Ryan Doser is a digital marketer and SEO specialist from Des Moines who spent years in the weeds of paid search, SEO, and affiliate marketing — including a stretch managing $500,000 a month in Google ad spend for Meredith Corporation, the publisher behind People magazine and Better Homes and Gardens. He recently went out on his own. Isaac connected with Ryan through his brother Aaron Jarnagin, who pointed him toward Ryan’s LinkedIn, and the two finally sat down to talk AI workflows, the SEO basics every creative should know, and how The Loop Des Moines grew from an idea into one of the city’s most talked-about young professional networking groups.
Ryan Doser’s Path to Running His Own Shop
Ryan’s background in digital marketing didn’t start in a lecture hall — it started at the job. His first real role put him in the middle of a massive paid search operation at Meredith Corp, where he and one other person were managing Google and Bing ads for publications like People magazine. The monthly budget: around $500,000.
“Me and another guy we were running the Google ads and Bing ads and the whole paid search shebang for Meredith like People magazine and you’re talking like 500 grand a month in ad spend that we were managing.”
That kind of hands-on experience is something no certification can replicate. You learn what happens when you make a mistake at scale. You learn the platform deeply because you have to.
From there he moved into affiliate marketing and eventually a senior SEO role working with sites that had domain ratings in the high 80s and 90s — the kind of authority most sites never come close to. Then earlier this year he made the leap: his own clients, his own schedule. His description of the day-to-day is blunt.
“Every day is war right so like literally I don’t know what’s going on and I wake up and there’s like 10 text messages 10 calls — I’m like all right well I gotta conquer the day.”
His advice for anyone eyeing the same move: work for someone first. Get access to the expensive tools, the big budgets, the senior people. Absorb everything you can, then take the leap once you have real skills and real confidence behind you.
AI Workflows That Actually Work
Ryan presented on AI tools to a room of Des Moines business owners earlier this year — and the gap in understanding between that room and the developers he works with was stark.
“I feel dumber than rocks when I talk to him and then I go and present to these like 50 40-year-old business owners and I feel like Albert Einstein.”
The tools he actually uses and recommends:
SEOwriting.ai for long-form blog content — at $20 a month it produces 2,000–3,000 word articles that are already starting to rank for certain queries. It needs human review, especially in sensitive niches, but for general content it cuts the workload significantly.
Fireflies.ai for meeting notes — integrates with Google Meet, Teams, and most major platforms, records and transcribes calls, and can generate action items from the conversation.
ChatGPT and Bard for short-form content and general research prompts. Not long-form articles, where the output gets stale fast and the knowledge cutoff becomes a real problem.
AIPRM — a free Chrome extension for ChatGPT that gives you curated, one-click prompts for SEO, content, and keyword research instead of building every prompt from scratch.
His broader take: the shiny object syndrome around AI tools is the same energy as early crypto. The move isn’t to chase every new release — it’s to find one solid tool per use case and actually use it.
“Learn ChatGPT, learn Bard, do some research on what are the best AI SEO tools right now, learn Midjourney — start small. If you can just utilize one of those per day it’ll start to multiply over time.”
Treadmill Traffic vs. Passive Content
One of the most useful frameworks in this episode came from Ryan referencing Brian Dean, a well-known SEO content strategist. The concept: treadmill traffic versus passive traffic.
Treadmill traffic is the content hamster wheel — news articles, hot takes, trend-chasing pieces that spike and vanish. The moment you stop posting, the traffic stops.
Passive content is the opposite: keyword-targeted blog posts, YouTube videos built around search intent, evergreen pieces that compound over time. You put in the upfront work once and it keeps generating traffic for months or years.
“That’s why SEO and YouTube for example are such good channels — because the traffic, if you’re doing it right and you’re going after keywords and doing everything correctly, your channel compounds.”
It’s the same logic as investing. Treadmill content is spending. Passive content is building. Neither is wrong in isolation — news content has its place — but leaning too hard on treadmill content means you’re one bad week away from your traffic falling off a cliff.
Ryan’s point: before you write your next five articles, ask if one of those could target a real keyword and build compounding value. That one piece will likely outperform the other five combined, six months from now.
The Loop Des Moines: From Five People to Fifty
Ryan co-founded The Loop Des Moines about two years ago with his partner Dallas Downey. The origin was simple: both of them were tired of traditional networking events.
“We were tired of the traditional networking game right where it’s like show up there’s always the same three realtors there’s always the same three financial advisors slipping you their business card.”
They modeled it after a similar group in Kansas City. Dallas called Ryan. Ryan was skeptical. Dallas pitched it as a no-fee, no-BS monthly gathering for young professionals — primarily people in their 30s, with exceptions depending on industry.
The first event at Peace Tree had maybe five people. The most recent happy hour had fifty.
Growth came from a few levers: their combined network to start, LinkedIn and Facebook event promotion, and an early move to get recruiting contacts at larger Des Moines companies to send internal emails pointing employees toward the group.
“I’ve had a few people come and be like oh yeah I saw you on a company email that was sent out — and I’m like well that’s awesome because that was part of the strategy.”
The philosophy driving the whole thing is one line Ryan keeps coming back to: business is second coming. Lead with the relationship, not the pitch.
“Business should never be first coming if you’re going to network with someone because that’s how you get turned away right. People don’t like the hard sell.”
It’s the same principle Cade Hanson talked about in episode 8 — that showing up consistently for people is what creates real opportunity. The Loop is a formalized structure for that same idea.
Personal Brand Beats Credentials Every Time
One of the sharpest moments in this episode came from Ryan talking about SEO consultants he and his business partner had hired — big names with millions of YouTube subscribers, charging $100–$200 an hour.
“We come to find out once you open the curtain — holy, we actually know more than these people do. But why do they make a lot more than us? It’s their personal brand.”
The knowledge gap wasn’t in the consultants’ favor. The income gap was enormous. The only meaningful variable: one side had built a public body of work, and the other hadn’t.
It’s the same thing Chay Nott talked about in episode 9 — consistency in public compounds in ways that expertise alone never will.
“You could be the smartest guy in the room or the smartest guy in the history of the world — if you have no personal brand, some Average Joe who just starts a podcast has more leverage than you do.”
Expertise without visibility doesn’t pay. You can be right about everything and still lose to the person who shows up consistently in public and documents the process.
Key Takeaways
- Work for someone before going solo. Access to real tools, real budgets, and real mentors is worth years of self-teaching. Stack those skills first, then take the leap.
- One AI tool per use case. Don’t chase every new release. Pick the best tool for each job — long-form content, meeting notes, short-form copy — and actually use it.
- Treadmill content doesn’t compound. One keyword-targeted evergreen article can outperform five trend-chasing posts over time. Think passive, not just prolific.
- Business is second coming. Whether it’s The Loop or a cold introduction, the relationship has to come before the pitch.
- Personal brand beats credentials. Consistent public output beats hidden expertise every time. The person who shows up in public every week wins.
- Passive income isn’t passive at first. Affiliate marketing requires serious upfront work. Anyone selling the lifestyle without that caveat is leaving out the most important part.
Follow Ryan at ryandoser.com. Connect with Isaac at isaacjarnagin.com or on Instagram.
