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Episode 2: Lily Ray

For our second guest of the second episode of Behind the SEOs, we have for your listening pleasure the beat dropping E.A.T., evangelizing SEO, who is by far the coolest kid in the class. She could probably kick your ass and has the tats to prove it. She is the world-renowned search marketer you have come to love and know from webinars and conferences from near and far. She is a kindred spirit to me personally. She is Lily Ray.

Episode transcription

Lily Ray

Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me, quite the intro.

Mordy Oberstien

It’s our pleasure. It’s totally our pleasure. By the way, I figured we should invite Barry Schwartz on and then rename the podcast Three Jews Who Do SEO or Four Jews Who do SEO.

Lily Ray

It sounds thrilling. Like a thrilling podcast.

Mordy Oberstien

Nothing is cooler than four Jews doing SEO, though you are cool.

Yosef Silver

While eating matzo.

Mordy Oberstien

While eating matzo, right, no one gets that joke, anyway.

Mordy Oberstien

OK, so there’s so much we can talk about your life, Lily, because it is like literally, like you are so cool. I am not cool. Yosef’s cool, kind of, maybe. But you are really, Lily, you are really cool.

Lily Ray

Well, thank you. I wasn’t the coolest kid in class by the way. That was part of your intro. I was totally not cool in high school.

Mordy Oberstien

Oh really? That’s surprising, because you are so cool now.

Lily Ray

I was in rock bands but I was just like a rebel, you know. 

Yosef Silver

That’s pretty cool.

Lily Ray

I guess.

Yosef Silver

The cool kids in high school were in rock bands. And then as Mordy alluded to the less cool kids might be in crafts.

Mordy Oberstien

All right. At least you went to high school, I dropped out of high school. No way. Yeah. I dropped out of tenth grade. I’m a high school dropout. 

Lily Ray

That is an accomplishment. 

Mordy Oberstien

Yeah. But then I went to a religious seminary afterward. That was not cool. 

Lily Ray

OK, so you didn’t actually drop out.

Mordy Oberstien

I didn’t drop out. I figure out a way to beat the system, basically.

Lily Ray

Totally, exactly.

Mordy Oberstien

Yeah, I got college credits for it. So that’s yeah. It was a whole thing.

Lily Ray

Oh my goodness.

Mordy Oberstien

Yeah.

Yosef Silver

I went to like, religious high school for the first couple years of high school and then I did like a couple years of home school and then I went to like a normal high school. So I did it the other way around. And then I got my first job at sixteen and I was there more than school.

Lily Ray

You guys beat the system.

Mordy Oberstien

OK, so obvious question, the DJing thing. How did that start? Where, where have you. What was the coolest place you play because in case your living under a rock, Lily is a DJ.

Lily Ray

Yeah. It seems I only DJ’d from these live streams. Right. Because it’s we’ve all just you know, it gets so much more exposure now that there’s COVID and people are tuning into these streams or whatever. But I actually do legitimately DJ in person when that was a thing. 

Yosef Silver

People.

Lily Ray

The coolest place I’ve DJ’d. Well, I had the most exciting gig of my life last year in November it was at a club called Elsewhere in Brooklyn. But it was more about who I opened for. And his name is Michael Meyer. He’s my favorite DJ on planet Earth. So I was very, very lucky to open for him. That was just awesome.

Mordy Oberstien

That’s cool.

Lily Ray

Yeah.

Mordy Oberstien

Michael Meyer the guy from Halloween?

Lily Ray

He shares a name with him, but it’s not the same guy, not an ax murderer.

Mordy Oberstien

It’s good to know.

Lily Ray

Yeah, I mean, hopefully, he’s not. I don’t really know, but. Yeah, and then there were a couple of other gigs in Brooklyn that have been pretty special. I’ve mostly just played in Brooklyn, sometimes Manhattan. But there was one time I had a gig that was on the waterfront here in Brooklyn and a bunch of hippies dancing outside on the grass with dogs and babies and stuff, it was like 500 people. That was really fun.

Mordy Oberstien

That’s cool. Anything with hippies is going to be fun. That’s rule number one in my life.

Lily Ray

Pretty much. Yeah. I’m from the Bay Area from actual hippie territory just north of San Francisco, where literally all the hippie stuff happened in the 60s. So I grew up in that world. I spent my childhood dancing at drum circles with hippies, so love hippies. 

Mordy Oberstien

How did you get to New York?

Lily Ray

So my parents are from New York. They raised me in the Bay Area because my dad’s a tech guy. He was one of the original tech guys, literally. My mom got really into hippie Bay Area stuff, so they kind of just raised me out there like a basically a New York Jew, growing up in hippie California trying to, fit in, even though we totally didn’t fit in at all.

Mordy Oberstien

Oh, that’s funny.

Lily Ray

Yeah, and then when I was old enough, I came back here, I was like, I need to be back in New York, this is not my vibe at all.

Mordy Oberstien

And now and now you’re in Williamsburg around plenty of Jews.

Lily Ray

Came right back to the motherland, exactly.

Mordy Oberstien

Right. How’s that by the way? That’s a stark contrast.

Lily Ray

Which part?

Mordy Oberstien

Being really cool, I mean, let me give some background to our audience at home. Lily lives in a part of Brooklyn where there’s, really cool people like Lily and then Hassidic Jews.

Lily Ray

Hasidic Jews who don’t know that I’m Jewish or maybe they do know that I’m Jewish.

Mordy Oberstien

I don’t think they even know English.

Lily Ray

There’s also that, you know, there’s a lot to it. First of all, New York is filled with cultural and ethnic groups where we all just kind of live amongst each other. And that’s part of the magic of New York. And it’s no big deal. But the Hasidic community does keep to themselves quite a bit. You know, they have their own stores, their own businesses.They don’t integrate very well with the hipsters that are kind of encroaching on their neighborhood. So there’s a little bit of tension, for the most part, it’s just kind of one of these quirky things about New York. You know, there’s Hasidic communities, and you just kind of don’t really hang out there. They don’t really hang out with you. I mean, I bike through that neighborhood quite a bit because the bike lanes pass through their neighborhood and they have a tendency to not step out of the bike lane, which is thrilling. That’s pretty much it.

Yosef Silver

The thing that the Hasidic communities in the US do a better job, I’m choosing my words carefully. I think the Hasidic community in New York does a much better job of integrating into mainstream society than the Hasidic communities, I know growing up. I grew up in Brighton, Brighton is my hometown, which is also quite hippie, and then when I was about eight years old, my mom became religious and we moved to Manchester, which was super ultra-orthodox. I made my first non-Jewish friend when I was 20 and moved to Israel. How weird was that? I lived in a bubble, right. We worked together at a call center because a lot of people moved to Israel to  work at call centers in the beginning before I found SEO.

Mordy Oberstien

They give you a shawarma, a falafel, and a job at a call center.

Yosef Silver

There you go. I have a friend that if you move to Israel and you make aliyah, he will buy you your first shawarma.

Lily Ray

Oh, that sounds appealing.

Yosef Silver

Makes that promise to everyone.

Lily Ray

Almost makes it worth it.

Mordy Oberstien

It makes it totally worth it, three dollar shawarma. It’s totally worth it now.

Lily Ray

Sounds appealing.

Yosef Silver

No way you can buy shawarma for three dollars.

Mordy Oberstien

I don’t even know what it’s like 30 shekel, which is, I don’t know. 

Yosef Silver

It’s almost ten bucks now.

Mordy Oberstien

Yeah, it’s almost ten bucks. That’s expensive for shawarma. That’s a rip off.

Lily Ray

Really?

Yosef Silver

Yeah. I mean, the shekel is not as strong as it was when I moved there.

Mordy Oberstien

Right. Shawarma, it’s awesome.

Yosef Silver

We always end up on food.

Mordy Oberstien

We always end up on food, again, another very Jewish thing. 

Lily Ray

Shawarma in particular too.

Mordy Oberstien

How surprising. That’s great, but you’re also a health nut, right? I don’t mean it in a bad way, you know the verbiage health nut? I mean in a good way.

Lily Ray

Not like the psychopath but like the nice one. Like an endearing one.

Mordy Oberstien

On my old podcast. The podcast, we don’t talk about anymore. I say we both have six-packs. Mine’s under a heavy layer of fat.

Lily Ray

You know, what’s funny about that podcast. You asked me if I eat meat and I said yes. And then the next day I was like, you know what? I’m going vegan. It’s just, Mordy’s question was the nail in the coffin for me, because everyone in my life is asking me if I’m vegan. For years I’ve wanted to go vegan, watched a couple, I don’t even know, YouTube talks about why veganism is important. From a health and fitness perspective, everybody already knows the animal reasons, great, you know, that’s great. Right? But I, I did it. I became vegan the next day and I’ve been vegan ever since.

Mordy Oberstien

I take full credit.

Yosef Silver

How long as It been?

Lily Ray

It’s totally because of you Mordy. I don’t know, since June or July three or four months.

Mordy Oberstien

Yeah. Wow, that’s awesome. Do you feel better? Do you notice a difference?

Lily Ray

Honestly, people hate hearing about how great veganism is because they take it personally, that’s what I’ve learned very quickly, don’t talk to people about it because they’ll just get insulted.

Mordy Oberstien

Let’s talk about it.

Lily Ray

I have to say there’s something to it for sure. Way more energy, better moods, your skin clears up, everything just becomes a little better when you’re vegan. I hate to say it, but it’s true.

Yosef Silver

I think there is that balance as well of healthy veganism and packaged freezer food veganism, because you don’t know what to do. So if you do it right, you’re just eating real food.

Lily Ray

Of course, there’s a way to be vegan and unhealthy for sure. You can eat Oreos all day.

Mordy Oberstien

Oreos and French fries.

Lily Ray

Right. You have to commit to doing it properly. But it’s pretty awesome. I’m enjoying myself.

Mordy Oberstien

So what do you eat now?

Lily Ray

I mostly ate vegan before, I just would have an animal protein with every dish. So before I would have a really healthy salad or a bunch of vegetables with salmon or, with chicken or whatever. Now I just don’t have the animal protein, don’t use cheese, obviously. I sometimes use tofu instead or satan or tempeh or brown rice or whatever. Believe it or not, I don’t miss meat.

Mordy Oberstien

Wow. I don’t even know what the last three foods you said even are.

Lily Ray

They’re basically beans, it’s a kind of underutilized food on earth. Beans are kind of magical.

Mordy Oberstien

They are magical.

Lily Ray

They are good for your heart.

Mordy Oberstien

Come on Yosef fill in the black.

Lily Ray

Well, it’s true, you get a lot more fiber as a vegan, that’s for sure.

Mordy Oberstien

Yeah, we know we’re not going to go down that rabbit hole.

Mordy Oberstien

No, no, no, stay off of that. Even for me, that’s too far.

Lily Ray

It’s not podcast friendly.

Yosef Silver

We want there to be an episode three.

Lily Ray

You get kicked off of iTunes and Apple and everything.

Mordy Oberstien

That is so tempting, though.

Yosef Silver

I think one of the things you do really well, Lily, is even during COVID, I think you are great at connecting other people together. I feel like we’ve seen a lot of you, Zooming being like, hey, who’s around, who wants to do this? One thing I love that you did is you got on your bike during COVID and put on Facebook, who wants photos of New York? Tell me a little bit about, where did that come from? Did you just need a route idea? It’s such a nice thing that you did for people.

Mordy Oberstien

That was awesome.

Lily Ray

That was so much fun. I mean, it’s bittersweet because I was biking around New York during one of the most devastating moments, probably in New York history. So it was depressing and scary and devastating to see New York in that state, where the entire city was shut down and apocalyptic. You know, the people that I would see on those bike rides were, elderly people with three layers of masks on that had to go grocery shopping and they just looked terrified. So it was really dark and a lot of ways. But and I remember kind of being one of the only people at that point that was even willing to go outside. So it really felt like I am legend or something, at least in my mind. But I think, people are really, really scared not just in New York but everywhere. New York is a place that brings a lot of people joy and happiness and people have a lot of great memories here so I thought, OK, I’m willing to go out on my bike with a mask for hours and hours at the time. So I’ll just hopefully bring some happiness to people and share some photos. It was also just kind of documenting the state of the city at that point because people would put in a request for their favorite bar and the bar was obviously shut down completely. So it’s kind of cool to to document all of that.

Mordy Oberstien

Where was your favorite place to go?

Lily Ray

Yeah, so a couple of people, my friend Carl on Facebook, a couple of people said, this park called the peace fountain in the Upper West Side, which I never knew existed 

Mordy Oberstien

I never heard of that.

Lily Ray

Yeah, and that was another cool thing about this whole experience, is people were recommending places that I didn’t even know existed and I’ve lived in New York for over 12 years now. I bike up to this fountain and it’s this totally surreal, like Alice in Wonderland, almost trippy sculpture fountain and I thought that was it. Then this tiny old man was like, no, you have to go in there, go into the park and there was this tiny little entrance I swear it was like Alice in Wonderland. I crossed into there and there are three peacocks just hanging out. I was like, there’s peacocks in New York? Yeah, just walking around.

Mordy Oberstien

That’s bizarre. 

Lily Ray

One of them was coming up to my bike and then he got really excited and put his feathers out. I was like, I think he’s into my bike. Yeah. I was like, can I have my bike back, please?

Mordy Oberstien

It’s a New York peacock, so be careful. He’ll like, you know, jack your bike.

Lily Ray

I know, I was like, what’s going on here. But there was an albino peacock.

Yosef Silver

Wow.

Lily Ray

Yeah.

Yosef Silver

Do they live at this park or had they like made their way from the wilderness?

Mordy Oberstien

Like Africa?

Lily Ray

Emigrated to New York.

Yosef Silver

Madagascar, right?

Lily Ray

Yeah, exactly, the Bronx Zoo or something. I looked it up and of course, The New York Times has an article about them, they have names. They live at this park, there are just these peacocks.

Mordy Oberstien

I never knew that existed, I lived in New York for 30 years.

Lily Ray

Yeah, I have to send you guys the videos. I have videos of these peacocks, prancing around my bike. It’s pretty awesome.

Mordy Oberstien

That’s awesome.

Yosef Silver

Yeah, I’d love to see that. It’s cool.

Mordy Oberstien

OK, last topic, the tattoos, you have an awesome sleeve. I’m looking at it right now. It is awesome. I saw you posted it on Twitter and Instagram. First of all, did that hurt. Looks like it hurt.

Lily Ray

17 hours of tattooing is fine.

Mordy Oberstien

17 hours?

Lily Ray

Yeah. That’s not even my biggest tattoo. I can’t show it all, but I’m covered in tattoos. People just don’t know that because the other ones are on my thigh and my back and my ankle and my inner arms and a lot of different places. I have some white ones. I mean this actually didn’t hurt as much as some other ones that I’ve had. There are certain parts that hurt your inner elbow where your skin is really squishy. That’s pretty excruciating, then the upper shoulder where the bone is that really sucked and this is where the end was. So like hours fifteen through seventeen were all at the top of my shoulder and we were just like so exhausted at that point. But it’s worth it, it’s kind of part of the experience. You know. 

Mordy Oberstien

It’s really cool.

Yosef Silver

It’s a really beautiful tattoo. 

Mordy Oberstien

Yeah.

Lily Ray

Thank you.

Mordy Oberstien

It’s one of the coolest tattoos I’ve ever seen.

Lily Ray

Yeah. That’s why I went to Rock. She’s amazing, she’s really, really an amazing artist. If you look up her work, she’s just changing the world of tattooing. She’s incredible.

Yosef Silver

And she’s a California based?

Lily Ray

Yep. She’s in the Agoura Hills in Southern California previously San Francisco. I knew her when she was running her San Francisco shop. I have been following her for many years. But now it’s quite a process to get an appointment with her. She does most celebrities and tech executives and stuff.

Mordy Oberstien

You’re an SEO celebrity so…

Lily Ray

Thanks, I had to squeeze my way in there. It wasn’t easy.

Yosef Silver

Actually the last time I saw you, was the day before you got that.

Lily Ray

Oh, yeah.

Yosef Silver

We hung out on the beach, 6-feet apart in Santa Monica.

Lily Ray

During COVID. Yep, that was fun.

Yosef Silver

It was. It’s a beautiful piece.

Lily Ray

Thank you so much.

Mordy Oberstien

OK, I have this thing that I’m doing now, I’m calling them rapid-fire questions. There are 12 questions. They might be nonsensical at certain points, somewhat offensive even. I don’t even know. We had Heather Physioc on. I asked her, which family member do you not like the most? Something like that. That was probably not the best question to ask. Yeah, The line of appropriateness in my mind is often blurred.

Lily Ray

I’m in the same boat, so we’ll see what happens with these questions.

Yosef Silver

Blame the lockdown. You haven’t interacted with people.

Mordy Oberstien

Oh, I am totally under lockdown right now. I’m at home with four kids all day long, trying to navigate a new job. I’m going out of my mind and drinking a lot of alcohol. Yeah. OK, here we go. Rapid-fire questions. Number one. Bing or DuckDuckGo?

Lily Ray

DuckDuckGo.

Mordy Oberstien

Facebook or Twitter?

Lily Ray

I’ve already feel like I offended 10 people with my answer.

Mordy Oberstien

Oh, no.

Lily Ray

Facebook.

Mordy Oberstien

Let’s do that again because something got cut off, Facebook or Twitter?

Lily Ray

Facebook.

Mordy Oberstien

OK, Apple or Android?

Lily Ray

Apple.

Mordy Oberstien

Fill in the blank. Pineapple pizza is…

Lily Ray

Disgusting.

Mordy Oberstien

Oh, no. no.

Yosef Silver

Great answer.

Lily Ray

Why would you eat, I don’t understand, I’ll never understand.

Mordy Oberstien

It’s delicious.

Lily Ray

No, it’s disgusting.

Yosef Silver

Do you do tuna and pineapple?

Mordy Oberstien

No, pineapple and tabasco sauce.

Lily Ray

Oh my God. You guys are disgusting. That’s all disgusting.

Mordy Oberstien

Fish is barely edible to begin with, and you’re going to put it on pizza? OK, favorite color?

Lily Ray

Black.

Mordy Oberstien

That makes sense. Best day ever?

Lily Ray

All right. I don’t even know anymore I was going to say my wedding, but we’re getting divorced. I would say the day that I admire was excellent. I have the same thing I mentioned before there’s probably other days than that but..

Mordy Oberstien

You can just say Sunday.

Lily Ray

I’m going to say my wedding. You know what? I’m going to go with my wedding. It was still awesome. My wedding was awesome.

Mordy Oberstien

Good, OK. Hey, Mr. DJ or The Last DJ?

Lily Ray

Hey, Mr. DJ.

Mordy Oberstien

Nice, not a Tom Petty fan, OK, stuck on a desert island with Yanni or John Tesh. 

Lily Ray

I don’t even know who they are? Is that a problem?

Mordy Oberstien

They are the most lame people you can possibly imagine in the musical world.

Lily Ray

Is Yanni an Israeli musician? I don’t even know who that is.

Mordy Oberstien

I guess a violinist or something like that.

Lily Ray

Greek composer. Who’s the other one? 

Mordy Oberstien

John Tesh.

Lily Ray

I don’t know who they are. God, I’m going to go with Yanni, though, just based on what they look like. Definitely Yanni. He can call me. Hey Yanni.

Mordy Oberstien

OK, Show Me the Money or Show Me the Way?

Lily Ray

Show Me the Money.

Mordy Oberstien

Nice, Vin Diesel, or my cousin Vinny.

Lily Ray

Are you serious?

Mordy Oberstien

Yes!

Lily Ray

My cousin Vinny.

Mordy Oberstien

Excellent answer, Crest or Coalgate.

Lily Ray

It’s the same shit. Who cares? Sorry, can I swear?

Mordy Oberstien

Yeah, yeah, we’re cool. Yeah absolutely.

Lily Ray

Sorry, Apple and iTunes.

Mordy Oberstien

No, I’m surprised we didn’t swear more OK. Last one. Genghis Khan or Gangnam Style?

Lily Ray

Genghis Khan for sure.

Mordy Oberstien

Genghis Khan for the Win. Oh, see it’s awesome, right?

Lily Ray

They’re not offensive. They’re just outrageous.

Mordy Oberstien

Outrageous. Totally outrageous. I totally dated myself on the Yanni or John Tesh thing.

Yosef Silver

I think I prefer not knowing what you’re coming up with. I read the questions I was like, OK, and this time it was amusing for me. Thank you.

Mordy Oberstien

I amuse myself. OK, well, that was definitely interesting, sorry, people at home. 

Yosef Silver

We should start a spin off, I mean, once we have listeners, a spin off of Mordy’s brain.

Lily Ray

A new podcast. What Goes on in Mordy’s Brain.

Mordy Oberstien

This is without any influence of anything, which is its own problem.

Lily Ray

Remarkable.

Mordy Oberstien

It’s remarkable actually, they should put it in the ether after I die.

Yosef Silver

It’s late for you, you should be drinking.

Mordy Oberstien

It is. I just finished three hours of meetings. I haven’t had a chance to drink yet. OK, we’re going to get kicked off of Zoom in like under 10 minutes, so we’ve  got to wrap this up, unfortunately.

Lily Ray

Aw that’s sad.

Mordy Oberstien

It is sad.

Yosef Silver

Lily, it’s a pleasure.

Lily Ray

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Yosef Silver

One question we’re throwing out there. I think part of this project, part of the idea behind Behind the SEOs is to get to know the SEO community and get to know people that. Things along those lines.  Is there anyone that you think would make a perfect guest that we should reach out to to be on the show?

Lily Ray

There’s a lot of people.

Mordy Oberstien

John Tesh.

Lily Ray

Not John Tesh.  I’d love to get to know Areej better. She’s been doing a lot for the community.

Yosef Silver

She has.

Lily Ray

God, there are so many people. Marie Heinz is always really fun. Fascinating to talk to her. I hate questions like these because for the next three days I’m going to be like, God, I wish I would have said this person, but start with those two. They’re awesome.

Yosef Silver

Awesome.

Mordy Oberstien

On the list.

Yosef Silver

You can shoot us an email with ideas. And if you think someone would be a great fit, let us know.

Lily Ray

Sounds great.

Lily Ray

I will.

Mordy Oberstien

Awesome. OK, well then I’ll do it for us. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and the next episode drops on Thursday, December 3rd. Thanks, guys.

Lily Ray

Awesome, thanks for having me. 

Mordy Oberstien

Bye-bye.

Yosef Silver

Bye

Lily Ray

Bye

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