Agency Ahead by Traject
Garrett Sussman
Subscribe
Want to grow your digital marketing agency? Discover what marketing strategies are working for the leading agencies, marketing experts, and business consultants. Learn how to lead your marketing agency, inspire your employees, and make your clients happy. Join host Garrett Sussman as he talks digital marketing with a variety of marketing experts about how they're navigating an uncertain world, adjusting their services for their clients, and improving their own businesses by better preparing them for the future. Find out how you can offer SEO, Social Media Management, Reputation Management, Customer Experience, Digital Business Consulting, and more to boost your revenue. Please subscribe to the Agency Ahead podcast today!
Available episodes
Newest first
Oldest first
May 24, 2021
Developing Marketing Expertise and a Personal Brand with Dave Gerhardt
Dave Gerhardt is an expert's expert.
He's the author of Conversational Marketing: How the World's Fastest Growing Companies Use Chatbots to Generate Leads 24/7/365. He's the CMO at Privy, a leader in eCommerce marketing for small businesses and entrepreneurs. He's the former VP of Marketing at Drift, a Conversational Marketing platform that combines chat, email, video, and automation to make it easier for customers to buy by helping them start the conversations they want to start on their terms.
Dave even has his own marketing community, DGMG, a place where you can "get the marketing education you never got in school," a podcast, and a community where B2B marketers join forces to learn from one another.
He's the guy who genuinely loves everything marketing, and so has found multiple ways to have fun doing it.
He's also focused on the metrics that matter most to CEOs, namely, the amount of revenue that a marketer can generate for a company.
If you're ready for some down-to-earth, no-nonsense insights on how you can improve your performance, you won't want to miss this one.
The highlights:
* [2:07] Dealing with imposter syndrome.
* [5:46] Getting it all done.
* [7:52] Evolutions in Dave's marketing philosophy.
* [13:08] Why you don't have to prove the ROI of every last marketing activity.
* [19:41] Branding strategies.
* [21:17] Branding an individual vs. branding the agency.
* [26:44] Dave's cause.
The insights:
Dealing with imposter syndrome
If there's one thing you learn while interviewing some of the smartest marketers in the world – very few of them are immune to imposter syndrome. Some only face it at the beginning of their journeys. Some continue to grapple with it even while they're standing in front of live audiences at some of the biggest events in the world.
Dave's no exception.
"It's exhausting, at times, worrying about or thinking about whether someone's going to react the wrong way or be mad about what you've posted. I don't like that headspace sometimes."
Dave admits that imposter syndrome has plagued him from the beginning.
"I remember being at Constant Contact. I was 24 years old. It was when I really got into startups and being part of the startup community.
I graduated college with no clue about real marketing, or what to do. I just got a degree because I needed to graduate. I got into internet marketing and social media.
I saw a lot of people in that industry had blogs about: hey, here's what I'm doing. I wanted that. I wanted a public forum to share what I was doing."
He scratched his initial itch with a podcast called Tech in Boston in 2014.
"I wasn't even working in marketing. I was an account manager at the time. I started this podcast where I interviewed local CEOs in Boston. That's where I started to build my brand."
Dave stresses that he doesn't feel like he did anything special.
"I was literally the only person who had a podcast about startups in Boston. That got me meetings with top CEOs and top VCs, and you know, once you get in that loop a little bit you can say: wow, that was a great interview, who else do you know that I should talk to, and all the sudden you're connected to someone else."
From there, he went on to Hubspot, where he created The Growth Show.
He wasn't even a full-time marketing person until he went to Drift.
"When I got to Drift they said: we're going to see how this goes, Unknown Guy, go ahead and do your thing."
No pressure, Dave.
"So I got to get our website out for the first time. Launch the blog. Launch the podcast, do paid advertising, do SEO, do AdWords, do events. I literally got to do all those things for the first time, myself. I think that was a great benefit to the company to have an earlier person, early in their career to grow, and that kind of built from there.
At Drift, I got to do marketing to marketing people, as a result of that I didn't have a personal thing because I was sharing to the world through Drift."
Bottom line? If you're grappling with imposter syndrome? Keep putting yourself out there. It will pay off. It's just a feeling! If Dave, of all people, still feels it, it's not going away, so you might as well get out there and rock the world.
Getting it all done
Let's take a moment to marvel at Dave's prolific productivity. How does he get it all done?
Dave successfully adjusted to the Covid-19 crisis.
"Right now I can use my time how I need. I can run down to my office on Saturday at 1:00 AM because I had an idea. I do not think this would have been at all possible before being unchained from the whole cubical life."
He contrasts it by noting that he used to spend up to 10 hours a day at the office.
"You're just there. You gotta do whatever's there. You're asking me how I'm able to do DGMG now? Well, I'm also able to pick up and drop off my kids now. Not that I do that every day. Go for a walk every day outside. Work out every day. This is one of many benefits I'm seeing from being fortunate enough to be able to work from home."
Evolutions in Dave's marketing philosophy
Garrett asked Dave how his philosophy has evolved between working for Drift and working for Privy.
"Drift is more of a mid-market enterprise type of sales motion. That requires a different type of marketing and demand gen. Privy is really focused on small eCommerce businesses. It's more of a channel distribution strategy. We get over 10,000 trials every month from the Shopify app store. That is the #1 source for lead gen.
We gotta do things on top of that but it's a little bit of a different strategy. It's almost like eCommerce in that sense where it's very high-volume. Sales reps at Privy are closing 20-50 deals in a good month because the price is much lower."
He says there are things you have to figure out within each company.
"Even a company similar to Privy doing a very similar thing might have a completely unique motion."
He says nevertheless, his broader marketing philosophy has changed over the years.
He compares his evolution to becoming a parent.
"When you're growing up you don't understand why your parents make you do certain things. Now that I have two kids, I wanna call my Mom and say: sorry. I totally get it."
He says that he's now had to be responsible for managing teams. Hiring. Firing.
"I've had to do challenging things at work. I've had no budget and everyone's burnt out on the team. You learn. You start to have some guardrails around marketing."
His biggest guardrails?
"Marketing exists to generate revenue, period."
He says he often wants to go back and talk to himself 5 years ago.
"When I was a holier-than-thou marketer saying just do the things customers love! That is bullshit. That is not how it works. You can do some of that. You've got to do things customers love. 100%. But talk to any CEO, any founder, any board, any shareholder. The number one goal of marketing is to drive revenue.
You can do that in a way that also builds brand, builds your reputation, creates raving, loyal fans. That's the rub. That's why it's the fun job. I'm not saying go buy a list and blast everyone and that's how you're going to generate the revenue.
I think you need to build a revenue function and a brand function at the same time."
Do you have to prove the ROI of every last marketing step you take?
ROI and proving the value of various marketing strategies is something marketers talk about a lot. Often, we get focused on proving the ROI of everything we do. Dave questions whether this is necessary.
"You have to be able to articulate the why, and the story. Why do we have...?
Well, I believe your brand is your reputation and the way you build your reputation through brand is through content. That's how we figure out who's trustworthy. So we're going to invest in our blog for that reason. In a year from now, we have 50,000 visitors to our blog. That's going to mean X."
Dave admits this isn't the "What's the direct ROI of the content marketer y…
playlist_add
May 21, 2021
Selling and Prospecting for Agency Owners and Consultants with Brooklin Nash
Sales, sales prospecting, and outreach. They’re always tricky. Agencies and consultancies rely on them, especially in the early stages of their business, but trying to figure out how to make these activities effective is a constant uphill battle. In addition, it's difficult to get it right without coming across as too salesy, and in a way that gets the right value in front of the right people at the right time.
Meet Brooklin Nash, the Head of Content at Sales Hacker. Sales Hacker is a website that offers discussions, articles, podcasts, videos, and sales training. It's a community that is "100% geared to helping salespeople gain new skills or improve their game."
If you're running an agency, are a freelancer, or are part of an agency sales team, that means you. So don't miss today's podcast. Sales are integral to agency success and Brooklin has some great insights from his experience and community.
The highlights:
* [1:35] The importance of researching your prospects, and what you're looking for.
* [4:46] The right amount of time to spend on research.
* [8:20] Where a cold email strategy starts to go off the rails.
* [10:30] Good strategy for cold emails.
* [12:06] How Sales Hacker approaches content.
* [14:01] The most successful pieces at Sales Hacker.
* [15:28] Traffic sources.
* [17:56] Favorite sales outreach tools.
* [21:07] Brooklin's causes.
The insights:
The importance of researching prospects, and how to do it
Brooklin stresses that anyone engaging in the sales process should spend a lot more time on research than they probably would otherwise think to.
"Don't just do a light search on LinkedIn Sales Navigator, pull up a list, and then reach out to blast the whole list. Taking time to really qualify who you're reaching out to and why will be time well-spent before you ever send your first email."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIf3xD0mlQQ
As for what you're looking for when you do all this research?
"One, you're looking for a company matching your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). If most of your clients are of a certain size and in a specific niche, start there."
The other thing you're looking for is a signal that they might be ready for help with their marketing.
"They have a new Director of Marketing or a VP, and the new executive came from a place where they ran a strong content marketing presence the new company doesn't have, for example."
Brooklin says hiring can be another signal.
"If they're hiring for their marketing team, there's a good chance they're going to be looking for external help too. They might not just be hiring those content marketing managers. They may be looking for contractors and agencies to actually execute on the work. You can look for those signals pretty easily with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and build your list from there."
Finally, Brooklin says you're looking for information that can help you with your outreach efforts.
"A podcast they just did. An article they just published. A question they asked. Something that puts the value first and the content first. Instead of: hey, you're in marketing. We're a marketing agency. Can we help you out? Start with where they're at, first."
The right amount of time to spend on research
When we already have so many demands on our time, all this research can feel like a lot of wasted effort. So how much time is optimum for making the process work?
Brooklin admits it’s hard to quantify.
"It's going to depend on how much you're reaching out. But unless you're a giant agency, you're going to be better served reaching out to ten dream clients than even a few hundred clients that maybe don't fit your ICP or who might be harder to work with or might be past your niche a little bit.
So take the time to focus on the right prospective clients and I think you're going to have better conversations down the line."
Brooklin has spent up to 30 minutes on an email in the past.
"Quite a bit of time from a cold outreach perspective, but it paid off. We were only looking for a handful of new clients, so it didn't matter that it didn't scale well."
He has also tried other strategies where he sent out hundreds of emails and tried to automate the process.
"I spent a couple of hours and only used intent data. When I sent hundreds I got a 15% reply rate. Only one of them became a client."
Where a cold email strategy starts to go off the rails
"The number one place a cold email strategy goes off the rails is when you make it about you vs. them. And that's something you can scale. Not as well as those hyper-personalized emails that take 20-30 minutes. You can take the time to make it about what their problem is, and then as the footnote what your potential solution is."
Brooklin stresses that you really can't make it about what an amazing agency you are.
"It's: hey. I noticed you were working on this. Or you started this campaign. Or you just started this new job. How's that going? Make it about them first.
This is essentially Sales 101, but I think content marketers often forget that, whether they're reaching out for new clients as a freelancer or as a small agency, or even reaching out for backlinks and earned media spots."
Good strategy for cold emails
"I think mentioning a specific piece of content will always work well.
Saying: I checked out this article and really loved this piece of it. Or: I heard your podcast interview on this. Or even from a brand perspective: I saw your LinkedIn ads for your brand and they look great, I like this about them.
Anything that makes it legit I think will at least get you an open and probably a response."
And if you do send cold emails like this to thirty people?
"I think you will at least get an open and probably a response, vs. a generic: ‘I checked out your blog and I loved the quality of your articles’ line to 300 people.
You might not even get 30 replies. It's not the number of people you reach out to. It's taking the time to engage with what they're putting out and taking the time to ask how you can help them."
How Sales Hacker approaches content
Sales Hacker is a content-heavy site. Here's how they approach building out their content.
"We run almost entirely off contributors. Our webinars are from panelists. Most of our articles are from contributing authors. We have our podcast guests. We have a lot of opportunities to work with partners. Sometimes paid partners. Most of the time, just organic, relationship-based partnerships."
He says there's a lot in common with accepting content for his site and the kind of cold outreach salespeople might need to do.
"If you're taking the time to really look through what our guidelines are and you have a specific question or a specific point or a specific topic that meets those guidelines, then you're going to get a reply.
I'm never not going to reply to you, even if the specific topic isn't a great fit. If you're putting in the thought that shows me we can go back and forth and land on something, great.
If you're reaching out, it's very obviously cut and pasted, that's not personalization. That hurts your case. You're not getting a reply because I know they're going to 300 other people. I'm not going to put in the work to reply to you if you're not going to put in the work to start this partnership off on the right foot."
The most successful pieces at Sales Hacker
Brooklin says the most successful pieces of content on his site are detailed, action-oriented, and offer either a template or a visual framework, things people can apply directly and right away.
Here's a list of the most successful pieces on his site.
* How to Become a VP of Sales by the Time You’re 30
* A Guide to Building Better Sales Decks
* Why You Should Throw Your Sales Playbook in the Trash (And What to Use Instead)
* The Scientific Approach To Setting Sales Goals For Your SDR Team
* How to Stay Motivated in Sales
* What Not to Do in B2B Sales — 7 Signs You’r…
playlist_add
May 14, 2021
The Secret Digital Marketing Life of Franchises with Neel Parekh
Ever wondered how your agency can start working with franchises? For many agencies, they're practically a "holy grail" client. Want the insider take on what it would require to impress someone who runs one?
Well, listen to today's podcast and you'll get your wish. Today we're talking with Neel Parekh, Founder and CEO of MaidThis, a residential and Airbnb cleaning franchise that is rapidly expanding across the U.S.
MaidThis is a tech-savvy up-and-comer that leverages every available digital technique to win and to help their franchisees win. That means Neel is also well-versed in the digital marketing world and has plenty of insights for agency owners and consultants.
Check it out now:
The highlights:
* [1:02] The business model.
* [2:15] Why franchise?
* [3:52] How MaidThis approaches digital marketing.
* [6:11] Educating franchisees.
* [10:46] The best way to get your foot in the door.
* [16:20] The best franchises to target.
* [19:05] Growing a remote culture.
* [20:46] Neel's cause.
The insights:
The MaidThis business model
The MaidThis business model is fairly straightforward. It's a cleaning company that allows customers to schedule weekly, biweekly, or monthly cleanings through their website. Everything is automated.
The other niche is Airbnb cleaning for vacation rentals, which brings its own unique challenges.
"One guest checks in at 11, the next guest checks in at 3. There's a bunch of stuff which has to happen between them, like checking for damages, replacing supplies, things like that. So we just link up with the host's calendar and automatically schedule cleaning after the turn-around."
Neel says he really likes approaching this business in what he calls a "new age way."
"As opposed to the old-school cleaning model where you get an estimate, you don't really know if they're going to show up or not, and you have no phone notifications."
Why franchise?
Neel says franchising was a really big decision for his company.
He offers some background.
"I started the company in 2013. I did a couple of years part-time when I was working in finance. Eventually, I wanted to travel. So I left for five years before Covid, just traveling the world. That's why I made the business remote. Because I had to."
At MaidThis, the only people who don't work remotely are the cleaners.
"In 2020, we decided we wanted to expand. The question was: how do we do that?
Do we do it ourselves, or do we do it with a franchise model?
A franchise model can expand more rapidly because you can multiply your efforts. We had the system set up in such a way because I was working remotely. We had to be highly, highly systemized to make it work. So it was very conducive to the franchise model."
He says this approach is giving him a huge boost over other cleaning companies.
"I love that a lot of other cleaning companies in the franchise space are from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, so their digital marketing is not the best.
The way they're targeting customer interaction with the crowd they're targeting is not the best. That was the reason we decided franchising was the way to expand. And so we launched in late 2020, at the height of the pandemic.
We awarded our first franchise in Denver in late 2020 and are just going to keep going from there."
How MaidThis approaches digital marketing
Neel says he really loves local marketing, and that love is helping him dominate the competition.
"I think cleaning companies are two years behind the curve in terms of marketing and digital marketing. They're late with everything. As long as you're on pace with the way digital marketing is going, you're already ahead of the competition.
It's not that hard in my opinion to beat most of the competition just by doing base, foundational stuff. A lot of local companies don't know what they're doing. If you're a marketer and you know what you're doing, you're ahead of the competition."
Neel says it's critical for the success of his franchisees.
"Having an optimized website. Doing email capture. Actually doing email marketing. You'd be surprised. Most local companies don't do it. 45% of local companies don't even have a website."
This is one area where Neel offers his franchisees a great deal of support.
"We provide the actual playbook of what can work. Here's how you set up a profile. Here's the ad copy you can use for your AdWords.
It would be on the franchisee and maybe an approved vendor of ours to actually get that done. A lot of stuff is proven out."
He says that there are a lot of changes from market to market that are good to be aware of.
"For example in Los Angeles, Yelp is huge. Yelp is huge in California. In the midwest, it's not that big. They like Angi. We don't want to force what's happening in their local market."
Educating Franchisees
Neel educates each of his franchisees from day one and focuses on two key areas of digital marketing.
The first is filling the funnel through SEO and email marketing.
"Afterwards, the number one key for us is Google reviews. I don't care where in the country you are, Google is key. We have a lot of tools to help the franchisee get reviews, and we provide them like, hey, here's the copy you can use, here's the system you can use to follow up with customers."
Neel's franchisees do manage themselves in terms of replying to reviews, but they've systemized them in a way that automatically gets them notified to leave a review on Google.
"I don't think a lot of local companies realize how important Google reviews are. It's a highly competitive market. Local companies don't know what they're doing though, so if you have good Google reviews you're just going to dominate."
Neel says he does a ton of handholding.
"We marry our success with how well franchisees are doing. So digital marketing evolves rapidly. There's stuff we do for them. There's stuff we're in charge of doing.
The cool part is I still run our corporate locations in California. So we're testing new marketing tactics always. We want to be the most high-tech new-age marketing tactic company in the cleaning industry.
Because we're able to test that out we can then roll it out to the franchisees. And the cool part is, after a while, when you have enough franchisees, one location where it's working really well, we can say: here's the playbook, and we can distribute that to everyone.
It's a hivemind."
Neel offers an example from the Denver location.
"They started using Bark, a quoting engine. For them, it's working very well. They figured out how to systemize it. So now, I can say great. I can bring that to Los Angeles.
At the same time, we just rolled out a new reputation management system. Now we're going to roll that out to Denver. We know that works and how to systemize it. You don't have to spend two budgets on tweaking. One company could just test things out and then just share the knowledge and the resources with other companies.
That hivemind mentality is going to allow us to leapfrog our competition, because it's unfair, right? You just have 50 cleaning companies in theory in the future, working on marketing. They can all test out different tactics and roll it out instantly to anyone else."
The best way to get your foot in the door
After giving this background, Neel and Garrett pivoted to talking about how agencies who are seeking to do business with franchises can win.
"Think about it this way. I am like the Mama Bear for our franchisees. I'm not going to give them something which is not proven out because that makes me look bad.
If you said: hey, I'd be willing to test this out on your operations, and then if you like it you can add me as a preferred vendor so your franchisees can use them? I'd say: great, as long as I'm not forcing my franchisees to use you because I'm not sure how you're going to be doing.
We can test this out. If you're trying to approach a franchise, you go to the corporation and say: let me prove myself first. If you…
playlist_add
May 7, 2021
The Beauty of Meeting Governance with Hiba Amin
Do you hate meetings? Are you frustrated by how much time they seem to waste?
If so, then this is one of the most important episodes you'll listen to this year. We're about to fix your meetings for you.
Or rather, Hiba Amin is. She's the Sr. Marketing Manager at Soapbox. Soapbox is an "app built for managers," designed to "streamline objectives, meetings, and morale into one workflow that gets you results."
Meetings are hard to get right but so essential to making the most of your day-to-day, because they’re necessary. Hiba shares concrete steps you can take to transform the nature of your meetings moving forward. Take the steps she suggests, and you'll master your meetings, ending frustration, saving time, and getting critical time back every week.
The highlights:
* [1:38] Hiba's philosophy on meetings.
* [2:48] Crafting meetings that are worth having.
* [6:16] The efficient way to plan and prep for meetings.
* [8:25] The power of ten reclaimed minutes.
* [10:38] The place where most internal meetings go wrong.
* [13:37] The most effective way to organize an agency-client meeting.
* [16:08] Etiquette for meeting follow-up.
* [17:50] Iterating on your company's meeting structure.
* [19:55] Creating meeting management templates.
* [22:27] Hiba's cause.
The insights:
A meeting philosophy to live by
Hiba's meeting philosophy is pretty straightforward.
"If there's no point or goal to the meeting, don't have it!"
Hiba doesn't have more than 4 internal meetings per week, because she doesn't need more. That number can vary by company or team size, of course, but the point here is to be lean with your meeting planning.
"If it's a status update, add it in Slack. Add it in email. Or just add an item to your agenda and tackle it asynchronously. But don't have a meeting for the sake of having a meeting."
Crafting meetings that are worth having
Hiba notes there are four types of internal meetings to address here.
* 1:1 meetings.
* Team meetings.
* Company meetings.
* One-off meetings.
Crafting a meeting worth having means matching the activity of the meeting to the meeting type.
"For one-on-ones, the whole point is for managers and employees to continuously exchange feedback, to talk about their growth, to find different levers to engage their team, to talk about blockers, to use it as a coaching session."
She says you can really accomplish a great deal in a one-on-one.
"The baseline is just to build trust, to exchange feedback, and continue to build so much rapport that the feedback exchange becomes easy and natural, which I think is really important between managers and employees."
Next, Hiba addresses team meetings.
"Team meetings are to keep your team in sync. Let's talk about the blockers, but I also want to make sure you're not just waiting until a team meeting to talk about a blocker, either."
A blocker is anything that keeps someone from achieving a goal or completing a project.
"Don't wait two weeks, if that's the [meeting] cadence, to say: I'm actually stuck on this one project. You could have solved that two weeks ago. The team meetings just really keep the team in sync.
Talk about goals. Make sure you're aligned. Make sure that you know you have all the steps in place to be able to hit your goals and not wait until the end of the quarter to say: oh crap. Didn't hit that goal. Don't do a retrospective of the past three months. Do the retro for two weeks. Fix your problems."
What about company-wide meetings?
"At least at Soapbox, they're really short. We have a 15-minute company-wide meeting every Monday. That's ultimately walking through our goals, giving everyone visibility into things like our MRR, weekly sign-ups, all those things that are the core metrics we measure and track. We do this every week because it gives us 52 chances to correct the ship.
If we release a payment modal and our sign-up numbers from free-to-paid go down, we know so we can revert that change and not wait 3 weeks to say: holy crap, we lost 20 potential customers as a result of this change. We can do that immediately in the following week."
Finally, one-off meetings.
"Things are going to happen. You're going to have to meet about making specific decisions. Maybe you want to launch a campaign and you need to have all the stakeholders in there. I think the important thing there is, again, what's your goal? What do you want to accomplish?
Go in with an agenda, give everyone access to that agenda. Then they can just come in prepared to talk about all the items that matter. And that will help you not stray off."
She even suggests appointing someone to keep each meeting on track, a role she calls the Accountability Officer.
"Someone to say: hey ya’ll. Let's get back to the meat of the conversation. This is straying really far off.
This prevents the types of meetings we all hate, the ones where everyone spends 20 minutes talking about nothing."
The efficient way to plan and prep for meetings
So how much time should you spend planning and preparing for meetings?
"I think I'm biased because I'm at Soapbox. But I think having a template to work off of really helps with the pre-work."
Part of Hiba's job is building an agenda templates library to make sure that her company and its customers have the tools it needs to handle meeting prep in an efficient fashion.
"To have something to start off. To be able to see: these are the things great teams cover in a project kickoff meeting. Let's alter it to fit our teams the best."
Putting it together in advance, and giving everyone access to the agenda, really enables people to potentially make some decisions asynchronously, just by adding comments to things you want to touch.
"I think the prep should fall under the person who ultimately owns the meeting, but at the same time making that agenda collaborative and accessible really helps specific people say: hey, I've got all I need from this. Just send me the notes for whatever you decide. I don't need to be part of this."
That allows someone on the team to save maybe a half-hour, or an hour, or whatever the meeting length is, but there are other benefits.
"You can tackle things asynchronously together. That way, when you meet, what would have been a 30-minute meeting, maybe half that agenda you don't need to talk about anymore. It's resolved. At the heart of all of this is collaboration. And not feeling like you have to meet for the allotted time."
At Soapbox, many meetings never go over the allotted time.
"We all end up getting that sweet ten minutes back, which is incredible."
The power of ten reclaimed minutes
Garrett asked Hiba what she generally does with her sweet ten minutes.
"Typically, grab a coffee, collect my thoughts. Get a 5-minute task done."
She says the return of that ten minutes really started keeping her productive.
"There are so many little tasks you commit to that are maybe worth five or ten minutes of time commitment. And you just fire them off. By the end of the week, you're like: I have so much done." That's a really cool feeling. It's almost Inbox Zero. (Almost)."
The place where most internal meetings go wrong
Hiba stresses that meetings start to go wrong when they do not have an agenda. Even for one-on-one meetings.
"You want to be friends with your co-workers and have great relationships, so it's really easy to take what someone is saying and then turn it into a side conversation.
That just continues to grow with everyone. But you have time to do that. You can set up a coffee chat or whatever, just to get to know people better, build those relationships, and maintain them."
But when you're meeting for a specific purpose, a meeting agenda really helps.
"It holds people accountable within those meetings."
She points out it's a profitability issue as well.
"We have 5 people here? That's a really expensive use of company time. That's a lot of people's salary, especially for se…
playlist_add
May 3, 2021
Local SEO White Labeling with Dani Owens
It's not uncommon for agencies to overlook a potential source of clients: other agencies.
Yet Dani Owens has cracked this code. She's the founder and owner of Pigzilla, and some of her biggest clients are fellow marketers: people who use her white label local SEO services to get the job done.
She also offers a variety of consulting and training services to SMBs, which offers them a more affordable local SEO option than simply paying a consultancy many hundreds of dollars per month.
It's a model that shows all of us that there's more than one way to, uh, bring home the bacon!
So tune into today's podcast and learn about a different way to structure your agency.
The highlights:
* [1:43] What local SEO training looks like.
* [3:39] Businesses more likely to DIY vs. businesses more likely to hire a consultant.
* [5:53] Cautions for DIYers.
* [7:56] A great way to warn clients that Google's a fickle beast.
* [8:43] What white labeling SEO services look like.
* [9:57] Setting up a business arrangement with another agency.
* [12:35] Trends, and predictions for the rest of 2021.
* [15:06] Creating white label reports.
* [18:00] Shout-outs.
* [20:18] Dani's cause.
The insights:
What does Local SEO training look like?
Dani admits that Local SEO training is a challenge.
"There are so many different tools and methods for completing certain SEO tasks. So trying to get that documentation together can be challenging. Local SEO training could include videos, walkthroughs, and of course, SOPs."
She has put together a local SEO training database that stores all of her training documents in one place.
"It comes with a timeline so you can work through the tasks that need to be worked on. It's not super simple."
Of course, the big challenge for many local business owners is they have to focus on actually running the business.
"For them to start trying to become an SEO is a totally different discipline. It's similar to learning another trade. For them, I think it's challenging because they have to decide. Do I want to become an SEO expert? Or do I want to hire someone to take care of that?"
In spite of the fact that training is a major part of Dani's business model, she nevertheless believes it makes more sense for most SMBs to hire an SEO to take care of the work unless they are someone who is very interested in learning SEO for its own sake.
Which businesses are more likely to DIY?
The SMBs who take the most advantage of Dani's training services tend to be smaller businesses.
"They want to get the work done, but they don't have the budget for it. Local SEO is expensive."
She says there are a few things that can help SMBs keep their costs down.
"Clients can start collecting their own reviews. Sending out emails or asking people they've serviced to go ahead and leave them reviews using tools like GatherUp or Grade.us. They can write their own blog posts because they're experts in what they do. If they just created one blog post a month about a topic they get questions on, that helps."
Dani notes that SMBs can often even do their own basic link building.
"Maybe they have a partnership with a company. They could simply ask: hey, would you mind linking to my website, or putting a badge on your site saying we're partners? Those are practical things that the small businesses can do that don't require a bunch of SEO knowledge."
Of course, there are pitfalls.
"With GMB, you know the categories that are assigned to the listing are super important. Just shuffling those around could have large impacts.
Somebody could go into a GMB listing just to optimize it and maybe they destroy the rankings it has, or they're thinking they're going to put a keyword into the business name, which could get them suspended.
They can definitely damage their SEO efforts by not knowing the full story before they start working on things."
A great way to warn clients: Google's a fickle beast!
One challenge local SEOs often face is that when Google starts suspending listings or changing their algorithms, clients get impacted, and they get upset. This was especially prevalent during the pandemic where Google limited its support staff, ensuring it takes longer than ever to get help.
"It also seems like listings are getting suspended much more easily just for making simple edits to the listings. It takes a little while to get reinstated."
Instead of trying to crack the code on turning Google into a helpful entity, Dani worked on finding a way to help her clients understand that this is all part of the process.
"I love to set the expectations. I want people to have realistic ideas of what's going to happen. Because otherwise, it just leads them to disappointment and frustration.
I do like to tell them that SEO is optimizing the best we can for the search engine. The search engine is in control of everything. They're going to be deciding where and when to show your website.
The expectations are super important to me."
What white labeling SEO services look like
Dani offers several options to agencies that would like to partner with her.
"It's either a full white label program where I've mapped out all the processes and have checklists or I just sometimes subcontract if there are more customizations that are needed. Some SEO companies will already have their processes in place, and they just need some kind of support staff."
Why did Dani choose to white label?
"I started Pigzilla in 2014. After some time, I started realizing my natural fit is more on the implementation side than on the client-side. It was about finding a natural fit for me, with low stress. For me, this has been really good. I really enjoy it. The agencies I white label for, they do a good job of managing the clients, and I do a good job managing the work."
Setting up a business arrangement with another agency
Most agencies find Dani through referrals, though she is starting to get leads from people who are Googling "white label SEO services." Others find her by coming across one of her SEO training articles.
As for setting up the contract?
"The subcontracting is just an hourly rate. [I work] wherever they need me. Whatever I can do, I hop in there. It comes down to keyword research, full website audits, technical audits, on-page implementation, keyword research, GMB management, content requirements, link building, citations. All of it."
She also gets some clients who need help with every aspect of SEO.
"Then it's a specific outline program. We're going to do all these audits, we're going to have these conversations, we're going to schedule the work, we're going to double-check the work, we're going to have monthly reports with some analysis or insights, and then the agency I'm sending the information to can now go to the client with that and give an update on what's going on."
Trends and predictions for the rest of 2021
Dani says that she feels like the pandemic has really helped most businesses understand that they really do need to have an online presence.
After the initial panic period from SMBs in March of 2020, Dani started to see an uptick in people saying: "We need to get this SEO stuff under control, because we need to be able to sell online, or have people contact us, and alter the way we do our business."
In Dani's eyes, the future of SEO is looking bright:
"I see the future of SEO as being probably something we've all wanted: people (the general population) caring about it!"
Creating white label reports
Dani's principle for creating any report for any client is the KISS principle.
"The client's going to care about their conversions. Overall, their organic traffic. So I try to keep the reports simple so they don't distract the clients reading them or cause panic for no reason."
She gives an example of what might cause one of those panics.
"We've all had this happen. Keyword XYZ has dropped to this position. It's not anything to be concerned about."…
playlist_add
Apr 26, 2021
Making an Impact On Local SEO for Clients with Levi Williams-Clucas
Want insights from someone who is crushing it in the Local SEO game? Meet Levi Williams-Clucas, SEO specialist at StrategiQ, an award-winning full-service agency in Suffolk.
This agency works with a huge variety of both local and national businesses and has produced some incredible results.
Levi has excellent insights to share. If you love everything local and are ready to nerd out a little bit, tune in to today's episode! New Local SEOs, in particular, might really love the insight at 13:44, where Levi shares the amount of time it takes to get results for clients.
The highlights:
* [1:34] Levi's biggest GMB challenges.
* [3:48] Review recommendations.
* [5:55] Getting reviews in industries that face review-generation challenges.
* [9:04] Local keyword research and strategy.
* [13:44] The amount of time it takes to make an impact with local SEO.
* [17:00] Insider tricks that can generate excellent results.
* [20:23] The one feature GMB is lacking.
* [23:11] Levi's opinion on whether pay-to-play is in Google's future.
* [26:18] Levi's cause.
The insights:
Levi's Biggest Google My Business Challenges
"Support."
Levi says that the support Google has been offering is pretty non-existent.
"It's not their priority because it's a free service. They've had all their staff working from home. There are reasons behind it, but it's been frustrating."
She says the other major challenge is client-based.
"Getting clients to really embrace reviews. I think a lot of people really underestimate the value of reviews. It's something I'm really passionate about. I talk about it all the time. I tell my clients: please, get more reviews. You have to push. You have to ask for them."
Recommendations for Review Generation Strategy
Garrett asked what Levi's recommendations to her clients were in regards to generating reviews.
"The first thing I always say is: are you actually doing a job that's worth the review? Assess what you're doing. Are you doing a 5-star job? If you're not, make sure you are before asking for nice reviews. If you're asking for reviews, people are going to be honest."
As for generating more reviews?
"We find the most success in email campaigns, in general: emailing existing customers, generally loyal customers, people who tend to come back a lot. Just after the purchase, right after they've got that really nice serotonin boost from making a purchase. Automated, if you can."
Levi says they use a script that sends people to all the different review platforms so they get a nice spread against all the different ones the client uses.
She again stresses the need to ask.
"Just say to people, look, if you had a good time today, if you think we did a good job, please leave a review. The number of people who will do it, just because you ask nicely!"
Getting Reviews in Industries that Face Review-Generation Challenges
The industry that Levi has seen struggle the most with review generation is the medical and pharmaceutical industry.
"Obviously there's a lot of sensitive stuff that goes on in that industry, a lot of stuff you can't just talk about."
She says that finance tends to have the same sort of problem.
"Some people don't want to talk about the companies they work with, even if they've done a fantastic job."
B2B also struggles, but Levi has solutions.
"Don't go to the business owner. Don't go to the company as a whole and ask for a review. Go to the individuals.
The actual people that are either in the company you've serviced, the individuals that have experienced the service, perhaps one step down, not directly dealt with you, felt the benefit of the company they've worked with.
That's the sort of person you want to target for reviews."
She also has solutions, in general, for all industries that struggle to get reviews. She tells them to stress the fact that customers don't have to get into the gory details of the service or product they received.
"All they need to say is the company is worth contacting or worth working with. Sometimes you don't have to say that, you can just leave a star rating, do it under a pseudonym, whatever works."
Certainly in other industries, we've spent some time going over how one might get meatier, more useful reviews. But if you're working with an industry where you're struggling to get them at all? The focus is probably going to have to be on getting a good star rating and a few words in the review text, rather than getting an in-depth review.
Take a look at competitor reviews and see what might be reasonable for you to expect.
Local Keyword Research and Strategy
Levi warns that Local SEO in particular may need to approach keyword research a little differently, thanks to regional differences in how people might say different terms.
Here in the United States, for example, we might say "cat door." In the UK, they say "cat flap." We might say we want someone to install it, they would say "fit me a."
She urges Local SEOs to layer keyword research with actually performing the searches in the local areas.
"It's one of the things that makes local underestimated. You don't understand how much manual work goes into local, especially keyword research. Getting it right you can see those map pack listings come up. It's such a buzz when you get it right and it works."
The Amount of Time it Takes to Make an Impact with Local SEO
One thing that's nice about Local SEO? It can take less time to generate results.
"Usually we start to see it in a couple of weeks. Thankfully that's normally the case. It's taken 3 or 4 months in the past, but it has [also] taken two or three days in the past. There's so much variation."
This is even true for clients who didn't already have a great deal of local visibility!
Insider Tricks that Can Generate Excellent Results
When asked about insider tricks, Levi spoke about trust signals.
"You would not believe how much reputation makes a difference. People really think all SEO is, is pushing things in a specific way for an algorithm. But it's really not like that anymore, especially in local."
In local, Levi says:
"It almost is like Google literally is a person and is looking for the thing. It can tell if your reputation is rubbish and you're making it up. Not having any reviews is a tell-tale sign of that. And they just won't trust you. It's all about trust."
She also stresses that Local SEO is about a lot more than GMB.
"It's not. We know well enough now it's about pages on-site. It's about reviews. It's about consistency. It's about creating an online entity."
The One Feature Google My Business is Lacking
Levi says she'd really like Google My Business (GMB) to update some of their features regarding open hours.
"I know a lot of people who can't display what times their classes are, or what times their opening hours are, if you've got more then two sets of opening hours. For example independent fitness classes or training courses that might differ to office hours. There's no good way to do it aside from putting it in posts or putting them in the description."
A lot of businesses do offer classes and variable hours, so it would be a useful feature.
Levi's Opinion on Whether Pay-to-Play is In Google's Future
It's probably one of the great anxieties of the local SEO world, that Google will transform GMB into a pay-to-play platform.
Levi doesn't think it will be an issue.
"It defeats the point of Google in general. If you're doing it so that the more people pay, the higher up they go, then it just doesn't function the way Google should. People will notice that and move elsewhere and use something else."
She also worries the move would kill lots of small, local businesses. "I think there would be too much uproar over it."
Which led to a mention of competitors showing up in the GMB listing.
Levi admitted this move made her uneasy.
"I get it. I understand it from Google's point of view. Trying to provide everything to the users. But at the sam…
playlist_add
Apr 23, 2021
Getting Meta: Marketing the Marketing Agency with Amanda Milligan
Amanda Milligan is the Marketing Director at Fractl. She writes tons of guest posts and tackles the "meta" job of marketing the marketing agency. Fractl itself is a content marketing and growth marketing agency. In 2019, it was named one of the Top Content Marketing agencies by Clutch.
Amanda also hosts a podcast, called Cashing in on Content Marketing. Its tagline is "Get the buy-in and budget you deserve." It's all about proving the ROI of your content marketing work, a skill every content marketer needs to get and keep clients, or to get what they need to create the kinds of content that perform.
Today, though, she and Garrett get into the nuts and bolts of her daily job, which is marketing the marketing agency.
Often, marketing agencies let their own marketing fall by the wayside while spending all their time servicing clients. Fractl is a rare agency that has a dedicated person devoted to making sure their name continues to get out there.
So tune in! You'll walk away with some insights about how to keep your own agency in the spotlight.
The highlights:
* [1:15] Amanda's role at Fractl.
* [3:06] Amanda's approach to content marketing for her agency.
* [5:25] Where to focus agency marketing efforts.
* [6:31] Prioritizing and scheduling tasks.
* [10:03] Integrating marketing with sales.
* [14:42] Maturing content to appeal to the right leads.
* [16:33] How Covid impacted client relationships at Fractl.
* [18:47] Predictions about the future of content.
* [21:28] Amanda's cause.
The insights:
Amanda's Role at Fractl
Amanda's career path offers new marketers some tantalizing glimpses of what a marketing career on an upward trajectory might look like.
"I've been with Fractl for six and a half years. I've done a lot of different things there. I was hired initially to do copywriting and copyediting. Then I was doing the projects themselves. We call that creative strategy at Fractl, which are basically the people putting these content packages together. They oversee the creative direction. I was doing that, mixed with a little project management. Then I was doing account strategy. I was basically the point of contact for our clients managing overall engagements."
Now?
"Now I have the meta job of marketing a marketing agency, which is just as fun. It's separate from the client work, but it's actually getting to talk about all the other stuff at Fractl I know so well and explain how it can be valuable to businesses. I've been in this role for two years, all those guest posts are part of that, and it's been a blast."
Amanda's Approach to Content Marketing for Her Agency
As mentioned (and as known, sheepishly, by agencies everywhere), agencies in general struggle to market themselves. Amanda has an approach that works, however.
One part of that approach is to avoid over-planning.
"Sometimes we have these grand plans like: we're going to plan out the year! It never goes that way."
Amanda says you should expect to have to recalibrate every few months.
Other than that, you have to do the same things for your agency that you do for your clients.
"We create, for our clients, these data journalism and content projects, then pitching those through digital PR to the media. We do the same thing for Fractl. I've been involved with initiatives like that while dabbling in these authoritative ways to continue.
That's an authoritative play as well, link building projects, the podcasting, the guest posting on Moz and TechCrunch. People just see your brand being mentioned. We dabble in a lot of different things, and then over time, we measure. You have to have different goals for everything, and not expect conversions every time an episode goes live."
Where to Focus Agency Marketing Efforts
Amanda says she really focuses on the top of the funnel.
"We really focus on inbound. We're really just honing: okay, what is really helpful for people, what's working, what's getting them engaged, what's the next thing we can provide to help them?"
She says this year she's been focusing on on-site content.
"We hadn't put a lot of time on it in the past. We've had some great things in the past, but it's not as optimized as it could be, it's not as updated as it could be. That's been really fun to focus on."
Amanda says she enjoys watching the leads come in. She likes seeing what kinds of questions the clients are asking so she can create new content pieces that answer those questions.
Prioritizing and Scheduling Tasks
Day-to-day prioritization is another challenge most marketers are familiar with.
Here's what Amanda's been doing with her days.
"I'm getting a little more involved in sales. I'm really excited about that because I think we're all aware of how tied [sales and marketing] are. Now that I'm taking these initial calls and vetting leads, I'm hearing people explain why they reached out and what their problems are."
This lets her know more about their ideal clients, how sales help them through those initial conversations, and how those conversations can continue to align, as well as the ways they can continue to use them in more of their marketing.
"Then there's maintenance things, like the podcast, which goes live once a week. We have to have guests on our roster, do the interviews, and have all that lined up. That's always a slot of my week. Then guest posting for Moz I tend to do once a month. TechCrunch I've slowed down on, I was able to do that once or twice a month."
She says she often tries to work with her creative flows, rather than against them.
"I'm in a writing mood, so today I'm going to sit down. I'm going to write a blog post. I'm going to write a guest post. That's just what I'm going to do today. I haven't been as strict with my scheduling. Some days, I write just because I don't have the capacity to sit down and do something I scheduled for myself a week ago."
Amanda also spends time pitching to speak at conferences, or building the decks to speak in conferences.
"It's definitely a job that involves a lot of juggling things and very quickly being able to bump something up in priority that maybe wasn't even on your radar the week before."
Integrating Marketing with Sales
Garrett asked Amanda to talk a little bit more out of what she's getting out of the sales conversations.
"It's interesting to see how people come to us. Maybe they've gotten 3/4ths of the whole picture, but they need the rest filled in. It's hard to know exactly. You have this vision of marketing: I'm hoping they read this, then they read this and check out that case study and get all of it."
But, Amanda asks, how often does everything go according to plan with anyone who is a lead or who is on their site?
"Then you get into the sales call. Now let's talk about how that fits into your general marketing plan and our philosophy of how all that works to see if we're a good fit for each other. That's always the big question with sales when you're in a good enough position where you're not just taking all the work you can get.
You're thinking: am I actually going to be the best agency for this person, for this brand, are we going to be able to help in a way that will make both sides happy. You understand what we do and the value of what we do, and you're excited about. That's what we want to work with: long-term partners."
She says the gap between what the client thinks they want and what they need can be very interesting.
"Maybe in our case, they'll say: we really want to do link building content. We need links. They talk to us and we're like: well, cool, but your website doesn't have a lot of content on it, so you probably need that before building a ton of links to your site."
Amanda says she hopes that hearing all of these conversations continues to inform her marketing so she can communicate effectively.
She says one thing that is tough is she gets people from different positions that reach out to her company for different reasons.…
playlist_add
Apr 19, 2021
Assessing User Intent for SEO at Scale with Suganthan Mohanadasan and Andy Chadwick
Whatever you do, don't call Snippet Digital an agency.
Suganthan and Andy will be the first to tell you they are SEO Consultants, not an SEO agency – and that many SEO agencies are among their client base.
Right now, though, it's not their consultancy that's getting all the buzz and attention. It's their new SaaS product: Keyword Insights.
While Keyword Insights is still in beta and actively courting testers, this product can supercharge your SEO strategy by helping you research over 100,000 keywords at a time. You can then group them by intent and rank them, allowing you to create a more efficient, modern approach to SEO and content creation.
Want to learn more about this awesome tool and all the problems it solves? Tune in!
The highlights:
* [1:32] Why Suganthan and Andy are so adamant that Snippet Digital is no agency.
* [5:15] Why they built Keyword Insights.
* [10:26] Solving the problems of keyword intent.
* [16:16] Using the tool to generate a content strategy.
* [19:06] Beta test feedback.
* [25:41] Keyword Insights: the main value prop.
* [27:52] Andy's cause.
* [30:01] Suganthan's cause.
The insights:
Snippet Digital: We're No Agency
Why are Andy and Suganthan so adamant that Snippet Digital is not an agency, and never will be?
Andy says that in part it's because they do a lot of work with agencies.
"We'll work with agencies just as much as we'll work with our own clients."
Andy also ran a 17 to 20 employee business in the past and didn’t like being responsible for so many people. Now Snippet Digital uses freelancers, but Suganthan and Andy remain hands-on.
Suganthan adds:
"We like to stay small. I personally feel we can add a lot more value to customers. When customers come to us personally, we work on the project. It's not like we onboard a client and have ten other people deal with the client. We deal with the client. We actually look at the nitty-gritty of that client's SEO."
They get in there and do most of the work themselves. This has resulted in them having to spend zero dollars on marketing, as they've been bringing in clients through word-of-mouth and referrals only.
Cracking the Code to Categorizing Queries for Search Intent with Keyword Decipher
Andy explains how he had begun to approach the problem of taking a large number of search queries and using machine learning to filter them into different buckets. Suganthan was excited to work with Andy to build on some of those initial strategies.
"I came from a global agency. We were doing keyword research on 50K to 60K keywords at a time. Keyword categorization would be done manually by someone with some clever Excel logic. It still took weeks, 50-60 hours maybe."
While he was still at this agency, Andy programmed a PHP tool to do the job a lot quicker, cutting the time down to about 20-30 hours.
"When Suganthan and I got together I showed him what I was doing he got excited and we started bringing machine learning into it, which was the next stage."
Andy admits currently the tool still is not as automated as he might like, but 60 hours of work have now been cut down to 7 or 8 hours.
This collaboration resulted in Suganthan and Andy creating a tool that hasn't been released to the public yet called Keyword Decipher (and might not necessarily go public).
"We categorize and load all that data in. It's built on Panda's framework. It's a really nice UI. It's not Google Sheets. It allows us to do keyword research that's massive and works a lot better than Google Sheets, and you can pivot the data any way you want."
Suganthan notes that they also practice over time.
"For our Keyword Decipher platform clients can choose their keywords, and can go back 6 months. 6 months ago, this intent was fragmented, but now after 6 months, Google has changed the Top 10 results.
It's widely considered that they use behavior analysis to figure out how people use the search results. It seems like after 6 months Google has decided to show the product page over the blog post. They find more users engaging with that better.
That's an actionable insight for the client."
Leveling Up Keyword Intent Categorization and Actionable SEO Strategy at Scale with Keyword Insights
Suganthan explained how they could take the power of Keyword Decipher and add a complementary layer of actionable context with Keyword Insights.
"We realized when we looked online at the way everyone is trying to solve the intent problem, everyone is pretty much using the same sort of formula. A basic formula to say: hey, if the keyword asks why or how it's informational. This is a very rudimentary way at looking at intent."
Suganthan says they realized quickly that what they thought the term implied would often generate unexpected results when one actually plugged those terms into Google.
"Often Google's understanding of a keyword is very different from what we think it is. Most people are doing guesswork. We went and said: we're going to just look at what Google is thinking, and we're going to literally copy that idea, what Google is saying."
Andy explains how intent can go wrong with the basic method.
"There are actually two ways people classify intent. The first is what Suganthan said, looking at the root word and if it had certain modifiers. If it said buy iPhone, they put it as transactional. If it was what is iPhone they put it as informational. The tricky part came if the keyword was just iPhone. Most people put it as transactional thinking there's not a modifier."
They get a mix of transactional and informational results on page one:
Given the huge variety of results and result types, it becomes hard, for certain keywords, to figure out what type of page you might be able to create that might actually help your client.
"We basically wanted to know just three things. Do I need a blog post, do I need an informational page, or do I need a transactional page? Or is it some other type?"
Keyword Insights is designed to deliver this simplicity, to help people decide what kind of page to create for their clients.
Andy also adds this is a way to confidently ensure that opportunities don't end up getting wasted.
"You can pull through a page by rank and by URL rather than by keyword. You start to see what should be broken out into multiple topics. If there are two massive clusters a page is ranking for this content needs to be broken out in two."
Suganthan agrees.
"I've got a good use case. Cluster Volume. Instead of just going for search volume, here's the keyword, x keyword, here's the cluster volume. For this page, there's this much potential of cluster volume you can rank for, but you can rank for all those terms on the same page.
Instead of looking at the same volume, we can have the cluster volume that gives users, even clients, a bit more than they have on a single keyword."
Using Keyword Insights to Generate a Content Strategy
Andy uses Keyword Insights to generate content strategies.
"I use it two ways. Sometimes when I'm struggling for content ideas, I've got 50K keywords, rather than going and looking at other people's content, I filter by the clusters with the most volume."
He doesn't focus on the keyword with the most volume. He focuses on the cluster with the most volume.
"Clusters are all the keywords you can realistically target on one page. Sometimes you'll see a cluster with three keywords with a volume of 2,000. You're thinking: I'm going to go for them. Then you see a cluster of 2000 keywords, each with a volume of 100. That one is a lot easier to go for. You get a lot more."
He says when he clusters he gets left with all the pages that can be content, and often with many ideas he would not have thought about on his own.
Beta Test Feedback
Andy and Suganthan are getting a ton of feedback about their tool. They're still nailing down the finer points of user intent by the industry or site type that's attempting to use the tool.
Suganthan says: "We'll hopeful…
playlist_add
Apr 16, 2021
Google Patent Secrets and Using Entities To Enhance SEO with Bill Slawski
Bill Slawski is the Director of SEO Research at Go Fish Digital, and he's made a name for himself by reading, interpreting, and blogging about Google patents. With a background as a lawyer, he has a history of dissecting complex technical documents and surfacing key insights. He has been writing about these types of insights for years on his personal blog, SEO by the Sea.
Go to his site and you'll often see intense diagrams, like this one.
He's certainly adept at translating this sometimes-esoteric information into content strategies that bring real results. He shares some of those stories on today's podcast.
The highlights:
* [1:15] The Searchable Index patent.
* [5:44] On semantic SEO.
* [8:02] Using entities to enhance SEO.
* [16:08] The local search evolution.
* [20:55] Bill's cause.
The insights:
The Searchable Index Patent
Right now, Bill is studying a patent called Searchable Index.
"One machine learning model Google is using right now is one that one of the inventors worked on: Sibyl. Sibyl was used on sites like YouTube to give them a better grasp of it. YouTube gets indexed by looking at text on a video page: the title, the description, and so on.
So it made sense for them to start watching the videos and learning what they're about. They're using machine learning to do that."
Bill gives the example of a quote from the movie Apocalypse Now.
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning."
He says that when someone searches that quote, they aren't looking for information about who said the quote, or information about the quote.
"They want to display the video."
This patent helps Google find and display the video.
He points out that Google used to have a very rudimentary algorithm and in part trained us, the searching public, how to search in very simple ways.
These days Google is far more complex and is able to draw relationships between different entities in ways that it didn't in the past. Thus search can be a little less precise.
On Semantic SEO
"Imagine the web as a huge scattered database of information, and some of that information is hard to get at. It's stuck in a PDF file. It's not easily transferable because we can only read the information on some PDFs.
We can't necessarily extract the data from them. We can't do extensive queries like: how many people in the US today are addicted to painkillers?"
The web's not going to know the answer to that.
"But there may be some sources on the web like the Bureau of Justice statistics that may come close to knowing some information about it."
He says that semantic SEO addresses this problem by using schema to providing key-value pairs on pages.
"We're using it in local search to provide address information, to provide geographic coordinates for places, to tell us what's nearby and what's far away. Which companies are owned by other companies, who the CEOs might be, and so on."
Schema, Bill says, helps SEOs describe what the data is, allowing us to play a role in making the web more searchable.
Using Entities to Enhance SEO
Bill uses an example of these value pairs and how targeted related entities can improve a page's ability to rank.
For example, once Bill worked for the Baltimore Visitor and Convention Center. They wanted to optimize a page for Baltimore Black History.
"We wrote a page. We included the phrase Baltimore Black history on it three or four times. We tried to rank the page and after 3 or 4 months we were ranked about 114."
Time for a new strategy: writing a walking tour of Baltimore, with all of the sites which relate to Baltimore's black history, like the 9-foot statue of Billie Holiday, or Frederick Douglass' six townhomes.
The page ranked for all kinds of long-tail keywords, but ranks for Baltimore black history, too! All because each of the entities described is relevant to the subject matter they were initially trying to rank for.
This worked way back in 2005, and Google has only become more sophisticated since then.
He later used a similar tactic to help an Arlington, VA apartment complex rank.
The Evolution of the Local Search Algorithms
Bill says that local search was "sort of a proof of concept of how entity search worked."
He describes some of the ways that local SEO evolved.
"The guy who worked on supervising engineers at Google for entity search was Andrew Hogue. He was in charge of what he referred to in his resume which he had online, as the annotation framework.
The annotation framework included people like Daniel Eggner, who worked for Google Local Search. His idea was to build a business directory. Instead of a Yellow Pages, you can turn to Google, look a place up, see how close it is, what else is available, look at reviews."
He gets a little more granular with this.
"Google contains things like data wrappers. They were a template full of fields. An address, street address 1, street address 2, city, state, and a zip code in a certain format. Google was able to identify the format. You're doing a key-value pair type thing where Google was saying: this is a business address."
What’s your right now cause?
Bill is especially concerned about how information flows to people; that is, accessibility to important information such as assessing the number of damages from natural resources or being able to find informational sources.
"Helping people develop a type of technology and learn about it. That's why I like to see more of a semantic web."
Connect with Bill Slawksi
Want to see what Bill’s working on or thinking about in the SEO world? He’s incredibly active on Twitter.
* Twitter
* LinkedIn
* Website
* Go Fish Digital
playlist_add
Apr 12, 2021
Javascript SEO, Auditing Custom-built Websites, and Core Web Vitals with Kristina Azarenko
If technical SEO is your jam, then you're going to love today's podcast.
Kristina Azarenko is the owner of Marketing Syrup. She teaches an intensive technical SEO course that she's definitely earned the expertise to be offering, given she's helped clients like Carfax and the London School of Business and Finance grow their businesses through SEO.
She specializes in eCommerce SEO, website migrations, technical SEO, and Google analytics.
If you've ever felt just a little lost when things get technical, or if you just love hearing all about it, then this is a podcast you'll want to catch.
The highlights:
* [1:25] About Kristina's course.
* [4:55] Common issues with Javascript SEO.
* [8:35] Why custom-built websites?
* [9:45] Technical audits.
* [12:09] Kristina's favorite tools.
* [15:05] Core Web Vitals.
* [21:04] Kristina's favorite parts of the job.
* [24:48] Kristina's favorite project management tools.
* [25:34] Kristina's cause.
The insights:
About Kristina's Course
Kristina says she was first educated as a teacher and a translator, so even though she's never worked inside a classroom, she nevertheless has a real passion for education.
"I thought it would make sense for me to put everything together, to create a structure. Versus pieces of a puzzle here and there."
She originally put the course together to help people that she was mentoring.
"We are all self-learners, but when you learn some piece from here, some piece from there, sometimes they just don't come together as you'd love them to.
Basically what I hear most from my students is that the course helps them to fill in the gaps, feel comfortable and confident in their knowledge, so they can then lead teams, lead in general SEO in their company, or the agency they work for, or with clients."
She says the framework of the course is very organized.
"It starts from the beginning and goes deeper and deeper, especially the technical part. I'm hugely technical. Many people join the course specifically because of this technical specialization. So this part is the hugest of the course. I started from the beginning just because I wanted to make sure everyone was on the same...landing page! So to speak."
She says her course doesn't just attract SEO beginners.
"I have people who have many years of experience inside the course."
One thing that helps, she says, is to hear different explanations on the same topics from different people. This information and those explanations can then be used in conversations with bosses, peers, and clients.
"It helps a lot."
Common Issues with Javascript SEO
The conversation then turned naturally to what has proven to be the bane of many a technical SEO: Javascript.
"Sometimes clients will come to me and say: oh, we created a Javascript platform and our traffic tanked. What happened? The answer is already in their question!"
She had a client come to her and when she looked up their old site on Archive.org she was able to explain that their old site was way better, because it was static.
"I feel that people have this misperception that if they use Javascript their website will be cool."
There are specific actions that must be taken for Google to be able to interact with a Javascript website.
"Developers don't usually think about SEO. You need to have different people on your team to advise different parts of a configuration."
She says this issue usually doesn't come up on common CMS platforms like Spotify or WordPress. Instead?
"These are usually not publicly known CMSes. These are custom build CMSes."
If you're going to custom-build a CMS, the right time to come to someone like Kristina is prior to building the website at all. "I recently had a client who is migrating from their current custom system to a new custom system that's going to be heavily Javascript based. I give them all the things they need to have in place in order to do this transition. This includes server-side rendering. You should make sure all the titles are right. All of these things."
Why Custom-Built Websites?
Garrett asked a perfectly logical question. If these custom, Javascript-based sites cause so many problems, why use them at all? Turns out there are some excellent reasons for some companies to move forward with this type of website.
"They don't want all the code load that comes with WordPress or Shopify. [These platforms] are configured to serve a really wide public. Sometimes, especially with Shopify, you can't make all the customizations that would make your website faster or perform better."
She says sometimes clients don't really need all the features either of these platforms come with, either.
"So you want to start from scratch, so you will be able to easily change it. You don't need to create some features you don't need."
Technical Audits
Last month, Kristina wrote a post on The Search Engine Journal called "Javascript SEO: Best Practices and Debugging Tools."
In the post, she discussed several of the reasons why JavaScript can be dangerous to SEO. She provided several examples that provide some insights into what she's looking for when she gets "under the hood" of a website during an audit.
"First of all, I see performance in general. Traffic gets really high and then goes down to zero. I look for patterns to see the overall picture. Did it happen to some particular part of the website? Did it happen to the whole website in general? It's about understanding the issues behind the drops."
For example, she had a client whose overall website was fine, but whose blog traffic tanked.
"They actually migrated from WordPress to Shopify because their shop is on Shopify. They wanted to have everything under one umbrella but didn't think that transitioning templates would cause problems. They didn't redirect the images, and no longer had traffic from images."
In other words, Javascript isn't the only thing that can go wrong with a website. There can be all sorts of technical issues, especially after any kind of migration from one CMS platform to the other.
Kristina's Favorite Tools
Some of Kristina's favorite tools include:
* The Web Developer Chrome Extension
* The Google Mobile-Friendly Test Tool
* The Rich Results Test Tool
* The URL Inspection Tool in Google Search Console
* The View Rendered Source Chrome Extension
* JavaScript Rendering Check
* SEO Pro Extension
* For project management: Teamwork.
She uses a combination of all of these tools to catch issues with technical SEO and Javascript.
Core Web Vitals
Garrett asked if Kristina expected core web vitals to become important to rankings.
"What are core web vitals? They're about speed and performance. Google has been talking about speed and performance for the past four or five years."
She then proposes a theory.
"Every time Google wants to push something on people, for example, go to the secure https://, they say it's a ranking factor." She says she doesn't think this is necessarily to push SEOs but to push business adoption.
Despite agreeing that Google would like people to work on their core web vitals, she does not expect it to become a huge ranking factor.
"This is just part of the signals, right? Also, it's in comparison with all the other players in the search results. So if, for example, your website doesn't pass core web vitals, but the speed is still good enough, you might still rank higher. And if you have Javascript problems and Google can't read your website, core vitals are not the thing you need to concentrate on right now."
She says while you definitely need to think about site performance, it's not the main thing that Google cares about.
"If that were the case, you could rank with an empty page."
She also points out that switching to https:// was a quick fix for most web developers, whereas addressing core vitals is a much more challenging process that will be much harder for webmasters to adopt.
She says it's not a huge th…
playlist_add
Apr 9, 2021
Helping Clients Through the Art of Referral Marketing with Raul Galera
Referral marketing is often a bit underrated, especially when agencies are thinking about growing their client's businesses. In part, this is because it feels difficult to control and impossible to automate.
Enter ReferralCandy, which has cracked the code on referral marketing automation, at least, for eCommerce brands who fulfill a few simple criteria.
Here's how it works: current customers receive a promotion that gives them the ability to share an eCommerce store with their friends. Their friends get a reward, like a discount. They get a reward too, such as cashback, an even bigger discount, or a custom gift. The platform can be connected to quite a few commonly used marketing apps and offers analytics on how well the program is working.
Raul Galera is the Chief Advocate at ReferralCandy, and he joins us today on the Agency Ahead podcast to talk about the power of referral marketing and what it takes to launch a referral marketing campaign on behalf of your clients.
The highligh…
playlist_add
Apr 1, 2021
Tackling Social Media Accessibility with Alexa Heinrich
If you're not sight-or-hearing impaired, you might not think very much about how accessible your web and social media content is. It doesn't make you a bad person...just someone who needed to have some attention called to the issue.
Alexa Heinrich is one of the people who are 100% out there calling attention to the issue.
She's the Social Media Manager at St. Petersburg College, and is an advocate for digital accessibility on social media. Today she joins us on the Agency Ahead podcast to talk about making your social media content more accessible. This is a don't miss that can help you get more customers for your clients while simultaneously helping them to avoid lawsuits.
The highlights:
* [1:38] Defining accessibility for social media.
* [2:29] The state of accessibility.
* [6:05] YouTube auto-captions.
* [7:03] Baking accessibility into your process.
* [10:16] The business case for improving accessibility.
* [12:34] The accessibility of different platforms.
* [19:…
playlist_add
Mar 29, 2021
Learning Your Client’s SEO Love Language with Emily Brady
Client communication is the key to client retention. It's about more than reporting. It's about building relationships and fostering understanding.
Emily Brady is the Senior Manager of Local SEO at Milestone, Inc., an analytical local SEO-expert who has had to learn how to get good at the client relations part of the job. The company offers both SaaS services and SEO services and has served brands like the Marriott, Wyndham Hotel Group, Best Western, and more.
If you struggle with client retention or just feel like you and your clients aren't connecting very well, this is the podcast to catch.
The highlights:
* [1:38] Emily's role at Milestone.
* [3:06] Helping clients understand the omnichannel nature of Local SEO.
* [4:35] Helping clients understand you're helping them.
* [6:56] Educating clients.
* [10:37] Learning your client's "SEO love language."
* [17:15] Ensuring you remember and use your client's SEO love language.
* [21:21] Emily's causes.
The insigh…
playlist_add
Mar 26, 2021
Building a Local SEO Business with Claire Carlile
Claire Carlile is a Local SEO expert with over 20 years in marketing. She has been managing her own solo practice for over 12 years, and recently released a course on BrightLocal on setting up a Local SEO agency and positioning it for success. As a LocalU instructor and speaker, she's already got a solid track record for helping other marketers succeed in all of their endeavors.
Today she joins us on The Agency Ahead podcast to talk a little about her course and to share a few Local SEO success tips. The course, by the way, is absolutely free. You just have to register on Bright Local.
The highlights:
* [1:49] Why Local SEO is more important to small businesses than ever.
* [3:59] Adapting to the pandemic.
* [6:47] Google products posts.
* [8:07] The importance of UTM tracking.
* [12:17] Is it a good time to start a Local SEO business?
* [15:18] Honing your pitch.
* [17:31] Positioning your Local SEO service.
* [21:46] Pricing your services.
* [26:09] Clai…
playlist_add
Mar 22, 2021
Diversity and Inclusion in Digital Marketing with Rejoice Ojiaku and Wilhemina Gilbertson
Diversity and inclusion have been the hot topics of conversation in the digital marketing industry since George Flloyd's murder last summer. The industry has traditionally been very male and very white, at least in terms of which voices are amplified, celebrated, and listened to.
Meet two women who are working hard to change that.
Rejoice Ojiaku is the Global SEO Account Manager at Neo Media World, an agency that has worked with brands like HSBC, Nestle Waters, and more.
Wilhemina Gilbertson is an SEO Specialist
Together, they are both the founders of B-DigitalUK, a digital marketing platform designed to inspire and showcase Black talent in the digital marketplace. They celebrate Black people in the marketing community, offer workshops on various marketing skills, highlight job opportunities, and share profiles of Black digital marketers that are crushing it.
If you're hoping to be part of a movement to make our industry better, this is the podcast to catch.
The highlights:
*…
playlist_add
Mar 19, 2021
Thought Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility with Saffron Shergill
Impression has run Digital PR campaigns and conducted thought leadership services for some of the UK's biggest companies and organizations, including Sass & Belle, Harvey Water Softeners, and Clarins.
They're a full-service marketing agency that is especially known for its digital PR services. They've also won the 2020 UK Agency Awards PPC Agency of the Year Award, the 2020 Best Large PPC Agency in Europe award from the European Search Awards, and the 2020 UK Biddable Media Award.
That's not even everything they've won.
Now let's talk about Saffron herself. She's a Digital PR Executive, which means she does plenty of thought leadership and link-building campaigns for all of these clients, all of which contribute directly to her agency's success.
She also wrote her dissertation on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and is heavily involved in the program at Impression.
Want to get some insights into how to launch some stellar thought leadership PR campaigns for your clients while…
playlist_add
Mar 15, 2021
Communicating with Clients on Strategic Risks with Duane Brown
Don't call Duane Brown if you're not willing to try some new marketing or advertising strategies. He won't be able to help you (well, he can still help you).
Duane is the Founder and Head of Strategy at Take Some Risk, a marketing strategy and advertising agency. The basic mission of the agency is named right there on the tin. Then again, those risks do pay off: they work for some 8 figure eCommerce, DTC, and SaaS brands to create and scale profitable growth.
Today on the Agency Ahead Podcast, Duane shares the kinds of strategic thinking that people normally pay big bucks to receive from him. If you touch any of these business types, you won't want to miss this.
The highlights:
* [1:08] About Take Some Risk
* [4:32] 2020's impact on DTC.
* [8:12] Best practices for maintaining client relationships.
* [12:35] Approaching strategy with a new client.
* [14:31] Having hard conversations with clients.
* [17:40] The unique challenges faced by DTC businesses.
* [21:06…
playlist_add
Mar 12, 2021
Bringing Humanity Back to SEO with Abby Reimer
Abby Reimer is a Senior SEO Analyst and Strategist at Uproer. You may remember her agency from our recent episode with her colleague, Senior Search Strategist, Jess Girardi.
Abby's very passionate about bringing humanity back to SEO and about creating content that doesn't mimic the same old, same old stuff out there. Tune in today if you're ready to do something fresh.
The highlights:
* [1:27] Moving past boilerplate content.
* [3:37] Balancing humanity with performance.
* [5:52] Using keyword research the human way.
* [8:37] Addressing attribution issues with UGC.
* [11:17] Tying content strategy to business goals.
* [14:14] Abby's dream clients.
* [20:52] Abby's go-to resources.
* [24:05] Balancing risk and reward.
* [25:53] Abby's causes.
The insights:
Moving Past Boiler Plate Content
We've all seen it. The same content. Over and over again.
"Ten Best Marketing Tips! Ten Simple Marketing Tips!"
Abby encourages SEOs and content managers to think about their…
playlist_add
Mar 8, 2021
Building a Career as a Freelance Content Writer with Surena Chande
SEO and content were always intertwined, but as algorithms have continued to become more sophisticated and more in line with Google's goals, they've almost all but merged. That's created a lot of opportunities for freelance content writers, once treated almost like the "red-headed step-children" of the digital marketing industry.
The career is full of so many opportunities that many former journalists are flocking to our industry.
One such journalist is Surena Chande, who has taken her journalism expertise and applied it to her work in the digital marketing field. She's got tons of insights on the differences between the careers, on building a content writing career, and on making connections within the industry. If you're a content creator who wants some insights into how to uplevel your career or are thinking about making the shift, this is the episode for you.
The highlights:
* [1:19] Surena's backstory.
* [4:40] How journalism has changed over the years.
* [8:18] Moving t…
playlist_add
Mar 5, 2021
Rapid Content Generation Driven SEO Strategy with Jess Girardi
Jess Girardi is the Senior Search Strategist at Uproer, an SEM and SEO agency serving eCommerce, technology companies, and nonprofits. They've worked with organizations like When I Work, Branch Basics, and Stitch Fix. They've been able to achieve up to 200% increases in organic traffic for clients and won the 2020 Search Engine Land "Best Overall SEO Initiative - Small Business" award.
Today Garrett picks Jess' brain on two topics: rapid content generation and non-profit SEO. If you're looking for a solid inroads into some good content strategy or want to know more about how to serve your local non-profits, this is the podcast to check out.
The highlights:
* [1:14] Rapid content generation.
* [4:30] Crazy questions people are actually searching for.
* [6:29] Meet the Minnesota Brain Trust.
* [7:45] SEO challenges for nonprofits.
* [9:13] What's unique about working with nonprofit SEO?
* [10:04] How to volunteer with a local nonprofit.
* [11:10] Why it's importan…
playlist_add
Mar 1, 2021
Local SEO Experimentation with Carrie Hill
Carrie Hill is a Local SEO analyst for Sterling Sky, one of the most renowned agencies in the industry. She's also a community manager and event planner for LocalU, an organization that holds approximately 3 events a year, seeking to provide the most unique content in the local SEO sphere.
You'll also find her joining Mary Bowling and Mike Blumenthal on the highly informative Last Week in Local Podcast, covering all the latest and greatest news in Local SEO while providing their take and insight on that news and how it applies to the work that Local SEOs do.
Today, Garrett engaged Carrie in a thrilling discussion about some of the experiments that Sterling Sky does, as well as about what makes LocalU different. Tune in to get some awesome insights on how you can make your own Local SEO business better!
The highlights:
* [3:21] Testing Local SEO.
* [5:28] Essential tools.
* [7:08] Typical methodology.
* [10:23] Recommended experiments.
* [12:49] Desktop rendering vs. mobil…
playlist_add
Feb 26, 2021
Next Level Topic Clusters For SEO with Chima Mmeje
Are you so sure your content strategy is up-to-snuff?
There may be gaps. Fortunately, Chima Mmeje has some excellent ways to help you find them and fill them in ways that will help you rank and convert better.
Chima is the owner of Zenith Copy. She's worked with clients like Wix, Literal Humans, Remitly, Skillshare, and more. She's been featured on Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch, and Hackernoon, as well as in several other publications.
She'll be the first to warn you that SEO copywriting is not "turning the two Yoast buttons green," and content strategy is not just coming up with a bunch of blog posts to write.
Find out what it's really all about by tuning in to today's podcast.
The highlights:
* [1:52] The purpose of topic clusters and why they're so valuable.
* [5:03] The importance of content repurposing.
* [6:22] Packaging content clusters.
* [9:48] Working with clients on topic cluster content.
* [12:30] Addressing the buyer's journey.
* [13:54] T…
playlist_add
Feb 22, 2021
Diving Into Conversion Rate Optimization with Ayat Shukairy
Ayat Shukairy is the Co-Founder of Invesp, and has been doing conversion rate optimization (CRO) since before CRO was cool. That is, she started in early 2006, before it was a widely used term, and has been pursuing the perfection of her craft ever since. She's the unofficial (official) Queen of CRO.
She's worked on countless high-profile eCommerce projects, has raised conversion rates by as much as 65%, and has worked with companies like 3M, eBay, O'Reilly, and Rainbow Love.
If you have eCommerce clients or any clients who need a little help getting people to mash that "buy" button when they get to your site, make sure you catch today's episode of the Agency Ahead Podcast.
The highlights:
* [1:09] How CRO has changed over the years.
* [5:32] Performing CRO experiments for businesses.
* [7:17] Why Ayat gets excited about CRO.
* [9:20] CRO in the context of the pandemic.
* [12:43] Getting client buy-in for CRO experiments.
* [17:06] Scoping out client projects.
* [21:5…
playlist_add
Feb 19, 2021
Podcast Marketing Strategies for Agencies with Brandy Whalen
Is it a little meta, to be on a podcast about marketing talking about podcasting as a marketing method? Or to be a guest on a podcast about marketing talking about being a podcast guest as a marketing method when your specialty is booking clients onto podcasts so they can make the method their marketing?
Whether it is or not, podcasts are still an amazing way to get exposure for your business, and that's true whether you're the guest, the host, or, occasionally, both.
So meet Brandy Whalen, co-Founder of Kitcaster, a company that helps people find guest spots on podcasts. They work with entrepreneurs, industry experts, and C-suite executives, finding them guest spots on the shows that speak to their audiences.
If you want to podcast like a pro, this is absolutely the episode you'll wanna listen to. Meta or not, here we come.
The highlights:
* [1:59] The value of podcasts.
* [3:21] Developing a strategy for podcasting.
* [6:10] Helping clients set goals for podcasting.
*…
playlist_add
Feb 16, 2021
Local SEO Mythbusting with Darren Shaw
Sometimes we get a guest that seems like he would need no introduction, and Darren Shaw, founder of Whitespark, certainly seems to be one of those. Ask someone to name a "local SEO expert" and he's probably going to be one of the first names, if not the first name, to come up. He's been doing all things Local Search since 2010.
Today Garrett brings him in to debunk some pervasive Local SEO myths, along with discussing the Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, which is a massive survey of local SEO experts that pinpoints what's been working for them vis a vis getting businesses to rank in local search.
You can catch the latest version here.
You can also catch some of the top insights by listening to today's podcast. If you're working hard in local SEO you won't want to miss this one, because Darren's going to slice apart a bunch of myths that still plague the industry. This is the podcast that's going to let our local SEOs work smarter, not harder.
The highlights:
* [1:41] Introd…
playlist_add
Feb 12, 2021
Evangelizing SEO Internally with Orit Mutznik
SilkFred is an eCommerce site that offers unique women's fashions from over 800+ brands. Orit Mutznik is the company's Head of SEO, the first person to hold the position, and someone who inherited a lot of challenges when she stepped into the role. One of those challenges was getting the rest of the company to accept SEO as a necessity at all, or to be willing to work with her on getting certain tasks done.
Thus? She's no stranger to engaging in the kinds of communications that must happen for any SEO effort to be successful. Whether you're doing your SEO in-house, like she is, or at an agency, you can be sure there's a lot of great material getting covered in today's podcast.
The highlights:
* [1:25] Prioritizing SEO tasks.
* [6:38] Advocating for SEO within an organization.
* [13:10] Keeping devs from taking SEO-adverse actions.
* [16:02] Transitioning to international SEO.
* [19:02] Twitter accounts to follow.
* [21:06] Orit's causes.
The insights:
Prioritizin…
playlist_add
Feb 9, 2021
Mastering Search Intent with Brendan Hufford
Brendan Hufford is the founder of SEO for the Rest of Us, as well as the podcast by the same name. He has a fresh approach to SEO that truly is accessible and understandable by creative entrepreneurs who might just be a few SEO tweaks away from attaining their income goals.
There are several courses you can take, like this one:
One of Brendan's areas of expertise is his approach to search intent, which is what he's joining us to talk about today. Listen to this one if you want to make sure the content that you put on your page is matching what customers want from you and read his article on search intent right after. It's a great way to increase conversions and build trust, things you must do because traffic alone isn't enough.
The highlights:
* [1:26] Why the current most common approach to search intent is not helpful.
* [5:32] Ranking factors.
* [10:27] Creating high-quality content.
* [14:44] Marketing funnels vs. customer life cycles.
* [19:15] Developing a prem…
playlist_add
Feb 5, 2021
E-A-T, SEO Forecasting, and SEO Strategy with Miracle Inameti-Archibong
SEO. CRO. UX. Web analytics.
The Erudite Agency in the UK does it all, and today's guest, Miracle Inameti-Archibong, is their Head of SEO. They helped deliver 2,437% ROI through technical SEO for one company. Drove mobile revenue up 47% at another.
That means she comes chock full of insights on all of these subjects. She and Garrett dove right in today, offering dozens of don't-miss gems, especially if you want to create similar results for your clients.
The highlights:
* [1:34] E-A-T audits.
* [3:41] Building an E-A-T strategy.
* [5:06] Building a keyword taxonomy.
* [7:48] Forecasting.
* [12:20] Accounting for outliers in 2021.
* [13:55] Implementing data.
* [15:50] Looking ahead to 2021.
* [19:37] Getting clients to implement suggestions.
* [22:41] Miracle's causes.
The insights:
Expertise-Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness audits
E-A-T audits are one of the services Erudite offers to customers. When Miracle is doing hers, she encourages her clients…
playlist_add
Feb 1, 2021
Learning to Speak the Language of Your Clients with Kim Doughty
Kim Doughty, the SERP whisperer of Local SEO agency RicketyRoo, keeps it real.
This is why she's so masterful at client relationships. She's handled both small and medium-sized businesses. Her clients offer some challenges that probably most agency owners are familiar with, and she's got the solutions.
If you've ever driven yourself absolutely insane trying to get necessary information or collateral from clients, this is the podcast you'll wanna tune in to.
The highlights:
* [3:06] Best practices for account management
* [5:42] The first meeting with a client.
* [8:31] Collecting client information.
* [11:00] Getting questions answered when clients don't know how to communicate.
* [12:45] Client "green flags."
* [15:19] The sales process’ role in setting client expectations.
* [17:41] When clients don't deliver.
* [19:44] How communication and relationships impact client retention.
* [24:12] Kim's causes.
The insights:
Best practices for account manag…
playlist_add
Jan 29, 2021
Challenges of B2B Digital Marketing and Attribution with Andrea Cruz
While a lot of the conversation about digital marketing tends to focus heavily on the B2C sphere, there are thousands of B2B companies that still need to use digital to bring in new leads, clients, and revenue. Some of those turn to Andrea Cruz, the Senior Digital Marketing Manager at KoMarketing.
KoMarketing has served organizations like Corero Network Security, Machine Finder, John Deere, HP, and the United States Department of Commerce. They do not work with B2C at all, which makes Andrea the perfect expert to ask about the challenges of doing digital marketing for these sorts of organizations.
If you're hoping to break into this space yourself or have clients in the space who you're hoping to serve better, then you won't want to miss today's podcast.
The highlights:
* [2:06] The B2B buyer's journey.
* [3:51] Finding the true decision-makers.
* [6:48] How the B2B marketing landscape changes and adapts.
* [8:21] Introducing clients to non-traditional channels.
* [1…
playlist_add
Jan 25, 2021
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 SEO
It's easy to get caught up in putting out fires, so…
playlist_add
Jan 18, 2021
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 base
Garrett 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 p…
playlist_add
Jan 11, 2021
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.…
playlist_add
Dec 28, 2020
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 ow…
playlist_add
Dec 21, 2020
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 succe…
playlist_add
Dec 14, 2020
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…
playlist_add
Dec 7, 2020
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 about…
playlist_add
Dec 4, 2020
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 challenges
There 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 ini…
playlist_add
Nov 30, 2020
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 th…
playlist_add
Nov 23, 2020
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 revie…
playlist_add
Nov 20, 2020
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…
playlist_add
Nov 16, 2020
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.…
playlist_add
Nov 13, 2020
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.
* […
playlist_add
Nov 9, 2020
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 we…
playlist_add
Nov 6, 2020
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 i…
playlist_add
Nov 2, 2020
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 cli…
playlist_add
Oct 30, 2020
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 p…
playlist_add
Oct 26, 2020
Prepping Local SEO For the Holidays with Kanika Thakran
Prepping Local SEO For the Holidays with Kanika Thakran
The 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 preparations
Right now, all holiday preparations are happening in the context…
playlist_add
Oct 23, 2020
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 sta…
playlist_add
Oct 19, 2020
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.
*…
playlist_add
Oct 16, 2020
How Processes and Documentation Led To Selling an Agency with Andy Cabasso
What would it look like to build an agency that's prepared to scale from Day 1?
Andy Cabasso knows. It took him just three years to build his agency, scale it, and sell it for a profit. He was looking ahead towards that acquisition from the very beginning and achieved it. Talk about an exit strategy!
Andy is a digital marketing professional, speaker, lawyer, and occasional wedding officiant. He is the co-founder of Postaga, an all-in-one platform for link building and email outreach. Prior to Postaga, he started, grew, and then successfully sold a digital marketing agency, JurisPage.
If you're ready to get ahead in a way that allows you to work on your agency instead of in it, then don't miss today's podcast.
The highlights:
* [1:33] Agency launch.
* [3:24] Strategies for scaling from the get-go.
* [5:13] Learning how to build processes and SOP documents.
* [7:26] Scaling milestones.
* [10:20] Removing client-generated sources of friction.
* [11:40] Baseline sale…
playlist_add
Oct 12, 2020
Using Google My Business to Kickstart Your Local SEO Services with Mike Blumenthal
It's pretty impossible to work in Local SEO for very long without hearing Mike Blumenthal's name. The "Godfather of Local," as the nickname itself might imply, has been one of the big-name experts in the industry for a very long time.
He's the co-founder of GatherUp, and he's had his own local search blog for a very long time. In fact, if you want to stay right on top of what's going on in Local, you could do worse than just making sure you subscribe to his weekly newsletter and podcast.
Yet today he's speaking less about the ins-and-outs of what's going on with Google My Business (GMB) lately and more about how agency owners can incorporate local SEO services into their service offerings, or how they can best approach building a pure local SEO business. If you're looking to get ahead in this niche, then don't miss today's episode.
The highlights:
* [1:58] Helping companies understand the impacts of GMB.
* [3:50] Where to go after an SMB understands the impact of GMB.
* [6…
playlist_add
Oct 9, 2020
The Vital Crawl of a Technical SEO with Rachel Anderson
We got a bit technical on today's Agency Ahead podcast. Okay, okay, we got real technical, because our guest was Rachel Anderson, a technical SEO analyst at DeepCrawl, a cool tool that allows you to understand all the technical aspects of your website and how they might ultimately impact SEO performance.
Tune in if you're looking to dive deeper into the world of technical SEO or just want a few insights into what's ahead.
The highlights:
* [1:19] Rachel's role at DeepCrawl.
* [2:26] Common site problems.
* [3:39] Web core vitals.
* [6:38] Presenting competitor data to clients.
* [7:59] Learning Google Data Studios.
* [10:34] Rachel's approach to building out reports.
* [13:13] Small site technical audits: what do they take?
* [16:41] What to consider before adding tech SEO services to your agency.
* [20:22] Rachel's causes.
The insights:
Rachel's role at DeepCrawl
Rachel is a member of the Professional Services Team.
"There's a group of about 10 of us.…
playlist_add
Oct 5, 2020
Selling Text Message Marketing As a Service Jon Hall
Jon Hall was the founder and creator of Grade.us, a review management platform for agencies. He's now on a brand new project as the founder of Switchbird. Switchbird agencies the power to offer powerful SMS marketing solutions to local businesses.
Today he joins us on Agency Ahead to talk a little about local marketing. He offers us a little more insight into Switchbird and the reason why SMS marketing is a good move. Towards the end, he talks a little bit about what marketing agencies should be considering when they choose to partner with any MarTech SaaS provider who might help them grow and scale their business.
The highlights:
* [2:01] Local marketing in 2020.
* [6:11] How Google My Business is handling messaging.
* [8:08] The future of text message marketing.
* [11:28] The right way to use text marketing.
* [14:40] How agencies can position a text message service offering.
* [19:47] Choosing the right SaaS vendors for your agency.
* [25:12] Why should agenc…
playlist_add
Oct 2, 2020
Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning with Jessica Peck
Jessica Peck is the Senior Consultant for Digital Analytics for CVS by day. By night, she runs all sorts of cool side experiments to become a better SEO. She's become quite the expert on natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning as they relate to how people are searching, and as it relates to how Google is continuing to try to provide the best search results for its end users.
If you're curious about how you should be adjusting your strategy in light of Google's ever-increasing intelligence, this is the podcast to catch.
The highlights:
* [2:43] How Jessica got started.
* [4:25] On training Natural Language Processing.
* [7:25] Is NLP accessible to the average SEO person?
* [9:17] Practical applications for NLP in SEO.
* [13:04] The flaws in NLP.
* [14:55] Why humans have to stay involved in the process.
* [16:23] Other uses for NLP.
* [20:14] Jessica's causes.
The insights:
How Jessica Got Started with Natural Language Processing
Jessica has…
playlist_add
Sep 28, 2020
True Leadership and Owning Your Agency’s Narrative with Michael Brenner
Michael Brenner is the kind of person you think of when you think of a "thought leader." He's a CMO influencer for Forbes and was named a top business keynote speaker by The Huffington Post. He's the CEO of the Marketing Insider Group. He's the bestselling author of three books, including The Content Formula, Digital Marketing Growth Hacks, and Mean People Suck.
He's also a leader of organizations and a leader devoted to helping other organizations and agencies succeed. Don't miss this post if you're hoping to step up your leadership game.
The highlights:
* [1:25] Michael's focus over the past 6-12 months.
* [4:10] Practical steps leaders can take to own the narrative.
* [6:28] Why marketing agencies aren't telling their story.
* [9:14] Teaching agencies to develop a brand narrative.
* [12:36] The leadership paradox.
* [16:32] Are we getting better leaders?
* [18:43] The benefits of focusing on happy, engaged employees.
* [22:25] Michael's causes.
The insigh…
playlist_add
Sep 25, 2020
Experimenting with SEO On the B Sides with Luke Davis
Luke Davis is an SEO Executive at Adzooma, but he's perhaps better known for his variety of blogs covering music, culture, tech, and more. He's been doing SEO for a very long time and has a lot of perspectives to offer just based on having his own sites to play with and optimize.
Today he joins us on Agency Ahead to share some of those insights.
The highlights:
* [1:08] Where Luke got his start.
* [5:34] A common mistake made by musicians and other creatives.
* [7:41] Using sites for experimentation.
* [10:44] Transitioning to in-house SEO.
* [12:55] Pitfalls to avoid.
* [15:34] Recent changes to Google PPC data.
* [20:39] The most important skill for SEOs.
* [27:22] Luke's causes.
The insights:
Where Luke got his start
Luke started diving into the mysteries of the web as a kid. He'd sit in the computer lab at the age of ten while his parents were at work, surfing the Internet and exploring everything he could find. He launched websites on Geocities and An…
playlist_add
Sep 21, 2020
How Agency Right-Sizing Impacts Profitability with Nick Eubanks
Right-sizing is the key to profitability. If you don't hire enough, you can't get client work done. If you hire too much, you end up sending all your profits to payroll.
Nick Eubanks can tell you all about how to hit that workforce sweet spot. He's the founder and Chief Strategy Officer at From the Future, an agency which partners with companies in high growth industries to accelerate customer acquisition. He's also one of the minds behind the Traffic Think Tank, a place where you can "learn, connect, and level up with the best SEOs on the planet."
He also runs Agency Builder. This is "a battle-tested program for agency owners to increase revenue, build the right team, and drive profitable growth." Nick will help you increase sales, scale your team, and grow profits. The builder is full of training, templates, and automation tools to help you make your agency awesome.
Tune in right now to get some of his most valuable insights absolutely free.
The highlights:
* [1:54] An increa…
playlist_add
Sep 18, 2020
Behind the SEO of a High Volume Publishing Site with Alli Berry
Some sites do content marketing to sell a product. For others, the content is the product. When you're running a high volume publishing site like this, there are some special SEO concerns you'll want to stay on top of.
If you're interested in launching a site like this or providing SEO services to clients with similar sites, then you'll want to catch today's podcast with Alli Berry the SEO director at financial advice and news analysis publisher, The Motley Fool. She has a unique perspective that you won't want to miss.
The highlights:
* [1:20] Challenges of running a large publishing site.
* [3:13] Strategy in 2020.
* [6:05] Navigation and internal linking.
* [8:24] KPIs
* [10:25] Tips for SEOs working on news sites.
* [11:59] Getting into the Top Stories pack.
* [14:06] On link building, and who should do it.
* [15:54] Getting into Google Discover.
* [18:36] Archiving and pruning.
* [22:10] Alli's cause.
The insights:
The Challenges of running a lar…
playlist_add
Sep 14, 2020
Putting a Price on Writing Good Content with Vin D'Eletto
Vin D'Eletto runs a content agency called WordAgents that has been up and running since 2014. They provide content for agencies and small businesses, helping both types of entities scale up their content game quickly.
As it happens, he's also an expert on scaling the agency itself.
While throughout the podcast he'll speak of hiring and vetting writers, a lot of what he has to say will easily apply to any kind of marketing agency. Listening to today's podcast will definitely help you get ahead!
The highlights:
* [1:20] How Vin got his start.
* [3:13] How most agencies handle content as a service offering.
* [4:20] Finding writers.
* [5:56] Vetting writers.
* [8:04] On asking for free writing samples.
* [9:34] On identifying the right applicant.
* [12:00] The value of content.
* [13:54] The future of content and SEO.
* [16:04] The ideal Word Agents client.
* [19:55] On whether AI will replace human writers.
* [23:07] Vin's causes.
The insights:
How…
playlist_add
Sep 11, 2020
Why Do Agencies Suck at Email Marketing For Themselves with Sujan Patel
Sujan Patel has helped hundreds of SaaS companies create growth strategies. He's the Co-Founder of SaaS marketing agency Web Profits, and also owns and operates Mailshake and Right Inbox.
Email marketing has been a big part of his success story.
While most marketing agencies do a great job of email marketing for their clients, many struggle to do it on their own behalf. Join us today to find out how you can use Sujan's methods to get ahead!
The highlights:
* [1:24] Email strategies for marketing agencies.
* [3:59] Figuring out what works.
* [8:29] Best practices marketing best practices.
* [9:30] Optimizing your email signature.
* [15:16] Email content length recommendations.
* [19:58] Sujan's causes.
The insights:
Email strategies for marketing agencies
"Even the [marketing agencies] who actively do it [email marketing] – it feels a little too promotional. It feels a little too cookie-cutter canned."
The first caveat from Sujan, who nevertheless stresses th…
playlist_add
Aug 31, 2020
Developing Employee Ambassadors and a Personal Brand on LinkedIn with Goldie Chan
Goldie Chan is the founder and CEO of a boutique strategic, storytelling, and brand guidance agency called Warm Robots. She's also a Top Voice on LinkedIn and a frequent contributor to Forbes.
Goldie spends a lot of time advising brands and their employees on how they can best represent their companies on LinkedIn. She joins us today on the Agency Ahead podcast to talk about some of these insights.
The highlights:
* [1:33] How LinkedIn has been doing in 2020.
* [2:32] Why brands are being more conservative.
* [3:52] Strategizing how employees represent brands on LinkedIn.
* [5:57] How companies can educate and train employees to promote the brand on LinkedIn.
* [7:39] Advising B2B employees on LinkedIn representation.
* [10:13] Dry content vs. entertaining content: finding the balance.
* [12:50] The current normal for posting content.
* [15:44] Tips for building your internal team of ambassadors.
* [20:10] LinkedIn posting frequency.
* [22:34] LinkedIn'…
playlist_add
Aug 28, 2020
Local Search, Big Data, and Big Wins with Dan Leibson
Dan Liebson is the Vice President of Search for Local SEO Guide, an agency that works with clients like Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, Walmart.com, and more. They work with both small, local clients and enterprise-level clients.
Local SEO Guide is an extremely data-driven organization. Today Dan sat down with Garrett to discuss SEO metrics, using big data to develop a strategy for clients, and a whole lot more. Don't miss this one!
The highlights:
* [1:50] Are rankings as important as everyone thinks?
* [3:30] Handling clients who want to rank for certain keywords.
* [4:21] Demonstrating the value of SEO without rankings.
* [5:51] Shaping campaigns for clients.
* [7:21] Using big data to develop strategies.
* [10:25] People and resources needed to help clients with big data information.
* [12:23] Using Lighthouse to aggregate and automate performance reporting.
* [14:57] Search trends.
* [16:52] How customers use local search.
* [19:51] What's next for the…
playlist_add
Aug 24, 2020
The Current State of Local SEO with Joy Hawkins
If you're in the Local SEO sphere at all, then Joy Hawkins probably needs no introduction. She's the "Queen of Local" and the CEO and Founder of Sterling Sky, one of the most renowned local SEO agencies in the industry. She's also a Google Product Expert, owns Local U, and owns the Local Search Forum.
She's even hired quite a few other experts such as Colan Nielsen, Carrie Hill, and Mary Bowling, who now work with her to deliver the best possible local SEO experience to their clients.
In short, if you've ever had any question about local SEO she's the one to ask. Garrett, of course, had plenty of questions to ask on today's podcast.
The highlights:
* [1:37] The state of local search.
* [2:49] Selling local SEO to businesses.
* [4:58] Choosing which services to offer.
* [5:54] Link building.
* [8:13] The state of reputation management.
* [9:56] Getting reviews removed.
* [13:16] Getting reviewers to add more text.
* [14:40] Experimentation in the local SEO sp…
playlist_add
Aug 21, 2020
Digging Deep into the Business Side of Agency Operations with Marcel Petitpas
Marcel Petitpas is the CEO and Founder of Parakeeto, a company that provides agencies with the tools they need to stay profitable. Additionally, they offer consulting and training. Parakeeto has helped hundreds of agencies improve their profit margins. When he’s not running Parakeeto, Marcel is the COO in Residence for Gold Front, an award-winning creative company in San Francisco.
If you're an agency owner who suspects your company isn't as profitable as it could be, then you won't want to miss this podcast.
The highlights:
* [1:30] Why agencies leave a lot of money on the table.
* [4:51] Balancing a client roster the right way.
* [7:26] Developing a pricing model.
* [10:49] Managing metrics.
* [17:01] The Profitability Flywheel.
* [24:22] Growth ceilings.
* [27:47] Marcel's Causes
The insights:
Why agencies leave a lot of money on the table
"What's unique about a service business is that your revenue is actually a liability until it's been earned. And the…
playlist_add
Aug 17, 2020
Speed up Your Marketing Response with Andrea Sullivan
Most people have heard of Gary Vaynerchuck. Many haven't heard of his company, VaynerX. Yet this full-service digital agency stands out.
It's global, has about 900 employees, serves huge brands, and is "built for the now." That is, they were already super adept at the kind of swift pivoting and on-point messaging that our current world has been demanding of us since 2020 started bringing us all its challenges.
Andrea Sullivan is the CMO of this exciting company. In today's episode, she has plenty to share both about agile marketing and the kind of culture-building that goes on at the VaynerX agency.
The highlights:
* [1:15] Andrea's background.
* [4:28] The need for speed.
* [7:46] Navigating around cancel culture.
* [9:51] Practical processes for facilitating speed.
* [13:54] Nurturing trust.
* [15:57] The relationship between creative and KPIs.
* [17:39] Nurturing fun, successful, creative relationships in an agency.
* [20:18] Adjusting to the pandemic.…
playlist_add
Aug 14, 2020
Making Meaningful Change For BIPOC in the Marketing Industry with Joél Leon
Joél Leon is a Sr. Copywriter for Taylor Strategy, a PR agency based in New York City. He’s the definition of creativity and empathy. He's also a performer, an actor, a storyteller, father, and “recovering rapper" (according to his profile). He's done TED talks. Has been featured on HBO, News Week, BBC News, and Forbes.
He's also a Black man working in the digital marketing industry, a person who is passionate about telling stories for Black people. Today he joins Garrett on the Agency Ahead podcast to discuss what we should be talking about when it comes to getting more Black voices into the marketing industry.
The highlights:
* [1:37] Problems and solutions.
* [6:35] Nurturing and inspiring BIPOC contributors.
* [9:16] Creating an agency culture that works for everyone.
* [13:10] Taylor Strategy's Town Hall approach.
* [16:43] Encouraging people to speak out and address racism.
* [21:35] Learning to identify and break unhelpful "norms."
* [25:07] Why we n…
playlist_add
Aug 10, 2020
Building Diverse Agencies with Social Impact Strategist Kirstyn Nimmo
Social impact strategists help brands and organizations connect with their true purpose.
Kirstyn Nimmo is one, and she builds disruptive campaigns like #IAmAMan for justice reform, the Purina partnership that opened NYC's first pet-friendly domestic violence shelters, and the #WithoutMom campaign, just to name a few. She's worked with brands like L'Oreal, Nespresso, Tiffany & Co., the Chan Zuckerberg Institute, and Samsung, just to name a few.
She's recently founded Good Works, an organization developed to help drive equality and opportunity among marginalized communities.
She's a 2016 Shorty Social Good Social Justice award winner and advises companies to look at their own DNA and rebuild their brand before they get called out for problematic behavior, as well as championing both the marketing industries and the power of brands in general to influence broader cultural narratives.
Today Kirstyn joins Garrett on the Agency Ahead podcast to talk about what the landscape looks like fo…
playlist_add
Aug 3, 2020
A Process For Efficient and Humane Link Building Outreach with Gisele Navarro
Gisele Navarro is the Operations Director at NeoMam Studios. She's also a link building expert with ten years of experience under her belt. She began as a blogger with a background in sales and customer service, who then later morphed into freelance SEO work.
She discovered she's a very technical person, but also learned how to put some of the prospecting skills she'd learned in her previous careers to good use.
If link building and outreach is something you or your agency struggles with, you will want to catch today's podcast. It's full of practical advice you can start literally using today, even if you've never been very successful with link building and outreach in the past.
The highlights:
* (0:44) What's changed in link building, and what's stayed the same.
* (4:56) Prospecting your way to a productive link list.
* (10:32) How to avoid spending too much time on prospecting.
* (15:42) A good approach for writing link building email pitch subject lines.
* (22:44)…
playlist_add
Jul 31, 2020
Unique Challenges for Enterprise Local SEO with Krystal Taing
Krystal Taing is the Director of Local Product Strategy for Rio SEO, which is known for its work with enterprise-level local SEO. She's also a Gold Google Product Expert. She's worked with verticals like retail, hospitality, healthcare, finance, and more.
Today she joins us on the Agency Ahead podcast to talk about the challenges of enterprise local SEO, as well as some of the solutions she's discovered and developed while working with chains.
The highlights:
* (0:52) How Krystal got her start.
* (3:19) How enterprises are thinking about local SEO.
* (5:22) Getting started with enterprise-level clients.
* (6:27) Working with branches.
* (8:28) The challenges of navigating Google's attitude towards enterprise-level players in local SEO.
* (10:48) Why Google might not want to focus on enterprise-level organizations the same way they focus on SMBs.
* (12:06) Thoughts on the potential monetization of GMB.
* (14:07) LSAs: what they are, who they're for, and whethe…
playlist_add
Jul 27, 2020
Python, Passion, and Powering Up SEO's Reputation with Hamlet Batista
Hamlet Batista never set out to be a known industry expert. The CEO and founder of RankSense prefers to do his Python and SEO automation work on the down-low.
Yet the cat is out of the bag – Hamlet does awesome work. RankSense uses big data tools and developer languages to automate SEO processes. His company detects and removes traffic-killing SEO issues before it's too late.
Over the past couple of years, he's become a frequent contributor to The Search Engine Journal, where he talks passionately about using Python to more effectively implement SEO strategy, the value of structured data, deep machine learning, and other technical stories. If you want to do what he does you can check out to any one of his in-depth tutorials to learn exactly how to implement his teachings.
The highlights:
* (1:33) The inspiration for getting the SEO community aware of the relationship between Python and SEO.
* (11:10) Tasks that can be automated, and things Hamlet's been trying out.
* (17…
playlist_add
Jul 24, 2020
Technical Marketing For Fun and Profit with Elad Hefetz
Elad Hefetz is the COO of AirFleet, a company that provides on-demand coding teams for marketing firms. For example, they can take care of CRM integration if you'd like to offer that to a client, or handle all the technical SEO details that many agencies and consultants don't have the manpower to manage themselves.
Partnering with AirFleet allows in-house marketing teams to do more. It allows agencies to scale up. It's just the kind of partnership that Jamar Ramos talked about building when he visited the podcast.
Today Elad talked about some of the challenges businesses face when it comes to technical marketing, as well as some of the issues that have arisen within the sphere recently.
The highlights:
* (3:14) Challenges that businesses run into when it comes to technical marketing.
* (8:20) The importance of personalization.
* (10:18) Personalization and privacy.
* (14:13) What companies need to know when offering services outside of their own expertise.
* (17:20)…
playlist_add
Jul 20, 2020
Getting "Under the Hood" of Reporting and Analytics with Christina Brodzky
For over 10 years, Christina Brodzky, Founder and CEO of Media Sesh, has rolled up her sleeves and done whatever it took to help her clients succeed. That's meant touching nearly every part of the digital marketing industry.
She's done reputation management for celebrities and real estate tycoons. She's done internal site search and has helped major brands identify content gaps and site functionality. She's done every part of SEO: the technical side, the content side, and the link building and outreach side.
Today she brought all the insights she's derived from this breadth of experience to the Agency Ahead podcast.
The highlights:
* (4:07) Identifying KPIs and onboarding new clients.
* (9:19) Effective reporting.
* (13:46) Making recommendations.
* (18:31) Delivering quick wins for clients.
* (20:06) Examining data reliability.
* (22:14) Christina's causes.
The insights:
Identifying KPIs and onboarding new clients
Choosing the right clients and onboarding them…
playlist_add
Jul 17, 2020
Building a Boutique Content Marketing Agency with Lilach Bullock
Lilach Bullock has been a big name in content marketing for a long time. She runs a boutique content marketing agency and works with a variety of businesses by helping them with their blogging, email marketing, and conversions.
She'll teach you how to build a profitable blog, build an online business, get more business, and generate traffic. You can even order SEO-friendly content right from her website. In the past, she's also been a keynote speaker at a number of conferences and events in the industry. We were pleased to welcome her to Agency Ahead today.
The highlights:
* (1:14) The evolution of content and social.
* (2:48) Lilach's approach to content creation.
* (4:22) Agencies and "house builder syndrome."
* (7:35) Where agencies should focus.
* (8:43) Using content to help salespeople.
* (12:43) The state of email marketing.
* (19:53) The future of events.
* (22:34) Lilach's causes.
The insights:
The Evolution of content and social
When Lilach first…
playlist_add
Jul 13, 2020
Forging Agency Partnerships and Diversifying Digital Marketing with Jamar Ramos
Jamar Ramos is the COO and Partner of Crunchy Links, the agency that says they're not magical, they're not sexy—but they do deliver results.
They handle a lot: content marketing, PPC, affiliate marketing, and link building. Yet they don't handle everything – at least, not directly.
Crunchy Links has become known as an agency that's really good at forging productive partnerships with other agencies, all for the greater good of helping clients achieve their business goals. It's a rarely spoken-about secret that these partnerships are vital for agencies that aren't large enough to hire people to do everything, which is most of them.
Jamar also shares his perspective as a Black man working in the C-suite at a digital marketing agency, and with Black Lives Matter back in the public consciousness, discusses how the industry as a whole (dominated as it is by cisgender heterosexual white men) can do a better job of creating a space that's welcoming for everyone.
The highlights:
* (…
playlist_add
Jul 10, 2020
Navigating Fragmented Search Intent with Kevin Indig
Kevin Indig is the VP of SEO and Content at G2, a review website that provides information about various software companies. Traject has a lot of software packages listed on G2, and our company definitely appreciates being able to be on there so that people can evaluate our software.
The other thing Kevin does is write a lot of personal content for TechBound. He also does podcasts, interviews, and really, in-depth actionable blog posts. Today he joined Garrett on the podcast to speak about search intent, and he had some awesome insights to share.
The highlights:
* (2:26) Understanding fragmented search intent, and the recent trends in search intent.
* (7:59) Actionable recommendations for marketers.
* (10:59) Spotting patterns and gathering insights.
* (14:14) Covid's impact on the marketplace.
* (17:21) Content recommendations.
* (19:01) Understanding platform confluence.
* (22:27) Ad targeting vs. privacy.
* (27:22) Kevin's causes.
Resources:
* Fragment…
playlist_add
Jul 6, 2020
Building the Agency Sales Process with Dan Englander
Dan Englander is the CEO and Founder of Sales Schema, a service agency that works with other agencies to help them generate leads and sales. Agencies turn to Sales Schema when they're ready to grow.
He's also the host of the Digital Agency Growth podcast, which teaches agency owners how to take a proactive approach to getting new business so they can "plan effectively, stay ahead of turmoil, and ultimately thrive."
Today he joins Garrett on the Agency Ahead podcast to drop some knowledge on the subject of building out client rosters. This is a don't-miss, especially if the pandemic has left you in desperate need of a new client base.
The highlights:
* (1:36) A description of the typical Sales Schema client.
* (5:33) What agencies tend to look for as they grow, vs. what they should look for.
* (7:34) The framework for seeking new clients and building out your business.
* (9:24) Addressing the lead gen process.
* (12:58) Communicating your value to prospects.
* (15:…
playlist_add
Jun 29, 2020
Building Teams and Systems For Your Marketing Agency with Haley Bryant
Often, agency owners get focused on the work of serving clients: the SEO, content marketing, PPC, and social media marketing side of the business. Yet to grow as an agency you have to work on the business itself.
That's where a focus on systems, teams, and general operations comes in. Today on Agency Ahead, Haley Bryant, recently-promoted Chief Operations Officer at Animalz.co, joins Garrett to share some insights on that process and the impacts it can have on your agency.
The highlights:
* (1:00) The nature of people ops, and what's going on at Animalz.co.
* (3:07) Looking at processes, team building, and developing frameworks.
* (5:00) Advice for remote companies.
* (8:17) Leveraging Slack and other tools.
* (9:15) Fostering ongoing learning initiatives.
* (11:51) Organizing communication without overwhelming employees.
* (13:57) Dealing with organizational growing pains.
* (19:08) Communicating during tough times.
* (23:50) Hopes for the future.
* (2…
playlist_add
Jun 26, 2020
Trend Tracking eCommerce DTC with Aaron Orendorff
Aaron Orendorff, VP of Marketing at the Common Thread Collective, just put out an epic blog post tracking the data on the DTC space as COVID-19 has progressed. One of the ideas in that blog post was that eCommerce brands could essentially make themselves “essential”.
On today's episode of Agency Ahead, you'll get to hear about some of those insights.
Here are the highlights:
* (1:13) The origin story of the Common Thread Collective.
* (4:40) Recommendations for eCommerce clients.
* (9:03) A dive into the data.
* (13:26) On messaging the moment.
* (15:32) On making yourself essential.
* (21:13) On product reviews.
* (22:53) Aaron's cause.
Here are the insights:
Recommendations for eCommerce clients
Aaron says it's all about figuring out what you offer, and the right messaging around that.
One creative method he's seen is offering what he calls discounts that aren't discounts.
"For example, Supply, a single-edge razor company whose AOV [Average Order Val…
playlist_add
Jun 22, 2020
Making Hyper-Local Advertising Easy with Ben Bilbrough
You may not have heard of Addy.co, though it's been around for some time. It's the website that makes advertising easy. "Almost too easy," so goes the slogan.
Ben Bilbrough is the CEO, and his company is a testament to the fact that great entrepreneurs identify and solve problems. In this case, the problem was that small businesses had trouble buying advertising in an efficient, effective way.
Addy.co was the answer. It allows both SMBs and agencies to shop for advertising rather than waiting for someone to sell advertising to them.
Today's podcast lets you learn all about this tool, as well as some of the unique insights Ben has unearthed while observing what's working for his customers.
The highlights:
* (2:17) The ways Addy makes ad buying easier.
* (4:21) How agencies add value to the ad buying process.
* (10:50) How agencies can talk to their clients about Addy.
* (14:34) Current ad buying patterns.
* (17:20) What's working.
* (23:53) Ben's causes.
The insi…
playlist_add
Jun 15, 2020
Adapting Your Marketing To Changing Audience Behavior with Rand Fishkin
It's probably not possible to work in the digital marketing or SEO sphere for more than 5 minutes without hearing about Rand Fishkin. He's the founder and former CEO of Moz.com, whose tools, articles, and Whiteboard Fridays continue to provide a massive amount of value to agencies and consultants alike. He's also the author of Lost and Founder, which is a must-read for anyone who wants to found their own company.
He recently launched a new company and a new product: SparkToro. SparkToro is an exciting new market research product that helps marketers discover who their audience actually is.
Learn all about it, and about market research in general, on today's podcast. As a bonus, you'll get some great thoughts about entrepreneurship as well.
Here are the highlights:
* (1:00) SparkToro in a nutshell.
* (1:25) The challenges SparkToro is designed to fix.
* (3:49) Why market research is so important.
* (5:43) Some surprising ways that users are incorporating SparkToro into t…
playlist_add
Jun 8, 2020
An Analytical Approach To Copywriting with Peep Laja
Peep Laja is the author of How to Build Websites that Sell, as well as the founder and CEO of CXL, a firm that provides marketing training programs and managed online revenue optimization and experimentation services to accelerate growth.
This month, he also launched Copytesting.com, the web's only audience research tool for copy. It's designed to help you understand where the problems are in your copy, so you can fix and improve them. To do this, it allows you to select a panel of real people who will answer research questions about your copy.
In under a day, you get full results.
These results include specific answers to questions about your copy.
Listen in as Garrett talks to Peep about this tool, copywriting in general, and how marketers can use it to deliver better results to their clients.
The highlights:
* (0:53) What sucks about copy, right now.
* (2:22) Where copy matters the most.
* (4:31) The origins of Copytesting.com.
* (7:47) What it takes to get valuabl…
playlist_add
Jun 5, 2020
The Role of Local Marketing and Online Reviews in Reopening Businesses with Aaron Weiche
Aaron Weiche is Mr. Local Everything! He's the CEO of online review management and customer feedback tool GatherUp. He knows the customer experience. He knows online reviews. He knows the agencies that are trying to sell digital marketing services. Tough times? He knows how to handle those, too.
Of course, he's pretty modest about it, telling Garrett at the start of the show: "I don't know everything. I'm willing to learn everything every day though!"
If you're willing to do some learning, then dive in with this episode of the Agency Ahead podcast.
Here are the highlights:
* (1:07) Changes in what the customer really wants to know about your business.
* (2:47) The best way for businesses to broadcast their messages.
* (6:42) The industries that will be the most challenged by reopening.
* (8:17) Advice on generating and marketing reviews.
* (12:12) Why you need to have feedback baked into your business.
* (16:52) Aaron's experience with reviews at GatherUp.
* (2…
playlist_add
May 29, 2020
How COVID-19 is Impacting the eCommerce World with Luke Carthy
Want to make sure your consumers are buying your products? Luke Carthy is an eCommerce consultant, SEO, and CRO specialist dedicated to helping online stores succeed. He's got a twelve-year track record of success helping companies audit and optimize their strategies so they can improve their bottom lines.
He recently joined Garrett to chat about the ways COVID has impacted the eCommerce space. That impact is not as straightforward as you might think!
The highlights:
* (1:48) The right and wrong ways for eCommerce stores to advertise during this crisis.
* (3:59) Examples of good and bad messaging.
* (6:28) Big brands transitioning into eCommerce.
* (9:04) The number one thing companies need if they're going to make a successful pivot to digital.
* (11:34) The right way to talk to the two types of teams that agencies engage with.
* (15:30) The biggest challenges eCommerce is dealing with.
* (18:02) Making the choice to be more transparent.
* (20:20) How eComme…
playlist_add
May 26, 2020
Marketing Your Way to Success in Trying Times with Keith Perhac
Keith Perhac knows a thing or two about building a success story when times are tough. He founded SegMetrics and Develop Your Marketing in 2008, right smack dab in the middle of the housing crisis.
Many of his clients are infopreneurs, bloggers, and online coaches. You may have heard of some of them, like travel blogger Nomadic Matt, natural health guru Wellness Mama, and I Will Teach You To Be Rich. He also helps name-brand clients like Toyota and Circle K, along with a whole host of other, smaller individuals and companies.
Many of his clients also got their start when times were tough. If you're looking for some encouragement or some insight into building your own troubled times success story, you've come to the right place.
Here are the highlights:
* (1:11) Why mentality matters.
* (3:55) Where the opportunities are.
* (9:29) Advice for individuals looking to start an agency or who want to become solopreneurs.
* (11:01) What's going on in the ad world, and the real…
playlist_add
May 22, 2020
Changes in Mobile Search Behavior and Intent with Cindy Krum
How has COVID-19 impacted mobile search behavior? To answer that question, Garrett turned to Cindy Krum, the CEO of MobileMoxie. MobileMoxie produces a variety of research and analysis tools to help companies master their mobile SEO and marketing strategy. They also consult with companies around the world to help them develop those strategies.
This is an interesting question primarily because COVID-19 has created a huge spike in mobile usage, and yet mobile search traffic and ad revenue are down.
In today's podcast, find out what Cindy's seeing, and use that to help you and your clients get ahead.
The highlights:
* (1:27) How mobile search behavior is changing.
* (7:01) Who are the biggest winners?
* (9:13) Budget-friendly mobile marketing strategies.
* (11:10) How the crisis is impacting mobile SERPs.
* (13:37) How Google is struggling to keep up with a world gone more virtual.
* (15:59) Is Google doing a good job?
* (17:12) Cindy's causes.
Want the insights…
playlist_add
May 18, 2020
Realistic Expectations For High-Quality Link Building With Alex Tachalova
Alex Tachalova is a digital PR, link building specialist, and founder of the marketing conference, Digital Olympus. She's been published by the Search Engine Journal and has spoken at many conferences. She's known as one of the brightest minds in our field.
Today she joined Agency Ahead to talk white hat, ethical link-building strategy. You won't just learn about strategy though: you'll learn about setting the appropriate expectations that can set you up for success.
Here are the highlights:
* (2:45) Why links matter so much.
* (6:02) Why focusing on major publications may not be your best bet and the downsides of using unethical strategies to do so.
* (12:11) A better way to form link building relationships, and setting realistic expectations for link building.
* (14:22) Setting expectations for entering a new niche.
* (18:34) Strategies for building relationships and creating authoritative content in a new niche.
* (21:27) Why you need to link to external website…
playlist_add
May 15, 2020
Tweaking Your Social Media Marketing and Advertising Pandemic Strategy with Andrea Vahl
If you want to master social media marketing, particularly on Facebook and Instagram, then you should spend a little time learning from Andrea Vahl. She's the author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies, a speaker and a consultant, and an expert on ad management.
Since a lot of the Agency Ahead audience provides social media advertising services for their clients, Garrett caught up with her to get her take on advertising during the last several months.
The highlights:
* (1:40) Advertising in the current economic environment.
* (3:04) Strategies for ensuring messaging stays on-point.
* (4:38) Easing back into the selling process.
* (5:52) Getting the right mindset about advertising in an economic downturn.
* (6:46) How to counsel clients right now.
* (8:19) Where agency owners and consultants can go to start looking for new clients.
* (10:02) Finding the right course if you want to update your skills.
* (13:08) Strategies for pitching clients.
* (14…
playlist_add
May 11, 2020
The Importance of Product Positioning Through COVID-19 with April Dunford
Many companies are shifting business models, entering new markets, and trying to find ways to pivot during the COVID-19 crisis. Production positioning, the art of differentiating yourself from the competition, can set businesses up for success or doom them to an unsustainable future. This is also inherently true for marketing agencies and consultants who may be struggling to hold on to clients.
April Dunford is the expert on product positioning. She's the author of Obviously Awesome, and a positioning consultant who has positioned herself to serve a select clientele: tech companies. She joined the Agency Ahead podcast with some insights that are exceptionally timely and relevant.
The highlights:
* (1:39) Conversations about positioning in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.
* (4:04) How conversations with B2B companies change as the economy changes.
* (7:14) How tech companies are pivoting to adjust their positioning.
* (13:16) Why listening to your customers is key.
* (…
playlist_add
May 8, 2020
Mentorship and Community-Focused SEO with Carolyn Lyden
Carolyn Lyden heads up Search Hermit, where she works with local business owners on their search engine optimization to drive organic traffic. Though she works with all kinds of business owners, she has a passion for working with female-owned companies, helping them to generate new customers with SEO.
Though this interview will have many items of particular interest for women running agencies and consultancies, guys and non-binary marketers might wanna stick around as well. There's plenty of insights for you, too!
The highlights:
* (1:23) Why women-owned businesses?
* (4:32) Challenges and assets for female entrepreneurs.
* (8:04) Finding a community of mentors and helpers.
* (12:12) What local SEO wins look like for small business owners.
* (14:58) Carolyn's ideal clients.
* (18:26) Communication and pivoting strategies for clients.
* (22:19) Recommendations for GMB messaging.
* (25:14) How Carolyn is paying it forward.
Don't have time to listen to the show…
playlist_add
May 4, 2020
Let’s Talk Social Media Marketing Challenges During the Pandemic with Andrea Jones
Andrea Jones is a social media strategist and the host of Savvy Social Podcasts. She's also the host of the Savvy Social School, an amazing online school where you can go to uplevel your social media marketing skills.
Social marketing has become more integral than ever during this pandemic, so she had some fantastic insights to share on this episode.
Here are the highlights:
* (2:01) How Andrea is helping clients.
* (4:44) A starting point for businesses who are pivoting to social media for the first time during this crisis.
* (6:02) Being sensitive about messaging during the Covid-19 crisis.
* (7:40) On evaluating risk-taking in your messaging.
* (9:10) On being proactive about reaching out to clients.
* (10:59) On communicating your value to your clients.
* (14:47) Advice for social media managers who are losing clients.
* (21:27) Brands that are really killing it right now.
* (23:48) Predictions for the post-pandemic era.
* (25:52) Andrea's causes.…
playlist_add
May 1, 2020
The Future of Remote Work and Remotely Working With Clients with Aleyda Solis
Aleyda Solis is everywhere. She's an international SEO consultant and the co-founder of Remoters.net, a wonderful resource for everyone's new normal: working from home.
She's also an SEO dynamo who covers technical SEO, YouTube SEO, eCommerce SEO, and more.
On this episode of the Agency Ahead podcast, Aleyda met with Garrett to talk about how the COVID-19 crisis has shaped the future of remote work. She also talked about the impact the crisis has had on her clients and what's going on in SEO at present.
The highlights:
* (1:37) Remoters.net, and all the resources it has to offer.
* (4:44) The current sentiment about remote work, and its future.
* (9:10) On how the remote lifestyle will be sold and spoken about.
* (10:38) On whether things are going back to normal yet.
* (15:06) On Aleyda's content recommendations.
* (17:07) Aleyda's take on Google Shopping.
* (22:15) Aleyda's causes.
Don't have time to listen? Here are the top insights.
What's Remoters.net? W…
playlist_add
Apr 27, 2020
COVID-19 Search Engine Shifts with Callum Scott
Callum Scott is a member of the Marie Haynes Consulting team. He is in fact one of the people you're likely to contact first when you get in touch with the SEO firm, the brainchild of expert digital marketer, Dr. Marie Haynes.
This SEO agency has a unique focus: Google penalty recovery and algorithm consultation. They publish the Marie Haynes' Guide to the Quality Raters Guidelines, as well as a highly informative and renowned SEO algorithm newsletter, Search News You Can Use. They help companies solve the mysteries of sudden organic traffic drops, and help them get back on track.
Callum sat down with Garrett to discuss how COVID-19 is impacting MHC's business, its clients, and its employees.
Highlights:
* (1:16) How the virus has impacted contracts at MHC.
* (3:30) How Google may be filtering search results in the middle of this crisis.
* (6:29) How the team is analyzing current fluctuations in search results.
* (8:12) The recommendations that are going out to clients,…
playlist_add
Apr 24, 2020
What It's Like to Launch a Business During a Crisis with Andrew Cock-Starkey
Andrew Cock-Starkey was an in-house SEO expert for a company in Cambridge, UK, when he launched Optimisey, a monthly SEO MeetUp where he brought in other experts to talk shop with 60 to 80 participants every month.
After each event, participants would come up to him and ask if he'd do SEO for their company. It happened enough times that he finally launched Optimisey, the SEO consultancy, quitting his job and taking on clients – about one month before Covid-19 became a global reality.
On this episode of Agency Ahead he talked with Garrett about what that's been like.
The highlights:
* (1:38) On the benefits of running events before launching a consultancy.
* (8:55) On communicating with clients about Covid-19.
* (10:23) On remaining agile during a crisis.
* (16:42) SEO strategies and tactics.
* (21:32) Businesses helping businesses.
* (24:50) A strategy for building a strong SEO consultancy that can weather a crisis.
* (26:52) Andrew's causes.
Just want to sk…
playlist_add
Apr 20, 2020
Building Community in Troubled Times with Shane Barker
Shane Barker is a digital strategist, influencer expert, teacher, podcaster, and speaker. He has a long track record of helping companies grow their revenue through the art of digital marketing. He has an equally stellar track record of helping influencers grow their careers.
Yet right now, he's not focused on numbers and deals. He's focused on connection. Community. The COVID-19 crisis has shifted his perspective and his approach. Maybe it will shift back when all is said and done – but it sounds like Shane is welcoming the change, ready to move forward, not backwards, even after the dust clears and the world starts working its way towards recovery once more.
Hear what he's got to say here on today's episode of Agency Ahead.
The highlights:
* (1:26) Don't play hardball with contracts. Do this instead.
* (4:54) Doing sales the right way during the COVID-19 crisis.
* (6:02) How conversations are changing – for the better.
* (9:40) Opportunities for businesses to make…
playlist_add
Apr 17, 2020
Local SEO During COVID-19 with Phil Rozek
Phil Rozek of Local Visibility System joined us on Agency Ahead today to talk about how the crisis is impacting local search. He's a well-known expert in the field known for his no-nonsense, in-depth guidance and expertise.
If you've got local clients, you won't want to miss this podcast.
Here are the highlights:
* (1:21) On day-to-day work, what's changed and what hasn't.
* (4:17) On who to touch base with, and in what order.
* (8:00) Why is it so important to check in?
* (10:55) How can local SEOs adjust to Google's functionality problems?
* (17:14) Where else should business owners and local SEO professionals be spending time and energy?
* (22:08) The potential impact of Google's loss of trust.
* (24:25) Phil's causes.
Here's the quick takeaways.
On Day-to-Day Work
Phil says he's putting in extra hours to make sure all of his clients get what they need in terms of local SEO advice and overall visibility. Most of his own clients aren't experiencing some of…
playlist_add
Apr 13, 2020
Leadership and Engagement In a Time of Crisis with Lee Odden
* (3:23) How to communicate with employees during the Covid-19 crisis.
* (5:06) What's the most important thing for agencies to be focused on right now from a leadership and communication standpoint?
* (8:47) How should agencies approach the delicate dance of helping clients make their business even better during this time?
* (11:28) How can you help clients who are in a really bad spot right now?
* (13:21) What's happening with B2B influencers right now, in a time where one slip-up can have a huge brand reputation impact?
* (16:26) Is there a new normal on the horizon?
* (18:46) What brands are handling this situation really well?
* (21:45) Lee's right now causes.
Don't have time to tune in? Here are the highlights.
Communicating with employees during the crisis
Launch regular meetings to discuss what's going on, what changes are taking place, where support is necessary, and what decisions are being made, especially in this time where rapid-fire decision makin…
playlist_add
Apr 10, 2020
How Google is Responding to COVID-19 with Ben Fisher
Just want the highlights? Here's what you'll find inside.
* (4:35) Where is Google allocating its resources?
* (8:11) We know all about what Google's doing wrong — what are they doing right?
* (12:17) What are some other ways that Google is responding?
* (21:05) What might Google be rolling out in the near future?
* (24:14) What are some of Google's challenges vis a vis providing accurate information to users?
* (29:23) Why did Google lock down reviews and Q&As?
* (36:32) What should small business owners be focused on in terms of managing their GMB profiles?
* (40:38) Ben's cause-of-choice.
Don't have time to listen? Here are the top insights.
Where is Google allocating its resources?
Google is in significant fluctuation right now in terms of what functionality they're adding and what's breaking. Ben notes that anything other than edits to hours or descriptions go to moderation. "It's because they don't have the human capacity to support any kind of issues or pro…
playlist_add
Apr 6, 2020
Google My Business, Small Businesses, and the COVID-19 Local Economy with Jason Brown
There’s a whole lot of Google My Business spam out there, and Jason Brown is a guy who has been fighting it for a long time. He’s now a local search analyst and spam fighter for Local SEO agency Sterling Sky, as well as a Gold Google Product Expert.
Garrett got him on the podcast on Tuesday, March 24th to talk about how businesses are responding to the shifts in the economy as well as the shut-downs. The situation has been fluid so we’ve added notes where references in the podcast have been updated to reflect current situations on Google. Jason also talked a lot about how agencies can respond. You can listen to the whole podcast here.
Here are some of the highlights:
* (1:55) What does Jason's Google spam hunting services look like?
* (3:25) What was the transition like to a remote working setup with kids locked down at hime?
* (5:30) Google's functionality problems since Friday, March 20th. How Sterling Sky communicated those Google My Business problems with clients.…
playlist_add
Mar 30, 2020
Marketing in a Time of Uncertainty with Jason Swenk
Traject's kickoff podcast featured agency consultant Jason Swenk, an expert in running and scaling marketing agencies.
Since the podcast debut comes right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Head of Content and host Garrett Sussman asked him to give his best advice on this difficult economic time.
It is definitely an age of uncertainty.
"Stopping your marketing to save money is like stopping your watch to save time."
-Henry Ford
Jason begins by reminding agencies to remind their clients of this key quote. "Stopping your marketing makes as much sense as brown toilet paper, and that doesn't work."
While we've never had a time like this where as a society businesses have been literally ordered to shut down, we've similarly never had the Internet during such a tough time. "We can adjust. And you have to. You have to pivot, because if you keep doing the same thing you've always done you're going to go out of business."
This could be an exciting time for digital marketers.
Swenk…
playlist_add