How Jason Barnard at Kalicube Doubled My Digital Asset Valuation | Brand SERP
Jason Barnard: Hi, I’m Jason Barnard. A lot of people know me as the ‘Brand SERP Guy,’ meaning that I’m specialized 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. Initially, you thought, “I don’t really mind, it doesn’t really matter to my business,” and 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. I mean, when we first spoke about branding and Brand SERP, I always understood the importance of, let’s say, branded anchors 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… then it started to open up a lot of different avenues to me… starting to think, actually, do you know what? There are so many additional benefits to this.
With regards to doubling the value, there were two assets that it actually doubled the value of. Both in the iGaming sector: one was an online slots site and the other one was a casino site about other casino games like roulette… I actually helped quite a lot of other people as a consultant to get all the ducks lined up in a row to then sell. A lot of places like Empire Flippers… can normally get a valuation of around 24 months’ monthly profit. But I knew there were certain investors paying up to 60 months, some even up to 72 months - which is like six years - if everything was lined up perfectly. So I helped some of these get from maybe two years to four or five years…
Thinking “Brilliant, I know what I’m doing,” I went ahead to look to sell one of my own websites. Due diligence came back from these people (I actually knew the investors) saying, “We’ll only pay you on 2.5 years worth of profits”. I was thinking I should be getting at least five… I was no way going to sell it at 2.5 years profits. Basically, what happened was the owner who owns the full establishment got due diligence to come back and tell me exactly the reasons why… and the biggest reason was me, myself. Nothing to do with the brand or the website. They said unless you sell your PBN (Private Blog Network) with the website, then you are not going to get the full valuation. I said to them, “What PBN network? I don’t have any PBN network related to that website”.
Basically, what they had done as part of their due diligence is searching not only the brand of the website but me who owns the website. They had seen somewhere online where I was on a video from seven years ago in Amsterdam… talking about different link-building strategies. In that video, the question came up, “What’s your thoughts on PBNs?” and I said PBNs are a great link-building strategy… yes, it is a good strategy. Now their due diligence put two and two together and got ten to say that I only build PBN links and that I must have a PBN network that I’m hiding… so unless I provided the PBN network with the asset, then I wasn’t able to get the full five or even six years. I asked them to check to see any PBNs and they couldn’t find any…
…but I was basically guilty by association, and this all came because of a video that they found online. So I went away… and started to work on my own personal Brand SERP to start saying, “Hey, wait a minute, I do not want to be connected with just building PBNs and I need to make certain that I’m coming across as being legitimate and trustworthy”. Once you’ve sold a website and they’ve got this historical data of you as being a seller… once you’ve got more sales of assets, then they start having more trust with you. Trust behind the seller is a big factor. Knowing that the Brand SERP of James Dooley as an individual is important, that’s when a light bulb moment came: Jason Barnard’s right. It’s not just for winning new business, it’s also for selling your assets as well.
Jason Barnard: Right, yeah. And I mean that makes total sense… as the face of the business, your personal brand is super important. People look you up online, they’ll look you up on Google in particular. In your case, it’s distancing yourself from things that would devalue your assets and putting the things that add value to your assets front and center. So when somebody is searching on Google, they don’t see the interviews about PBNs; what they see is all of the successful sales you’ve already made, and that immediately pushes up the value. For me, that’s an incredibly powerful story about the value of a personal brand…
James Dooley: Yeah, I mean… I fell into this mistake. I didn’t see the value at first of a personal brand… now I see so many. That positive Brand SERP… the most important part is you are controlling the narrative of your personal brand. You are displaying on the internet what you want to display and for potential buyers… they’re saying, “Yes, this person is a trusted source and we can trust him”. And therefore, roll on - I think it was 13 months later - and I got 5.5 years. So I ended up more than doubling the valuation size and it was a hefty sum of money as well, a seven-figure sale… Obviously, the Brand SERP then made a massive difference.
Jason Barnard: Right. And I think one of the really important things that people miss is that the Brand SERP is actually just a reflection of Google’s opinion of the world’s opinion of you. So what you have to do… is walk the walk and emphasize online wherever you’re hanging out the aspects of your own personal brand that you want to push forward. Google, and indeed other AI search and assistive engines like ChatGPT… will reflect what you’re actually doing as long as you present it in a clear consistent manner that they can digest. That’s how we work at Kalicube® to build the perfect Brand SERP. We help people to walk the walk across their entire digital footprint… and then Google simply reflects what we’re doing for that personal brand.
James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. I mean, this video wasn’t created for me to create a sales pitch for Kalicube… it was to make people aware that the sale price is also important. But what I would say is anyone who is watching this that is uncertain whether they feel that branding and the Brand SERP is important, I would strongly recommend hitting up Jason. Your tool at Kalicube has got those data points of what needs to be connected… I’d strongly recommend anyone who might be looking to improve their Brand SERP [or] try to get a Knowledge Panel to hit up Jason at Kalicube. Also, any viewers watching this, leave a comment… let me know your thoughts on branding.
Jason Barnard: Brilliant. I add one thing to that: not only have we got the data points, but we do the heavy lifting for you and we free up your time as a business leader to actually do business and not have to focus on joining these tiny dots up… We’ve got the data to make sure we’re pushing all the right buttons in all the right order.
James Dooley: There’s one thing we’re all lacking and that’s time. So if you can get it done for your service, hit up Kalicube.
