This week on our Expert Series we have the owner and founder of one of the largest SEO FB Groups in the industry, as well as being the man behind the legendary Lion Zeal podcasts. Daryl Rosser is a young SEO currently living the Digital Nomad lifestyle, he has grown his Lion Zeal brand into an absolute beast over the past few years.. banging out solid content and building a FB group that’s active round the clock.
Less of the chit chat.. let’s get down to business..
1. How did you originally get into the industry?
I was broke, living with my parents, hustling to get little web design clients for ~$500 to earn a little money. One of these clients referred someone wanting SEO. Turns out this dude had over 30 employees. I took the gig, not knowing a thing about how to do SEO. Bought a course from Viperchill the next day. Got the client some results. Fell in love with the work (and the money potential, who am I kidding)… and here I am.
2. What’s been your biggest regret or mistake since starting out?
Overall, I’ve done quite well for myself. So I wouldn’t change a thing. But the biggest mistakes were a different version of the same thing, not capitalising fast enough on a great opportunity.
Like when I first started getting clients, I made the dumb mistake of pausing so I could refine my systems and results. So dumb. Don’t kill your momentum. When you find something that works, scale the living crap out of it.
3. You run one of the largest SEO groups on Facebook “Lion Zeal”.. how did that all come about?
started it as a small group to connect with some like minded people. It was around 20 of us. And later on I ended up started a little SEO blog (the first version of Lion Zeal). I didn’t collect emails or anything, I wasn’t trying to make money, so I pointed people to the group to connect. 20 members soon became 100, then 500, and it just kept growing.
4. You live a digital nomad lifestyle, how do you find that freedom and what’s been your favourite places?
I live for it. The two times I’m happiest are when I’m seeing the results from one of my campaigns, or when I’m exploring some epic location. I’m currently living in Saigon, so I obviously love it here. Singapore is a favourite to visit, and has a great little SEO community. Seoul is awesome. Man… I like everywhere I visit haha. It’s just fun trying out new places and experiences.
5. Where do you see the future of SEO in the next 5 to 10 years?
If I’m honest, not a clue. The trend as always has been moving towards more and more quality. Which will of course get stricter and stricter, for content, backlinks, etc.
But it’s so long away, I honestly have no idea. Like my answer to question 2, my main thing is to capitalize on what is working now, and obviously don’t rely on any one single thing for my future.
6. If you could give a newbie one piece of advice, what would it be?
You don’t actually have to work that hard to get results. Seriously. It’s mostly about patience and persistence. Most the things you do are going to fail. Some are going to work okay. And some are going to be amazing. It’s having the patience and persistence to keep going when it’s crappy, that will get you results. Eventually you’ll get something that works, capitalize on that, and you’re solid. All it takes is that one thing.
7. Who has been your biggest inspiration in the marketing industry, and who do you currently follow?
Definitely got to give a shout out to Glen and Diggy again, wouldn’t even know what a PBN is without them.
I don’t really “follow” anyone, so to speak, I’m on a whole bunch of marketers mailing lists, in a few FB groups, etc. So I just read around a take a little bit from everyone.
8. What is the most important lesson you’ve learned as a marketer?
This will depend on when you ask me, but right now I’m feeling inspired to say it’s that you only need one great campaign to change everything.
One great client acquisition process, one great affiliate site, etc. Keep crossing off the failed or not so great attempts until you hit that great one.
9. Tell us a bit about your current projects, what are you working on right now that excites you?
I started playing Monster Hunter World recently, which is epic. If that counts?
We also just launched a high end mastermind, so I get to hang out, party, and coach some 6 figure SEOs – which is about as fun as it gets. And I’ve put together a rock star team over the past few months for scaling up all my Pay Per Lead stuff.
10. You’re constantly pumping out solid new content, what keeps you motivated and on track to accomplish that?
Being extremely competitive, here’s my secret for getting content out so consistently: I publish an episode of the Lion Zeal Show every Thursday. Period.
And I’m sure as heck not going to lose that challenge. Well, except last week. And I’ve missed a few times actually lol. But generally speaking, that’s my goal.
Aside from that, it’s so easy man. I get a lot of love from the community for it, it helps a bunch of people, I make money from it (indirectly), and it’s what… an hour of my time to record an episode? No brainer really.
Even my longer articles, they’re actually fun to write. I’m blown away that I can get thousands of people consuming my content within a matter of days. It’s crazy. Deep down I’m still that shy kid that used to struggle to talk to a group of 3+ people, now I’m helping people all over the world.
11. Do you see yourself staying in SEO for the next 5 or 10 years? If not, then where do you see yourself?
For sure, but I don’t think I’ll limit myself only to SEO. I love all parts of marketing like copywriting, planning sales funnels, the speed of paid traffic, planning out marketing campaigns, etc.
12. Lastly, is there anything you’d like to specifically say to the SerpLogic readers?
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I don’t think I’m any different or better than you. I’m certainly not any smarter. If you have the patience to keep trying things out, eventually you’re going to hit a home run. All it took was one guy to ask me for SEO, and everything changed. That was extremely lucky. I took the opportunity of course, and I stuck with trying this stuff for 3-4 years before that too, but it was luck.
If you’re patient and strong-willed enough to keep trying, eventually you’ll get lucky too. Capitalize the crap out of that moment. And hey… even if it takes 5-10 years, won’t it be worth it looking back one day?
