Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with Brandon Leibowitz of Los Angeles (Venice Beach)

Brandon Leibowitz shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Brandon, really appreciate you sharing your stories and insights with us. The world would have so much more understanding and empathy if we all were a bit more open about our stories and how they have helped shaped our journey and worldview. Let’s jump in with a fun one: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
The first 90 minutes of my day set the tone for everything I do. I keep things simple and focused. I wake up, get some sunlight, and spend a few minutes checking my priorities for the day. Before diving into emails or client work, I like to get a quick walk in around my neighborhood. It clears my mind and helps me ease into work mode.

Once I’m back, I review rankings, analytics, and any overnight updates for my clients. SEO moves fast, so I like knowing exactly where things stand before the day gets busy. After that, I outline my top three tasks for the day. Running an agency and multiple brands means there’s always a lot happening, so having that short list keeps me grounded.
It’s not a complicated routine, but it gives me clarity and momentum right from the start.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Brandon Leibowitz, the founder of SEO Optimizers, a digital marketing agency I started back in 2007 before SEO was even on most people’s radar. I’ve spent the past 17+ years helping small businesses, e-commerce brands, and entrepreneurs grow their traffic, leads, and sales by getting them found on Google.

What makes my work unique is that I focus heavily on practical, ROI-driven SEO. Not theory, not fluff, just strategies that help businesses grow sustainably. Over the years, I’ve built a system that blends content, technical SEO, backlinks, and now AI to help clients stand out in some of the most competitive industries out there.

Outside of the agency, I run Shralpin, a skate and music culture platform, and I speak at conferences like brightonSEO, Podfest, and various business events. I’m also writing a book on guest podcasting and building a line of AI-powered SEO tools to help business owners simplify their marketing.

At the core, everything I do is about helping people grow. Whether that’s a brand trying to get more visibility or a creator looking to build authority. I love taking something with potential and helping it take off.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
Both my mom and dad saw something in me long before I really understood where I was headed. My mom encouraged my curiosity and never questioned why I was spending so much time learning this new thing called SEO.

To most people, it looked like a strange hobby, but she recognized that I had found something I genuinely enjoyed and kept reminding me that I was building a real skill.

My dad was the one who taught me to take initiative and figure things out on my own. He always believed I could create my own path instead of waiting for someone to hand me an opportunity. That mindset is what pushed me to turn SEO Optimizers from a small experiment into a full-time business.

Together, they both saw my potential before I did. Their support made it easier to take risks, trust myself, and follow a direction that didn’t make sense to many people at the time.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering taught me patience, resilience, and how to stay grounded when everything feels uncertain. Success is great, but it can give you the illusion that things will always go smoothly. The tougher moments in my life, the slow seasons in business, the times when clients left, or when I felt stuck, forced me to develop real grit.

Suffering also taught me to problem-solve creatively. When things aren’t working, you’re pushed to rethink your approach, improve your systems, and grow in ways you wouldn’t if everything were easy. It made me appreciate the wins more because I know the effort it took to get there.

Most importantly, it taught me empathy. When you’ve gone through challenges, you understand people better. You communicate differently. You lead differently. You become more patient with others because you know what it feels like to push through something hard.

Success gives you confidence.

Suffering gives you character.

Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? Is the public version of you the real you?
Yes, the public version of me is the real me. Just a more focused version. I don’t try to play a character or exaggerate anything. What people see online or on stage is the same person my friends and family know, just with the energy dialed up a little depending on the setting.

In my work, I try to be direct, helpful, and practical, and that’s genuinely how I am in everyday life. I’m not interested in pretending to be something I’m not. The only difference is that the public version of me stays centered on business, SEO, podcasting, and helping others grow. The personal side, the day-to-day stuff, my hobbies, family, relationships, doesn’t always make it into the spotlight.

So the public version is absolutely real. It’s just one part of who I am, the part that’s here to teach, build, and share what I’ve learned.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. If you retired tomorrow, what would your customers miss most?
If I retired tomorrow, I think my customers would miss the level of personal attention and transparency I bring to every project. I’m hands-on with strategy, rankings, backlinks, and analytics, and clients know they can reach me directly whenever they need clarity or direction. A lot of agencies hide behind dashboards or vague updates. I’ve always taken the opposite approach: show clients exactly what’s happening, why it matters, and what we’re doing next.

They would also miss the consistency. For almost two decades, I’ve shown up every single day, tracking rankings, spotting opportunities, fixing issues before they become problems, and keeping clients a step ahead of Google’s changes. That reliability and long-term thinking are hard to replace.

And honestly, I think they’d miss the honesty. I’ll tell a client what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. I don’t oversell, I don’t hype things, and I don’t disappear when things get tough. That trust is the foundation of every relationship I’ve built.

So while the tactics and tools matter, I think they’d miss the combination of experience, transparency, and steady guidance that I bring to the table.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://seooptimizers.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leibowitzbrandon/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonleibowitz/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/brandonleibs
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrandonLeibs
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/seo-optimizers-los-angeles
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/brandonleibowitz/
• Other: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1KCPavtn7RApVLWv6
  

  @brandonleibowitz