Ep. 194 -🔍 SEO Pitfalls to AVOID! #1 Escape Room Company in U.S. MARKETING LEADER: Teddy Cheek from The Escape Game!

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Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately.

You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins, and pitfalls to avoid. Also, dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's do this, not that.

We are back for do this, not that, presented by Marigold. And we got a good dude here today. This guy is smart, he's cool, and he has a very cool job. So who do we got? We got Teddy Cheek.

Teddy Cheek is one of the marketing leaders at the Escape Game. What's that? The Escape Game is the biggest player in the world as it relates to escape rooms. They just opened up their 42nd location down in Miami.

They've served over 5 million guests playing in these escape rooms. And Teddy is the whiz, making sure that all their marketing is working and their SEO and all this stuff.

And we're going to be talking about SEO today, which I'm excited about. So, Teddy, welcome to do this, not that.

Thank you. I love this podcast. And after that intro, I love you. Like, that was fantastic. Thank you.

I love you.

All right, before we get into how you are marketing escape rooms and driving people to actually show up and do all this stuff, how did Teddy wind up being the king of escape room marketing? What is it? How did it happen?

That's a good question.

So I went to school in Nashville, went to Belmont, but I thought, whatever I learned here, I'm not going to need it because I'm going to be a rock star. So that was the original plan. Graduated, waited tables with me and my band friends.

We just knew any day the record deals coming in, and after several years, it did not. And we kind of saw the writing on the wall and thought, oh, my goodness, we're going to have to. We're gonna have to pivot.

I'm gonna have to get a job now.

And so I did a couple things, bounced around a little more than I probably recommend a little bit of a Goldilocks, you know, maybe not this, maybe that ended up in an digital marketing agency in town called Crowdsurf.

It's an awesome agency, super cool client list, and got to work with, you know, some of the biggest artists in the world on some really cool campaigns. And so that's where I really started getting marketing experience. I was there like three or leading the Nashville office during that time.

I saw this local brand starting up the Escape game. And when you win in the Escape Game, you get these little stickers. And they say, I escaped. And I was seeing them all over town.

I thought, man, there's something cool happening here. What is this? I start researching. I see, okay, they've opened in Nashville. Now they've opened in Orlando. This thing seems to be spreading.

And so I reached out to one of the co founders and he was willing to take a coffee with me. Ended up being a cocoa. This guy's a really cool guy.

We sat down at the coffee shop and, you know, they came to take our order and it's July, and he's like, I'll take a hot chocolate, please. I said, make that too. And this guy's cool. Like, I like that vibe. And we hit it off. And so I was there with that crew is kind of the beginnings of a.

Of a corporate office.

I love that. I have to tell you, I was recently in Nashville for the first time, and the last liquid that entered my body was hot chocolate.

I mean, it was either some form of a beer that I probably shouldn't have been having or a lot of coffee to recover from the fact that I had that beer. So skip the hot chocolate. But that's. That sounds good. I take one right now. All right, so I love that story.

And what we're going to talk about today is something that I know zero about, which is SEO, search engine optimization, and fitting that into your marketing. And so you're. You're an expert on this. You drive a lot of traffic to your site and to all the different locations that you have.

So I want to jump right into it. Imagine you're talking to a sort of an idiot, which you kind of are right now. What is it that I've now been put in charge of my website?

I got to do the SEO. What do I need to know? What do I need to focus on? What shouldn't I be doing?

Great question. Let's start with that last part. Let's actually start with what you shouldn't be doing.

Because if you're coming in and you're saying, I want to start ranking this website, you're going to see some tips and tricks online that are going to say they're going to speed up the process and they're going to ultimately kill your site long term. So shortcuts can be killers. I'll give you a few, and they're going to sound tempting and you're going to want to do them.

One, if you're making a new website and you want to rank for, let's say dentist near Me on Google, do not buy the dentist near me domain. Google specifically seeks out people doing that trick and penalizes their site. So of course it's great to have a relevant domain, a relevant website.

For instance, if someone's looking up Escape rooms near me, the escape game is a good site name. Google knows, hey, this is connected, this is relevant. But I would not name our website Escape Room Near Me. Google has said that it penalizes two.

You learn that hey backlinks other people. Linking to your website gives your site credibility.

Google likes to see that because Google's looking for ways to decide how authoritative your site is. So it figures. So you see this and you think, I'm just going to buy links. I can just buy 100 links to my website for $5 a pop. Google's really smart.

Don't underestimate this machine. Because what it's, it's going to realize that the quality of these things are low, that you're buying them.

You're going to want to in fact prune away any bad links to your website and you can do that in your, like your webmaster tools. You can see, oh, this really low quality site is linking to us. I'm going to disavow that link. I don't even want it.

And then you're going to want to put the biggest images and videos on your site because it looks cool. And these mega brands have these amazing gimmicky tricks on their homepage. You're probably not ready to do that.

It's probably going to slow down your web performance and that's going to be a negative indicator for Google too, because Google's going to see people hit your website. Things don't load, they click back. It's not working for them.

These are all really negative signals that Google's going to use when informing itself for how to rank you. So I start with don't do any of those things.

So one of the questions I have about speed.

So you're saying that the load time of the pages on your site can have a big impact on your rankings, your organic rankings on, on Google, Is that right?

Yeah, absolutely. Now, over time, that's become more and less important at different points.

So there have been times where that was maybe the number one, two or three ranking factor was web performance. They've walked back from that a little, but it's definitely important.

And a recent algorithm that they put out called Nav Boost, what happens is Google looks at the way people interact with your website on Chrome, on their browser, and they use that in their rankings. So if your site's slow and people can't take the actions that they're supposed to take on your website, that's going to be a killer as well.

Ah, so, all right, I'm going off script. I'm curious about something. If I am a buying search ads on Google, does that automatically also help my SEO performance?

Are they like, oh, Jay's got this website over here and he's also got, he's also paying for some ads over here. Yeah, we're going to hook them up over here on the organic side as well. Or the two they never shall they meet?

That is such a good question. So it's not a direct ranking factor. There are direct and there are indirect ranking factors.

So Google's not seeing that you spend money and saying, I'm going to reward you because you spend money with organic rankings. That would be. They'd be in more trouble than they're in right now if they were doing that.

But all traffic, if they're engaging in your site in a way that you want, is good traffic. So you could pump ads to your website.

And if those people take the actions you want them to, they spend time on your site, they're clicking buttons, they're converting.

Google's going to use that through that nav boost algorithm we were talking about to inform like, hey, this is a good site, maybe we should rank this higher. So as an indirect factor, it's a way to get traffic and prove that you have a good site.

But it's not a pay to play in that, hey, I'm paying for this, so give me the organic ranking.

Okay, that makes sense. So the outcome could, could benefit your organic, but it's not a direct correlation. I get it.

So, so if you're in charge, your website and I always feel like, oh, algorithms are always changing and this, that's always changing.

How often does somebody need to like be updating, I don't know, the meta tags, their strategy, whatever they're doing related to SEO, is it like a set it and forget it for like a year or is this an every month thing? Like how somebody be messing around optimizing.

Your, your site is never done optimizing. Your site is ongoing. Really? I wouldn't even say it's monthly or quarterly. It's just kind of ongoing. Now. It also depends on the category you're in.

So for us, a lot of people search for escape games, escape rooms in their area. So Google is a major driver Organic traffic of our business.

There might be other businesses where their, their business doesn't operate that way and it's less important and maybe they could set it and forget it for a few months. But for us it's, it's all the time. There's always updates happening on Google and it's not just one big algorithm.

You know, everybody talks about, hey, there's an algorithm update.

It's a series of, it's just tons of algorithms and based on who you are, where you are in your search, it's pulling elements from all these different updates they've done in the past. So the search results are super personalized, always changing, Google's always testing. And so that kind of forces you as an SEO to do the same thing.

Yeah, I got you. So I saw, we all saw that recently there was a massive leak, right.

All of the ways that Google kind of does their algorithms and organize a search got leaked and a zillion page document or whatever, Was there anything in that? I'm assuming you looked at it, right?

So was there anything in that that was like, oh my goodness, we thought it was this, but it's really anything eye opening in that so much.

And yes, we read 2,500 pages. We read and digested every word of it. What does it mean to us? And it basically listed every ranking factor.

It just didn't give you the weighting of these rating factors. There wasn't a clear way to decipher that. But I think the things that most stood out were. One, the Nav Boost piece.

Google had historically said how people interact on your site. Well, it looks like it does matter and it matters a lot, maybe the most of how people interact with your site while using Google Chrome.

Two, all traffic is good traffic and can confirm those nav boost signals that people are using and engaging with your site in a meaningful way. Three, brand.

Google's put a lot of energy into trying to figure out, are trying to weight the value of brand really highly, which is obviously a large undertaking. But having whether it's a national brand or a local brand.

Google's looking at social media and press and influencers and all these things to try to figure out how authoritative is the site. How should we rank it? Oh, here's one I like a lot actually.

If your website has errors, obvious errors, and you're like, I'm going to fix it, I'm going to flip the site over and I'm going to recrawl my site and I'm good. Google keeps something like the last 18 versions of your site.

Wow.

So you're a lot of iterations from being completely forgiven for the things you've done in the past. But it can always. It can always be better. So you should optimize and improve.

But Google still knows that you had those bad links, you know, to your site 12 months ago.

Wow. I just make 18 versions, like, in one day. So, like, fast forward and try to try to game the system.

There's always a way to gam it. And then Google's going to update.

You're smarter than I am. Right?

Exactly. And you know what? I like the general direction of. I think it's in the service of people.

You know, I think it's a better tool when they do it this way. So I'm on board for this wild ride and trying to make our website better.

And you'll see now in the rankings, like, half of them are Reddit now because it's people, you know, actually talking about real things and it's. It's harder to game.

So let's get into some chaos. Some stuff that's unrelated to marketing. I have the most random question to ask you, and it's probably going to be like, why is he asking that?

So you were in a band. The band was called Half Priced Hearts. Is that. Do I have that right?

You did. And, you know, it's amazing how often people, when I say that, hear tarts.

That's actually what I heard when you.

Said, probably a better name. I like a bakery. Half Price tarts is more exciting.

But yeah, here's my random question. I always think this. So you go to a bar or whatever, and there's a band up there, okay.

And you're now your band is the one that's on stage, you're playing. And if they are, if the band's playing, you know, like. Like living on a prayer, the whole place is rocking, right? They're playing a cover song.

And then the band will be like, now we're gonna play one of our originals. And then the whole crowd just falls apart, falls asleep, doesn't care. So you being on the stage, are you like, we want to play our originals.

We don't want to play like the living on a prayer or do you not care? Or where the whole originals thing is. Is hard, Right?

We should have done more covers. We do a cover or two per show. But we were in this, like, underground pop rock scene in Nashville, so it was originals.

But you could definitely read the crowd. Our first show ever, we connected with this other band on MySpace and they invited us out to play. We didn't even notice.

They're like a metal band, so everybody there was cooler than us because we were basically the Jonas Brothers, you know, and we get on stage in this kind of this ratty little venue that's been torn down. It was like the first level of Guitar Hero.

If you played that game, it's the first venue they put you in the torn up couch, couches in the green room, all that kind of stuff. We get up to play and they have a giant text to screen that's anonymous and there's only like 23 people in the crowd.

And they're sitting there on their phones, texting and laughing. They're here for a metal show. And so we're playing while reading. Like, you know, that's. That's the deepest V I've ever seen in a shirt.

And oh my gosh, Jonas Brothers wannabe. And hey, that guitarist looks like this or that. And so I think it was character building. And I wouldn't trade that for our first show.

But yes, you can definitely read the room.

Oh my God, that would be terrible. Like, imagine you went to like a conference and a big screen where everyone could text and like, you see the comments. That is like, oh my. That would.

That would ruin me. What were you in the band? Were you the singer, the guitarist? What were you?

I was like a rhythm guitarist. I'm not very good. I like riding pop hooks, the art of riding a catchy hook. So this was a vehicle to be in the band.

I had to find some guys that were like, better at instruments and playing live than me. And I was just. You don't even notice me on stage. I'm there playing. But I'm thinking, you know, I was more about the writing and the music.

Yeah, it was, it was a blast.

So, last very important question, and you'll probably either get a lot of people that like you and connect you on LinkedIn or people that will never talk to you again. From this one question here it is Swifty or not?

Okay, this is a complex question. Let me dive in. I was a very early Swifty.

So when everybody was, oh, Taylor can't sing this or that, I was fully on board because I said, these songs are incredible. It is the right voice for that song. Like, it had vulnerability. Like it was the right words on the right melody in the right way.

Wow.

I'm less into the new stuff and brand and Persona. Like, I'm not.

I mean, obviously she's brilliant and talented and amazing in so many ways, but I was an early swiftie that has kind of fallen off and like, not super into what's happening now.

Dude, that was a. That was a phenomenal answer.

I didn't bargain for. I was.

Yeah. Wow. You really. I mean, we could do a whole podcast on that. All right, but before we wrap up here, we're going to put everything in the show notes.

But Teddy, how do people follow you? How do they go to escape rooms? What can they do? Tell everybody everything.

Okay, this is great. You're welcome to hit me up on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear from you. Teddy Cheek. I'm probably the only Teddy Cheek on there. The escape game. So.

Theescapegame.com hey, if you know a great marketer, I'm always trying to build a super team here. So connect them to me. And then I blog sometimes about marketing and marketing leadership. If you read blogs. Teddycheek.com Amazing.

Everyone, I'm telling you, drop him a connection request. Teddy Cheek. C H E e K on LinkedIn. He's a great dude. Teddy, can't thank you enough for being here, man. And we'll catch up soon.

Yeah, definitely. Thank you.

You did it.

You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over.

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