talking about downtown. Yeah,

Stephen Edwards:

they're their bus slash walking tour. That's fun. Oh, yeah.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

So we're gonna do that.

Stephen Edwards:

I like brew tours on beer. Actually. Everybody can go. We should. What is the date on it?

Jaden Cymbaluk:

That's like next, like our Christmas party is the 17th I think it's so right. 17th Yes. So if we're on the 17th That's a Friday it's product that Wednesday or something? Gotcha. 1515. Got it sounds like four.

Stephen Edwards:

All right. Well, that's what we that's kind of that cron

Jaden Cymbaluk:

DOM crowd version of this podcast Omni cron

Stephen Edwards:

and backlinks for dummies. I mean, Steve's backlink version for dummies. Steve's backlinks for Dummies, it's not a good course I'm not selling it it's not 97 bucks I don't want you guys to join my

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Have you have you seen a good click funnel in a while?

Stephen Edwards:

No, no, what I just read somewhere they think like has the funnel died. I don't know. Now everybody's doing one of those those flywheels which is just a culmination of like a landing page and an offer mixed with a ton of like, social media content and emails and

Jaden Cymbaluk:

a fly. I've never even heard of that. That saying flywheel flywheel. So yeah, that's kind of our state of State of the Union address.

Stephen Edwards:

Yeah, I don't want it to be our State of the Union address, but I definitely like, you know, I hope we're, I hope this podcast just ages horribly and like Coronavirus becomes not a thing and all of a sudden they get rid of this, you know, omicron they're like, Oh, we overreacted. This isn't really a big deal. You guys actually should just, we found out this whole COVID thing is a lie. No big deal. You guys go back to living your life.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Yeah, I hope so too. Um, so too, but uh, we're gonna we got some guests coming up on the next week's podcast, and we're gonna we're gonna be coming up. Yeah, I'm gonna bring in a tic tac person.

Stephen Edwards:

Are they gonna teach us to shuffle from me? I'm gonna really try to figure out my tic tock shuffle game. Oh, to dance. Yeah, not shuffled cards. I want to how am I going to compete with a tic toc? I'm trying to dance

Jaden Cymbaluk:

shuffle.

Stephen Edwards:

I don't know how to shuffle cards.

Jaden Cymbaluk:

Yeah. Cool. Well, thanks, everybody for listening to the podcast. Thanks for joining us. My name is Jayden. Make sure you guys check us out online amp dot agency, a mp dot agency. Also make sure you click and subscribe on any of our podcast channels. You can find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify. Visit the website. Check us out on Facebook. Check us out on Instagram. Thanks again for coming out. We'll see everybody next time.