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Agency Ahead by Traject

70 Episodes

29 minutes | a day ago
Local SEO Looks Ahead to 2021 with Colan Nielsen
Colan Nielsen is the VP of Local Search at Sterling Sky, making him an excellent expert source for all things local search. If you want to build a local search presence for any industry or any business, he knows what to do.He joins us today on the Agency Ahead podcast with plenty of insights into what's ahead, as well as some insights on how a local SEO might structure their workload and time. There are also some pretty incredible insights on how a person might "10x" themselves as a local SEO expert. Don't miss this.The highlights: [1:31] A day in the life of a local SEO. [6:10] Choosing to share the results of experiments, vs. choosing to hold them back. [7:36] Working as a remote local SEO team.  [10:59] 10x and level up. [16:13] Looking ahead to 2021: trends in local search. [21:36] Key recommendations for the new year. [25:00] Colan's causes. The insights:A Day in the life of a local SEOIt's easy to get caught up in putting out fires, so Colan says he likes to do an exercise every now and then that helps him plan his days."I like to sit down and do a brain dump of: what are the core things I'm actually contributing, or what is the value I'm bringing to the table?"Colan says he has found four separate areas or buckets where he provides value."The first one is Sterling Sky. A big part of what I do is actual account management. I've got a certain number of clients who I'm directly responsible for. If I had to boil that down really, that's about building trust. The clients that have been with us the longest, I would say we've developed our relationship to the point where they're a friend. When we have conversations, whether it's on a monthly call or what have you, we're probably talking 50% about work-related stuff, and 50% about their personal life, my personal life, what's going on in the world."He says building this rapport is a big part of keeping clients retained and happy."The other huge chunk is the actual client work. So I'm pulling levers, I'm optimizing websites, optimizing GMB profiles, doing spam-fighting, doing strategy, all this groundwork stuff. I like to have a certain percentage of my time doing it for no other good reason than to keep that knife sharp with all the different things you need to be doing, and so you're not distanced from the actual work."He says the next thing he spends time on is his role as a leader within Sterling Sky.He notes that Sterling Sky recently had everyone take a DISC personality test, and he found out he was a "Counselor" type. "I have a few people on my team who report up to me, so we do monthly one-on-ones, a lot of feedback sessions helping them learn the ropes of local SEO or whatever they're trying to do."Colan says the last thing he spends a lot of his time doing is brand-building. "Both the brand of Sterling Sky and my personal brand as a local search optimization expert. That's things like the Google My Business forum and spending a lot of time there as a product expert, as well as the local search forum we run, spending time there, helping people out, providing really good answers—or at least trying to!"Colan also spends time blogging on the Sterling Sky blog. When to share experiment results and when to hold backColan talked about how he's trying to spend a lot of time figuring out new things that haven't been discussed or looked into or is trying to find answers to questions that people have had about local search, but have never been answered with an actual test or data."Within Sterling Sky, we have a ton of hours set aside each month to do actual tests of our own."Garrett asked how the team at Sterling Sky decides what they're going to share with the public, and what they're going to keep to themselves for competitive advantages."Usually that comes down to an internal discussion with the team. One of our core values is designed around the fact that we love to give back and share, not just with the local SEO community, but businesses in general. I don't know what the actual percentage of stuff we share vs. don't share is, but I'd say it's probably upwards of 90% shared."What inspires them to hold back? The answer may surprise you."It's usually because we figure in some ways it might actually do more harm than good to have that thing out there, in the sense the tactic might get diluted." Working as a remote local SEO teamColan also had some insights to share about how the team has been working during the pandemic."At the beginning of every month, everybody on the team uses a calendar blocking approach to organizing our month. By the 2nd or 3rd day of the month I've got my entire month planned out for the most part. Obviously, things come up that are unplanned, but I would say 99% of the month is blocked in. I love that. I've been doing that for about four years."This approach continued to serve everyone well even when the team went remote."On any particular day what we'll typically find is a couple of hours devoted to client work, like specifically just getting in there and doing some, whether it's an audit or a little bit of consulting, or actually going in and doing some website adjustments, internal linking optimization, whatever it may be. Then there can be a chunk dedicated to some operations tasks, helping to organize our internal processes, making sure they're documented clearly and they're updated. Then you'll probably find a block dedicated to doing a little bit of testing, maybe some blogging, forums, every day." 10X and level upColan also talks about how he has come to enjoy some of the parts of his work that he didn't enjoy so much three years ago, specifically, the client relationship management part of his job. Garrett asked how he accomplished this breakthrough."It wasn't necessarily that there was an aspect of managing a client relationship I didn't like. I was just much more introverted, and maybe it's just I didn't have as much experience at the time managing relationships. I've been doing so much of it over the past three years that it's gotten me to a point where I'm just more comfortable with, and actually look forward to, having client calls." He says he thinks this shift was a more personal thing and shares some advice for people looking to make a similar shift. "On a high level, I think the most important thing someone can do is identify something in your life that you have control over that is negatively acting on your life or not positively contributing to your life. If you can identify that thing, and it's something you have control over and the ability to work towards removing it or fixing it."For Colan, this was giving up alcohol."On New Years’ Eve 2019 I drank my last drink. I wasn't super far down the spectrum as far as the spectrum goes for a drinking problem, but I identified that [as a problem] for my life, and where I wanted to get myself both personally and professionally." He says he thinks it was similar to Steve Jobs making the choice to wear black every day."By doing that, he didn't have to worry about dressing anymore. For me, I could remove this and I didn't have to worry about that part anymore that was consuming too much energy. That has this snowball effect on your health, on your vitality, the whole shebang. Fast forward a little over a year later, and I feel like a completely different person than I was. That has been the 10x thing for me." Looking ahead to 2021: Trends in local searchColan says that local businesses and marketing agencies should continue to pay attention to the various things that have changed over the past year because of the pandemic."I don't think, moving forward, we'll see these features dialed back."Colan points out that it's possible to put an attribute on your GMB listing that says you have virtual services. "You can put in a virtual services link."He says we're going into a whole new style of economy."This came up quite a bit on a recent webinar. Andrew Shotland was talking about this with Joy Hawkins and Ben Fisher, where there's basically this coming together of local SEO and eCommerce. It's not just local SEOs who are going: oh, we've gotta start learning this stuff. There are people on the eCommerce side going: oh, we've got to start learning this local SEO stuff. That's going to come to a point where it all just blends together. I don't know if it's going to be this year. Certainly, by next year I think every local SEO will probably need to have eCommerce as part of their toolbelt as more and more businesses will be that hybrid style of maybe having a brick and mortar, but also offering online services." He notes an example that Andrew Shotland brought up on the same webinar. "He used as an example. Historically you would never get a 3-pack if you were searching for grills or grills near me, but now you get a 3-pack and it will list places that carry that particular product.""That's the other trend that's tied into this, is definitely seeing more 3-packs where maybe there were not 3-packs before, and where we're seeing those  more is for queries that typically aren't perceived as local intent, but now Google is understanding that they actually do have more local intent."Key recommendations for the new year"I think it's going to boil down to reviews and reputation," says Colan. "And to go even further down: review responses."He mentions a real-world experience he had with this recently."I live in a little town of 10,000 to 15,000 people, and it just opened up two cannabis stores. I've been interacting with the two business owners in our community here and having these conversations that just kind of come up naturally."One of the stores got 5 reviews in their first week, but one was a 1-star review that dropped their rating to a 3.9. "Which I feel horrible about it, they're awesome." The owner wasn't sure if they should respond just to the bad review, or to all the reviews."It's easy to forget that's not an easy thing as a business owner who doesn't understand local SEO to intuitively know. So I was able to explain the fact that yeah, you want to be responding to all your reviews, especially the negative ones because that person is going to get a notification you responded so there's an opportunity to maybe fix the situation, plus of course it looks really good for future customers when they see how you handled that negative review."He advises doing something to make sure you're closing that feedback loop, perhaps by incorporating automated software.What’s your right now cause? Colan suggests getting out into your community and sharing some local SEO knowledge, all without trying to turn anyone into a client. He's even looking to be more proactive about it, walking into various businesses with the goal of offering a little advice. With businesses struggling to survive, it is an excellent way to help and share your expertise, and one that costs nothing at all.Connect with Colan NielsenWant more from Colan?  Website Local Search Forum Twitter LinkedIn
31 minutes | 8 days ago
Geeking Out Over Technical SEO with Mercy Janaki
Mercy Janaki heads the organic marketing team at Position2, a growth marketing agency that describes itself as a "demand acceleration" company. They've helped companies like Citrix, LinkedIn, Kabbage, and more.Today she sits down with Garrett to talk about some tough technical SEO challenges she faced. She also talks about tools, client education, and a whole lot more. Don't miss this lively discussion.The highlights: [1:51] The Position2 client base. [4:27] Working with financial services and health care clients. [8:23] Educating clients on technical SEO. [14:20] Evaluating enterprise SEO tools. [17:40] How Position2 handles reporting. [22:29] Typical crawl budget issues. [27:30] Mercy's right-now cause. The insights:The Position2 client baseGarrett asked Mercy to talk a little bit about Position2's client base. "At Position2," Mercy said, "we believe innovators should win."What do they mean by innovators?"If they have a service or a product line that helps solve any issues for humans, the team gets excited about the contribution we can provide." They work with companies of every size, from start-ups to Fortune 500 clients. They work with a lot of clients in the financial services, security, health care, manufacturing, and consumer products industries. Working with financial services and healthcare clientsWorking with financial and healthcare clients comes with some specific challenges. They’re considered a special class of websites commonly known as Your Money Your Life (YMYL). Julia McCoy, who was on the podcast in December, has written about YMYL sites in the past. These industries are highly regulated in most countries, and Google itself adjusts its algorithms with an aim towards pushing the most credible information to the top. Mercy says auditing these clients is not a one-size-fits-all prospect, but there are some common challenges."The quality of content. Sometimes the client will have a lot of content, but most of the time the content doesn't actually make sense." She says that explaining Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EAT) factors to clients is hard because Google has already stated it's not a direct ranking factor. "It's very challenging to convince the client that your website or your content should match with EAT. It might not be a direct ranking factor, but without authority, without expertise, at least in the healthcare field and the financial field, it's hard for even bigger brands to rank."She says thin content and duplicate content are another source of major challenges on websites like these. Educating clients on technical SEO Mercy says it's easier to educate clients when you can show them results from a similar client in the same industry. "Rather than speaking to them about theoretical approaches, you show them the data. It makes your discussion much easier."She says she talks about it while providing a comprehensive technical audit on the website.What clients really want to know? "What kind of ROI can I get from [this course of action?] What ranking boost can I get from it? What kind of percentage of traffic lift can I expect out of it?"She has answers."I tend to tell them that having a healthy website will enhance your SEO campaign and your conversions."Mercy also discusses the process of setting goals for a client campaign."We need to understand the business goals of the client."She warns against "silo goals." "If I had a silo goal that I wanted to do a 20% page speed improvement, it would be a big achievement for the SEO team, but is it going to align with the business goal of the client?"What kinds of goals are they looking at?"Say, for example, a client has a consumer product that converts more in winter. Probably Q2 and Q3 that product would be their focus area for SEO."Evaluating enterprise SEO toolsMercy is a big fan of Semrush."I love that for the simplicity and the user-friendliness, and also for the data they can pull. We've tried a lot of enterprise-level tools."She loves it because it gives her the industry-level benchmark for technical scores. "I can tell them: if you belong to the financial services [industry], your technical score of 40 is below the industry benchmark of 70." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHPk8HEjPFs She also says that SEMRush is very user friendly. She brings up using Regular Expressions (RegEx) to identify problems in larger sites and creating reports for SEO that not everyone has the ability to set up. By contrast, Semrush is straightforward. "The simplicity is missing in certain enterprise tools, and some enterprise tools don't cover all parts of SEO. They only focus on crawl, keyword ranking monitoring, and tracking. “How Position2 handles reportingIn addition to using Semrush, Position2 has come up with a reporting tool of their own called Arena Calibrate. "It consolidates data from Google Analytics and SEMRush through the API, as well as local SEO and GMB data. All of this can be integrated and shown to the client in a single view. It also has the ability to add multiple dimensions of data to a single chart. You can see which pages have keywords ranking and whether those pages are driving traffic to your website."She does not like solutions where the SEO has to look at multiple charts. "We're trying to build a dashboarding tool to have a better and easier way for people to see the research we are doing. Every client that signs up with us will get a dashboard [like this one]." She says they don't just send over the dashboard expecting clients to interpret the data, though."We talk to the client during weekly meetings or monthly meetings." However, the dashboarding tool will have different reports for different personas (CMOs, Marketing Managers, Campaign Executors, etc). So, the clients can explore data anytime. Typical crawl budget issues"Improper CMS usage leads to a lot of duplication pages or thin pages. We had a client with 2000 pages that were totally failing. Google was not viewing the pages that really mattered for them."She says that she sees this a lot in eCommerce, as well as clients who haven't implemented canonical text properly. "Leading them to a lot of pages with the filters and the sorting options and color variations. All those things can create a large volume of nearly duplicate content." Essentially, pages competing with themselves.She says she typically starts with a Google Search rather than going into a crawl. "When you use the advanced search properly you get a clear picture of how badly you're influencing the Google Bot to identify a lot of unwanted pages. Sometimes it will be a pain to see five different subdomains created internally for  researchers and communications that the Google Bot is crawling."On bigger websites, there is also the struggle of receiving too many warnings from crawl software. So Mercy starts with the robots.txt. "In Drupal and WordPress and other common CMSes it's pretty easy to handle these crawl issues, but some enterprise-level clients will come up with their own CMSes you never knew existed. You have to understand how to resolve that issue and sometimes the [custom] CMS doesn't even have an option to implement a canonical tag. So we try to work around it on robots.txt."What’s your right now cause?Mercy lives in India. "During the pandemic things were totally bad. There were so many people who were struggling to make ends meet. It was very painful to see kids, especially, go to bed without even dinner." She says a local started using his own money to cook food and share it with 50 poverty-stricken families, and she and her family joined in. "Things are getting improved."Thus? Never underestimate your own ability to impact someone's life. It may be as simple as cooking some stew and knocking on a door.Connect with Mercy JanakiWant to connect with Mercy? This was her very first podcast appearance, so definitely reach out to her! Website LinkedIn
23 minutes | 15 days ago
Scoring Earned Media In a Virtual World with Victoria Kennedy
While other firms are struggling, Victoria Kennedy of Victorious PR just had the best year of her life—and she expects to have it even better in 2021.What's her secret? And how does she go about getting her clients listed in publications like Forbes, Yahoo Finance, ABC, NBC, Fox, and more? What has she done to people her clients to become the #1 authorities in their niches?Turns out her secret isn't so secret, it's just pretty much the opposite of what most people are doing. Listen now so you can start turning some of her techniques to your advantage.The highlights: [1:31] Why traditional PR firms are struggling right now, and what Victoria is doing differently. [3:55] The "new superpower of 2021" that you can start cultivating right now. [6:15] How Victoria helps her clients through the reinvention process. [8:45] The secrets of personal brand building. [10:33] The utility of the press release. [12:07] Why you should never "pay to play" in PR. [13:56] Developing media relationships and contacts. [16:47] The right way to pitch editors. [19:46] Victoria's cause. The insights:Why traditional PR firms are struggling right now"The old ways to get into publications, where you go into networking events, and you schmooze and you drink and you take people out to coffee and lunch at expensive restaurants? You can't do that anymore," says Victoria. "That's not coming back."She says this is fantastic news. "For people like us who work from home, who can work anywhere in the world, who can still network, find editors, find journalists,  make connections, and use those to establish our PR business and do well in PR."She says she expects 2021 to be an even better year for people who can make this same sort of pivot. Garrett called it an "adapt-or-die" sort of situation. One way Victoria says she's winning is by doing things the big corporations won't do. "I'm reaching out to people on Twitter. I'm reaching out to editors on the platforms they like. I'm messaging them. I'm following up with them. Things that big corporations don't do, because they're too good for it. I'm not too good to comment a funny meme on somebody's tweet because I find it funny. I'm not too good for that. I went from zero to six figures in three months." The new superpower of 2021Victoria mentioned that in 2 weeks she'll be giving a TED talk on the subject of reinvention."Reinvention is the new superpower. Being able to adapt is what's going to save you. Especially now."She points out that technology is moving hyper-fast, and jobs are becoming obsolete."Those who can adapt the quickest are the ones who are going to reap all the rewards. Not the ones that are oh, I'm sad, everything has turned out horribly. There's always opportunity. The Great Depression produced the most millionaires ever."She says another thing that helped her succeed was using her digital marketing skills and transferring those marketing skills to PR. She offered other examples of these pivots and opportunities. "Maybe you're in an agency. You're a dog trainer. Did you ever think you could do that online? Start a course? There are so many different creative ways we can think. Think digitally, because that is the future."Helping clients reinvent themselvesSo Victoria has reinvented herself on lock-down, but how does she help her clients do it?"I do a brand strategy call. I take a look at their Facebook. Their website. If you're listening, you need to do this for yourself. 2021 is the perfect time to do an audit. I bring up all their socials."Then, she starts dissecting them."This works. This doesn't work. What are you trying to say here? The colors are all over the place. The colors are all over the place. Where is your brand? Where are you? I don't see you here. I see a mess of stuff. We're going to clean this up for you. We're going to make you new banners and a quick byline, one RMS (refined marketing statement). Make it short. Make it sweet. Make it to the point. Let people know what it is you do."She says she doesn't do any press until she's helped her clients develop a solid landing page. There's no point. You need to have a way to capture leads.She says 2021 is the perfect time to clean up your brand and decide who you want to be moving forward. "We can reinvent ourselves. If you want to pivot, if you wanna tell a different story about yourself, tell it!" She does mention that many of her clients have these fascinating backstories and only have 800 words to share a notion of who they really are. "Use this as a good thing. You can say this is who I am and know who you really are is sacred. The people who know you know you, and this is just your disguise. Your alter-ego, the form of the way you want people to perceive you. That's really powerful. That's so powerful to be able to control that narrative in a positive way."The secrets of personal brand buildingOne reason Victoria was able to ramp up her company so fast was because she'd put a lot of effort into building her personal brand already. "A lot of it comes with self-confidence. A lot of times we think we have to be what other people want us to be. I'd like to say now, more than at any other time in history, people are so accepting of whoever you are, however you are."She says you should resist the urge to present a "corporate" front."People don't want to see you posting about your business testimonials, screenshots, every single freaking day. What they want to see are pictures of your dog. Pictures of your cat. We wanna see a funny meme. We wanna connect with you on a human level. That's how business is being done now. Not these big corporations who hide behind smokescreens. Whatever you want to amplify about yourself, do so."She says this is good news. "Because you get to control the narrative. No one else. Understand that power. It puts you in the driver's seat. Not someone in the passenger's seat, letting life happen to you."When to use a press releaseVictoria takes a moment to explain that a press release is not earned media."It's a press release. A press release is: I have something really important to say. I don't have any press at all about me. Maybe it's a brand new offer. I just need to tell the world very quickly."She also notes that not all submission sites are created equally."You don't want your brand associated with low-level sites." She warns against hiring someone on Fiverr to put out press releases. "Really take the time to invest in it. It can be a powerful tool. A lot of my clients, for example, it's Step 1 for me. If they've never had any press before, I've got to get them a press release. It's definitely not the end-all-be-all strategy, but it's definitely a great first step into getting real earned media." Why you should never "Pay to Play" in PRVictoria says that while paying to syndicate a press release is normal, you should not be doing "pay to play PR.""If someone says: I can get you into Forbes for $4000, they're always slimy. They don't have a website. They don't have a social presence. They're in and out of the darkness. You give them their money through Bitcoin or Western Union. Be wary of these people. They're not promoting themselves as PR people for a reason." She notes that if Forbes finds out you got a story with them that way they'll take down your article and put you on a blacklist."It's so important to do press the right way. My company and I have actual connections. I know people on Forbes. I know the editor of Entrepreneur. I can get my clients through the traditional way, through relationships. This is why PR companies can charge. Because we've taken the time to establish these relationships with these editors and with these magazines for our clients. If you're just starting off, start off small. You definitely can build these relationships, but please understand: this is a relationship, not what's in it for me."Developing media relationships and contacts"Relationships," Victoria adds, are the only thing that's going to save us moving forward. “Everything is turning digital. Which I'm not upset about. I'm very happy about it. However, what's going to save us and bring the humanity back are relationships and really establishing them."Here, Victoria shares her method for forging relationships with editors, and for pitching them."You want to find editors where they like to hang out. It's not about you. This is their magazine. Their audience. That they would graciously let you be a part of and talk to. Where do they hang out? Let me give you a secret. Editors and journalists love to hang out on Twitter. If you don't have a Twitter, get one yesterday."She says that you should then start following them, hearting their posts, and RTing them."Understand what kinds of articles they write and what their audience likes."Then when it's time to pitch?"You can say: look, I've been following you the past month. They know. They've seen you like their stuff. I love this article you wrote the other day about blah, blah, blah. Your audience really loves marketing. I've written an article for you that I think will be perfect for your audience. You don't make it about yourself. You make it about them, and what it can do for their audience. You've established a relationship now. You've taken the time. They see that. You're not another random pitch, and they want to work with you moving forward. Maybe if they don't like that angle: try again, give me something else, don't be afraid to pitch me in the future.That happens to us all the time because we really take the time to get to know them before we pitch."She points out that editors are behind-the-scenes people. "They're not front-facing people that get thousands of likes on their stuff. They get one or two. If you consistently comment and post, they're going to notice you." She points out they know the name of the game and they know they're being pitched, but it's about how you're treating them."They don't want to be treated like a piece of meat. Oh. You've copied and pasted this email to ten other editors. I'm not special. They don't want to be treated that way. So don't treat them that way. Write something special. They know it's a pitch. That's okay. It's okay to pitch something. Understand the game. Just do it in a human way." What’s your right now cause?Victoria encourages leaders to treat their employees in a human way too. "I want you to treat them like human beings and bring wellness to the workplace."She emphasizes gamifying the workplace, acknowledging the contributions of the entire team, and paying close attention to employee mental health. "Mental wellness starts with us, as business owners. We're the leaders. Treating our employees well is how we're going to treat the restaurant people well. It's how we're going to treat our lives well. They're going to see our example and treat their family members well and treat their friends well. It starts with wellness and that starts from the top up. We haven't had good examples of that from leaders. It's our responsibility as business owners and leaders to give that wellness to our team so they can spread it as well."In the spirit of treating people well, Victoria closes out with a gift for our listeners: The 5-Step Guide on How to Get Published in Top Publications. She created it just for you!Connect with Victoria KennedyVictoria encourages listeners to say hi to her directly on Facebook. Mention you caught her on the Agency Ahead podcast and ask her any questions you like!  Website Facebook LinkedIn Twitter
25 minutes | a month ago
Content, Writing, and Growth with Julia McCoy
Julia McCoy is the founder of Express Writers and of Content Hacker. One agency produces amazing content for a variety of different businesses, the other provides an educational framework for freelancers or agencies to learn how to create a consistent set of processes and frameworks for building your business on content. Julia is a prolific content creator herself. She’s written four books (with one on the way). Her writing has been featured in the Huffington Post, Search Engine Journal, Entrepreneur, Marketing Profs, and countless other prestigious publications. She even creates videos for her own YouTube channel.Garrett joins her today to talk about all things content and agency-building. Tune in for some great insights on the role of content in 2021 and beyond.The highlights: [2:02] The importance of content. [3:46] Why it's never too late to invest in content. [5:43] Differentiation. [7:27] Help for freelancers and writers who struggle to create their own brand. [9:57] The best way to get educated in our industry. [13:16] Is it worth it to hire a coach? [14:47] Documenting processes. [17:49] Building trust in an industry that struggles with trust issues. [20:16] Agency reputation vs. founder reputation. [23:31] Julia's causes. The insights:The importance of content for growthJulia notes this has been a good year for demonstrating the importance of content."In January, there were 3.6 billion searches happening per day on Google. That went up to 6 billion in March. That hasn't changed."Source: InternetLiveStats.com"Business owners are seeing the need to get online, especially when so many brick-and-mortars had to completely rearrange how they do things. The importance of an online presence ballooned this year. Not the way we would have wanted. You don't want a pandemic. The result is, so many people now see the need for content that didn't before. Going into the New Year, that is a huge plus for us content creators. I think we're needed in more ways than ever now, not just from writing and creating great content that stands out, but also teaching it to others. We now have this craft that's suddenly more on-demand like you wouldn't believe. People really need our help and our guidance."Why It's Never Too Late to Invest in ContentJulia recounts the story of teaching a 70-year-old fledgling affiliate marketer how to do content. "It's never too late to start content. Especially if you have a perspective of I'm not going to create something that adds to the noise. I'm going to create something from my own unique perspective that's really going to stand out and add value." She says that many companies just try to check the box and get content out."That's not how you do content in 2020 and in the next year. You really have to create it from that unique vantage point. How am I really going to stand out and add value?" She says she's often asked where to start. "We say the written word never goes out of style. Even in the early days, cavemen were writing stories. Written content? That will never change. That is your campfire story. Start there. Get great content written on your site. It is never too late."Content differentiation and how it’s different from your USP Julia advises brands who are creating their content strategy for the very first time to take a step back and do so from a position of having something real value to share. "What's the thing of value that will make you stand out? That's what I teach in the Content Differentiation Factor." She says this is different from your USP."It's your unique perspective on what you have to share that's valuable. That can be like wrapping your story around your differentiation factor, telling your founding story in a very vulnerable way. I don't think we see that enough. That's one way to hugely stand out." Help for freelancers who struggle to create their own brandJulia acknowledges the struggles that many content creators and freelancers in our industry struggle with."It's really true that the cobbler is the last person to build his own shoes. So if you write, your greatest weakness is probably writing and telling your own story in a way that really puts you out there."She runs two agencies now, both focused on content, and she does it by letting her team craft and publish her stories."It'll be my draft, but it's another talented writer that forms the final piece. Getting a partner to pull it out of you because you're so subjective. It's hard to be objective when you're in that place and it's your story. You don't know if you're putting yourself out there too much or if you're not putting yourself out there enough. It's really good to get a concept partner to say: hey, write my about page, or take this draft and make it better. You'll go so much further."The best way to get educated in our industryGarrett asked if people who want to get into marketing should go to school, get certifications...or just start teaching themselves?The answer is easy to find in the title of Julia's upcoming book: Skip the Degree, Save the Tuition.  She's writing it with Dr. Ai Zhang."We have done thousands of interviews and the majority of people we are able to hire are freelancers that self-started. Unfortunately, the people fresh out of college, relying on that degree? Those people we can't hire because they don't know how to write online content. That's an art that's the opposite of AP English. If you write essay-style, you will kill your online reach."Her partner, Dr. Zhang, dropped out of teaching at the doctorate level, despite having multiple degrees. "She saw her students were not learning real-life techniques. They were exiting the classroom going: I don't know how to use Pinterest. So we both partnered on this book. Yes. I do think you're going to get much farther if you study YouTube instead of going to lectures and trying to learn content marketing in that outdated theory classroom. As hard as it is to hear."Is it worth it to hire a coach?One way Julia learned the business was by hiring a coach. Is it still worth it to hire one?"If you hire the right coach."What should you watch out for?Julia says to look out for people selling you the "million-dollar pathway." "In the end," she says, "you want to hit a goal. Can you hit that goal with that coach? Test the waters. Am I going to hit this? What happens if not? I have this conversation with my students all the time. We're always just creating new models, new things to help them grow that are more relevant to the times."She says some coaches are still teaching things from five or six years ago.She also gives a shoutout to Jon Morrow at Smartblogger.com. She recommends reading his blog if you want to learn how to write really good online content.Julia’s philosophy on agency buildingJulia talks a little bit about the process of building an agency."At the beginning, I was focused on the outside. How do I reach my clients? How do I sell them on this service? How do I retarget them?"She says there are better ways to get an agency built."What worked better was going internal. We focused on our internal processes. How do we deliver content and serve our clients in a really good way with a seamless process? That got so intense that 9 years later this October we actually just launched our custom-built content eCommerce platform. You don't have to do that! We couldn't find anything out there. We tested more than 50 CMS’s, project management systems. None of it catered to our very custom content creation pipeline, where we have about 5 content creators involved. Editors, strategists, writers, designers...a project manager. We found nothing. We were on two different systems and it was kind of a hack."You don't want to live in a hack, so they built their own."It took us $200,000 to build, and about 4 years of work. We did it and it came out this October. That was really exciting. You don't have to do that, but it could be something you aim towards in the future. We didn't actually think of it until we were 5 years down the road and realizing we don't have a tech platform. And that, I think, is one differentiation factor as well. If clients know you've created something to solve their needs in such a custom way, that sets you apart. You're good to go. You're going to stand out in the market." Building trust in an industry that struggles with trust issuesThere are a lot of scams in the content marketing industry, and Julia discusses what it takes to overcome client trust issues in such an environment."I had a couple of clients tell me: This company just took my money and disappeared. I was like: Really? This happens in our industry?" She investigated for herself. Sure enough, she went to a company that took her money and rendered no services. "This is what we're up against. We actually have clients that come in and say: How do I know I can trust you? We have to build fundamental trust. What we've learned is to really focus and start there, because if we don't, if we focus too hard on what happens after they buy, what happens to retarget, remarket."She urges agencies not to get too focused on sales."I think a lot of agencies are salesperson focused. In the end, if you're in an industry where you have to fight for trust as we do, we don't want the first interaction to be: Well, how do I send you a quote. How do I take your money? You want the first interaction to be: How can I help you? Let's listen to your pain points. I'm really sorry that happened. Maybe we just empathize with their experience with other firms. That alone can build so much trust." Agency reputation versus founder reputationYou can build an agency reputation without having a founder reputation. Having both helps."I am definitely that founder who also established a personal brand presence. You can look me up. I am on the about page. You can see my name. You can see my picture. My founding story. We've really made it public that I started with nothing but $75. That's a story our clients love.""But what's funny is...there are so many clients that find us from our organic content rankings. So one ranking is ‘copywriting services.’ We still rank #1 for that keyword, last I checked."They find them that way, hit a landing page, and go straight to the content shop."I would say there's a growing percentage that doesn’t even know about me."She says that despite her reputation they still have to work to build trust."We don't know if they've interacted with me or not. We have the other side that has had touch with my personal brand. They've read my book. They've taken a course."So if it's not going to build stress?"Build that personal brand too. Write that book in your weekends or your spare time alongside running your agency." Trust, she notes, is one of the top 3 buying factors for 70%+ of all consumers. "People don't want that sleazy marketer. Especially now. More than ever. You can't do that."What’s your right now cause?Julia wants readers to consider becoming involved with Operation Underground Railroad, an operation where she's donating time and money. "They partner with our public safety departments and they lead and conduct sting operations to rescue trafficked persons. They're doing so much good." Connect with Julia McCoyWant more from Julia?  Content Hacker Express Writers Twitter LinkedIn
27 minutes | a month ago
How Local Businesses Can Prepare for Prosperity After a Pandemic with Amanda Jordan
Amanda Jordan is the Director of Local Search for Locomotive Agency, a full-service SEO agency. She's handled everything from link building to PPC but today she joins us to talk about local.Amanda has established herself as a premier local search expert in 2020. She’s taken the local search virtual speaking circuit by storm over the past year and does not seem to be slowing down. She even joined our very own Aaron Weiche and Mike Blumenthal of GatherUp for a local SEO AMA webinar. Did you know that there’s a whole underground Local SEO underground Mario Kart league? Led by Joy Hawkins and her employees at Local Search agency, Sterling Sky, several local SEOs have been burning rubber virtually on the Nintendo game. The highlights: [3:07] Amanda's relationship with her clients. [4:33] The major challenges of 2020. [7:13] The most important strategy. [10:31] Philosophies on giving business advice. [12:08] Identifying the clients who are likely to be successful. [16:33] Looking ahead to 2021. [19:11] Predictions about an important potential GMB attribute. [24:36] Amanda's cause. The insights:Amanda's relationship with her clientsAmanda says she's very competitive on behalf of her clients. "My goal is not to be the very best local SEO in the entire world, but to get my client to be the best in their area."She spends a lot of time speaking to her clients one-on-one."It's not just the work itself. I have a relationship with them. I understand what's going on in their business."She mentions that often when you're working with an SMB, they're coming to you because their situation is dire. "Especially right now because of coronavirus." How does she work to stay competitive on their behalf? Amanda focuses most of her efforts on spam hunts and competitive content audits.The major challenges of 2020Before speaking on what her major challenges have been throughout 2020, Amanda spends a little time explaining her client base. She serves a lot of home healthcare agencies and nursing homes. "A lot of my clients are the types of businesses where they go out to someone's home. And of course, there is less of a desire to have someone come to your home during this time. That's been one of the major struggles."She has served some of the businesses that have done better with COVID too, but in general, her clients are struggling."One of the most important things for small businesses to do right now is to make sure you're highly communicating what you're doing to keep your customers safe. And that's through your GMB with the COVID post type that's on your website, at the top of your website where it's easily accessible. That's having a page dedicated to it if it's going to be important enough."In many cases?"You really want to make sure you're providing clear information on what you're doing to keep people safe." The most important local search strategy"Include communication of what you're doing to handle coronavirus online. Use those attributes in GMB for your business listing. If you're requiring masks. Things like that. That's helpful."Amanda also recommends paying close attention to reviews. "Especially now. A lot of times in reviews people were mentioning coronavirus or what these companies were doing with coronavirus, both good and bad." "So if they go in and they're not enforcing any mask requirements that's going to show up in a review if that person is health-conscious. Just make sure you're doing your best on all your online reputation management fronts."Amanda handles some clients with hundreds of locations, some of whom need very specific responses for customers dealing with COVID issues. She also says you can focus on basic, strategic things."Developing content. Making sure you're doing a lot of internal linking throughout the website. Things that don't require a lot of outside influence or help for SEO. If there's a lull because there's a pandemic going on we can't do anything about that, but we can make sure they're stronger in their rankings when things do recover."Philosophies on giving operational business advice to clientsOften, an agency's success is defined by how they approach their relationship with their clients. Here's Amanda's:"I'm more like a business partner. I'm a consultant. If I see a problem that's going to affect other things or something that can spiral out of control, I'm going to bring it up. Whether it's part of what I do or not. I've done that for clients before coronavirus even happened. If I saw a trend of a specific type of negative review I wanted them to be aware of them. That can spiral into them getting a lot more negative reviews about the same thing. It could be something we can kind of just nip in the bud or something that's an issue with an associate that needs more training. Or an issue with a process they have, internally, that needs to be fixed. I do become their partner."Identifying the clients who are likely to be successfulChoosing the right clients is also key to agency success. Here's what Amanda looks for in hers."Prior knowledge or understanding of digital marketing. Anyone with a strong background [in that] seems to take recommendations a little more seriously. People who are not afraid of what the budget is going to be, take things more seriously."She says those who are too concerned with how much things will cost often aren't understanding the value of what you're doing and why it's important to do it."To me, the clients who are pretty good at completing tasks and taking your recommendations show it pretty early in the relationship. I have clients who I've made recommendations in their audit at the very beginning of the relationship and they're like: Okay! We're going to do that right now! It just feels great when that happens. Oh, you value what I'm saying and you understand why it's important."She says some of her clients complete the work after she makes the recommendations. Sometimes she does it for them.She also says it's easier to work with clients who don't suffer from a lot of internal politics. Amanda prefers smaller clients, even if they do make her do the updates herself. "These are the ones I choose for the most part because I like seeing I have a direct impact. You can see stuff immediately. They're more difficult themselves, but the work is more fun because you have more say in what's going on and you get to be more hands-on with the project."She says she likes looking at those clients and seeing the potential."I can make a really big difference in a short amount of time." Looking ahead to 2021This horrid year is almost over, and maybe we're starting to see a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. As the vaccine comes out, as this chapter of history comes to a close, what can businesses do to set themselves up for growth and success?"I would immediately think about online reputation management."Your business should think about staffing requirements. "Make sure you're ready to trend upward with your ability as things get better. Have a plan in place like that."Going forward, Amanda encourages restaurants to keep whatever delivery sources they're using. "It's become a comfortable thing for a lot of people, and restaurants can lose out on business if they go back to being just dine-in and takeout only." She also urges SMBs to make sure they have their attributes set, even next year. "And remember, best-case scenario, people like me will not get a vaccine till May or June or so." She predicts that elderly people and healthcare workers will get the vaccine first, and tells SMBs to think about the demographics of who will and will not have a vaccine during the transition period.She points out that an elderly person and a person in their 30s may, for some time, have wide disparities in whether they have access to a vaccine, so stay ready to serve people who are stuck in their houses for a little while longer.Predictions about an important upcoming potential Google My Business attributeAmanda admits she's wondering if there's going to be a GMB attribute around vaccinations."I think it's going to be extremely important for home health care workers, nursing homes, facilities and things like that to be able to say: our staff is vaccinated. I think that's going to be a very good thing for them to do." She does say she thinks a lot of restaurants and stores will continue their Early Bird shopping, where you can come in early if you're "age x or higher." She again stresses that messaging is important. "At least on your contact page, with specific hours, would be a good idea. You can add additional hours in GMB too."Communication remains important."If there are any changes, make sure you update your covid update post to reflect whatever changes there are. That's a good place to mention all your employees have been vaccinated, or whatever." What’s your right now cause?Amanda's cause right now is United Search."We are trying to help people who are interested in public speaking in our industry that haven't really gotten a chance before, but who are really knowledgeable. We want them to get a chance. We have a lot of really great mentors who have agreed to work for people who are interested in speaking."Amanda says that these mentors helped her start speaking for the first time this year, and she's getting a lot more visibility."I've met so many people that I admired, because of people being willing to say: hey, I want to give someone else a chance to speak, and I happened to be that person they deferred to. We're still taking applications."Connect with Amanda JordanWant more from Amanda?  Website Agency Website Twitter LinkedIn
32 minutes | a month ago
Demystifying the Reputation of Wix SEO with Mordy Oberstein
Mordy is the Search Liaison for Wix. He's also the host of two podcasts: Behind the SEOs and The SEO Rant. He knows his stuff and has had to. After all, he's been working hard to help change the perception that SEOs tend to have about Wix, and he's been doing it by having lots of conversations with some of the smartest minds in the industry. With Grade.us and GatherUp in our toolbelt, we understand the importance of a reputation.He also runs a regular #SEOChat on Twitter which is well worth checking out. Check out this week's podcast to watch him and Garrett geek the heck out over some serious SEO.The highlights: [2:09] Wix's reputation with SEO professionals. [4:57] How Wix is changing brand perception. [12:05] Speculation and thoughts about Google. [16:59] Pontification about Amazon in the context of Google. [19:07] Taking advantage of Wix's data capabilities. [21:39] Morty's cause. The insights:Wix's reputation with SEO professionals"When I came in," Mordy says, "I came in as part of the SEO community. I understood the way SEOs related to Wix or thought about Wix. I myself was offended by the Wix Superbowl ad, all that righteous outrage we SEOs love to do."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XVKjbt1xQw (What, precisely, is offensive about this bundle of pure awesome? Dude. This is everything I want in a commercial and more. -RCH)So when he came to Wix, he sat down and talked to over 30 SEOs about the brand. "One of the amazing things I found is that no one has touched Wix in a long time. There's a lot of perception about Wix, but not a lot of experience with Wix."Mordy challenges the popular idea that you can't rank if you have a Wix site."There's open CMSes and closed CMSes. And that's really what it is. The question is not: can Wix rank? It's: can a closed CMS rank? Cause there's really no difference between Wix and Shopify. Structurally speaking, what's the difference?"While you can't do some of the things in Wix that you can do in WordPress, there are advantages, too. "It also means your site doesn't break automatically when WordPress updates itself."He calls it "different strokes for different folks.""You have different needs, different wants, different types of sites. If you want, if you're working with a million pages, you want absolute total customization, okay. WordPress might make sense for you. If you don't wanna spend a lot on development, if you don't want to spend a lot on graphic design, if you don't want a solid, strong, SEO-optimized CMS, then Wix is a great option for you." How Wix is changing brand perception"Wix is an enormous beast of a company. I mean it in a good way. 200 million users. That's a lot of people. When you get that big, you sort of get divided up so you can be flexible and malleable. How can we still meet the demands of our users while being this massive company?" They once had a lot of work that was quite siloed.They came to a realization. "We need to standardize our SEO here. They really took ownership of it about a year ago. What they did was they really overhauled a lot of the SEO product. And normalized SEO for Wix. It's an amazing upgrade."Shares some of the technical SEO capabilities that have been developed for Wix that aren’t commonly known by old school SEOs."Oh, you can't edit Robots.txt with Wix? Yes, you can!" "That was fixed a while ago! All the basics of SEO. You wanna add structured data? Yes, go ahead and add it for your static pages. We do add it in a box for dynamic pages, and there was an override you could use if you want to override the out-of-the-box we created for you, or you wanna add it where you don't add it for certain dynamic pages and so forth. They've done a tremendous amount." Mordy notes that a lot of Wix's users are not SEOs, they're SMB owners or practitioners that don’t necessarily focus on SEO."So many WordPress users are not SEOs. We're really a very small part of the overall population, though we have a very loud mouth. It's seeing what SEO means to non-SEOs. There's tremendous popularity with SEO. Our users love SEO. They want to know more about it."Mordy says SEO is the big conversation at Wix right now, from the C-Suite on down."It's about what the CMS can do to increase performance." Speculation about Google and tinkering with SERPsMordy notes that he really enjoys studying the SERPs. "It tells a story. You can see where Google's headed, what it's trying to do."He speaks of something that happened very recently. "Google unleashed part of their explorer panel on Maps so you can see what other people are talking about and get ideas on what's going on for that particular local query or that area you're looking at."He offers another example from the past."Images went up. Snippets went up. For what queries? That doesn't really satisfy me. I know what query the featured snippet now shows for or doesn't show for anymore. But what kind of featured snippet? What's in the featured snippet? What format?" Garrett asks if he thinks Google is consciously trying to keep people from visiting other people's websites."In general, I see Google going very long-term in terms of what they do. I don't think they think: how do we get more ad clicks right now. It's generally not their approach to things. Instead, their approach is: What's a very holistic way we can position ourselves so we dominate the market? What I think they're trying to do is I think they're trying to say: We wanna position ourselves as an authority. Very much the way they tell sites they should be an authority. They're following their own advice. How do they do this? By providing an answer. I don't think it's about: Let's give people the answer to keep them off sites. That's too nefarious for me."Garrett asked if Mordy foresaw anyone giving Google serious competition."Somebody can. I don't see a clear path towards that. Apple has a search engine. I don't see a clear path towards Apple doing that. Google is brilliant about it. When they give you those answers that creates an association in your mind. Google's where I go to get answers. It's a very deep psychological relationship. That's not going to be easy to break."But, Mordy points out, anything is possible."John Rockefeller's monopoly fell apart." Thoughts about Amazon in the context of GoogleGarrett asks: "People make the argument Google almost missed the train on eCommerce as a search engine. Do you see them going in the direction of Amazon, or Amazon going the direction of Google?"Mordy says he doesn't think Google will crack the eCommerce market. "I go to Amazon. I don't even go to Google. I don't even think about Google and shopping. I don't remember that it was a test, or something they announced, or something they're working on where they're offering you trends about the product. Really the data on that product, pricing trends about it: that's really smart. Amazon doesn't do that."He does say that he saw them do this very successfully with travel sites."I know people crap on Google for taking away Expedia's market share. It's all Expedia's fault! What do they do? When I go to their site, what do they do? Hey, you want a car rental with this flight? No! Do you want a hotel? No! I just want to book a flight?"He contrasts this with what Google did."Would you like a ton of information about your hotel stay and the area where you're staying? Yes. Yes, I would. Would you like pricing trends about your flight? Yes, I would. So Travelocity could have done that instead of selling me a rental car I don't want. If Google does that with products: here's the pricing trend, here's a ton of really helpful information about the product that Amazon's doing that it also could have done, I don't see why Google can't take down Amazon."Taking advantage of Wix's data capabilitiesGarrett asks what Wix users who are into eCommerce should do to stay relevant.Mordy said it was important to stay on top of the data."Wix offers a ton of data. If you have a coupon...how did that perform? Really [lets you] dissect what performs, what doesn't perform well, seeing the nuance. You can use your sales data. You can use it for your SEO if you test things out with this coupon. I tried something with this SEO strategy. With that coupon, I tried a different SEO strategy. And see how that works."He says that it's also all about content."It's what a million percent of the sites I see doing a great job are creating an identity with their content and a product identity with their content. Does your site have a product identity? Who are you? You sell brownies? Do you sell hash brownies? Do you sell specialty brownies? Birthday brownies? Whatever brownies you're selling, what makes you stand out? What gives you an identity so I understand if people are searching for whatever kind of brownie is relevant, you're the person I wanna show."For more on this, see Garrett's talk with Jason Barnard, "The Brand SERPs Guy."What’s your right now cause?Morty has an autistic son. He says, "People who are autistic are very talented. They have a lot to offer. They have a deep perspective on whatever it is. But it's hard for them to feel comfortable expressing this sometimes. That social element of it. I feel confident enough to present this to the public."He isn't talking about donating to charities here, so much as offering opportunities."One of the worries with my own son is, what's going to happen when he gets older? He's extremely intelligent. There's no intelligence issue. Will he be accepted? He has his quirks. Will he have the opportunity to present himself and what he has to offer in the public space? That worries me. If you know somebody in the industry that you're working in, go out of your way to try to offer [autistic people] a platform where they can publicly present themselves, and give them the opportunity. You may have to coax them a little bit to do that, but I would urge you to do something like that. Just really reach out, make it comfortable and safe for them to do this because they will and they can. There's just a resistance and a fear of doing that, so maybe help people overcome that."Connect with Mordy ObersteinWant more from Mordy?  Website BehindSEOs Podcast The SEO Rank Podcast SEOChat Twitter Twitter LinkedIn
32 minutes | 2 months ago
The Makers of Marketing with Noah Learner
Noah Learner is the Podcast Host of Agency Automators. He's also the Product Director of Two Octobers. And if you're wondering what a Product Director does at a marketing agency, well...you're in for a treat, because Noah does things that almost nobody else does. He's an executor. He's a guy who gets stuff done. He thinks about the problems marketers face in wholly different ways. If you're ready to hear more, just tune right on in, because you might just go looking for a Product Director of your own by the time you're done.The highlights: [1:31] An agency challenge few people are talking about. [2:34] What keeps Noah excited about marketing. [4:46] What it means to be a "Product Director" at an Agency. [9:14] Building solutions. [13:13] Deciding what to do with products. [22:09] Upskilling and upleveling. [24:46] On tapping into the industry community. [30:10] Noah's causes. The insights:The agency challenge few people are talking aboutThere are agency challenges that crop up again and again in this podcast, but here's one that has flown under the radar a bit: critical thinking."One of the things I take away from all the conversations that I've had with so many agency heads and owners," says Noah, "is that the hardest thing they have in running their agency is getting people who know how to think. Knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to think through and analyze data."Noah didn't have a specific solution for this, but it's a good note for those listeners who might be looking for positions within the industry right now: these are good skills to cultivate. Up your data game, up your problem-solving game, to increase your value to any agency you might want to work for. What keeps Noah excited about marketingNoah says there's a couple of things that get him super pumped."I have this constant backlog of technologies, tools, and processes that I want to learn how to master. The other thing that gets me super pumped is revenue. I get jacked when my clients make money. I love it. It's the best thing ever.”Noah says he's always aligned himself around revenue as the primary goal in almost every engagement he's been involved in.Noah began his digital marketing career in the biking industry. "In that vertical, the challenges were typically 2-fold. Primarily it was a local SEO challenge to get people in the store, and then secondarily it was eCommerce, to supplement revenues set to grow. But over time, the focus has shifted more to the eCommerce side and solving problems that were related to conversion rates and traffic and average order values, mainly in the cycling industry."Now he works in many verticals. He talks a little bit about some he's grown excited about, such as the skiing industry. "That's been a total hoot. I've been able to take some of the content marketing strategies we've employed in the cycling industry that have really performed well and have pushed them into other verticals and have watched them be successful." What it means to be a "Product Director" at an agencyWhen Garrett asked Noah what the heck he does Noah started to laugh really hard."I feel like I have the best job on the planet! I feel like the luckiest guy in the world!"He originally began by founding an agency called Bike Shop SEO. It was from there that Nico Brooks, a principal at Two Octobers, found him and recruited him."We both have a love of tool building. We both had a love of data. We both had a love for solving thorny problems, and over time we just sort of drifted closer and closer. We talked about joining forces and it finally happened around April 1."Noah said he was very clear with them about what his strengths and weaknesses were. "They were really amazing in helping to create a role that was a perfect fit for me. Day-to-day what does that look like?"Noah says that he spends a lot of his time building things. Building data pipelining tools. Working to solve bug issues. Learning how to integrate different technologies to solve specific problems for specific clients, and building tools that are useful for different clients in specific applications."It might be building widgets, building specific lead gen tools on websites, or all kinds of different interesting applications. The thing that's the coolest about it is that in that role I get to interface with people all over the world and learn about all of their pain points in using the tools that we've built. It drives how I think about building things that we use internally, whether it's processes, automations, or tools. More stuff we try and build for external uses."He compares his job to being a mad scientist. "What's cool about it is that maybe 15% of that time turns into gold nuggets and home runs. There's a ton of failure. There's a ton of sweat. There's a ton of frustration. There are times I've spent bug hunting something for 25 hours and when I finally figure it out it's like the best feeling ever to resolve an issue and take something to the next step."Building solutionsOne of the tools that Noah has built is Postamatic, an automated GMB posting tool. As many know, it is impossible to schedule Google Posts within the GMB dashboard. Noah has solved this problem.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYUdrrB9BMg&feature=emb_logo Garrett asked what the process of building something like that looks like, and Noah took him through a different product, one called Ring My Bell."It all started with an email. I was going back and forth with someone that I built something for, and they ended a 2-line email with an aside: if you can build a tool that sends notifications when things are out of stock, we would happily pay you for it. So there's market demand for this. A little bit."He says his next step was to go on Twitter."I'm lucky because I know a bunch of people who are really great at CRO and I tagged them all. They're like: oh, yeah, if there isn't one on the site you should get it. The eCommerce platform this business was on didn't have it as a choice. So then I started trying to figure out: okay, is it possible to execute this?" He points to this as the mental framework for addressing opportunity."Is it possible to solve this problem? What are the risks for it to fail? Is the solution we're going to provide going to be durable? Is it brittle? "Other questions: How many people would a positive outcome impact? Is this something we can scale across all our clients? Is it something we can sell? Is it something we can give away for a thought leadership play? He says they assess all these questions before taking on a project."For this specific product, it was really exciting for me because I got to leverage a whole bunch of different skills in producing an outcome. I got to do web design where I'm actually designing an interface for users to add data to be notified later. I got to play with a tool called Cloud Functions which live up in the Google Cloud Platform. I also got to work with Google Big Query, and another tool called Cloud Scheduler, and another tool called Cloud Task Queues.""It's just a bunch of tool names, but the thing that's neat about it is that this project has already closed many bike sales, spread across all our clients, and that's awesome, but the project is also a win because in learning how to build it, it set the foundation for us to build any type of long-running application which is a major programming challenge in the future. What that means is: we can build tools like Distributed Crawlers in the future. We'll be able to get data programmatically from websites at scale. Which is really exciting to me on a personal level." Deciding what to do with productsGarrett slows Noah down here a moment, asking him to back up and explain how the decision gets made to use a particular product in a particular way."We had a number in mind, or at least I did, that we would get to a specific user account, and at that magic number, which is really just an arbitrary number, it would make sense for us to charge at that period of time."He talks about building Postamatic and what it does, how it helps agencies push Google Posts out on GMB in a scheduled way. After going through all the questions mentioned above, Noah says they reached the following question and answer pair:"Do we want to become known as an agency that solves really thorny problems for other agencies? The answer is: yes. Keeping it free helps us get exposed to other agencies."Another question:"Does this product align with our values as a company? We're what's known as a B-corp, which means we use business as a force for good. Part of that means we're constantly striving to help people and be out there in the community trying to level up as many people as we can. There's another argument for keeping it free."Of course, it's not all altruism."On balance, the other side is, hey, this is going to take time to support. The Google Support API is thorny. It's not awesome. There are things about it that break that isn’t necessarily documented. And for that reason, and also because GMB API is a private API, it means it's hard to test because you as an agency have to have access to hundreds of thousands of GMB locations if we were to find all the edge cases of how something can be broken. Like, the documentation for the API is very clearly laid out, but the data coming into the tool, you're not going to know all the ways it can be broken until someone approaches you and they have a problem." They have also built quite a few tools that are for clients only."I have a whole host of proprietary tools from Bike Shop SEO that I was really proud of. Like the #1 eCommerce platform that all my clients were on did not have a daily updated PPC feed. I was like: how is that possible? So we came up with a solution to pull that feed into a Google Sheet and basically replicate all the functionality of Feedonomics for free. I don't wanna pay Feedonomics every month! We build it!"Noah points to the idea that constraints drive innovation."Everyone I know has different constraints they're operating in. If you're an enterprise company I assume your constraint is kind of like the battleship nature of things and how difficult it is to change direction with all the lawyers of red tape. When you're small like I was, the major constraint was budget and time. So that's what led me to automate so many things. I can't do everything. What don't I enjoy doing? What is a time suck? What hurts? Those were the things I figured out how to automate first. Reporting was the first thing. That had many iterations. Then reporting led to feeds, automating a variety of different data feeds, and then from there it was like just learning how to get data out of APIs and that started with App Script."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eElfBgqJLY Upskilling and uplevelingNoah is constantly growing and building his skills, something that we as marketers sometimes struggle to do around client work. Garrett took a moment to ask him about this as well."I had two technology things I wanted to learn. First, I wanted to learn how to work with postscript databases. And I wanted to learn how to do that because when you're doing long-running applications, like let's say you're building a crawling and you need to read and write to a database very quickly, that lends itself either to a database application or a no-SQL type application, so I wanted to learn that.I also wanted to build a Google Search Console data pipeline tool that would be able to backfill 16 months worth of data into a big query in less than 5-minutes. I did that."He says it was super cool to learn all the "gotchas" around a new technology."I think so much of the workflow is learning where you're going to stumble and where the time sucks are and how to avoid those upfront is talking to as many people as you can who are 6 to 18 months ahead of you. We still have all those lessons really fresh in mind."On tapping into the industry communityNoah also does a lot of his upskilling and upleveling through engaging with the community."I'm so damn lucky. I have had some of the smartest technical SEO people on the planet on our show. I can reach out to any of them with a question. Hey, can I get your eyes on something? Some of them are even willing to mentor me."He called out several people he's worked within the past. He also mentions he's always looking for opportunities to partner with other people. "It's super interesting. I learn how they think, I learn how they have solved problems, I get to see some of the outputs they've had, some of the processes. I share all of my stuff super openly with people I partner with. They do the same. We both level up in the process."What kinds of people is he looking to partner with?"I'm looking for people who are energetically a good fit together. I'll think of the craziest way to solve something. And I'm looking for people who are slightly more data-driven and slightly more analytical than I am. Because those energies together plug the gaps of what we can't each accomplish on our own."Just as important, Noah believes in giving back to the community. Last week, Noah put together a great tutorial on building a Google Search Console Data Pipeline. The goal is to help others build their own tools and improve processes so everyone benefits.https://youtu.be/OGIuBTiu-aYWhat’s your right now cause?"This was a year where I dug in deep. I've never volunteered. Well, I'd volunteered a little but I hadn't done political volunteering ever. This election cycle was the first that I really took a deep dive. I did a ton of phone banking for Senators all over the country. I found that was incredibly meaningful."The other cause?"I do as much as I can to help people in our vertical. People reach out to me all the time and I feel like being a mentor to as many people who are younger and greener in the field. It's been one of the most rewarding things I've done."Connect with Noah LearnerWant more from Noah?  Two Octobers Agency Automators Twitter LinkedIn Email: noah@twooctobers.com
26 minutes | 2 months ago
Agency Automations and Productivity with James Rose
James Rose is the Co-Founder of Content Snare and the host of the Agency Highway podcast. He's also a productivity and automation hacker who will show you how to become a better marketer, saving yourself both time and money, through the power of automation.If you've ever lamented that there just aren't enough hours in the day or have basic tasks you just can't manage to get around to, this is the podcast to catch.The highlights: [1:35] Agency productivity challenges. [4:45] What you miss out on by ignoring automations. [6:45] Taking the first steps into process automation. [11:27] Using automation to upsell clients. [14:58] Examples of useful automations. [18:33] Examples of how automation can make you a better marketer. [23:55] James' cause.  The insights: Agency productivity challengesThere are common productivity challenges that most agencies face. They're called "clients."All joking aside, Content Snare does put a lot of focus on the initial client onboarding and information-gathering process. "We speak with agencies all the time now, and when an agency takes on a client, there's so much manual work. This is from the initial call all the way through to the briefing and scoping. You've got the proposal and contract, accepting the initial deposit, setting up a client on project management, collecting all their assets, collecting all their information, actually getting started and keeping the client in the loop." He offers one example of how automation can keep clients happier."So many agencies will work on a client project and might go without an email for two weeks. Even though they're busy, all these things are happening, the client doesn't know that. That's a good opportunity for process and automation: keeping your clients happier."Wasted time is wasted profit for any agency, and there can be a lot of wasted time in the typical client process. "Emailing the client again, going: hey, can you send X thing, we've been waiting on this awhile. That's just a couple of minutes to send that email, but multiply that across all your clients, across 50 different things you need from each client. You have these change requests. You have this initial email request: here's all the stuff we need. And then for every little thing they send in wrong, you know, even if they try to have a good system and use Google Drive or something, they might upload something that's the wrong thing, and then you have to start another email thread to say: that thing you uploaded is the wrong thing."We've all been there, right? "It becomes a nightmare. It's such a mess. Multiple email threads, multiple places to get information. I'll attach something to an email, I'll throw it into Drive, sometimes they might send it to a Dropbox link, so if you've got stuff all over the place, it wastes a lot of time. In agency land, the margin comes down to people's time. The more time that's not getting spent on chargeable work, then the less money you make overall."Taking the first steps into process automationPutting together a process that works for your agency means putting yourself into your client's shoes."Make it as easy as possible for them." Clients are overloaded and overwhelmed. The more you make them think, the harder it will be. "The more I go through the process of building a product that's made for end-clients like this, the more I realize how true that is. If things aren't just dead-easy, they're not going to do it."James talks about the differences that "dumbing down" Content Snare forms has made. "When we made it clean and simple, everything changed. Our retention rate went up. People stopped complaining their client wouldn't use it. This kind of thing really makes me realize how important this is. I've always talked about making things easy for your clients."It's not that clients are dumb, but they're busy doing other things. "They don't want to see this giant content request. Whatever it is. Whether it's files or things they have to type in, they're just going to go: that's overwhelming. I don't have the time to do that." https://youtu.be/cy9rWuaEl5E James says that setting expectations also really helps."That might mean mentioning it in the initial call or making sure it's in the proposal and not buried on page 57 in size 7 font. Upfront: we're going to need content. We're going to need these things before we can start. It's often the biggest hold-up in any of our projects, so I recommend getting that to us quickly to keep the project moving."He also suggests breaking the info gathering into bite-sized chunks. "If you need content for an about page you don't go: give me the content for an About page. You say: give me a heading. This is what the heading should sound like."So there are two parts to the process: breaking things down and then creating instructions to guide them through the process. "We need an image of your team. It needs to be at least this big. It sounds silly to spell out all these things so detailed, but it's kind of what you have to do. If you leave it open to interpretation they'll mess it up."James stresses that once you've planned everything out and set everything up, you don't have to do it again."Once it's done it saves you time forever. It just saves hours on every project."Using automation to upsell clientsIn addition to saving hours of time on every project, you can also use automation to upsell clients. For example, you can upsell them on content creation services."There are two things here," says James. "Even if you're writing the content, you still need a lot of information. There's still questionnaires and stuff. So some people you still need a process for that, whether the client's writing the content and you're specifically saying: give me a headline, give me a blurb about your company. You still need that. You still need them to tell you about their company, and who your staff members are."As for writing content for them? James says just give them the option."We can help you with this. It will cost this much. Obviously usually by the time you get to the content collection point you know because it should have been in the proposal. This is how much it will cost. And they've had to say explicitly: no, we don't want that. It's on them at that point."Basically, automation then becomes a sort of assumptive close to help you sell content creation or other services. Examples of useful automationsOne example comes from the proposal process. "We use Better Proposals. We had our template in there that has most of what we need, just with placeholders, right? There are sections of that, of course, that need to be customized to each client, so we just go in there and we write you a little paragraph about the project. There are placeholders in there that put their company name in all the places it needs to be, throughout the terms, throughout the initial couple of pages about what is and isn't included. You know for us it was pretty much one paragraph about the project that showed we understood it, inclusions, exclusions, and then a pricing table."https://youtu.be/dfYiCzUhV4c James says there are levels of this depending on what the agency does. "If [the agency] is fully bespoke it's probably going to be different every time. You're probably going to need to do a full scoping session, maybe using other software. There's plenty of scoping tools out there. If you're doing something more productized, you can probably get away with just having the company name replaced in the right places in the proposal."James also mentions he does a great deal of work with Zapier.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnmNuq7Svko "You can think of it as: when this happens, do this." As an example:"When someone submits a content form, add them to my CRM. That's a really basic one."He points out you can take that automation much further than that. "If someone submits my contact form and says they were interested in web design, then send an email or create a draft email in reply in my account manager's inbox."Another example is Zapier lead scoring. "It essentially gives you a bit of data someone based on their email address. It may be how many staff they have, what country they're in. This is basically lead enrichment. I don't know why they call it a lead score, it's not really the right name for that. There are other tools like this, like Clearbit. The amount of data you can get on a person just on their email address is insane."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fT7RKEyiVA How does he use it?"When someone signs up through a trial of Content Snare, the email gets run through lead score and it tells me how many staff they have. Because the number of staff is a pretty big indicator of how good of a client they'll be, right? If they're bigger than 100 people I can get an instant notification through Zapier. I just send myself an email, a text message, whatever I want to say: hey, a really big company just signed up. And that generally means they're still in that software looking around. They literally just signed up. So I can open a chat."He points out you're never just going to sit at your computer staring at the screen to see who is going to sign up. He even can build himself a daily digest to scan through, so he can see what companies, see if he recognizes any of them."These are things I'd never do if it wasn't automated. If it wasn't part of the process. I just wouldn't do it cause I don't have the time."What’s your right now cause?James' cause is Animals Asia. "I really hate some of the things that happen with the treatment of animals, especially in Asia, like some of the dog festivals in China are just one of the worst things I've seen." Connect with James RoseWant to get more process and automation advice from James?  Website Content Snare Agency Highway Podcast Twitter LinkedIn
24 minutes | 2 months ago
Building Communities and Promoting Diversity in SEO with Areej AbuAli
Let's face it – the digital marketing industry doesn't exactly have a...fantastic...track record when it comes to diversity. Yet positive change is happening.One of the drivers of that positive change has been the Women in Tech SEO community. Founded in May 2019, it has recently celebrated its one-year anniversary, has over 3,000 members, and is actively working to help women pursue opportunities, grow their skills, and find confidence in an industry that has often left them feeling invisible.Today, Garrett speaks with the founder of that community: Areej AbuAli. Areej is an SEO who has done just about everything in our space. In addition to being the Founder of Women in Tech SEO, she's also the SEO Manager at Zoopla and a mentor at United Search. Whether you're interested in promoting diversity or building a community of your own, this is an episode you're not going to want to miss.The highlights: [1:54] Areej's inspiration for starting the community. [3:31] How the community has grown and changed over the past year. [4:36] How to create an inclusive community. [7:39] How to create a judgment-free zone. [9:13] The impact of the Women in Tech SEO community. [10:47] Goals for the future. [12:20] Representing women of color. [15:28] The impact of representation. [19:52] Concrete steps for allies. [22:01] Areej's cause. The insights:Areej's inspiration for starting Women in Tech SEOAreej says she started the community because she herself was struggling. After doing technical SEO for 6 years, she was really struggling with the conference circuit. "The lineups always tended to look the same. Your typical type of white dudes. And I was like – no, I'm pretty sure there's more of me."So, she went out to find those people."I really wanted the inspiration and motivation of having a network and a community around me. I couldn't find anything specific that filled that criteria. I just decided to build the group myself."Areej says the group initially started off as a simple Facebook group."Then we started thinking we should start meeting up in London. Then it became more global. We also turned it into a Slack group. After tons of different initiatives that took place, it just kept growing and growing."Most importantly?"It's the idea of having a community, a network, where you're not judged, where inclusivity is in place, and where we all help one another."The community now has spread to all four corners of the Earth. "We have people from Singapore, India, Japan, Egypt. It was amazing to get to connect with different women from around the world. Not everyone has to necessarily be advanced in tech SEO. Even if you're interested and want to learn, you're more than welcome. It's super exciting that we've all managed to find one another."How to Create an Inclusive CommunityAreej recently won the inaugural Search Engine Land award for advancing diversity and inclusion in search marketing, so Garrett took a moment to talk to her about what it really takes to create an inclusive community where everyone felt welcome. She says one way is to resist the trend in our industry that tends to create communities only for people who are super advanced, or who have only been in the industry for a specific number of years, or who have spoken on the conference circuit."For us it's always been...if you're someone who identifies as a woman, and you have any form of interest in tech SEO, even if you're a student, even if you're someone who has been doing it for years and years, it doesn't really matter. You're more than welcome to join. You're more than welcome to join for free. To listen, to contribute, to just be there."She says it's also important to outline your community values.For example, the Women in Tech SEO values help to convey that the community is a kind, judgment-free zone. "We want you to be comfortable and ask any questions you want. It's within our values and within our group rules as well."She says this encourages people to ask all forms of questions."From, oh, this is how a page is rendering JavaScript to...I'm trying to do keyword research for the very first time and I have no idea how to start."She says that in their community, they don't get responses like, "This is too easy," or "refer back to this." Why?"Everyone's on a different journey. Everyone's on different levels. It might be someone who's still starting out. It might be someone who has tons and tons of experience. It's just about how it's fostered and always ensuring that the values and the rules are enforced, and making sure everyone lives by those."She says she spends very little time on moderation as a result. How to create a judgment-free zoneAs little time as moderation takes, Areej does spend some time on it."Every now and then something happens and there needs to be a reminder of the rules and our values. Once a quarter. I'm quite strict, to be honest."She also looks out for people who are trying to use the community for their own purposes."If someone joins in right away and the first thing they want to do is share a spammy link, I remove them. I ensure everyone is leading by example." She says she also has a number of people who have been with the community from the start who also focus on leading by example."You can see the questions that are posted, how people communicate, how people respond to one another, and every now and then you know it's this idea of reminding everyone of the values and the rules and what we have in place. It just makes everything feel organic and grow over time."The impact of the Women in Tech SEO communityAt the community's first anniversary, Areej asked for testimonials, and for stories about how women have felt being part of this group.Much of the feedback she received revolved around getting the motivation and the encouragement to pitch for speaking. "We have a Speakers Hub on our website now. Over 200 speakers. We encourage conference organizers to reach out directly to some of the brilliant women who are in our community who are interested in speaking." "We've had tons of women who weren't speakers before, and then got motivated to be first-time speakers and apply to other conferences."Areej also speaks of mentorship programs that happened over the summer. "Both mentors and mentees felt super-empowered, coming out of it. [We had] mentors who didn't realize they could actually mentor someone, and then mentees who got to learn tons from their mentors."Goals for the futureCovid has derailed some Women in Tech SEO initiatives like it has derailed just about everything else, but Areej is still working on a lot of projects."Before Covid, we were having tons of events that were taking place in London. I wanted to start growing out and having different chapters around the world in some of the big cities, collaborating with partners over there, to ensure that we have meet-ups happening."While waiting for Covid to end, they're having plenty of virtual meetups and workshops, as well as giving training to people within the community. She's also partnering up with different organizations and conferences. "We have lots of amazing members, so we [ask ourselves] how to amplify them more. That would be one of the main things I want to focus on for next year." Representing women of colorEven Areej, who is a Person of Color herself, initially had some struggles when it came to representing Women of Color."I started doing this interview series where every week we had a new Women in Tech SEO interview. After maybe ten of them I realized – there are far too many white women featured on that. That's not great. That's the opposite of everything we're talking about."How did she solve the problem?"I was super honest. I wrote in the community. I wrote on Twitter. I said: we need more diversity and we need more representation and to be amplifying these women in our interviews." She even paused her interviews until she had lined up enough women of color and enough women from diverse backgrounds.She stresses that diversity isn't just skin color. "It's age. Background, country, and language."She really stresses the way honesty impacts the process."It's standing up and assessing what you've done so far, looking at the events you've held and looking at the articles you've published, being critical of yourself, and asking for help if it doesn't feel like what you're achieving is diverse enough. Then it's okay to go and ask to connect me to more women who can join us and who can speak with us and who can be part of this community."She says it's something we can all do more of.The impact of representationAreej describes her own struggles as she tried to find the motivation to pitch to speak. It was seeing a woman like her, Jamie Alberico, at Search Love London that inspired her, back in 2018. "I was just so inspired to see a brilliant woman being completely herself and talking about tech SEO. I saw that talk, and I thought: that's it. I'm going to pitch to speak in the next Brighton SEO." She'd been putting it off for a long time."I wasn't encouraged to do it. A case of imposter syndrome. But I did my pitch, and I got through. I spent 6 months preparing for that talk. I was so stressed out. But it went really well. And I guess once you do one of them, then it feels much easier moving forward."Yet she does admit she can still get stressed doing these talks...or podcasts!  "I never hear or watch myself back ever again. But you know, it encourages a lot of other people to do it when they see themselves represented. It was Hannah Smith and Briony Gunsen, two brilliant women, who helped me with my pitch and helped me when I was prepping my talk. Now that I'm in this position, how can I help and give back to others that want to be first-time speakers?"She cautions women against dismissing what they have to say just because they think everyone knows what they know already. "No. This is your own experience. This makes it very unique. That's what makes the different talks unique. If you share your story and you share your own experiences alongside it, it makes it unique and relatable to others."Concrete steps for alliesIf you're interested in helping to improve the industry's track record with diversity, Areej says there are two things you can do.The first: amplification."Take the time to amplify others and really take the time to help promote them."The second?"Give up your seat every now and then. If you're someone who is already a well-seasoned speaker, who is already really well-known in the industry, you don't need to say yes to every single opportunity. Instead, every time, consider whether this is an opportunity you really need, or if you can give up your seat to someone who would benefit from it much more."She says you can also take the time to ask some questions."When you're asked to speak somewhere, or when you're asked to join a company, ask them what diversity in leadership looks like for them. What's the rest of the panel looking like? If you're part of a lineup that's only 10% women, that's on you because you haven't done anything about it and you haven't recommended others." What’s your right now cause?Areej invites our readers to check out United Search."I'm honored to be one of the mentors, and I'm really excited to see how it's going to help shape our industry. Right now they're working with lots of different partners and conferences, to have specific guidelines, to ensure there are rules in place, and to help mentor tons of underrepresented people which will hopefully mean in the next year or two we can start seeing a lot more diversity throughout the industry."United Search is actively looking for both mentors and mentees, so check it out.Connect with Areej AbuAliWant to keep tabs on the latest developments in Areej's work?  Website WomenInTechSEO Twitter LinkedIn
28 minutes | 2 months ago
The Negative Review Reply Playbook for Agencies with Chris Walker
If you're running a small local business, being on the receiving end of a negative review can be difficult. It can be tough to manage the emotions and defensiveness you experience when you feel you're being attacked. If you're an agency helping your customers with reputation management or their review portfolio, this can be an uphill battle. Many agencies aren't sure how to best help their clients. In today's podcast, Chris Walker, an agency account executive at GatherUp, discusses the ins and outs of agency review management. He's going to share actionable strategies and tips you can use to help your clients build their review portfolios. The highlights  [2:24] How agencies can help clients handle negative reviews [3:11] The five-step process to follow when you receive negative reviews [4:03] Why five-star ratings won't help your business [4:58] Why you should always respond to negative reviews [7:09] Agency or clients: Who should respond to negative reviews? [8:00] How to respond to negative reviews [11:39] Why you must continue to grow your client's reviews [15:19] Why customers read negative reviews first [22:37] Using reviews to improve employee performance and customer service How agencies can help clients handle negative reviews When small, local businesses receive negative reviews, it can be an emotional blow. As an agency, this can be a bitter pill for your clients to swallow. They're investing their blood, sweat, and tears into their business, then along comes an unhappy client who's willing to ruin their business with an unfair review. Most of the time, this isn't true. But this is how many small, local businesses feel when they receive a negative review from their customers. They feel attacked, betrayed even.  This is where your agency comes in. According to Chris, your agency should have a predetermined plan to guide clients through this process. "There's definitely a big, big concern from small business owners when they get a negative review; a lot of them really get their back against the wall and want to go on defense. The thing I always tell marketing agencies is, you need to be the calming voice. You need to be that liaison that gives them a clear cut plan of, this is what we do when we get negative reviews.” The 5 step process to follow when you receive negative reviews Responding to reviews is simple, but it's far from easy. As a business owner, it's easy to see customer criticism as an attack on your company, and it is, in a way. Most customers aren't looking to ruin your business, they're looking for a solution to their problem, or they're sharing their experience with other prospective customers. If you follow a clear process with your negative reviews, it's easy to gain momentum, even when your customers post a negative review. "You need to be that liaison that gives them a clear cut plan of this is what we do when we get negative reviews. I broke it into five steps, but you can really go in any order you want, but I think step one is the most important. And then don't panic, you know, don't freak out. I mean, certainly, if you have a number of them [negative reviews], then you're going to really want to focus in on why that's happening. But first of all, relax, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Um, I used to congratulate my clients on their first bad review. I said, awesome. That's great. Now we finally have some bad stuff because that's what customers want. But then also equally as important is respond, respond immediately as quickly as you can." Why five-star ratings won't help your business If I get lots of five-star reviews, I should be able to pull ahead of my competition, right? All I have to do is collect more reviews than my competitors, and I win. This is actually false. Customers today are sophisticated. Researchers discovered that the optimal range for online reviews, as purchase drivers, is between 4.2 - 4.5 stars. This makes sense when you realize customers are aware of the fact that some brands may pad their ratings with fake reviews. "It's really not worth your time and effort to get banged up and, and worry about this review. Mainly because five star rated companies aren't performing as well on Google nowadays. In fact, we did a study recently that showed the optimal rating for a business is between 4.2 and 4.5. Now, with that being said, you've got to be over 4 stars. You cannot be below 4, so you have to be over 4, but we've actually seen sales decline at 5. And that's because, or because searchers nowadays are smarter. They're realizing that maybe other businesses have gamed the system. They also recognize that not every business can be perfect. So really, you know, a negative review." Why you should always respond to negative reviews The vast majority of customers read online reviews. They've realized online reviews, when they're legitimate, are a valuable heuristic they can use to gauge the trustworthiness of a company or business. In reality, this is only half the story. Prospects are very interested in the feedback customers have to share about your business. But they're more interested in what you have to say. The data bears this out. "I used to congratulate my clients on their first bad review. I said, awesome. That's great. Now we finally have some bad stuff because that's what people want. But then also equally as important is respond, respond immediately as quickly as you can. In fact, 86% of consumers want you to respond within three days. So realistically, you should be responding within one day. Absolutely should be, do not let it go past three days. One thing I found that was really sort of startling when I was researching this topic, and I gave this presentation at Local U advanced awhile back is that we know that 82% of consumers read online reviews, but 97% of those people read the businesses responses. So just as important as it is to get online reviews, it's equally as important to respond to these reviews because people are reading them." Agency or clients: Who should respond to negative reviews? There's a good deal of flexibility here. However, while it's generally up to you and your clients to determine who will respond to customer reviews, it's generally best if your agency handles it. It defangs the emotional sting that comes with a negative review and gives the clients the peace of mind they need to improve their business. "It doesn't matter who actually does the response, but I typically recommend that agencies do it on the client's behalf because we're taking emotion out of this. The worst thing you can do is say, 'I've looked through all my systems, and you're not a client of ours.' This is a fake review, and I've seen people do it. I've even deleted responses from clients who've responded that way and edited it because we don't want to come off as defensive." How to respond to negative reviews for clients It's incredibly easy to become defensive, it's a natural reaction, and it's a pattern many small business owners are quick to fall into. It's best to avoid that. A better idea is to show sympathy and empathy in your response to customers. They want to be heard; they want you to listen and provide them with options for addressing the problems. "An agency can take care of this, but there are a few things to remember, though, we want to respond quickly. We want to be public with our response, especially if it's a public review, we want to personalize that response by saying, I understand when X happened to you, that didn't leave you happy show sympathy." Here's an example. GatherUp has put together a great resource of review response templates to help your clients. "'I completely understand how X could lead you to be unhappy. And we really appreciate you sharing that feedback and then put someone in charge to speak to that person. I would invite you to please call the office, ask to speak to blank; he or she will be able to help you with this.' So you're basically letting them know that I appreciate that you're unhappy because of this. And I want you to call us and talk to us now, at that point, if you explain to this customer why they're mistaken, that's fine, but do not explain that on Google show sympathy, take responsibility, and then make it, make it easy for them to rectify this situation." Why you must continue to grow your client's reviews It's common for clients to fixate on the number of reviews in their portfolio. It's treated as insurance, and it's easy for clients to believe they have enough. Customers have a different view altogether. They're focused on your client's most recent reviews—the more recent the reviews, the better. Your positive and negative reviews can make a significant impact if they're fresh. Recent reviews are more valuable to customers and Google. "Google looks at the number of reviews, the recency of reviews, and the velocity of reviews. People often think, 'Oh, okay, I got 125 reviews. My closest competitors only got 80. I'm crushing them.' And that may be true for a time. But what ends up happening is, as your reviews get older, not only do they become less effective. Not only did they become less effective from an SEO standpoint, but they also become less effective from a customer conversion standpoint. So if you're not consistently asking for reviews and bringing more reviews into your business, you're not impacting these people's decisions. In fact, for everybody who is looking at online reviews, it drops drastically after three months. So, at most, you've got to look at the last three months, but you'll also want to look at how many you have in those two weeks. Is it one, is it two? Then you only really have a couple of reviews that might impact customer decisions? So consistently asking for feedback, first of all, helps the business understand why they're maybe running into these negative reviews, but also if the only thing you have to impact someone's decision is a bad review. You've impacted them in the wrong direction.” Why customers read negative reviews first Customers read negative reviews for a variety of reasons. Is the business under the same ownership? Are they still treating customers the same way and doing the same things? How do they handle unhappy customers? Negative reviews are a wealth of data. "I read the negative reviews. That's actually what I seek out because, yeah. Okay. Any good business in business nowadays should have good positive reviews, and I will read those, but every single one, I sort by rating. And I look at their negative reviews first, because I want to find out, first of all, how did you handle that? Were defensive? Did you not believe them? Did you call them out? And then also I want to know, is, does that negative experience affect me? You know, one of the biggest things I see is people on TripAdvisor saying that that that's the best were too firm, well, I like a firm mattress, so that's not going to affect me. But when I hear that, the person who cleaned their room left something dirty, well, no, I want my room cleaned properly. So that will affect my decision. So I oftentimes will look at the negative reviews and really try and get an idea of what kind of businesses is. But the second I see a defense of business, I'm gone. I'm gone. Cause if I know, I can't complain. If I'm not happy and you won't hear me out, I want nothing to do with you." Your review portfolio tells the story of your business. Using reviews to improve employee performance and customer service Most employees want to be viewed positively in their company and externally in public. Review requests motivate employees to improve their performance and the customer experience in each of their interactions. Chris says this starts with identifying the hidden causes behind negative reviews. "Immediately try and figure out why you get negative reviews. When you get them, really dial into why that is happening — if you aren't able to fix the problem, it will continue. More often than not, the bad reviews are actually because of staff. It's usually not anything else, mostly it's bad service. So if you're able to figure out that these particular customers gave negative feedback and then go back to your systems and go, well, you know what, all of those people are handled by this person. Okay, well, we got an issue with this person. We're going to have to get more training with them and make sure that this doesn't continue. But just as well, when staff members know they're going to be reviewed, that know that the customer they're talking to is going to get an email later asking for their feedback, customers immediately get better service. They know it because they know they'd be called out on it." What’s your right now cause?His right now cause is CharityWater.org. CharityWater partners with local organizations to build sustainable projects that provide clean drinking water to populations around the world. Connect with Chris WalkerWant to connect with Chris? You can find him on:  Email: chris@gatherup.com LinkedIn
62 minutes | 2 months ago
Early-Stage Agency Challenges: Goals, Pricing, Processes, Tools
Have you thought about opening your very own agency? If you're a new agency owner or you're thinking about starting your own agency in the near future, there's a lot of important details you'll need to consider. Many agency owners jp in but find that they're not as prepared as they'd like to be. Our podcast today is a converted panelist webinar. Garrett chats with a few agency veterans - Selena Vidya, President of Orthris Media, Michael King, Founder of iPullRank, and Akvile DeFazio, President of AKvertise to discuss the strategies, tactics, and challenges that come with building a successful agency.Note: At a couple of points in the episode, Garrett loses audio. But our amazing panelists kept the party going. The highlights ·    [2:12] Setting goals and milestones for your first year in business.·    [6:55] Why your agency needs planning and processes to grow.·    [8:43] Mistakes they made their first year in business.·    [11:04] What you need to scale your agency.·    [17:25] Why setting client expectations is so important.·    [19:38] The importance of client diversification and intentionally diversifying.·   [28:26] Pricing models and resource allocation in year one.·    [36:08] The challenges women and people of color face when starting their agency.·    [43:34] Client red flags: When to walk away from prospective clients·    [45:13] Where agency owners can go to find and receive support.·    [49:23] How to hone your niche as an agency. The insights: Setting goals and milestones for your first year in business Many agency owners start their business without a clear plan of action or a set of processes they can use to grow or scale their business. Agency owners are brave but often inexperienced. There are important goals and milestones your agency needs to set your business up for success. One important takeaway is the issue of identity. Some agency owners prefer to set their business up for the eventual employee hires that will take place down the road. Other agencies prefer to stay lean, outsourcing the majority of their work to trusted contractors. "Incorporation was the first thing I decided that I needed to have more set income goals personally, for myself, and then what revenue goals were for my company going forward. And in that first year, I also wanted to determine, you know, who to hire and how to hire them and eventually hire that first person and start training them up." Akvile had a clear sense of her company's identity and the revenue she wanted to bring in personally and professionally. Selena prefers to stay lean, relying on contractors to handle the work that needed to be done. "I figured out what I wanted the revenue for Orthris to be in the first year, keep the lights on, make sure that we can do what we need to do and also what I needed. But then I tried to figure out how many hours am I spending on certain key tasks that can then go to a contractor. I didn't want to go the route of doing any kind of full-time hire. And I still don't have full-time hires outside of myself and my partner. So for me, it's more, what can I offload to contractors and who is proficient enough to do that?" Why your agency needs planning and processes to grow As an agency owner, you understand the importance of generating results and outcomes for your clients consistently. It's tough to produce results if you don't have a clear, repeatable, and straightforward process your team can follow. Whether you're teaching employees or outsourcing work to contractors, consistent planning and processes are a must in the agency business. That's part of the problem because many agency owners don't necessarily know how to do "it" right.  Michael knows this better than most. "You'll want to sit down and build out what your processes need to look like because that was one of my biggest problems. I just am not really a process-oriented person. If you don't have a process outlining how the work is meant to be done, you're likely going to end up disappointed with what your team does. And you're going to feel like, 'well, they only did the exact thing I told them to.' And then you're going to end up redoing the work. Come up with a methodology for how you're going to effectively serve your clients." Mistakes they made their first year in business New agency owners don't know what they don't know. The first year is typically filled with lots of trial and error. While these agency owners solved these mistakes, it's devastating for many other inexperienced agency owners. The good news is, these mistakes are completely avoidable. With some upfront planning, testing, and iteration, there's no reason these first-year mistakes should take you off guard or disrupt the wonderful things you're trying to do in your agency. Selena stresses the fact that "winging it" is temporary."Winging it, trying to figure out what works, can work, but you can only do that for so long. You can wing it as long as you need to, but I really recommend that you get just processes in place to understand what your deliverables are going to look like, how you're going to deliver them, what communication looks like, and make sure you're solid so that when you're going to plug people into your ecosystem, they know exactly what to do and how it needs to be done."Michael was operating purely on instinct which was incredibly risky."I don't know how my business ran before I committed my process. I don't know how anything was getting done because now that we have it (processes and planning) in, it's so clear, and it's so like, do this, do this, do this. And like, you know, this obviously a space to be creative within that and so on. But I don't know how anyone was getting things done before, because you know, in some cases, people were junior or some in some cases, people were coming from other environments where they did things differently. There were just so many sub-optimal ways that we were doing things before. If you're starting an agency, spend the time to write down how you do things as soon as possible. Cause it's such a game-changer. You can't really scale until you do that." What you need to scale your agency Scaling your agency is really about duplicating yourself. It's you taking the time to sit down and codify your desires, goals, expectations, standards, and processes. You create a framework your future team can follow to produce the kind of work you want. The kind of results that make your clients happy and keeps them coming back. Of course, there are objections. It's easier and faster if I just tell someone what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Why go to the trouble of documenting everything now, before there's even a need? Selena says we often tell ourselves, "I can just do it or explain it to somebody, and it'll take less time. But the reality is the time that you've spent telling people how to change and do things [is lost]. You should just docent it and get it over with; you'll save that time in the future." Even though Michael wasn't particularly excited at first, he decided to do the work. "Once I really sat down, and I was like, okay, what are these processes going to look like? It just became another cool challenge and another skill set that I had to develop; how do you actually write this down such that anybody qualified can pick this up and do it the way you want to do it? At the end of the day, that's what you're selling as an agency, your process and your people being able to do [what you've promised]. I don't know how we made it those first three years without that stuff." Why setting client expectations is so important Setting and managing client expectations is a crucial part of maintaining healthy agency/client relationships. The better you are at setting, managing, and maintaining client expectations, the easier it is to keep your clients happy, satisfied, and fulfilled.  This is the key to repeat sales and consistent long-term referrals. Selena focuses her attention on communication and contract expectations upfront. "When I used to work at [other larger] agencies, and I was the client contact, I would get triggered if they wanted to talk to a director when I wasn't director level or someone above me. I always wondered, 'why does this happen?' So when I started my agency... I would try to set it up so that clients were comfortable talking to my team members and not necessarily me. I try to set the standard in the beginning that, you know, it's myself and my team; my team handles these things. It sounds like a basic no-brainer, but it's just something that, for some reason, they don't take a team member as seriously when they're used to talking to you." The importance of client diversification and intentionally diversifying Inexperienced agencies go through feast and famine cycles. Often, they struggle to maintain a steady cash flow. This isn't their fault directly; it's actually the nature of the business. As an agency, you'll want to follow the sales and marketing adage "Always Be Closing." It's a good idea to pursue opportunities consistently, so you're never dependent on a client you can't afford to lose. Akvile learned this lesson the hard way. "One hard lesson I learned, in year three is that I had two of our largest clients let us go in the same week. It was 90% of our income. And I was just like, what do I do? I've never done like formal business development. It wasn't anything that we did. It was just one of the CEOs, he quit. The whole company kind of was like, we don't know what to do. So we'll regroup. A larger company acquired the other one, and fortunately, they came back to us the following year on wanting to work with us again, under the larger brand. I struggled for eight months to try to figure out what to do. That was a huge lesson in not putting all of your eggs in one basket and not banking on those larger whale clients. If you land some of those clients, diversify so that if something happens, it's not going to impact your business severely." Pricing models and resource allocation in year one Pricing doesn't always receive the attention it deserves. Many inexperienced agency owners simply choose a pricing model — hourly, retainer, flat fee, and they run with it. But this can be a disaster. Choose the wrong pricing model, and you may find that your business is punished for being more efficient, timely, or precise. Akvile discovered that her hourly rate made it hard for her agency to grow, her revenues and profitability began to stagnate. "I started off hourly, and I soon, quickly dug myself into a financial hole because I was becoming more efficient as I progressed with my work [yet] I was making less. We're still experimenting on the optimal pricing strategy, especially being an ad agency. We started billing percentage of the monthly ad spend. I realized that maybe we should start doing a base plus percentage of ad spend, versus retainer models. So I think it depends on the client and that's why we don't publish our pricing on our website. Every client has different needs." It's also a good idea to identify the hourly models that don't work for you. Michael drew on his experience with hourly billings. "I completely despise the hourly model because I don't think it serves anybody effectively; for the client, you know, it becomes a variable cost that they can't really effectively [plan] for. It rewards the agency for showing more activity rather than showing outcomes or results. It's also just a very tedious thing to manage. Nobody wants to track their hours. No one wants to report on their hours; then you've got to chase people around for it. It's an antiquated model as far as I'm concerned; it just doesn't put the focus where it needs to be." The challenges women and people of color face when starting their agency Disadvantaged groups — women and minorities, face an uphill battle when starting their agency. Depending on your area, it may be difficult to gain equal access to people or capital. It may be difficult to partner with like-minded peers or win prospective clients over. It's a good idea to go in with both eyes open. Michael recommends doubling down on selling and certifications as a way to combat systemic barriers. "One of the challenges that I face as a black business owner is that it's very difficult to get access to capital. It's just like, all right, bank won't give me a loan, cool, sell more things, sell more things. The one thing that I would recommend, which I didn't really see the value in before is, getting, getting the official certification as a woman-owned business or as a black-owned business; Many organizations receive incentives to work with businesses of that type. So if you're in a pitch and you're being compared against a bunch of other vendors, you may get a leg up if you have the right certification." Still, the challenges are hefty if you're part of a disadvantaged group—Akvile shares her experience with networking groups. "I had some trouble early on when I'd go to in-person networking events and, you know, being a woman, I think ageism also played into a part where I would be in a group of people, and there were some older gentlemen, and they would just kind of talk over me or dismiss me anytime I was talking about my area of expertise. And I feel like the only time that they would give me their attention, even though I wouldn't want to work with them at this point, is that if I were to say something unique or that maybe they didn't think about. Suddenly they're like, 'Oh yeah, maybe you do know what you're talking about.'" Michael had a similar experience. "A lot of times I'll walk into a room, and there's a lot of the dog whistle language and so on. I'll give a fantastic pitch, one that I know crushes it for most situations. And then I'll get an email back saying, ‘Oh, we don't think you're strategic enough,’ which is basically like a coded way of saying, ‘Yeah, we don't think black people are smart.’ There's a lot of things that you'll run into; you've got to be able to roll with the punches to some degree." It's an unpleasant reality, but the good news is, this attitude is changing. People are beginning to notice this, and we're taking the cultural steps we need to turn this around. That said, this may be more of an issue in some parts of the country vs. others. It's still a barrier that requires awareness and planning. Client red flags: When to walk away from prospective clients When should you disqualify prospective clients? You'll want to do it as quickly as possible as soon as you spot potential deal-breakers or red flags, address them immediately. Point them out then, if there's no way to resolve the problem to your satisfaction, cut ties. If you can refer a potential client to another source or provider, it's a great way to maintain goodwill. The question is, how? If you're a new agency, you may not be in a position to be choosy, especially if you're trying to keep the lights on. What if you find someone who isn't a good fit? How quickly do you get out of that relationship? How do you handle those situations? "If there are any red flags and I wouldn't feel comfortable passing that person onto someone else, I will say, 'listen, I'm sorry, this isn't the right fit.' I still try to be helpful. I send them some resources, send them a few things, and then just wrap the conversation. If we're at capacity, if it's not the right fit for us in terms of industry or experience or the platforms that they want [isn't right], I have a network of people. I actually have a digital spreadsheet, so I know who to refer to, and I have a process put into place [to determine] who gets first dibs on it. It's always based on who's going to be the best mutual fit. Of course, it goes down to maybe area of expertise, or maybe they've worked with this particular type of client before. And then we do also have an area in this spreadsheet where, you know, if they have a referral fee, then we'll use that." Where agency owners can go to find and receive support No agency is an island. If you're running your own agency, you're going to run into trouble spots. You'll need help to overcome the inevitable challenges you're going to face. If you have support, you should have the connections, advice, and help required to weather the agency challenges you face. It starts with mindset. Selena started by making a decision. "I just started trying to continue to build relationships, being in communities. Traffic Think Tank is one that I had joined. That's been great for relationships and referrals and communication and all of that stuff. So I think, uh, you know, just, just continually putting your foot on the gas and never feeling like you're good with clients." What's interesting about this is the impact that Selena had on Michael's business. "It just comes down to building your network. Selena saved me a couple of times before; there was one time where we had a client, and like my whole team went on vacation, and it was just me. I was like, 'yo Selena, I need some help with content.' And she delivered. So having that network of great people that can support you wherever you find them is the most important thing." How to hone your niche as an agency The 80/20 rule plays a role in your agency. As your agency grows, you'll find a small segment or service line produces the majority of your revenue. This can happen early on in your agency's growth, or it can happen later on, after a pivot. The market is often a helpful indicator. If there's a significant amount of demand for your service and that service meets your needs, you may want to consider refining your agency's focus. Both Selena and Michael had similar experiences. With Selena, she took a proactive approach. "We started with a number of services, and we just looked at what was most enjoyable; what worked well that we were able to get results in and also what was the most profitable. So, as I mentioned earlier, we narrowed down from a bunch of the other services, and we started focusing on just three key areas: content strategy and production, SEO strategy, and the auditing process. As far as the types of businesses and industries you want to work in, I just started working with a whole bunch of different industries, and I ended up falling into working with publishers more often and became extremely proficient. So that's where we continued to push." Here's how Michael views it. "I think the market will tell you what your niche is, based on the clients you maintain, the ones you lose, you're going to learn very quickly. You've got to find that Venn diagram overlap — what you love doing and what, you know, actually makes you money. I want to build the agency of my dreams that can do big picture things all the way down to, you know, small picture things like channel-specific stuff. We did a lot of great projects that were bigger picture projects, but we don't have the portfolio to go after everybody's design work. We don't have the portfolio to do 10 experiential marketing campaigns, even though we've done one or two. So the market is just going to tell you. You can do those things, but you're going to have to do them off the back of the core stuff that you're really, really good at and can repeat." It's less about planning and more about discovery. You'll want to identify the services that mesh well with your agency services and product offerings.What’s your right now cause? Selena’s right now cause is supporting smaller women-owned businesses. Akvile’s right now cause is mentoring women and people of color. Mike’s right now cause is BlackandBrilliant.org. Connect with our webinar panelistsWant to connect with these amazing agency owners?Selena Vidya Website Agency Builder Twitter LinkedIn Akvile DeFazio Website Twitter LinkedIn Michael King Website Twitter LinkedIn
25 minutes | 2 months ago
E-A-T Algorithms and the Complexity of Google Search with Lily Ray
If you're developing a content strategy you need to be thinking about "E-A-T:" that is, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It's a concept that's easy to understand in broad strokes but more difficult to understand and execute at a granular level. If you want to do that, you might talk to today's guest, Lily Ray. She's the SEO Director at Path Interactive and is an expert on the topic. She joins Garrett today on the Agency Ahead podcast to talk all things E-A-T, as well as to dive deep into Google's algorithms and what they're doing with all that data they're collecting.The highlights: [1:15] E-A-T Overview. [2:57] Why E-A-T is so ambiguous. [4:41] Evaluating Google patents. [7:48] The complexity of Google. [9:53] Why SERPs can change so quickly. [11:54] Google's efforts to increase authoritative search results.  [13:58] Tracking SEO data. [15:55] Local SEO strategies. [19:13] New ways Google may start measuring authority. [21:58] What to focus on in the new year. [23:16] Lily's cause. The insights:E-A-T overviewE-A-T first showed up in the 2014 version of the Google Search Quality Guidelines. This is the document that Google uses to train human evaluators who work to provide feedback on how well the SERPs are meeting human expectations.Lily first points out that E-A-T is evaluated differently depending on the topic you're reading about or writing about."So if you're writing about health concerns, medical conditions, legal issues, the highest level of E-A-T is expected. But if you have something that's more like a hobby blog or just kind of a casual topic, E-A-T might not be as important."Why E-A-T is So AmbiguousLet's face it: expertise, authority, and trust are kind of ambiguous, subjective terms. Google isn't all that forthcoming about what they're supposed to mean.Lily says that's intentional."When Google's too forthcoming with ranking factors and with the signals it looks at for ranking purposes, SEOs go and figure out a million different ways to spam it. So with E-A-T, it's such a delicate evaluation. They don't want people to try to trick their algorithms by manipulating that in any way."For example, she's seen SEOs create fake experts to try to fool Google's algorithms.Google published a video to talk about why they couldn't disclose ranking factors, rather recently in fact.https://youtu.be/I_ThBF6cawM Evaluating Google patentsLily recently teamed up with Bill Slawski of Go Fish Digital to write an article for The Search Engine Journal. You can find it here: "The Mechanics of E-A-T: How Google Patents Can Help Explain How E-A-T Works."Lily and Bill met at PubCon, where he introduced her to the information that could be found in Google's patents."Now they don't say, this is explicitly being used in our organic search algorithms. And if you look at all the patents Bill and I talk about in the article, there's a clear push to evaluating those individuals, understanding how much they're the experts, and doing it not just in the organic search results and doing it in places like YouTube, and podcasts. All the different data points Google has access to."Lily says that it's important for SEOs to understand that Google is growing more sophisticated every day."The sky's the limit in terms of what Google can use for these evaluations. The fact that they have these patents that say they're analyzing audio to be able to identify a speaker...and to know certain attributes about that speaker. I think Bill mentioned that if Google identifies the speaker has an Italian accent, maybe it will change the search results when they're looking for something Italian. The ways they can use those different attributes? The sky's really the limit. It got me thinking, too. Google's pushing and all the other big tech companies are pushing, to have these voice search devices in your homes. What for? Why do they need all that data about what we're talking about at home? There are so many potential uses for it."Lily says the algorithm is far more complex and advanced than most people can wrap their heads around. "I think the technological advancements and leaps they've made in the past several years completely surpass what most SEOs are capable of wrapping our heads around."She points out that Google has thousands of the best engineers in the world who have been doing this for 20 years. "A lot of times SEOs get hung up on: Google never said that's a ranking factor. Yeah, they're way beyond that. There's a reason they haven't told us because we're so simplified in the way we think about SEO. We still think having the exact word in the title tag is going to be the single thing we look at. They're so far ahead of us in terms of NLP and so I think it's important to look at the future and look at the search quality guidelines where they say: this is where we want the algorithms to go as opposed to getting too hung up on what might currently be a ranking factor."Why SERPs can change so quicklyGarrett pointed out from Lily’s Traffic Think Tank Live presentation that the pandemic rapidly changed the SERPs page. For example, for a little while during the pandemic, ESPN dropped out of the search results for the term "football" in favor of fantasy football and video game football SERPs (they've since returned to more conventional results).Garrett asked how the results change so fast."One algorithm update or feature they rolled out in 2007 which was called Query Deserves Freshness; that's really old at this point but that's the mechanism Google uses to determine that a keyword deserves fresh results, triggering a top stories panel or something like that.”"I think QDF manifests itself in the organic search rankings too. I think that was happening in the beginning of Covid hitting the news so much in February and in March. Google's algorithms picked up on the fact that demand and intent were really changing. They say that because click-through rate is not a ranking factor, but if a million people clicked on Zoom suddenly when they typed meetings, even though they didn't type virtual meetings – Google's going to pick up on that. Maybe it's not just the clicks, maybe it's other factors as well, but on a large scale, with billions of searches happening all the time, Google's algorithms can pick up on the fact that Google's intent had changed."She says she thinks at the beginning of Covid these same algorithms were naturally playing out to identify different search intent, but that she thinks they've also manually rolled out some algorithm updates to tweak things.Google's efforts to increase authoritative search resultsHere, Lily does some speculating, in a way that makes her hope the SEO world won't get mad at her! "I think June 22 was the day Google specifically launched an algorithm update with the intent of increasing the authoritative search results. If you look at how the FDA and how the CDC and how some very high-authority sites started ranking after that point, it was almost comical."For example, drugabuse.gov is ranking 1-10 for any drug query. "Can anyone else compete for that keyword? Or do you have to be drugabuse.gov?"One example she uses is hand sanitizer."Before the June update, it was like transactional rankings. After the June update, the first two results were the FDA. Don't drink hand sanitizer. It's safety-focused stuff. I think they've had to make some changes this year to make sure only the most trustworthy and safety-oriented content ranks for potentially dangerous keywords." Tracking SEO dataLily favors Citrix as a tool for tracking SEO data."I actually went to the Citrix office in Germany this year before we couldn't travel anymore. It feels like a lifetime ago. They got me set up to be able to evaluate SEO visibility changes on a large scale. Any Citrix user can do this, but they helped facilitate it for me."She says that's the tool she uses to measure SEO performance over the course of two different dates. "So I can punch January 1 compared to June 1 and just see what's happened across a large variety of domains."She also works with a program called Similar Web. "It has its own method of collecting traffic data. It also has categorization which I really love, so I like to bring together Citrix's SEO visibility with smaller web categories. Which I did for coronavirus. I started to see which categories were seeing gains and losses in visibility, and trying to pull in as much data as I possibly could."Local SEO strategiesRanking for different city names is difficult, and one thing local SEOs struggle with is trying to do so, "Without having a hundred pages that say the same thing. Even though the product is the same. What should we do?"Google doesn't like doorway pages, which means creativity is required."Home Depot's an example of a site that does it tremendously well. Every single Home Depot store location page has a lot of unique content on it. So it's possible, just  not always easy."Garrett then asked how E-A-T applied to local specifically. Do local SEO practitioners have to worry about being authoritative?"So far as [Google's] initial communications, I don't ever remember them saying it's an evaluation they use for local SEO rankings." Local SEO does use a separate set of algorithms. "But I always say there's never a good reason not to invest in E-A-T best practices. Everything we recommend on the E-A-T side of things is great for users. It's great for your consumers. I do think there are certain aspects of E-A-T that are considered for local SEO. It's one and the same. Things like the quality of reviews, or your business. How your business is presented on things like Yelp, or third party. They do mention on the Search Quality Guidelines that when you're evaluating a business you should look at its Yelp reviews and look at its BBB reviews. Whether or not these things are direct ranking factors, why wouldn't you invest in them?"As for expertise?"I think it's transparency for users. Local customers would want to know which dentists work at your dentist business. So have a page about them. And have a page about why they went to school and why you should trust them to be your dentist. Why not do these things? Just do these things. It's good for your users."New ways Google may start measuring authorityLily really stresses that Google is using far more data points than most people imagine."The sky is the limit in terms of the data points they have available to them. That's only growing over time. They're using data comments, and that's potentially for entities that aren't in Google's knowledge graph. That's like billions and trillions of new data points they can pull from."She points out we don't know exactly how any of it is being used. "We don't know how they're using an unliked mention and press release or something like that. I like to assume they're just capable of way more evaluating. There are way more ranking signals than we can even fathom. They've said. Millions of algorithms work together to conceptualize E-A-T. That's millions. If you can dream it, I think it's fair to assume if they haven't already actively applied it to algorithms it might be something they do in the future. Just assume they can."Lily also points out that Google rolls out new features all the time, things like web stories and optimizing for Google Discover. "They've been pushing a lot of that pretty hard. The two go hand-in-hand. Now web stories rank at the top of Google Discover. If you're a brand that's trying to get a message out there relatively quickly, that might be an avenue to look at."What’s your right now cause?Lily asks our listeners to consider supporting the ACLU. "It's the best catch-all to donate to right now, given all the topics it addresses." Connect with Lily RayWant to stay on top of E-A-T and get some of Lily's sweet DJ sets?  Twitter Soundcloud LinkedIn Website Path Interactive
23 minutes | 2 months ago
Zen and The Art of Building a Freelance Business with Elise Dopson
Ever thought about leaving your agency or in-house job to become a freelance writer? Freelance writers are an integral part of the digital marketing landscape. There's a whole army out there supporting both marketing agencies and other businesses directly. Content is, after all, the cornerstone of SEO, and someone's out there writing it.Elise Dopson is a remarkable freelancer. She got her start when she was just 12 years old. She has gone on to craft an incredible career writing about SaaS, SEO, and content marketing. She's also the co-founder of Peak Freelance, a brand new membership program for freelance writers. There, she provides a ton of resources and expert tips, as well as a place where freelancers can come together to share stories and information. The highlights: [1:49] Elise's story. [5:04] The business side of freelance. [6:21] Common mistakes and solutions. [8:21] About Peak Freelance. [11:38] SEO as a necessary skillset for freelancers. [12:47] Setting expectations with clients. [16:49] Finding SMEs for long-form pieces. [17:53] Tips for getting started. [20:03] Managing workflow and cashflow. [21:11] Elise's cause.  The insights: The Elise Dopson origin story Elise began at 12 with a blog. She's 23 now and has been doing the job for over 10 years. She started learning about SEO when she learned it was better to draw people to her website than it was to drag them.By the time she got to college, her blogs were already making her a bit of income on the side. This led to an in-house Agency job, where she worked as a copywriter but had a chance to explore other aspects of the digital marketing business as well. She began freelancing on the side with the blessing of her boss and was considering a trip to university. – only to decline enrollment in just three months. "I just went freelance."The business side of freelanceElise may have an edge on many freelance writers. Most of us really are writers and authors at heart. The business side of the equation is a distant second, takes time to learn, and doesn't always come naturally.Elise is different."When I was younger I always thought of myself as a businesswoman. When people asked me what I wanted to do, I wanted to run a business. But it's so much harder than you think. I got my first client through referral. I basically gave the lowest rate I could think of based on the hourly rate I was doing at my job. I just learned that was never going to get me anywhere. I needed a business. I could subcontract, work out if I needed a bit of wriggle room either way, and make a reasonable wage for myself. I needed to up the rates."Even business people struggle with how to set rates for freelance writing jobs...which is something any freelancer will tell you that they do, indeed, struggle with.Common business management mistakes and solutionsElise said the first thing she struggled with was figuring out how to manage her workload."At first it was a spreadsheet. That was a mistake." Now she uses Asana.A friend of hers recently launched Freelance Planner though, and Elise has been using it. "It basically puts all your work in there, and you can tick off what you're up to."The second thing she struggled with was setting her rates. "I always figured my hourly rate as a freelancer should be similar to what you earn in-house, and that's so wrong. If you're in-house your agency pays for insurance, everything you can think of that you don't get as a freelancer. As a freelancer, I feel you have to add all of those benefits onto your price."She suggests Freelancers who are specialists should feel free to charge more. "If there's a ton of demand for SaaS writers and there are not enough good ones then your rate can be pushed up from that."The creation and growth of Peak FreelancePeak Freelance is a new membership community for freelance writers. It includes interviews with experts, exclusive content on methods Elise has used to scale her business, and a Slack group where freelancers can chat and find friends or pass jobs to one another."I'm basically creating something I wish I had three years ago. The biggest thing I felt personally when I left my job was: I'm on my own now. What can I do to meet friends? And then, when I decided to meet friends in the space, it was a massive kind of spurring on for me."She says meeting people through the community makes her feel less alone.It also gives her people to pass work to if she is overbooked, and that people do the same for her.She says freelancers can make connections through Twitter, but it's much harder for new freelancers or for freelancers who don't have a lot of followers. At Peak Freelance, follower count and experience level don't detract from access.SEO as a necessary skillset for freelancersDo freelancers need to know SEO?"It depends on the clients you're working with. In SaaS specifically, there's a lot of content around people who are not getting to the website from search. They're getting there from email. It's the previous customers that are coming back to the website."She says knowledge of SEO is good but not essential. "But to be honest, most clients do want SEO content. That's where the money is. That's where they can plow as much budget in because they're getting traffic to their website."Setting expectations with clientsElise ensures every client fills out a brief before the work begins. "That has details about the keywords they want to target, the goal of the piece, who's going to be reading it, headline ideas, things like that."She then does an outline, using Google to see what's ranking already. Then she uses it to try to do better."I do have a gripe. It's called parasite content. I wrote about this on my blog recently. It's basically the massive, really strong websites in an industry that rank top regardless of whether the content itself is any good. So, sometimes I go to Google and I type the keyword I'm writing about into Google, and sometimes it's just crap. It's the site that's got the power that's bringing it up."Sometimes she has to look a little lower than the top results to locate pieces worth competing with.Finding SMEs for long-form piecesElise makes heavy use of Help a Reporter Out, or HARO."I'll send a HARO query. I'll tie up the whole piece into one question, then I'll send that through HARO, and then I'll comb through the answers and follow up with people who have got quotes that could fit in but are not perfect as they are."She says that's the secret, because it's easy to get "a lot of rubbish" on HARO. She also keeps a CRM of all the relationships she's built through her freelance business."I have a column for their name, a column for their Twitter handle, a column for their email, and then a column for their subject matter expertise. So, if I'm writing a piece about direct-to-eCommerce I'll filter the CRM by that expertise, and then I'll reach out to those people and say: “look, I'm writing a piece, do you want to get involved?" She says this method has helped her build relationships and has opened the door to additional opportunities. It also probably helps her avoid scrambling for sources at the last minute, which is always nice! She does have a method for vetting sources that she meets, which is important. Often people answer on HARO but are not true experts."I look at the company they're working for. If they're freelance, I look at the types of clients they've worked with. If they're big name brands most people know about, I'm pretty safe to say they're an expert on the topic. I also look at their Twitter profile. Not just at how many followers they've got, but what kind of followers they've got. Anyone can get 1,000 followers and not be any good, but if the people that are following them are experts as well, I feel like it's another trust factor for me to trust them as well, if other people do."Tips for getting started as a freelancerElise has some advice for people who want to go freelance."The first one is to make the most of your network that you've already got. I got my first client from my boss' friend, and I wouldn't have got that without telling my boss that I was thinking of going freelance."She notes you should also contact everyone you know when you get started."Just say, look, I'm going freelance, if you need any help or know anyone that needs any help just point them in my direction."She does note this can be hard for brand new freelancers. One thing that can help there is volunteer work: it can net you a few well-connected people who will send you on for paid work, and will create a portfolio. Yet introductions from referrals can also help break the barriers, and that's where contacting the entire network comes in."My second one would be to save enough money."She said her first month she made about 200 pounds. "I said to myself: look, if this doesn't work out in six months I'll just go back to my job." But she had the six-month buffer of income in the bank to fall back on in the first place. People who go freelance without that buffer don't have that choice.Managing workflow and cashflowElise suggests getting as many clients as possible on retainer."I do service one-off clients but they're not my favorite because it really is hard to manage."About 70% of Elise's business comes with a retainer and a 1-year contract. Many of her clients renew, year after year. "At least I know I'm working on this, this month. I'm bringing this much money in. I plan that on my calendar so I know exactly when I've got spaces to fit ad hoc projects in."What’s your right now cause?Elise asks people to consider donating to a local food bank."I've just read a book that's called Lowborn by Kerry Hudson. It's about growing up in poverty in the UK. The author goes back to her roots, really, and sees what her living place then is like now. It's really eye-opening, really interesting. A lot of people in the UK can't afford to eat. We're like the 6th richest economy in the whole world."She says she doesn't really know how that works, but..."Instead of complaining about it, I just want people to do something about it. Even $20 a month. Just drop that food off at a food bank, and it will be put to good use."Connect with Elise DopsonWant more from Elise?  Website Twitter Peak Freelance LinkedIn
33 minutes | 3 months ago
Evaluating Organizational Change by Diversity Accountability with Azeem Ahmad
What happens when a pair of podcasters passionate about the delights of digital get together in one call? If those two are Garrett and Azeem, well, you get an adorkable digital bromance and a lively discussion about the state of the industry. Azeem Ahmad is the host of the Azeem Digital Asks podcast. He's also a regular speaker on the SEO conference circuit, is the owner of Azeem Digital, and is the Digital Marketing Manager at Staffordshire University in the UK. It's safe to say he's got a pretty broad view of the industry as a whole. If you want the delightful geekery, you'll have to listen to the podcast. There is no capturing it in show notes.If you just want yourself some insights, then read these! The highlights: [1:40] If Azeem were a marketing superhero... [2:57] Google in the UK. [5:11] Industry networking during a pandemic. [12:01] Agency life vs. in-house life. [15:59] Fixing diversity in the workplace. [28:46] Azeem's cause. If Azeem were a marketing superhero...At the beginning of Azeem’s podcast, he always asks his guests an icebreaker question. Garrett reversed things in this episode. Garrett asked if Azeem were a marketing superhero, what his marketing superhero name and power would be."I would probably just stick with Azeem Digital...with the superpower that everyone craves. The unlimited budget. The bottomless wallet!"Oh, the things you could do.Google in the UKAzeem took a look at Google's market share. While he says that most marketers should continue to focus heavily on Google and that Microsoft is something you basically just check up on every now and then. He expressed some skepticism over the idea that Apple will be introducing its own search engine any time soon but said he would welcome a strong competitor for Google."A personal view, I think competition is great, everything that's going on now and the monopoly Google has on the market, I do think a little bit of competition is great. The industry does need a little bit of change in that sense. Times are changing so we definitely need to crack on with that." Industry networking during a pandemicAzeem bucked a trend in that he said he did not like LinkedIn for networking. "I'm fully aware that there are people listening who are like: well, your LinkedIn feed is curated by you, they're people you chose to connect with and you follow. Yeah, that's true, that's absolutely right, but I'm not interested in what they're saying." He says that what he wants to do when he's on social media is to learn a lot more about marketing. "Now Twitter is the home of networking. It's pushed ahead of LinkedIn for me. You can get involved in conversations. There's such a diverse range of opinions on there."He describes a previous account where he'd built up 3000 followers, including Barack Obama and Brittny Spears. He said he took a month-long social media break and all his followers were gone."So I started again. Now I'm at something like 700 or 800 followers, but I'm having more valuable conversations. I'm getting more engagement and more conversation with the people I've got.Twitter is fantastic for having these conversations. Follow the right hashtags, use platforms like TweetDeck, which is fantastic. I'm absolutely not suggesting people should sit on Twitter for hours and hours on end just replying to conversations."He describes a strategy that has worked well for him to foster those conversations. "When you read something, you share it, and underneath that you share a critical opinion on it. I thought this article was great, what does everyone else think? It just starts a conversation. And people might not agree with you, people agree with you, but the whole point of that networking piece is it's absolutely brilliant. Schedule stuff as well." He says you'll get out of Twitter what you put in, and that he uses Twitter to have valuable conversations with thought leaders in the industry, improving knowledge. "You have to go into these conversations prepared to learn. If you go into these conversations hard and fast with your own view, this is my view, I will die on this hill – you usually alienate a lot of people. You come across as a jerk. If you come out open and honest you'll have far more meaningful and far more valuable conversations. You do have to be a little bit vulnerable and open, but the rewards outweigh the risks, definitely."Agency life vs. in-house lifeAzeem talks about how much he learned by starting in an agency. "I vividly remember because it was like my first foray into the industry. I learned so much so quickly. The best place I would advise anyone to start in this industry is an agency. You'll pick up so much stuff." He says if everything was working normally right now, you'd have X amount of clients that you'd immediately be working on. "Immediately you'd need to immerse yourself in those clients, in their businesses, in that sector. You need to be part of their team as well as picking up key marketing disciplines, learning all the tools and platforms, how everything works. You have to throw yourself into the deep end and just learn."He says that he began trying to think of new ways to do things and ultimately this made him want to leave agency life."Moving in-house I'm certainly exploring more. As I mentioned about being open and vulnerable...when I've got people who join my team, I always say to them...outside from obvious silly measures like 'increase the budget' or 'turn everything off,' there's never a wrong answer if you have a why. If you ever come to me and say: I think we should do this, my question to you is why. It's not a trick question. It's just literally I'm keen for people certainly, people who work with me as part of the team to explore their own critical thinking." He encourages his people to tell them what the return on their actions will be. Fixing diversity in the workplaceAzeem is passionate about bringing more diversity to the marketing industry."I think as an industry we've begun to get past the raising awareness stage. I think with everything that happened in America with George Floyd and everything that happened before and everything that's happened since we've got past that part of raising awareness. I think more is being done to get actions."He says at Brighton SEO he did a presentation on the business benefits of having a diverse leadership team. "87% of the time they'll make better business decisions, which means you make more money."He says having someone on board in a diversity or equality specific role is great. "But from what I've seen, much of the responsibility to change that company's culture then falls in line with that person, who will typically be brought in external to the company."He says nothing gets done while this person is being forced to spend six months or longer immersing themselves in the culture of a business. "A lot more needs to be done."He talks about being aware of the gender pay gap and the diversity pay gap. "We know women get paid less than men. Certainly over here. But what if you're a Black woman? What if you're an Asian woman? Immediately you're going to be paid less than a white woman who is paid less than a man."He mentioned Snapchat who came out with their diversity policies.They have done a deep dive and a comparison, a critical look at their diversity policies. Meanwhile, he says he's been in businesses where he's had to have a conversation about diversity. "In the nicest possible way, everyone around this table is old, you're all white, and the people you're talking to are young and from different backgrounds. You're not representing your audience, and if you want them to come on board with this business and get involved with you and your products, you need to show some sort of aspirational level for them to get to."He says they were visibly shocked, and he thought maybe some visible change would come. Instead, they fell all over themselves telling him that their black female board member had just left, "so we did have somebody!"Azeem stresses that having just a single person who as a Black female will not represent every Black female in that audience. "You need a more diverse range of voices around the table. I saw this with conferences as well." He speaks of a conference that had one Black speaker, every year, the same Black speaker."Look, the industry needs to take a very long and hard inward look at itself, and start to push forward voices who were different and diverse and who will challenge the norms. And they might get stuff wrong. I've got stuff wrong before in the past. You might get stuff wrong, but don't hold them to account over one mistake." He also addresses how one can make a difference with a good job description. He says avoid things like: "We're an equal opportunities employer. What does that mean? Nothing. It doesn't mean anything. There was one job description I saw that was fantastic. It said something like: Company X. We are committed to creating a diverse environment. We will recruit, train, and promote regardless of your race, sex, disability, color, origin, veteran status, or any other status as required or protected by the laws. As a Person of Color who would potentially want to apply to that company I'm like: oh my god, these guys really care."He even gives some job interview tips who those who both want to land the job...and keep the industry thinking about diversity."If you're sitting there as a Person of Color or as a member of the LGBTQ+ community when they say: do you have any questions for us? I hear people ask: what's a typical day like? Good. On top of that: what does your senior management team look like? What does your diversity road map look like over the next five years? How diverse will you be in the next ten or fifteen years?"He says this might even help you get the job, in addition to putting your fingers on the pulse of the company's commitment. "When you start asking questions like that and you add things at the end like in the next X years, you're subconsciously telling this employer you're interested in the job, obviously when you mentioned the length of time you're also indicating to that employer that you're willing to stay there for that amount of time, you're not going to come in for a couple of months, get a rapid-fire couple of promotions and then you're off. You're seeing this as a long-term project. That's the hiring company. They'll be like, well we're going to invest thousands of dollars into this person. We're going to want a return, so if we hear someone saying five, ten, fifteen years, this person is serious." What’s your right now cause?Azeem wants listeners to pay attention to mental health, specifically, a mental health organization in the UK called Mind. He says many mental health agencies have struggled with funding cuts.  "Mind is super good at helping people with mental health issues and pointing people on the right path. I think if you check those guys out, they're doing some really good work."Connect with Azeem AhmadWant more from Azeem?  Website Podcast Twitter
25 minutes | 3 months ago
Taking Control of Your Brand SERPs with Jason Barnard
What’s a brand SERP? Well, a “SERP” is an acronym for search engine results page. So a brand SERP is what you get when someone Googles your name or your brand name. Jason Barnard is the brand SERPs guy. He’s spent 7 years trying to educate digital marketers on the importance of brand SERPS, on the insights to be gained from looking at them, and how to take control of them. He's also the host of the Kalicube podcast, where he's interviewed the likes of Rand Fishkin, Bill Slawski, and more. He runs Brand SERP courses and offers coaching for those who want to take control of their own. Listen to today's podcast to learn how to take control of brand SERPs both for your agency and for your clients. The highlights: [1:24] What it means to be the brand SERP guy. [3:13] The definition of brand SERPs. [5:51] Evaluating brand SERPs. [9:30] Changing brand SERPs. [14:59] The difference between reputation management and brand SERP management. [20:43] The intersection between brand SERPs and content strategy. [22:24] Jason's cause. The insights:What it means to be the brand SERP guyGarrett asked Jason what it meant to be the "Brand SERP Guy.""It means I place myself right in the center of something I think I've discovered, but it's not something new. It's just something nobody was paying attention to." He admits he's been talking about it for the past 7 years. "Which makes it sound like I'm boring and repetitive, but actually just means that I think I was right at the beginning, and now I've just developed it into something much more granular, much more interesting, and much more helpful to brands and to people."Jason also says understanding brand SERPs can even give you a better understanding of what Google is doing with all these algorithms. "I came up with the brand SERP guy because I wanted people to associate me with brand SERPs because brand SERPs is my number one top favorite thing. I think it's original, I think it's useful, I think it's overlooked." The definition of brand SERPsYour brand SERP is your "exact match brand name SERP."Jason says that focusing on that search is way more interesting than most people imagine. "It's the best rabbit hole in the business. Once you start looking at it, it's terribly focused. It's this controlled environment, where you actually have much more control than you would initially imagine."He says that brand SERPs give lots of insight about what's going on with your brand, and what he calls your brand's "digital echo system.""You think it's very limiting and very boring, but in fact, it's incredibly insightful, because it only focuses on what Google is showing to your audience when they search your brand name. And when they search your brand name, Google is showing them what it thinks is the most relevant and valuable. And that's exactly what Google is trying to do with all the other SERPs, so you can build up from that. And it's such an insight." How do you evaluate your brand SERP?Jason says the first step is to take a step back."You're not you when you're looking at your brand SERP. You're an independent analyst of your brand's digital echo system and your brand's content strategy, or you're a client, or a prospect, or a journalist, or an investor who is going to find out more about this brand, or looking to another gate to it."He says you have to become empathetic to all these different people who are searching for your brand. The Google brand SERP is the new business card.Marketers who aren't digital marketers get this immediately, whereas it ironically takes digital marketers a lot more time to cotton to the idea. "People like Blumenthal have been saying it's your home page for years. So I'm not coming out with anything new. It’s your business card if you're not a local business and it's your home page if you are a local business."He points out most people don't type in domain names. They type brand names into Google, then continue on to the site. "So it is the first impression that counts. Letting Google decide what Google shows on your brand SERP is like letting your mother decide what you're going to wear when you go to the really cool party. You walk into the room. Boom. In three seconds, everyone says he's been dressed by his mother, he looks like a complete plonker, we're not going to be his friend. It's going to take you years. If anyone's been to university here, it takes you years to get over it." Changing brand SERPsJason speaks of his friend, Andrea Volpini, who did an analysis of Jason's own brand SERPs and discussed it on Jason’s podcast."He did an analysis using machine learning," Jason says. "He's a really smart guy. He was working on relationships, entities, and semantics with the Italian parliament in 1998. He says he's not an SEO, he deals in databases and knowledge graphs. And now knowledge graphs are part of SEO."Barnard's Knowledge GraphVolpini wrote a machine learning script using Python."It summarized my brand SERP and it said: this is Jason Barnard. It gave a summary of what Google was saying I was. I looked at it and said: that's not quite right!"It was mentioning things Jason didn't necessarily want mentioned and was putting them in the wrong order. "I spent three days updating all the content I control on my brand SERP. And, if I may say so, that is all the content on my brand SERP, so I actually just changed everything and said: can you run it again three days later? Literally, three days later, the summary came up. It was absolutely perfect. Then he said: OK. Google is Jason Barnard's CMS."Jason says the only reason he was able to control his brand SERP to this extent was that he'd been working on it for years. He also speaks a little bit about what your SERPs tell you. "If you don't have a rubbish content marketing strategy, it's going to be blue links. If you've got a decent video strategy, videos. If you've got a decent Twitter strategy, Twitter. If you've got a decent social strategy it's going to be blue links to LinkedIn and Facebook, but that's still controlled content, which is great stuff. If you've got a great communication strategy about your entity, about who you are and what you do, you're going to get the knowledge panel. If you don't, you won't."He says that even if you have videos, for example, they might not show up on your SERPs. In that case: "Google hasn't seen the value these videos have for your users. If that’s the case you don't have video boxes. If it does bring value to users and Google has understood it does bring value to users, then you do have video boxes. So it's an incredibly quick, easy, cheap analysis of your content strategy. Lastly, it's an analysis of your brand's digital echo system. If you've got crap reviews on your first page, Google thinks they're important, they think they're valuable, it thinks they're representative. Don't just complain about it and try to drown them. Ask yourself why Google thinks it's representative. It might be an authoritative site. It might be that the overwhelming majority of reviews are negative, and you've been focusing on one platform and Google's saying: that isn't representative and we won't be showing it. So, we come back to that idea of: take a big step back."The difference between reputation management and brand SERP managementJason bristles, just a little, and in a friendly way, at the idea that brand SERPs and reputation management are the same thing. "A lot of reputation management is just getting rid of the dirt so we don't see it. I hear about it all the time and it frustrates me greatly."He doesn't like the notion that you can just "drown" bad SERPs results."We'll create new content and it'll rank? No, it won't. You're competing against content that has already been evaluated as valuable and as relevant. So you really have to up the game to create something that's going to beat that in Google now." He points out that Google has historical data. Drowning bad mentions doesn't work anymore. "Unless you're going to get an article in The New York Times or The Guardian or something obvious like that, you're unlikely to ever beat it. What you're going to do is create lots of guff. You're going to create spam. You're spamming Google. It isn't healthy, and it isn't helpful, and it isn't a good idea."He says what you need to do is leapfrog existing good content over those results, bit by bit, or add different kinds of content."When Google adds the knowledge graph, the video boxes, or the Twitter boxes, or another rich element, it often kills a blue link." He says the idea is to prove to Google that the bad link is not representative and not valuable to your audience. "Once Google gets rid of it, it's understood that is not relevant, that is not valuable. The other content you're promoting is valuable, is relevant, is representative. And at that point, Google's opinion of you is loads better than it was before you started."The intersection between brand SERPs and content strategyJason says he's not a content specialist, but he does touch on it a little. "All this content comes up on your brand, and your brand SERPs reflect whether or not you're doing it right on all these other platforms." He says it's not just your own site. It's YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, all the sites you put images on. "It's going to be Search Engine Journal. It's going to be whatever sites are relevant to your audience. And your content on those sites. It means, by definition, if you're going to have a great brand SERP then you're going to have a great content strategy that's off-site. And that on-site version of the content is an appropriation or working of the content that you initially created for the other platform." For help creating different kinds of rich content, take a look at Fanbooster, a Traject’s social media management software that lets you easily manage your social content in different places, and encourages you to tool your content on each site to a format that works best for it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhZSMZ4YtCk What’s your right now cause? Jason would just like listeners to focus on the principles of empathy. "All the situations in the world, it all comes down to empathy. Black Lives Matter. #MeToo. Even Covid. It comes down to: can I understand, or start to understand? Obviously, I can't understand other people's situations, but I can start to try to understand and have empathy for the people I'm faced with."He uses Covid as an example."Wearing a mask. If we can have empathy for the society that surrounds us, and we can work towards the idea that if I wear the mask, even if I don't agree, even if I'm not ill, it helps everybody feel better about all this, and it could potentially and probably will help to shorten the suffering, the whole situation we're all in from every point of view."Connect with Jason BarnardWant to get in touch with Jason? Just Google Jason Barnard. Or…. Website Podcast Twitter LinkedIn
27 minutes | 3 months ago
Selling Content Strategy as a Service with Nicole DeLeon
Nicole DeLeon is the founder of North Star Inbound, an award-winning content marketing company that's served companies such as Rent.com, Home Advisor, Apartment Guide, and Intuit, among many others. They're all about producing ethical content and using smart content strategy to help their clients meet their goals.If you've ever struggled to sell the strategy side of content as a service, you'll want to check out this podcast. You'll get an actionable birds-eye view into the way that North Star does it, one which might just spark some ideas of your own.The highlights: [1:19] What content strategy clients are looking for. [3:26] The discovery process. [6:47] Setting KPIs. [10:00] Guiding clients to success. [11:50] Roadblocks to risk. [13:07] Campaign success stories. [15:10] Incorporating search intent into content strategy. [21:33] Nicole's cause.  The insights: What are content strategy clients really looking for?Nicole says that her clients generally fall into two different buckets."Half our prospects have tried to do content marketing themselves, for instance, to grow their organic traffic, and for whatever reason, they're just not succeeding. So they might be successful with other channels, but there's this organic piece they just can't figure out. They're bringing us in to essentially redo everything from this point forward."She says that's a project her team really enjoys, because they essentially have an open field ahead of them, a chance to take something from zero and then to grow it into something big."The other bucket is companies that have just an overwhelming amount of content. They have internal teams they're engaging. Potentially even multiple other agencies for different niche things. They're bringing us in to supplement. We've got specific KPIs we need to hit, and they think we can do it. Those are typically the bigger brands we wind up working with." What's the discovery process like?Nicole says regardless of the type of client they're working with, understanding the brand is the essential "step 1." Yet she's not only talking about understanding the brand "voice." "Depending on the company their brand might be tightly controlled by different stakeholders, or it might be a little looser. If it's more loose, and you know we have an opportunity to come in and do some digital PR as part of the content strategy, we might have more freedom in the ideas we generate, and the client might be more receptive to trying different things."If the brand is looser, Nicole says they might not even know who they are in the marketplace yet. "So they're a little nervous about pushing the needle."She says part of the discovery process is all about asking, "What if?""What if we did this? Would you be comfortable with something like this?" She says some clients have to be nudged away from the basic (and ineffective) what are widget style posts just because they've always done that in the past. Nicole also talks a little bit about working on the discovery process with far more sophisticated clients."They've seen the examples. They totally get it. They feel like they're in a place where they're ready to dictate to you. Look, we saw this campaign you did, we thought it was really effective, and we want you to do the exact same thing for us." She speaks of developing a "theory of the case." Asking questions to get to where the client wants to be. "We have to figure out if we can get there for this client because that's what they wanted. After we earn their trust we might be able to do some other things if we think those other things might be better for them and their long-term goals." Setting KPIsSome clients come into Nicole's projects knowing exactly what KPIs they want to use to measure the success of their campaign. "Obviously, we want to be driving business goals. Always. But we are sometimes approached to go build a certain number of links in a given amount of time. We're increasingly trying to push against that idea. We're very well-versed in link building, we love links, we think links are very important, we don't think they're going away anytime soon, but if that's the only thing you're measuring against I think that becomes an issue."She says if she can, she prefers to get clients behind the idea that they need to be building content that people are going to want to link to on a regular basis. "Then rinse and repeat that strategy. Learn through that strategy." She says it's also important to speak to clients about how it's important to be willing to let marketing campaigns fail."We will take responsibility for a failed campaign of course, but it is part of the learning process. We are a creative agency. So we will make good, but if we're always just measuring a campaign by the number of links it gets, we're robbing ourselves of potentially more relevant links. If the goal is number of links the only thing I'm going to create for you is the sauciest stuff that's going to be covered by radio shows everywhere. We can totally do that. But maybe it's a better idea for your brand to be noticed by people that talk about your industry as well." Guiding clients to successHere, Nicole revisits the topic of gently guiding clients towards ideas that might help them succeed."If I see something that might be good, or if I see somebody doing a strategy that's pretty interesting, and I've got a client in another vertical, I'm like: ooh, can I do something like that with this other client? I just present people with ideas."She says they'll either go for them...or they won't. When they don't? She says she's not shy about gently revisiting the idea two or three months down the line."I'll say, let's take another look at this. I know we're all busy, but let's take another look at these metrics. Let's pull up Ahrefs, let's look at what this content looks like. Let's look at what it might look like for you."Roadblocks to riskWhy does it take clients so long to get on board when the data clearly supports the idea that a different direction might create better results?"Usually our clients answer to somebody else that they can't always control. There's an internal bureaucracy they have to deal with, and that in turn, we have to deal with. We also try to help them deal with it. Even if you're dealing with the VP of Global SEO. If there's a merger they can't do stuff, right?"There are always realities, Nicole says, that constrain people from being able to do whatever they want all the time. Yet Nicole stresses she's also had plenty of instances where clients have essentially said, "Knock yourself out," when she's presented them with some "crazy idea." There's never any harm in giving it a try! Campaign success storiesNicole speaks of a survey they did in 2019 where they asked people to react to logos. "We used political logos. Because at that time, all the Democrats were coming out onto the field, and they all had logos at the same time. So you had this opportunity to take logos that mostly didn't have a lot of history attached to them. We showed people the logos and the slogans. We also allowed people to just free comment.""They were saying Bernie's looked like the Aquafresh logo. People were saying really crazy, outlandish things. It wound up being a lot of fun, and it got covered by industry people that cover branding and logos. Fast Company It was good. It got covered by a lot of the people we were hoping it would get covered by. It was actually the first time we did the open comment thing. We didn't know we were going to get funny stuff, and we got funny stuff."She said one thing they learned from this was that they were capable of writing surveys that people really enjoyed taking, surveys people didn't just rush through. "I think if the survey had been really boring, nobody would have left any amusing open comments."Incorporating search intent into content strategyNicole says she spends a lot of time thinking about how complicated search intent can really be."We interact with Google, and then Google interacts with us."She gives the example: basketball shoes. Right now, you mostly get eCommerce sites for basketball shoes.Yet in the past, you might have gotten anything from how to buy the best basketball shoes to what the best basketball shoes are for women."As Google has experimented on searches it's figured out what we want, but has also changed the way we interact. Fewer of us put just basketball shoes into Google. More of us now ask these long questions. So now it's kind of a living system, where we train the algorithm and the algorithm trains us."Nicole says she's been thinking about using this understanding to think about planning content for the future of changing search intent. "If search intent is always changing, or if the way that Google understands search intent is changing, and if the way we understand search is changing as humans, how do I plan for a page that's going to win today and tomorrow?"She says one way she addresses this is to plan for more than one page that might win that query. "What are the best basketball shoes for women? What are the best basketball shoes for people with high arches? What's missing? Sometimes the contrarian view ends up slicing through the SERP: why basketball shoes are actually no good for basketball!"What is your right now cause?Nicole has just one cause."If you are in the United States and you have not voted, please go in person to the polls to vote. And if you are outside of the United States, please get involved in your democracies. Democracies around the world need our participation in order to thrive."Connect with Nicole DeLeonWant more insights from Nicole?  Website Twitter LinkedIn
23 minutes | 3 months ago
Critical Project Management Decisions for Agency Owners with Ben Aston
Ben Aston is a serial entrepreneur with plenty of project management chops. For one thing, he's used The Digital Project Manager to provide mountains of information to people on this very important, very useful subject. He's also the founder of Black & White Zebra, a digital media publishing company based in Vancouver that runs a community for project managers and digital marketers. Project management can be the bane of many an agency. Figuring out how to get a handle on it so that all client work gets delivered and delivered well can be a challenge. If you've been struggling to find a system that works well for your company, then tune in to today's podcast. The highlights: [1:40] Why Ben built The Digital Project Manager. [2:42] Skills for effective project management. [4:03] The right time to bring on a project manager to your agency. [6:48] Choosing the appropriate project management styles. [9:36] The benefits of choosing a niche. [11:07] A common project management mistake. [16:20] Community building.  [20:23] Ben's cause.   The insights:Why Ben built The Digital Project ManagerBen built The Digital Project Manager because he, himself, struggled when he first started working as a Digital Project Manager. "As a relatively new profession in the digital world, project management was probably one of the last things that everyone cottoned on that they needed."The Digital Project Manager includes training, blog posts, How-To Guides, classes, a podcast, and more."When I first started as a digital project manager I was actually called a Producer," Ben remembers. "And I came from the world of account management. I was told, hey, this Producer role is kind of the same thing. It turns out it's not the same thing at all, so my first day in digital project management was a very painful one. In fact, the first few years of my career as a digital project manager were pretty painful."So? Ben decided to spare others that pain."I thought: now that I've begun to learn some things, I want to share this knowledge and share that with other people." Skills for effective project managementBen says there are a mix of skills that are required to be good at digital project management. "There are account management skills, in that we're trying to understand a client, their brand, and their strategic objectives, but when I think about digital project management, it's all about delivering better."When Ben says "delivering better" he means improving the way that agencies deliver value."The way that we deliver better value is in shorter cycles, for less money, with a better quality of product."Ben urges project managers to always be thinking about how they can improve the value the agency is delivering for the client so that the agency gets to retain that relationship. "We're not just selling stuff because we can, but we're also being good guardians of people's time, resources, and money so they're more effective at what they're trying to do, too."The right time to bring on a project managerIt can be difficult for a growing agency to try to figure out when it's time to bring in a project manager. Ben has a few thoughts."Once you get past that five-people kind of stage, I think we start having some challenges with the role of new business and managing those projects effectively. The CEO or the founder will start selling in projects, and they're not actually managing the delivery of them. I would say between five and ten people, it's really worth thinking about."Hiring a dedicated project manager at that stage allows the agency to be consistent in the way they deliver to clients.It also helps agencies estimate projects better, helps them manage clients better, and helps them grow. "Rather than saying 'yes', all the time, to clients, which we're often tempted to do, we begin to understand: can we deliver things? We begin to understand how much things should cost. We begin to define, a bit more, what's in scope and what's out of scope. As we begin to do that, we become more effective at delivering, and we become that much more profitable too."Navigating project management styles for your agencyBen says you should adopt the project management style that provides the most predictability. Agencies who are very specialized at certain things and who have "productized" their service offering might do well with a Kanban-style approach. "What we have is a factory, and we're producing things. There's a backlog of things we're trying to get through and we're trying to minimize the amount of things we have going on at the same time, so we increase the throughput." "Where the objectives are a bit more ambiguous, when there's a bit of uncertainty about what we're delivering, or understand why we're delivering but we're not sure what the actual outputs could be, there's a more sprint-based approach using an agile methodology to iterate on something over time."Ben stresses this depends on what the client is, and what their needs are. "When there are lots of stakeholders involved, and they want to know exactly how much things are going to cost, a waterfall approach might make a lot of sense." For a discussion of Agile methodologies vs. waterfall methodologies, check out this blog post from The Digital Project Manager. "It depends on the client. It depends on their budget. How much they want to be involved in the project. Their appetite for risk. How certain the project. Whether or not we know what we're trying to deliver or not."A project-based management style for early-stage agenciesBen stresses that having to try to choose these project management methodologies on a case-by-case basis isn't exactly what he'd call an ideal scenario."The ideal scenario is you decide as an agency: this is what we do. And yeah. We have a productized service offering."He recommends niching down so you can optimize your process better. "This is where you start generating efficiencies. As you're pivoting your approach on a case-by-case basis, that's an expensive thing to do. Trying to educate your team on that is very, very difficult." Common project management mistakesTime...and a failure to track it. "Culturally, it feels like [tracking time] is [tracking] the wrong metric."He notes that small agencies, especially, feel like it should be about the quality of the work, not how many hours people work. Yet it's not about evaluating employees based on the time something takes."It's about having data. In order for us to create accurate estimates, and deploy our team effectively, we need to know how long things take. We can't know how long they take unless we analyze that data, and we need the data to be able to analyze it."This allows you to begin creating estimates by looking at projects you've done in the past. "We need to understand which phase of the project got delivered on budget and what went over. We need to ask ourselves why that was."Ben says that tracking time, and doing it accurately across different parts of the process, is fundamental. "We'll find often, with these time tracking tools, it's linked with resourcing. How we deploy the resources is really important. And then tasks. Who is doing what?"Ben points out there are some all-in-one tools that do everything for you, including invoices and estimates, but they rely on time data. He also notes it's important to find tools that integrate well, that have good APIs with other commonly-used tools. "You can create the toolkit that works for you. Then you can throw data around from different places." Digital community building - the challenges and valueHere, Garrett asked Ben to pivot a moment, and to talk about Black and White Zebra: specifically, Ben's work in building it into a community. Ben admits that community is "a really tricky nut to crack."It's also a powerful nut."If you can crack community, then you can do a lot of interesting things with that community."Ben says marketers often make mistakes while trying to build them, though. "We try doing things for a community instead of things with that community. I think we create this community, and we expect people to engage in it, but then we don't actually engage them in the process enough. We don't work with them to identify their needs and make sure we're meeting them."Ben says the advantage of doing it this way is that it becomes less necessary to be the expert in everything there."Instead, let's engage the community with that, and get the breadth and the depth of experience that comes from working with a whole bunch of other people, rather than just a really small group."Black and White Zebra currently has over 3,000 members. Ben says that organic interaction had to be engineered. "Asking people, hey, do you mind just responding to that? Do you mind offering your opinion on that? You can just @people, include them in the conversation. 'Love to hear your insights on that.' I think that comes from knowing the community and asking those people to engage." What’s your right now cause?The Digital Project Manager offers scholarships, and Ben is excited about using them to help people succeed in the world of Digital Project Management. "We're trying to help people get connected, to get skilled, to get better at delivering projects, and to get more confident about it as well."They've launched scholarships with not-for-profits, for under-represented groups, for new grads, and for veterans."We just want to help more people succeed. That's what gets us out of bed. We offer scholarships for the digital project management school to enable people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it, to give them the opportunity to get better at management projects. It's a growing industry. There are stacks of jobs. Get skilled, get connected, get confident, and start doing it."Connect with Ben AstonWant more insights from Ben?  Website LinkedIn Twitter
27 minutes | 3 months ago
Prepping Local SEO For the Holidays with Kanika Thakran
Prepping Local SEO For the Holidays with Kanika ThakranThe holiday season is here, and with it, challenges for local businesses. Kanika Thakran, former SEO Director with Milestone Internet Marketer, has tons of actionable local SEO advice for this season.This holiday season is unique for local businesses due to the pandemic. Kanika provides a slew of actionable ideas that both reflect the foundational local tactics you should always include and 2020 specific suggestions that will help you stand out this year when it’s more important than ever.Gear up, strap in, and prepare because this is the information you need if you're going to help your clients compete.The highlights: [1:56] Four areas of focus. [15:43] A two-fold strategy for leveraging reviews. [18:33] Inspiration for the upcoming season. [23:14] Kanika's causes. The insights:Four areas of focus for Local SEO holiday preparationsRight now, all holiday preparations are happening in the context of the pandemic. Kanika notes that this has hastened the pace of some changes, but certain things remain the same. To get the most out of your Local SEO holiday prep, she urges marketers to focus their attention on four distinct parts of the process. #1 - The basics"When I look at the basics, I'm talking about your technicals." What does she mean by technicals?"You've got to have a good, strong, technical website. It should load fast, be secure, be mobile friendly. All those good things still matter. Your content needs to be unique. It can't be the same content you used last year, or what your competitors are doing. Schemas. Structured data is super important. All of these things still matter. You've got to do all these things straight in order to have a minimum benchmark to compete for this holiday season."When she speaks of basics, she's also speaking of off-page basics like your GMB page. At the recent Whitespark Local SEO Summit, one of the topics covered there were local search ranking factors and the role that a strong GMB plays in helping SMBs stay visible.Kanika stresses that one should pay attention to citations, whether or not their importance has reduced as a ranking factor. She also points to industry directories, like TripAdvisor for hotels, as another basic that must be addressed. #2 - User behavior "It could be temporary, but this holiday season we're seeing really visible changes."What changes? First and foremost, whether or not customers feel safe. To demonstrate this change, Kanika points to Mike Blumenthal's post: How One Business Made a Mess of Masking. Image courtesy of GatherUp.Kanika mentioned how Google has launched safety attributes on GMB.In addition to things like 'in-store shopping' or 'curbside pickup,' businesses can choose attributes like "Masks required for customers or staff," "temperature checks required for customers or staff," or "appointments or reservations required." Kanika urges marketers to ensure these attributes are in place."All of this will set the stage for our customers willing to open up and transact with you from a health and safety standpoint."She also recommends paying attention to recent reviews, to see if there are any themes of people not feeling safe or secure while doing business with your company. #3 - AwarenessThis holiday season marketers will need to be hyper-aware of what their customers are going through. "A lot of people lost jobs during 2020, due to Covid. A lot of budget cuts were done. We're dealing with customers who are going to be very price sensitive." She notes that the keyword best affordable has really picked up. "That indicates when we are putting our holiday bundles or deals together we have to keep in mind that affordability would be a factor that would play heavily on the customer's mind. No matter where we're promoting our offers or campaigns, you have to make sure the price point really stands out."She says not every brand has to compete on price, but "keep an awareness of where your customer is coming from." Another thing to keep in mind is that we've all lived through a period of stock shortages. Nobody has forgotten the toilet paper."The 2020 experience may have them more scared. We'll see a trend of early holiday shopping." She recommends talking about stocking situations and shipping policies. "Google supports shipping schemas now. If you have free shipping I would really leverage the new schema markup on products so people really know what can be expected when they're buying. What shipping times and what costs they can expect." She says you can do a great deal of this by using Google Merchant Center.#4 - Align with values2020s upheavals haven't just centered around the pandemic. They've centered around social justice, too. Kanika says you can turn this to your advantage."Support for local businesses. Support for businesses where my values align with what that business has to offer. If you're a woman-led business, or a veteran-owned business, or a black-owned business, please make sure you are telling the world. You are going to find customers who are going to pay extra to do business with you. That connection you build through these values is going to be way stronger than coming down on price points or free shipping or whatnot." A two-fold strategy for leveraging reviewsReviews can be insanely useful for holiday local SEO. Kanika suggests a two-fold strategy."If you're not asking for reviews, educate your staff, and have a proper way of collecting reviews. If you don't have a way, find a way now, before it's too late."If you're already collecting reviews?"[Know that] responding to reviews is just one piece of the puzzle. Are you actually analyzing what is coming across? What is the sentiment that is being shared by users online?"She says she believes a lot of companies really miss that sentiment analysis portion of the exercise. "When I say analysis: users have positively shared something over and over again as a sentiment? Make sure your holiday strategy has that reflection in it. Your content strategy is driven from those review sentiments." When you find negative sentiment, Kanika says you have to do something about it."Take a step internally. Find the stakeholders. Or the department where the problem is coming from. Really take it on, because one department could impact the whole experience with the customer and the revenue of the company." Inspiration for the upcoming seasonKanika speaks of an Indian brand whose values align with hers. "They're into health and nutrition. They're driven from Ayurveda. I practice yoga. I am into Ayurveda. They're saying to come up with a hashtag and share selfies on Instagram and social media, along with a good picture of you. They're going really bold with their female audience to say: this holiday season we really want you to shine through your inner beauty." She also brought up REI's campaign #OptOutside."They said this is what they believe in. They took that messaging and they literally went: people are going for this consumerism, but on that biggest day we will take a different approach. That's how you pay attention, take a bolder step, and differentiate yourself."She says this year she hasn't seen any other holiday ads or themes that have excited her, but she's continuing to watch."For all types of business, think about the basic solution you're providing through your product, what problem you're solving for the user, and try to develop an emotional connection if you can." What’s your right now cause?Kanika's cause of choice is education, specifically, Teach For India. "You can donate, or you can go and help them as a teacher. You can help teach underprivileged kids." It's a cause that her relatives are involved in, and one that's very near and dear to her heart.Connect with Kanika ThakranWant to get more of Kanika's insights?  LinkedIn Email: kanikathakran@gmail.com
27 minutes | 3 months ago
Tool Building for Data-Driven Agencies with Eugene Levin
It's hard to be in the digital marketing world without hearing about SEMrush, the all-in-one marketing toolkit for SEO, PPC, social media, content marketing, and marketing research. It's one of the most powerful MarTech tools available to agencies today. Eugene Levin is the Chief Strategy Officer at SEMrush. As one might expect, he's an expert in all things digital marketing. Today, Garrett asked him some questions about what SEMrush is doing to further develop their tool for agency clients, as well as what his perspective is vis a vis solving some of the common problems that agencies share.The highlights: [1:25] Why SEMrush is starting to focus more on agency audiences. [4:27] How agencies are using SEMrush. [5:47] A shift in agency focus.  [7:59] The SEMrush Agency Kit. [10:26] The challenges faced by agencies, and how SEMrush has helped to solve them. [13:56] SEMrush's long term goals.  [21:48] Eugene's causes.  The insights:Why SEMrush is starting to focus more on agency audiencesIn the past, SEMrush offered basically the same product to business clients and to agencies. Yet they soon realized there were problems with that approach."These two groups have different problems," Eugene explains."For example, if I'm an in-house team, I'm focused only on getting traffic and ranking higher for keywords. I would probably be interested in many other channels beyond SEO. A frequent use-case we see in the in-house world is that small company has maybe one or two marketers and they just do everything."By "everything" Eugene means everything from email marketing to offline marketing and office management.As for agencies?"Agencies focus on specific areas of marketing. They use product nudges to provide services, but also to sell. So a lot of our features used during prospecting, during lead generation, will be part of the functionality that in-house teams don't really need, but which is really valuable for agencies."Eugene also points out that agencies treat reporting very differently than in-house teams do. Agencies have to demonstrate their ROI. How agencies are using SEMrushGarrett pointed out how SEMrush has recently linked up with Google Data Studio. In fact, SEMrush just put out a webinar called "From Zero to Data Studio Hero" that can show you exactly how to up your reporting game.https://youtu.be/KEYBrtk8r-8 Eugene says that agencies are really appreciating the ability to benefit from this reporting."I would say in-house teams would probably benefit from products like Google Data Studio as well, but they don't need to manage complex reporting for many different entities, and that's where Google Data Studios is extremely helpful." He says the only downside is these features are only released on higher plans. "But we're thinking about how to make it more accessible for a broader audience."A shift in agency focusEugene has seen an interesting shift in the agency world. "We definitely see more and more people going into SEO, like agencies that focused on content marketing previously."He says that many of these agencies have learned they have to be successful with SEO if they want to be successful in content marketing. He's also seeing a lot of social media agencies that are making the jump."Primarily because the organic reach for social media is not what it used to be six or seven years ago. If they want to justify their fees, they need to drive traffic. The best way to do this right now is from SEO. So they started to learn how to build content and strategy that will address both social media and search aspects simultaneously."He's even seeing traditional PPC agencies make a move to SEO. "Previously people who started reselling AdWords and building their service around AdWords are now offering SEO as an upsell or cross-sell."Eugene says that while some of this movement has been happening among larger agencies for a very long time, they are starting to see the same movement happening at the boutique agency level. It's certainly a trend worth watching and worth considering if your agency does not offer SEO. The upcoming SEMrush agency kitSEMrush is working on a new Agency Kit, and Garrett asked Eugene to talk a little bit more about that.First, Eugene talked about an older project. "We launched our academy roughly four years ago. It's been super successful. We helped many people be better in terms of marketing. To get better jobs. To have career progression."Yet that academy was aimed at individual marketers, rather than agencies."We've always felt agencies already know everything." That even if they created good content, agencies would not use it. "We've found it's really hard to build really good courses for agencies."Yet they tried it anyway."We found really experienced people and partnered with them. We're going to release a couple of new courses specifically for agencies very soon. If it works, we'll probably continue to expand our agency education materials, focusing less on marketing, and more on how to generate leads, how to build relationships with clients."You can essentially never be too good at these two skills. He says he himself certainly has experience in these areas, but "I would still take courses that tell me how to sell better." They already help agencies generate leads by offering a widget they can implement on their website which allows them to start offering free site audits to their clients. "Almost all agencies will provide some sort of free audit, but if you add friction like: someone needs to leave an email, this delay causes many people to drop out of the funnel."He gives another example. "Sales presentations. A lot of people struggle to build compelling sales presentations. We are building tools that will automate this process. What we've discovered works for a very compelling pitch is specific highlights about what competitors are doing that prospective clients are not doing. By showing them: hey, this is an opportunity, our agency can help you leverage this opportunity, agencies get a higher probability of closing deals."Solutions for common agency challenges"Our main goal," Eugene says, "is to make agencies successful."Yet SEO, for the average agency, has the most churn. "We're working on helping them prove they're achieving good results."The product in question is Impact Hero. "It's in a very early stage right now, so we're just working with a handful of early customers, but the idea is to find out what specific parts of content generate the most value. We focus on showing value relative to the stage of the funnel. The big problem that people face with content creation is that if you want to achieve a lot on a sort of last-click attribution basis then you just create tons of content for the bottom of the funnel and you pray customers will hit this content before they convert."He says it looks good on paper, but that at some point there are only so many customers that will reach the bottom of the funnel."So you should be building the top of the funnel as well.Some people have a different problem because they use first-click attribution. They focus on the top of the funnel, and because of it, they generate tons of traffic that doesn't convert. And yet again, you have an unhappy customer."Eugene says they advocate a balanced methodology. "It's very easy to do this with conversion rate optimization. Many are marketing things. Figuring out the right landing page or title for an email, it works perfectly. Yet it was not always applicable to the SEO space."He says they've only started seeing potential solutions for this problem very recently."Now we're building split testing for SEO. It works very differently from conversion rate optimization products in the way that instead of having two versions of the same page, A/B versions, you split the website into two buckets. This is my Group A. This is my Group B. You implement specific changes only on one of those groups, then you measure the test group vs. the control group." He says the results of early tests have been very positive, though so far it only works for websites with a certain amount of traffic and similar types of pages. Either way, the end goal remains the same."To help agencies show results and to prove that they're bringing value."What’s your right now cause?Using SEMrush can help you support a wide variety of causes, because every time an SEMrush employee makes a donation, SEMrush also makes a donation to the same organization. "Whatever our employees want to support, we will increase our donation amount. I think this is the best way, empowering employees, instead of me or our CEO making decisions about who to support. We trust our colleagues know better and they'll make the right decisions."They've supported many causes this way.Eugene himself is passionate about children's cancer research. He has an eye for causes that don't necessarily get a lot of attention. "We're lucky children's cancer doesn't touch too many people, but we as a society also haven't solved the problem because we don't pay enough attention. Every child who dies of cancer is a tragedy."Connect with Eugene LevinWant more from Eugene? Website LinkedIn
34 minutes | 3 months ago
Local Marketing for Global Brands with Brad Fagan
Brad Fagan is the Senior Insights Marketing Analyst at Uberall. Uberall helps global brands strengthen their "nearby" brand presence. They've worked with the likes of McDonald’s, DHL, Shell, Pizza Hut, BP, and dozens of other companies that have local businesses and franchises spread all over the world. Recently, Brad put out a report called Creating a Successful Global Local Brand. This caught Garrett's attention, so he brought him in to talk a little more about the report and the strategy in general.  He also happens to be a colleague of recently hired local search expert, Krystal Taing whom we interviewed on the podcast as well.The highlights: [1:34] Overview of the Global Local Brand report from Uberall. [4:49] How business size impacts the power of listings and reputation management. [8:12] How agencies can help clients with reputation management. [12:23] Hands-on agency reputation management vs. client education.  [17:42] Frameworks for success.  [26:26] What the data has to say about citations.  [29:16] Brad's causes.  The insights:Overview of the Global Local Brand reportBrad says Creating a Successful Global Local Brand is a synthesis of months of work that consisted of over 20 interviews with marketing experts, heads of process management, heads of digital, and all sorts of different departments, including brand heads. Most of these were Uberall customers. Some were agency partners in the US."We talked about how they tackled the challenge of helping their enterprise customers. It's very representative of a lot of different ideas and thoughts. It's obviously, like the name suggests, leading towards the global brand analysis."What did they find?"Marketers generally don't know how to build a successful local strategy for their large multi-location brands, so we looked for solutions."They jump in quickly with those solutions."Like first, getting your data accuracy right across all your locations, and what that means. For instance, McDonald’s Germany looked at getting their opening hours correct because they don't really want someone standing outside their McDonald’s at 4:00 in the morning being really angry at them because they're closed when their GMB says they're open." The second part?"Reviews and social media. Local social media. How do large global brands manage their individual social media and reviews? That's basically, in a nutshell, what it's about." How business size impacts the power of listings and reputation management"We've done several studies doing enterprise vs. SMBs. It's harder for large enterprise to manage their data accuracy and their reviews as well." It's also a challenge for large companies to reply to reviews. "In the UK only 0.2% were being replied to by global brands. In the US it was more along the lines of 20% or even close to 30%." Brad says the innovations of the last decade have really given SMBs an edge in competing against large enterprises. "We've done these studies that look at whether citations are still important, and we've looked at that against your typical enterprise brand. And we see for instance that if an enterprise brand has all its location data accurate and consistent across all these directories they actually get a big bump in visibility and engagement and then the SMB, if they're applying, has a smaller engagement factor."If they're on the main ones (Facebook, GMB, Apple Maps, Bings) they do get bumps in visibility. "If they're applying to reviews they do get more engagement. You're not just replying to that one person. You're replying to every single other person that comes there and wonders: why doesn't this business in this location that's near me, why haven't they replied to this customer that has a complaint that maybe I care about? And that's really important as well for everybody that comes after." How agencies can help clients with reputation managementWhat should an agency do if a customer comes and asks them how to get better reviews? Brad says he gets this question all the time."This is something I've actually traditionally had a really tough time answering myself," He mentions he was on call recently with a gym chain in the UK whose owner was getting bad reviews, and who wanted to impact them in a positive way. "You're saying all the same stuff. If you have all the contact details you can approach the ones that have already been leaving positive reviews. You can go to them directly with some messaging saying: hey, you gave us really positive reviews, seems like we're doing a really good job. Would you like to give us one more review over here?" He looks both at the global reviews and the local reviews."Looking at these, there's actually very different problems they have at the brand level. We've got this email that was asking for money, it's during Covid, and it's putting this really bad stress, and you guys are doing a really bad thing. At the location level, it was this personal trainer or this direct point of contact being very rude."Brad's advice?"We can do everything on a location platform to help you solicit these. We can put it here. What Uberall does is [allow you to] consolidate all your reviews. You can look at them, you can reply to them."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BliBKNaT6DM"Replying to reviews is great. Offering solutions to the problem is great."Of course, there are caveats."If you don't actually change the service at the location it doesn't mean anything. So what we tell them is, yeah, we can provide the technology, and we can provide the digital expertise, but you have to actually provide a good service at the location, at the point of sale, or at the point of interaction with your customers."He says Covid has caused a lot of people to get a lot savvier about the relationship between the digital world and the offline world. Ultimately, there has to be some mechanism for getting problems fixed."If you're an agency, if you're replying to the reviews, at least pass it along to the in-store person who is actually managing the day-to-day, the consistent problems the clients or customers are having, so the location manager knows in order to change it. It's no good just replying to all these reviews. You actually have to have that aligned with the in-store experience." He also recommends that enterprises allow their location manager to read and reply to reviews. "The reason why is they can not only promise to solve the problem, but they can actually deliver on it. It can be the same person that actually says to the customer: I'm really sorry you had that experience. I'm willing to do this for you. Come to me the next time you're in the store. That's what the local approach and local feel is for people. They want to know the person who is actually listening is going to be the person that at the end of the day is delivering the solution to the problem."He warns against using cookie-cutter, stock answer replies."It has to be something deep, nuanced, contextual."He says if the responses are nuanced and contextual, customers will often give the business another chance.He also notes you should remember you're not just replying to the one customer. "You're replying to everyone who's coming after. They can see the personality of the local business based on those replies." Online reviews and SERPsBrad also points out that reviews are having a huge impact on SERPs."If I type in: cocktails in San Francisco? What actually pops up is a list of GMB profiles that actually have the reviews most relevant to my search. Then they all say involved best service, best whatever. So then you can use reviews in a multitude of different ways."He says this information can help you get buy-in from the location managers so they actually prioritize reviews."Prove the value of the initiative. Why our reviews are valuable. Why our citations and listings are valuable. They're foundational. Reviews are becoming more important to SERPs, Google is using them to provide more trust factors, using them in more interesting and thoughtful ways to provide context on the business." Frameworks for success with global, local marketingBrad helped to create a model for success. The first step in that model? "Communication flows. From the top down: global, regional, local level, then from local to regional to global. How you organize that. The stakeholders you get involved."The second point is the MarTech solutions you use for that."What's the tech stack look like? What's it actually doing? Are you using it? It's a very simple thought in the report, but two or three of the main contributors basically said: either you do it or you don't do it. Don't utilize 10%, use it 100%. If you're going to choose a tool, use the tool."He says that sourcing the right technologies is also key."And that technology is a single source of truth. For instance, this is a communication between empowering the location manager or owner to actually you know use a system or a technology to actually update their local information quickly within ten minutes.For example, as McDonald's Germany said, they needed an in-house tool where they could do daily updates of all 1500 store locations across Germany. This required empowering their location managers a little bit because they know their store better than anyone. They know what changes are happening quicker than anyone. Obviously, as an agency, you can get that information too."The party platform at Uberall spreads that information across over 130 plus different directories, search engines, and review sites. Are local citations still valuable?Brad went to the data to answer that question once and for all."We've done two different studies on that now. The first one was 1500 locations and the second one is going to be broader. So first of all we did a study last year, a Boston study, where we analyzed 73,000 locations in the Boston metro area. All we wanted to know was: do they have accurate citations on just 3 platforms: Google, Bing, and Yelp. We found that only 4% of the locations we analyzed had complete and accurate listings on just those three platforms."Did it matter? "We took out a section of 15,000 locations and we looked at the 105 least accurate of locations vs. the 10% most accurate. A very broad-spectrum analysis. What we saw as when we manage visibility across that, the likelihood of showing up in the 3-pack and the number of impressions you get. The top 10% most accurate and consistent locations had 18 times the visibility that the bottom 10% had. This is at least a high-level proof that there is some correlation." He says you don't need hundreds of citations though. The data shows there's a "sweet spot," something between 30 to 39 directories. Brad says they haven't found which 30 to 39 matter the most yet. He does mention that Apple Maps is a lot more important than people are giving it credit for being. He says service categories do matter as much as NAP information. "What are your products and services? What categories are you in? What do you actually provide? There's one customer we have that's a petrol station. When you're searching gas stations, gas station near me? Do they come up if you search a car wash name? Do they come up if you search coffee or groceries? They do all these things as well. It's about structuring services and products as well as having that traditional foundational NAP." What’s your right now cause?Brad has two causes. The first is Amnesty International. "I think human rights are a big deal at the moment. I think everyone should think about the work they do, not just in the US but abroad, but definitely with Covid trying to help out some of the poorest people in a lot of countries." The second is a documentary that Brad is working on that he's only now researching, on dating apps."Women are very vulnerable on these dating apps. We need to be more educated on the impact of sexual assault and sexual violence perpetrated online as well as offline. I know many women who have been a victim of this. Educate yourself, pay attention, and try ones giving power to the female aspect of things."Bumble is one app that Brad sites as a good example. It allows the woman to be the one to make contact and prevents men from doing so until the woman reaches out. "It's not a universal solution to these types of problems, but it's a cultural issue, it's an educational issue for a lot of men, also a lot of women."Connect with Brad FaganWant to get more insights from Brad?  Website LinkedIn Twitter Email: bradley.fagan@uberall.com. 
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