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We share our thoughts and ideas on how to grow a business.
David took over both accounts.
Updating work kind of at the low point
in I would say both rankings and leads.
So both accounts have been running
for probably over two years at this
point, and they had hit an all time
high in both rankings and leads.
And then there was maybe like a
three to six month decline from
that high where ranking started
stagnating and leads were dropping.
We noticed that when we
get into those engagements.
Deep in then in addition to what
we have built our whole process
around, which is producing these new
articles to rank for new keywords.
Now we have this additional challenge
that's, well, we got to do a bunch
of work to go back and make little
tweaks or just kind of analyze and see.
What's going on with these past keywords
to make sure that none of those ranking
slips, because those rankings are very
important to the overall lead number.
If you're generating for a client, 150
leads a month and some key pieces from
the past drop, and that drops to a
hundred, they notice what do we do that?
We have an engagement.
And an operation priced at a
certain level to produce new
pieces, to rank for new keywords.
Now, what do we do?
Do we just do add on work?
Do we charge the client more?
So today we want to talk about clients
that have been with us for a long
time and this challenge we have of how
the engagement changes specifically.
Our main engagement we do for
clients on the SEO and content side
is to identify and rank for these
bottom of funnel or buying keywords.
If you're not familiar with our
main engagement, you can see it
literally anywhere on our site,
but you could read, for example,
pain point SEO, and that's fine.
And the way we rank for these are
these is by writing new articles.
And these new articles, you know,
over time, we have a process of like
writing them really well, identifying
the keyword ranking for them, ranking
for those keywords and bringing in
leads that come from these bottom of
the funnel keywords for our clients.
That's what they're buying, right?
Is they, by the end of a year, they rank
for 30 plus of these keywords on page
one, and then they get a bunch of leads
because they're ranking for like the most
bottom of funnel stuff and accounting
software ranking for best accounting
software, that kind of thing, right?
That's standard grow and convert.
The challenge we want to talk about
today and what we brought David on to
talk about is what happens a year two,
three, four, when in addition to writing
these new articles every month, that's
ranking for new keywords, you have
Sometimes hundreds of past keywords and
articles that were ranking for valuable
stuff, rankings don't stay completely
untouched for three years, things
fluctuate, search intent fluctuates, you
may lose rankings or whatever, right?
Not drastically if you're
doing things properly, right?
It's not drastic, but a little
bit and a little bit matters.
And so we noticed that when we get
into those engagements deep in then In
addition to what we have built our whole
process around, which is producing these
new articles to rank for new keywords.
Now we have this additional challenge.
That's well, we got to do a bunch of
work to go back and make little tweaks
or just kind of analyze and see what's
going on with these past keywords to
make sure that none of those ranking
slips, because those rankings are very
important to the overall lead number.
If you're generating for a
client, 150 leads a month.
And, and some key pieces from
the past drop, and that drops
to a hundred, they notice.
And so, what do we do then?
Right?
Because now we're basically saying we
have an engagement and an operation
priced at a certain level to produce
new pieces to rank for new keywords.
Now, what do we do?
Do we just do add on work?
Do we charge the client more?
We will describe in a bit what we
have been doing and our choices,
but that's the problem at hand.
So, welcome to Our YouTube and
podcast series, David, who is our
content strategist, who's basically
been championing this, um, updating,
we call it like updates, right?
This updating thing for a few
clients, um, long running multi year
clients for which this is an issue.
Um, but Benji, I want to turn it to
you first of just, is there any other
context that you want to provide
before we asked David to talk about his
opinions on this and what his process is?
I mean, David took over both
accounts that needed this updating
work kind of at the low point in, I
would say both rankings and leads.
So the, both accounts have been running
for probably over two years at this
point, and they had hit an all time high
in both rankings and leads, and then.
There was maybe like a three
to six month decline from that,
that high where ranking started
stagnating and leads were dropping.
And I think you took, you, you
came in at both the low point of
both the rankings and the leads
and took over running the account.
One of the accounts was because
Someone left to grow and convert
and you took over for them.
And the other was I was still running
the account and brought you in at that
low point, just because you had just
come off of the success of getting
that first account to rebound on both
the rankings and the leads as well.
So.
Yeah, I, I, I'd be curious then they both
reached, uh, their new high last month.
Remember?
Recall?
Yeah.
So you took over the second
one, I think in July.
And so six, six months later
hit a new all time high.
And then the first one, I don't,
it was what last year at this
time, I took over, uh, in December
of, so what are we in 2020?
So 2022 December.
Yeah.
And then, and then we hit.
An all time high for them, when?
Um, that was a kind of a more nuanced one.
But we, the same month, last
month, was an all time high.
Um, or a very, yeah,
of the past ten months.
Because they had switched
reporting metrics.
So it's not like a good
year over year comparison.
Fair.
Yeah, we went from reporting on UA.
Yeah, to HubSpot.
To HubSpot.
And so from a tracking
perspective, it's not one to one.
So I think there's, there's a couple of
things that we should talk about, um,
that'd be relevant to, to the listeners.
Right.
And the number one thing is the challenge.
Like, like why would we even do this?
And you guys are kind of talking about
that now is just to be clear to everyone.
It's not like he took
over at an all time low.
All of our engagements start
from zero leads produced by
growing convert blog posts.
That's the low.
And then what happened is you
get to an all time high at some
point, a year and a half plus in.
And then some of those early rankings for
some of honestly the best keywords, right?
Because we're going to go
after the best keywords early.
Cause why not?
If those start slipping, we
dip from that all time high.
It's not an all time low, but we dip.
And the clients notice that, cause
they're used to, up to that point in the
engagement, they're used to every month,
basically, not exactly, but basically,
increasing, increasing, increasing.
And then when it dips for a few months
in a row, they're like, what's going on?
How do we fix this?
Right, justifiably so!
And they ask questions like, well,
why are we producing these new pieces?
We used to have this, these rankings.
What happened?
Can we adjust those?
And that's that predicament of now we have
to do this extra work that was not sort of
planned or part of the normal engagement.
David, I'd love for you to talk about
like when you walk in, first of all, if
you have any thoughts on, on, on the way
I set that up and if you disagree with.
With that kind of positioning of, of the
predicament, but two, then I'm curious
when you walk into these accounts, like,
what, what do you notice and what do
you have to do in terms of like now,
so that the audience understands what
kind of workload are we talking about?
The only thing I'd say about your
first comment, I'm, I'm, I'm trying
myself to get out of the, get out of
the habit of saying best keywords.
We definitely target the keywords
that we think are going to make
the most sense at the beginning.
But as the engagement
goes on, we find new best.
I mean, Benji, and I have an example
of this on the second account I took
over where we have these keywords
that no one thought they would really
like, okay, we'll go up more high a
funnel or more slightly mixed intent.
And then they convert really, really well.
Now, I know what you're saying like
the sentiment we go after the main
category, like Most bottom of the
funnel keywords in the beginning.
Um, yeah, I would just say,
but best is like mixed.
I don't want to seem like
that's a fair call out.
You can't predict a priority.
What's going to be best.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That one David's referring
to, I think we published that.
What like.
October, November, it's not even
like a main feature of, uh, the
client and it's, it's, it was one
of the best converters last month.
Um, so yeah, it's just
something that it's interesting.
And then what's the, what,
what's the second one?
What do I think when I walk into, so,
so yeah, like, can you describe, well,
I think maybe just set up like what,
what the problem is when you come in.
So like, why, in your opinion, why,
why, why are rankings even slipping?
These are two really good examples
of the accounts because they
did start roughly the same time.
One started January 2021,
one started February 2021.
And they both actually, um, we
did different things for them.
I thought we were doing the same
thing for both accounts in terms of
how to save rankings, but it wasn't.
We did two different things.
Um, and the kind of breakthrough moment
came when we looked at the performance
on the first account, account A.
Like at a very granular by
URL level for each month.
And that's when we noticed we can spot
over the course of engagement, like
some months, like our best converting
posts were converting, let's just
say like 50 conversions a month.
And then now this new blog
that had gone down to like 20.
So we could spot that.
And that, but the big eye opener was, is
that their target keyword that they were
ranking for, say it's accounting software.
We didn't lose that ranking.
So we had that number one
ranking eight months ago and it
was brought in 50 conversions.
We had the number one ranking for that
now and it was only bringing in 20.
And that's kind of what the
conversation became like, well,
we're like, we're doing our job.
The post is ranking for number one,
like that's what we're supposed to do.
We target this keyword, it's
ranking and traffic seems
like, but then traffic's less.
So then it's like, well, is it people
are searching that keyword less?
And that's a lot of
different conversations.
But what we noticed when we looked
into, uh, Ahrefs was that at its
best month, it was also ranking.
Indirect it was also ranking like
through all these secondary keywords
We started calling all these kind of
similar keywords of different semantics
like accounting software software for
accountants accounting software for
small businesses Those are some examples
that could be it was ranking in the
top three spots for those keywords
that we did not originally target But
which our post is ranking for anyways.
Yeah.
So just to recap, like what, what you
did specifically, because I think this
is important to identify the issue.
You looked at all the pieces that we,
so you create an Excel spreadsheet
of all the pieces that we published.
So like all the URLs, and then
you looked at conversion by
month for every single article.
So this spreadsheet becomes
article one, January, February.
All, all, all the months of each year
and then putting how many conversions.
And then, then you were also
looking at the ranking position too.
And so what you're saying is for some
of the best performing articles, let's
say that I had converted 50 times in
January of 2022, now it's converting.
Let's say in January
2023, only 20 conversions.
So there's a drop of 30, but yet the
ranking position is still the same.
And so on the surface for the main
keyword that we were going after.
So on the surface, it looks like,
well, nothing's wrong because you're
still ranking in that first position,
but conversions have come down.
But what you noticed then digging
into Ahrefs for that URL was that.
If you pull up all the organic keywords
that it used to rank for, the reason
why there are additional conversions in
those prior months were because we were
also ranking for these other high intent
keywords alongside the main keyword
that we were targeting that we now lost.
And so we didn't even
plan for, yeah, exactly.
Which we did.
Which so I'm going to be the one,
I think in this conversation, keep
bringing it back to like the business
decisions and choices, because that's.
That's what the listeners are,
are, are here listening for.
That itself is interesting, right?
It's like we promise the client, Hey,
we're going to rank you for something
like best accounting software.
That's, that's made up.
Neither of these are accounting clients.
And then we do that.
We maintain that, but they notice, huh,
even though you're ranking that we're
ranking number one for that, still three
months ago, it was 50 conversions a month.
Now it's 20.
What's going on?
And then we realized serendipitously, it
was also ranking for, I'm just going to
make some random thing up best accounting
software in the cloud or best accounting
software in New York or something, right?
And then we're like, well, we weren't even
planning on going after these rankings.
It was just luck.
Okay.
That luck has gone away, but the
client's expectation is still life.
When the luck was there, I want that
life when I was getting 50, even
though that was by luck, I mean,
luck is not appropriate term, right?
Like it's normal that you rank
for some head thing and you
get a bunch of other ones.
And so then.
That itself, I remember us three
having a discussion of being like,
when you discovered this, David, you
were like, okay, I figured this out.
Like there was a bunch of other stuff
we didn't even plan on ranking for.
We weren't even monitoring the
rankings for best accounting
software in New York city.
All right.
That wasn't on our radar, but we
had it turns out and we lost it.
And that's probably what's responsible.
And then we were like,
well, so what do we do now?
We optimize this, this piece.
We already wrote a while back.
That was basically from a business
standpoint, they already paid for.
And we go back and then we re
optimize it for those old things.
So, foreshadowing, that is
literally what we've been doing.
But there is a thing there where,
like, now it takes your time doing
a bunch of stuff we hadn't planned.
When we first saw this, there was,
to me, like, two really immediate
possibilities of action we can take.
One is, what you just said, like, re
optimize the existing post, right?
So this post once rang for
accounting software in New York City.
Uh, therefore it stands as a reason maybe
it can rank forward again, depending on
how far its position had dropped, right?
So like if it used to rank in position
3, but now it's like position like
70, that's maybe not a good argument.
But now it's position like 12,
maybe we can just look at the
SERP, re optimize, get it back.
That was like option A, and the most
commonly used option for sure, option A.
And option B would be like, if it
had dropped enough or if there was
enough differences in the cert, it
would be rewriting a whole, I mean
writing a brand new post to target that
keyword that we once had that loss.
That was less likely to occur,
um, but it was another option.
And so the, the, the tricky part of the
frustration part for, for there, there's,
there's a few things more than just
time, but It is, um, knowing when to do
that, knowing when to just re optimize an
existing post or rewrite, or write a brand
new post and target the, uh, keyword.
Which there, there's no
right answer for, right?
No, we have some, like,
we made some guidelines.
Like, we, we looked at SERP similarities
and we said, okay, well, like,
if the SERP's vastly different.
That's one point for new
keyword, new article.
If it used to rank for the secondary
keyword and hasn't ranked for
it in like four months, that's
another point for new article.
But in this specific case for this
client, for client number one,
because again, client number two,
this actually was not an issue at all.
Uh, but in client number one,
most of them, like definitely 80
percent of them were going to be
re optimizations of existing post.
Because there was How many were we
talking about in client number one?
When you say most of them, 80
percent is like How many posts?
How many posts did we like, re optimize?
I don't know.
I can speak more to keywords,
like we probably re optimized
for like 50 keywords.
Yeah, it was a lot.
And then, do you remember the name of that
tool for the SERP, the SERP similarity?
Yeah, it's on the, uh, it's
on the case study we wrote.
It's called Keyword Insights.
And it just takes a snapshot of a SERP.
Um, it's a free tool.
You get like five a day and it gives you,
um, a similarity between the two SERPs.
But yeah.
And then do you remember
what your guidelines were?
I think it was like 70, it was over 70%.
Well, it was over 50 percent or more.
It was a hardcore pause.
If the SERP was 50 percent or
more similar, it was like, I have
to, now I need to change my mind.
So it'd be like, I need to find.
evidence that I should do this,
because otherwise I should not, I
should not write, um, a new article.
Let me translate this so that everyone
can follow, because I think we're using
some acronyms and saying some of this
stuff fast, and it's obvious to us.
So, a few things.
So SERP just for everyone.
If you're just following for the business
journey that refers to search engine
results page, AKA the Google results, like
page one, basically of the Google results.
And when we talk about when David and
Benji are talking about similarity,
what we're talking about is there
is the original target keyword.
We wrote that post to rank for.
And, and in this, these scenarios,
we're talking about rankings that
have not dropped or not dropped
significantly for that target keyword,
then there is some secondary keyword.
We're looking at one of them at a time
that we did not intend to rank for,
but David discovered that we happen
to be ranking for that in the past.
And he's saying, well, I think
it's something, I think it's
something even more specific.
It's basically, yeah.
If there were two queries that you
were going after and you were to
search for query A, so let's say
accounting software, and then accounting
software for small business being the
second query, if you were to search
for both of those in Google's, how
much overlap is there in the SERP of
the same articles or pages ranking?
That that's like the SERP similarity.
And so oftentimes when you search for
two different things, there's some
pages that rank for both of them.
And so if there's high similarity,
chances are you can rank for
both queries with the same page.
If there's low similarity, if you're
seeing completely different results,
then Google's basically telling you
that the intent of these two searches.
Are pretty different and you
should probably, and you basically
need to create two separate
pages to rank for each of those.
And those are the extreme examples, right?
So one would be high similarity.
If you have two queries and page
one results are literally the same
things are ranking, of course you
just produce one because Google is
literally showing you I'm ranking
the same thing for both, right?
Versus.
If it's, there's no overlap, page
one, all 10 results are the different
between query A and query B.
Google is again, literally
showing its hand and saying, I'm
not ranking stuff from A to B.
It's a totally different thing.
But, real life, the reason we're
talking about criteria, real life
is of course not in those extremes.
It'll be some mix.
What do you do when position 1, 3, and
5 are the same between queries A and
B, but everything else is different?
Then you're like, well, if we were,
if our article was the same as that
number 1 article or number 3 article,
that would be very convenient.
We'd only have to write one.
And like, they get to rank for both.
But you're like, well, but what if That's
because they have a lot of link building
or something something or whatever right
like and then and then do we is it safer?
For us to write a second article and
then there's the client being like
of course in the client's interest
are like well If you can just rank it
with the article We already wrote in
the past Then just do that so that we
can get a new article out of you guys
this month for whatever and you're
sort of balancing those Three things
is that an accurate assessment David?
No, it's accurate and that's where it gets
very complicated Um, because what do you,
what do we mean when we say re optimize?
Like, what are we doing?
What, what, what, and that, and
that's different per keyword.
Cause like, I mean, I'm
trying to think of an example.
One I can kind of, kind of think of.
This is kind of made up.
So more like a thought experiment example.
But when you look at a keyword
like, um, how to track time off.
Say that's a keyword.
Jobs to be done keyword.
Right?
And the intent for that has
changed over the past three years.
Just like my own personal theory here.
Because.
More and more freelancers
are tracking time off.
So it used to be like a small business,
medium business heavy keyword.
Now the SERP is also full of like
Clockify, like personal time tracker.
Track your own time.
So the, the, the, the, the SERP
has like the actual meaning of the
word per Google has kind of changed
more than just even forget like the
result of what's ranking in Google.
So now the question becomes like,
well, if I want to optimize for
that now, and let's just say.
Like I need to it's more than just
putting keywords in like my audience
has changed And so that was kind of a
more what's the word i'm looking for?
Like that's where things can get really
fun, but also kind of frustrating.
It's not trying to figure out.
It's a more substantive edit, right?
What's the edit we're doing because
like, you know Like, you know, as you
know, we write very like specific posts
like when we write our posts We target
a specific audience and we're like
we're writing to them And now if the
serp has changed and the audience has
changed slightly You know, that's That
involves changes to the intro, changes
to the structure, the headers, that
involves changes to the examples, right?
That involves the change to
what competitors you're going
to include, uh, what alternative
solutions you're going to include.
Now I'm going to add three or four
competitors that involve time off
tracking for freelancers, which I
didn't do before in that example.
So there is kind of like just, that
was kind of, for most of it, the
bigger frustration was like, when
does a re optimization come a rewrite?
At what point is it just doing like
a facelift of the, of the existing
article to make it competitive
and disruptive versus like, we're
basically rewriting an article.
Can you talk a little bit about
the spreadsheet that you created?
I think like we're, we're talking about
rewriting, but um, an important part in
my memory of all of this is that even
getting the data across a hundred, 150
articles and their intended keywords,
getting the data of how many conversions.
Per month did every single
article get is non trivial.
It was non trivial back in the universal
analytics GA3 quote unquote world and
now it's become even more non trivial
in the GA4 world which GA4 makes some
of this conversion attribution even
more difficult and we've had to use like
third party tools and if a client's on
HubSpot we use that and all this And, and
what I remember is like, most companies
don't even track total conversions from
blog versus homepage versus whatever.
We do that.
We've talked about this
a bunch on our site.
Maybe we can record some more
videos on how we do that.
But you then were like, no, no, we
need to track it by individual blog
posts across a hundred plus posts.
And by month.
So it was this like matrix you created
in a spreadsheet where like down the
first column was every single URL,
a blog post, and then across the
different columns, a horizontally
across the top of the spreadsheet was
month after month after month across.
Years.
So we're talking about 24 columns of
months or whatever for two years, right?
And every single cell was filled in with
a number of how many conversions that
had, and you basically did it manually.
Like you had to look up the
analytics every month and write
that down across two years, right?
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
How, how, how long does that take you?
It's, it's, it's
incredibly time consuming.
And then, um, and you, and you, and
you tend to do it twice because now
you're doing manual data entry and
like being wrong is an issue, right?
Because if you're saying you have
eight conversions and you have
zero, you're going to look in
places that don't make any sense.
Um, it's very time consuming because
you have to, or we, we do exclude.
I'm sure there's somebody smarter
than me, Google Analytics for
sure, Spreadsheets for sure,
that can maybe make this simpler.
But for me, this is the only
way I can think of how to do it.
Because you have to exclude anything
that's not organic, um, anything
that came from other sources that
you don't want to, uh, include.
Organic or, I mean, paid or
referrals and that kind of stuff.
And then you want to, so, I mean,
excluding, like, UTM, you know,
URLs and that kind of stuff.
And so you just have to, I just went
through, and But I mean doing that is a
pain and how long it takes it takes a bit
I don't know the answer to that question.
I mean, I know it was The first time
I did it, uh, for the client A, the
first client, it was a few, it was a
few days because I, I didn't realize
that, like, you have to scroll down to
Google Analytics and there's more pages.
So I was counting all the data for
the first, like, 25 results and didn't
realize there was more after that.
So there's mistakes involved,
but I would say on average, it's,
it's, it's, it's a time consuming,
it's a day, it's a day job.
For sure.
But it's super helpful.
I mean, because once you get that, because
that's the key, the key thing you see
so much in that spreadsheet that kind of
changed the way I view, honestly, grow
and convert and like my job at grow and
convert, because you see, like you start
seeing like patterns, like how long it
takes for a post to rank and convert.
That's interesting.
Right.
I mean, cause you start thinking
now I'm really thinking in terms of
conversions, like it even changes
like our, our link building strategy.
Cause I'm like, yeah, sure.
This post is.
position 5, but it's converted the same
at position 5 as it has at position 2.
So I'm not going to put in more
links towards this post because
I can use that money elsewhere.
I don't want to, this post converts the
same no matter what, if that makes sense.
So again, it gives you a lot of
insight to, um, the account and
where to maximize growth or where
not to maximize growth, like where it
doesn't make sense to put your energy.
Yeah, maybe that's a good segue
into account number two, because
I think that the issues were very
different and number two did not have.
So I was all prepared, all excited
to get into account number two.
I'm going to, I know I'm going to
do, I'm going to look for high.
Uh, you know, value, what
are they looking for?
High buying intent, secondary keywords.
But when we get to account number
two, they don't have any of that.
Their posts are ranking for the same
keywords they've always been ranking for.
There is no what we call easy wins, which
is where I go into a high converting post.
Find a secondary keyboard it had that
had dropped off and re optimize for it.
It didn't have any of that.
So we immediately, which is where
the client sees like the fastest like
growth is when we get those easy wins.
Instead we went to like phase two of this
process, which is basically, uh, using
that spreadsheet to help us strategically
build links and to make sure we're
not focusing all of our link building
efforts on just like a select few posts.
And that would kind of became
what we did for account two.
So account two involved I think if I
say 50 keywords for account one for re
optimization to account two involved four.
Keyword.
Yeah.
For, for, I mean, that was it.
We've done it.
We did it one month.
And so then the reason, the reason
an account to the conversion has been
dropping is that we were just losing
rankings for the intended target
keyword for those four or what happened?
No, it was different.
It was for that account.
There were probably five to
10 really high value pages.
So think like the most
obvious category term.
So it'd be like for us.
Content marketing agency, putting all
of our resources into try to ranking
for that term, like for what, which
for us, like makes a ton of sense.
Like if, no, no, but why did it drop?
Yeah, I'm getting to that.
So because we were basically putting
all the link building budget towards
trying to get to rank for those pages
and not putting the budget towards a lot
of these other really valuable terms.
And so like imagine.
Content marketing agency
is super competitive.
And so you're needing hundreds of links
to that page in order to get it to rank.
And so all the link budget was going
at probably five of those articles
that were similar, like these really
high value pages, thinking that if
we can get those articles to rank.
The volume's high for that keyword.
The purchase intent is
high for that keyword.
And so like, let's just
own these keywords.
But because we were doing that, the
link budget wasn't going to a lot of
these other really valuable pages that
once we started pushing links to those
pages, we're yielding conversions.
And so it almost put the account
at risk a little bit because.
You're putting all your
eggs in one basket.
And if there's dips in conversions,
even like if there's changes
in search behavior, if like.
You move from position one to
position three, your conversions
job, and you don't have the rest
of the, the keyword landscape to
help make up in conversion volume.
And so I think the shift now and kind of
what David had identified was instead of
pushing all links to these really five
pages, let's spread the link budget.
Out to these other pages that have
conversion potential and that will give
the account an overall lift because if we
can get like five conversions from here,
10 conversions from here across maybe now
50 different articles that should be able
to lift the overall volume of conversions
up, but their total conversions a month
from our content had dipped, right?
So it must have dipped because these
Other like not the top five or whatever,
obvious keywords, those had dipped
because we were spending all of our link.
We're just not building.
Yeah, we're not building
links to those pages.
And so they're either sitting on
the top of page one, or sorry, the
bottom of page one or top of page two.
And they don't need that many links
to go to them to move them up.
But we just were focusing
on those other pages.
And so.
Basically what we, what we did
is a couple of things happened.
So those key pages started to rank
in position one, and we were still
building links to them thinking that we
needed to like defend them essentially.
But then we kind of made a
decision, all of us, including the
client, that we're going to stop
building links to those pages.
They're already in those top three
positions and let's use that entire link
budget to now go to these other pages.
And so I think that's what
David helped identify is.
Then looking at that conversion,
the conversion spreadsheet, what
has converted previously, that's
now not ranking in those top spots.
And can we just push link budget to
these key pages and from doing that
over the last, what, six months.
Now we've started to, to build
that conversion volume back up.
I think, I think too, it's also the
benefit of the spreadsheet is it kind of
tells you when you can't do anything more.
Because we can now say
it is like this client.
We can be like, hey, because
this, this particular client
more than I've seen across other
clients has like really volatile.
Conversions.
Like they'll be ranking for the keyword
in position one in one month and get
10, and then the next month get zero.
But they haven't lost anything.
Not even a secondary keyword.
They just haven't lost anything.
But now I can tell them with very, like a
lot of confidence, like, Hey, listen, this
URL didn't bring anything in this month.
That's why we're down.
It's still number one
for its main keyword.
It's still number 1, 2, 3 for
all its secondary keywords.
I'm not gonna give it a, we're
not gonna give it a link.
Like, it's fine.
Like, it didn't perform this month.
Who knows why?
But nothing we can control metric wise
shows us there's any problem with it.
Therefore let's not treat it with
like there's a problem because there
isn't one it's just I think that's
so important to you just for it for
like client expectations and just
yeah, and they get it explaining it.
Yeah, explaining what's wrong because
I feel like if you didn't come armed
with that data, you see a drop in
conversions, let's say January to
February, and then like you do the
typical agency thing where you're like,
oh, it's seasonality or oh, it's like.
A holiday this month or something and
the conversion, it's like, it's never
a good explanation as to why, but yeah,
there, I mean, there's always going to be
natural fluctuation from month to month,
whether it's traffic or conversions.
And, and yeah, I agree with you.
It's weird because that account has
a piece that'll get 11 conversions
one month, and then that same
piece ranking in the same place
will get zero the next month.
And it's like, how do you explain that?
There, there's nothing to
really explain other than look,
the ranking hasn't changed.
Like nothing's changed to the conversion
potential of the piece other than it
just didn't get conversions that month.
And so having that data to explain that
I think is really important just to show
them like, look, nothing's changed here.
We just need to stay the course and
let's just focus on other pieces that
could potentially convert in the meantime
from a link building perspective.
Yeah.
David.
So what we're talking about here is
like, you have to spend days creating
this spreadsheet with granular data
of conversions every month across
24 to 20 to 30 months for hundreds
of pieces, double check that data.
Then what we didn't even talk about is
how the hell are you even figuring out
what secondary keywords it ranked for?
So you're going into Ahrefs
for every single one of
these, like hundreds of URLs.
And being like historically, in addition
to the target keyword, what other
keywords did it happen to be ranking
for across 24, again, 20 to 30 months
worth of time for hundreds of URLs.
So the question to pose here for
us to discuss is, is this worth it?
Or should we consider our service to
these clients as we do this initial
work of getting you these pieces that
rank for all these ridiculously valuable
buying keywords that bring you business.
That bring you customers.
And then either, if you want us to do
longterm multiyear maintenance, SEO
maintenance, that's like more almost
like, yeah, anyway, you either pay
us an additional maintenance fee.
Or you do it yourself or whatever.
And the growing convert service is
producing the new articles that get
those rankings in the first place.
Obviously, again, to fast forward,
we did not choose this route.
But I think that's a discussion
worth having on this show
because that's what this is for.
I'm interested to hear your opinion.
I have a very strong one on this, I think.
Well, we've kind of, I mean,
we've, we've changed our approach
since we started doing this.
Um, when I first did this, I didn't even,
I just, I, I, I didn't even stop to think.
It's like a, I feel like a
scientist, like, should I do this?
I just did it.
It just seemed like I'm just going to
do this because the account is down.
And then you just do it.
And then like eight months go
by and it's like, I am tired.
And um, but we just, we just did it.
What were the most frustrating points?
Because we've had conversations where
you were really frustrated and you
were just like, this is too much.
Because in addition, what we're
also talking about that I didn't
even mention is you're still doing
the three new articles a month.
And then in addition,
now you're optimizing.
He, what I talked about is all
the work just to do the analysis.
Then when you do the analysis and you're
like, well, there's all these pieces
we got to optimize for X, Y, Z thing.
Then you got to do that
optimization, which you said earlier.
In this episode that you, some of them
are almost full rewrites and you were just
doing that on top of the regular work.
I, I think mistakes
were made along the way.
I don't think that we're, I don't
think we do the same thing anymore.
We do present it more of
like, we, I mean, it depends.
It's, there's no hard, fast rule here.
Um, the biggest frustration Davis was
always me trying to figure out, is
this worth taking place a new article?
That was the biggest frustration.
Financially for me, financially
for the writer, financially for
the client, financially for us.
Is it worth, like, okay, we're
going to change our engagement
this month to target these things.
So that's kind of what it became, is
like, we had a few months recently
where it's like, Hey, we found
these X amount of opportunities.
We're going to focus on these instead
of new content for this month.
In lieu of new content.
And that's kind of the happier
ground that we're at now.
Um, that being said, the question could
come from a client, like, well, what about
like the smaller content updates that are
not full rebrand that take, you can say,
the worry was that the client was, if
we pitched just doing an update in lieu
of the three pieces that the client is
going to feel like we're taking advantage
of them because instead of writing a
full new article, we're just updating.
The pieces.
And so there was this balance of
how much effort needs to be put
into the update for it to warrant
taking place of a full new article.
And there was just this, all
these unknowns that we didn't
really know in the beginning.
Like even just pitching it to the
client for the first time and getting
them on board, it was challenging.
And that's why I speak now and we speak to
clients and I really change how we talk, I
talk about it in case you haven't noticed.
It's like really making
it more keyword focused.
Like we found this new keyword.
We want this keyword.
Here's a strategy we think
is the best way to get it.
It could be a new article or it
could be rewrite of existing article
and like keeping that the focus.
And that seems to work well.
Cause like, yeah, we
want that keyword too.
Yeah.
So in terms of mistakes that were made
in the very beginning, the mistakes
that were made were just over promising.
Like again, I feel like we felt nervous
about having updates, take the place
of new articles and just were unsure
whether clients would even be comfortable.
Just.
Having an engagement of updating
posts versus doing new ones.
I mean, to, to, to fast forward, we have
learned that clients are very open to that
because I think just taking a step back
and looking at the overall engagement,
the goal is the same, which is do
whatever we can to increase the amount of
conversions that are coming from content.
And there's multiple ways to do that.
Now there's new pieces, there's updating.
Existing pieces.
But I think when we first started
doing this, we felt like we just had
to do new, new pieces because we have
kind of this productized service where
they're set deliverables every month.
And so now the service has kind of
evolved to keep the account and then
to keep growing their conversions
to a combination of updating.
And new pieces for those
accounts that are further along.
And I think it's just on a client
by client basis so far, just how
much updating takes place and how
many new pieces take place in it.
Yeah.
And Davis, but to your point though,
like, I think by definition at this
point, if we do this with a client,
like, so say we have a client and
I would, I would recommend that
any strategist in your new account,
you start doing this from day one.
It makes your life easier.
But if, if we do this with a
client, like, like when we did
this for client A and client B.
They are, by definition, getting more work
from us today than they were a year ago.
Like, that is our.
Why?
Because you said, you said
sometimes we're just replacing a
new piece with one of these updates.
Basically that, replacing a new piece
with one of the updates is our way of
doing the equivalent of like, some large
digital agency that, that like, you
know, that kind of like, what is it?
Nickels and dimes their clients, right?
Any, anything they do or they charge
by hour, that's our equivalent of
making sure we're not getting hosed.
From a, because we have a fixed cost
engagement and if we're doing a bunch
more work than that, even if you want
to nickel and dime it, even from a
reporting standpoint, if you're reporting
on three articles or 95, if you're a
version by break down by 95 articles,
you're just by definition doing more.
Yeah, that's a good point is, but at
the one that's the engagement grows,
you're actually just doing a lot
because you have this huge, because
you can't just keep with like, Oh good.
We have these five top covering posts
that will only get you so far as we keep
finding out that will only get you so far.
The other ones have to lift and then
your new content has to also lift and
then figuring out from a strategist
point of view, how to, cause also
one thing I do, we didn't quite touch
on it here is I also think in terms
I used to always think in terms of.
An article dropped, our performance
is, uh, sinking a little bit.
Build a link.
Now I think in terms of, can
I hop in there for one hour?
Do some content edits.
Look at the SERP, see what's changed.
Hit save.
Call it done.
Save my link for a different
article that I want to build to.
I do that a lot with these clients
in the past, like, three months.
While we'll be in position
one, we're in position five.
I hop in the SERP, I
see who would beat us.
I see, I think I know why they beat us.
I beat them.
I hit save, it's done with.
And it saves me a link to use elsewhere.
So that's also a lot of
like, just, Oh, interesting.
It is challenging.
Equivalent of content update versus
additional link that you can basically.
Make an update and you've seen that
work that you make that update.
I didn't know a specific
example, but Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
Re recently, I think on the last
call you had an example of that.
How quickly did that one move up?
Eight hours.
You made it, you made eight hours.
Eight hours.
Eight hours.
It moved up from five to one.
I have the benefit of being a
different time zone than you guys.
So I did at the start of my day and
then the end of my day started your day.
I checked again in private, and then I
had my brother check in private in his
time zone and then went back to number
one and I was like, that's an amazing day.
We just went from like 5 to 1 in like
a 9 hour time frame, 8 hour time frame.
There.
You heard it here.
You can make the SERP, you can
go from position You can jump
up 5 positions in 8 hours.
David has said it.
Please contact him if
you're a result of it.
I have the screenshots.
I can show people.
But I was very happy today.
But no, but so like, that
is a huge win though.
Because it used to be, I'm correct
me if I'm wrong, like it's kind
of our go to response, like don't
touch the content, build a link.
And that, that strategy is
just not sustainable when you
have 60 URLs that want links.
It's just not And it
just takes more time too.
And even you can't increase it,
because eventually you run out of
avenues of where to get links from.
But it just it starts to become like you
need to as a strategist Okay, I'm gonna do
a quick content update here and that and
and then if it makes sense, that's what
that's that's one thing, too Also, I want
to do a better job of for future clients
going down This road is like making sure
that we'll never update for updates sake
like I have to see a potential To give
us a competitive edge or something that
we're lacking that we can improve on not
just go in there and jump around Yeah, I
mean, that's actually important because
so many people do do that where they
just they update for updating sake, like,
like every month on the same day, they'll
just update a few words in their article.
And you're saying that's
not that valuable.
It's really I'm looking at the SERP
to see if something's fundamentally
changed about the intent of it.
And then it's modifying the
piece to better match that.
What did you see in that, in that, in that
eight hour example, and just to be clear,
I was obviously joking earlier, like,
don't, no, no one should expect that.
That's kind of hilarious.
What did you see when you said, I saw, I
had a hypothesis of why we were losing?
It was, um, I can give you like
Is this the op, is this the op?
Yeah, yeah, I'll just go with that.
Basically it's like How prevalent is
the app in the app specific keywords?
So if you're looking for like, uh,
weight loss tracking app versus say you
have a weight loss tracking software
and you have a weight loss tracking
app and say you have two URLs, which
we would normally do two URLs for that
if it's a different, uh, enough SERP.
And then how prevalent is the app store
and app landing pages in the SERP?
So the question then becomes like
How prevalent does app specific
solutions need to be in the post?
And it's just some very
straightforward, like, SEO 101,
on page SEO stuff that you can do.
But it was, that was basically it.
Was, was, was But yeah, there were
no App Store links in the P's, right?
Before?
Yeah, so you want me to
reveal the entire magic show?
Okay, yeah.
So like it was before, like there's
like, so we have, we would, we would,
we would link to our clients, you
know, the call to action links to them.
Yeah, software.
But when I was like, hmm, like we're
losing to these app store links.
So what if I just put the
app store links in the post?
And then change like the header to like,
like, Hey, find the app links here.
And then by doing that, it
went above the app store links.
Yeah.
Well, I think the subtlety in,
in the, uh, in the intent is.
Intro changes too.
Intro does change too.
That's what I mean.
And I have down here, for biggest
frustration, it's hard to do light
edits because you go into a piece.
And you're like, I'm just going to
put some app store links in there.
I'm like, ooh, well, that doesn't
really make sense with the intro.
It's all software specific.
So I'm going to kind
of re tinkle with this.
Re tinkle with the intro because now
I want, because now you really want
to call it to that app intent, right?
So like, when you're looking for
an app to lose weight with, You
want to find one on your available.
So like it changes.
Okay, you change the intro which
changes the table of contents.
Okay.
Well, hold on the first
header kind of changes.
So it all goes into that.
But that specific example of what I saw
a change within eight to nine hours.
It was very much changing the SEO
elements of the post to target the
app and and to include links to the
App Store and the Google Play Store.
Uh, predominantly throughout the post.
Yeah.
I noticed that a couple of years ago
that when we used to go after software
and app keywords, it, that the surf
similarity was like very similar.
And then I think in the last year
or two, Google started noticing the
difference between app and software.
To me, software means desktop app.
If someone's searching for
software, they're looking for
some desktop version of an app.
Whereas app was very specific
to the mobile version.
So in this case, the client had an
Android and iOS version of their software.
And so including the link, the
download links for iOS and Android
were important in the app query,
because it better matched the intent
of what someone was looking for.
And this can get as detailed
as changing the reviews.
We highlight to be app specific
reviews, changing the screenshots we
use to be app specific screenshots.
Um, another example from
a different client was.
Google also does this kind of stuff
with the word software and system.
Some SERPs are very different, a software
and a system, and some SERPs they
become like synonyms, the same word.
Um, so if you see that like in a SERP,
that would be like, Ooh, I couldn't,
I retargeted a system, but software
is super relevant in this SERP.
Let's do some tweaks here to
hit that software intent and
that can give you a nice boost.
Do you guys think that these
two clients truly understand and
appreciate the amount of work that
Is happening in the background here.
I, I just want to hear
David's response first.
I mean, the fact that you laughed at that
question already tells you something.
Well, I, I, I, I, I, I'm just
predicting his response, but
my, my guess is going to be.
Client A, not so much.
Client B, a lot more than that.
I think, I think, uh, Client A
is like when you have your first
Do you guys realize our clients,
some of which, uh, Listen to these
and have said, Hey, nice episode.
Yeah, I know.
So we just gotta really make sure they're
not being able to identify who they are.
It's not that.
But it's like, to me, Client A is
like I always hear this from myself,
I don't know if it's true or not,
but my parents always say I was lucky
being the third child because the
first kid you mess up the most on.
And like client A, everything that is
a struggle with client A is because we,
I didn't roll it out correctly because
we didn't know what we were doing.
Exactly.
It was what I said earlier.
Yeah.
The making mistakes.
And we were like, here's what
this is, here's what's going on.
And now they're starting to, it changes
the conversation and the mood a bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was the expectation setting on our
end that we didn't do well, that I
think led to problems down the road
just in communicating the value of
doing the updating and just like, the
more work and all that kind of stuff.
We overpromised in those first few
months, not realizing how much more
work we were putting on ourselves.
And then, like a few months down the
line, just getting frustrated with
ourselves of like, damn, this is
way more work than we anticipated.
But I think because of that, going into
that second updating, uh, engagement with
that second client, we knew exactly how
much time it was going to take and we
did a better job communicating the value
and then not overpromising deliverables.
Yeah, and so I think, yeah, no, I agree
and it's hard to know and that was a
frustrating part on my end because it's
hard like, you know, I'm a full time
writer, I've been doing this kind of
writing for a long time and I can think
the way a writer thinks but it's difficult
for me to look at a piece, look at a
keyword I need to rank for and say to
myself, it's going to take three hours.
That's just really difficult to do.
Or it's going to take two hours.
I can't do that.
I can, I can give a guess and then I
get into a post and then in the writing
and re optimizations, it will take
six hours or seven hours or whatever.
So, yeah, I, I just think that then,
so, you know, when we did 50 keywords
for this client, and of course from the
client side, they're like, Oh, cool.
Yeah, thanks.
You guys will do them.
Why, why are you stopping?
Why won't you keep doing
this kind of stuff?
And then Benji, you said earlier you
have a strong opinion, like, let me
just say what your opinion is, like,
In the bigger picture question I'm
asking, I think you're on the side of,
This is, of course, very much worth it.
Yeah, it extended, I would say for
both clients, it probably extended
the client engagement by a year.
At least, by doing this.
Devil's Advocate?
Why not replace them with a new client?
Because you're starting saying you
by definition have less work to
do because you're start like a new
client You're starting from scratch.
The trust is not built there here We've
generated results for the client for
one or two years You have a relationship
with them the trust is there and it's way
easier to not have to learn an entirely
new business And to keep going than it
is to replace them with a new account.
If we just look at our jobs and what
we're hired to do, the job is to just
make conversions and traffic go up.
And so if we need to change our approach
for how that happens after two years.
I think that's warranted.
It's like, we didn't have a
process for that a year ago.
And we would, we would get deep into
these engagements and results might start
to stagnate a little bit and you, and
you're just kind of doing the same thing.
And, and I think having David
come into both of these accounts.
Allowed us to take a step back and
say, well, maybe the way that we set
up our service and deliverables made
sense for the first two years, but
then the approach has to change because
ranking start to slip, there's increased
competition, the intents of the serfs
change, and we didn't really have a
process around how to account for that.
Two years into the engagement.
And so I think now being able to come
into this account, like these accounts
and then fix the issues and then get
them to new all time highs and have
the client be happy two, three years.
And I mean, I think that almost just
helps build more trust with the client
and just, yeah, if there's hiccups
down the road, no, that problems can be
solved and that we're not just going to
throw away the engagement because our.
Deliverables and, and the
productized service that we offered
to them in the very beginning,
like, didn't evolve, you know?
It's just, I think, I
think I agree with you.
Like, I feel like even if, if you separate
the pure, like, selfish business interest
of exactly by the numbers, what makes
the most sense for us, there is almost
like, I don't know what to call it,
like, do I use the word moral or ethical,
but it's almost like, philosophically,
it's like, What you're saying is like,
this is what we're supposed to do.
You know what I mean?
Like it's nice to like, they were, they
hired us to create these articles that
rank for these very valuable search
terms that bring them good customers.
And we've, we did that.
And then when those rankings drop down,
I'm just like, of course that should be
our responsibility to get them back up.
And according to the turn episode,
it's very advantageous if when we get
a client, they stay for five years.
In that churn episode, the numbers we
walk through, imagine if we turn those
numbers into five years, the average
length of the engagement, forget it.
Right.
Then they last forever.
You, you acquire a client.
They're good for five years.
Like that, that, that's,
that's a good thing.
Um, but yeah, I think there's also
just like, this is how you get, I
don't know, like, this is how you
build a reputation and a brand as being
worthwhile is, is that, I mean, these
clients, like, imagine like the kind of.
Also for them, think about,
like, their decision making.
Okay, so they have this channel
that works, like, rankings start
to decline, what are they going
to do, go hire another agency?
And then they have to now put the
trust in another agency from scratch,
and hope that that agency delivers
on whatever their promise is?
Or are they going to go hire some internal
person to then try to fix what we did?
Oh, from their side it would
be extremely frustrating.
They'd have a completely
different philosophy.
It's a pain to work with them,
they don't do this kind of
analysis, are you kidding me?
So like, I think from both standpoints,
from our And from the client's
standpoint, it's advantageous for us
to take this approach of figuring out
solutions to declining results and
changing our process and changing our
deliverables a bit to keep them happy.
And again, I think we're
still aligned on the end goal.
The end goal is still increase the
amount of traffic and conversions.
And, and so like, I, I think both
engagements, I, I would say this work
has been really successful and, and
resurrecting the happiness of the
client from like a low to a new high.
And of course, now we'll probably come
up with new challenges that we're going
to have to face in the future, but we'll
cross that bridge when we get there.
And one thing, I mean, we keep, cause
it's not, like I came into these accounts,
um, a year or two into them, right?
So arguably, like I'm starting, I'm
working on another account brand new.
By doing what I'm doing on those
accounts with this account from the
beginning, it will, I think, arguably
be less a bunch of new work at once.
So that's a lot of the frustration
that's gonna go away, right?
Because one of the big lessons from
both of those accounts and things
that we could do better was look
for these warning signs early on.
Look for when I have, man, like,
80 percent of my conversions are
coming from Three year oils and
I have X amount of post live.
That's not okay.
I don't want that to keep happening and
that kind of changes the way I view my
accounts that are new going forward.
So hopefully, um, those pain points
won't be felt as strongly a year or two.
Okay, so last question and
then we can, we can end.
So you feel like even though you're
saying by definition doing this kind of
work or just maintaining an account that
for three years that has 100 pieces that
we've already done and have to track the
rankings and all this for is more work.
You think it's still worth it.
You agree with us in that respect.
It's like a trap about my pay on the call.
No, but yeah, no, it's just like on
the record, like on the record, David
agreed to keep doing this anymore.
No, I think it's yeah, for sure.
I'm very happy that we went down this road
because like what Benji said, and I have
that had had that conversation with myself
before and it's like It's two things.
One, you know, both of these accounts,
I have a number where in my head, I want
to get them and we're not there yet.
Um, two, it's just when you keep spending
more and more time with something, you
don't want it to go away because you,
you, you know it, you know the strategy.
Like, I know that spreadsheet, I built it.
It's, I feel very, um, attached to
it and to the account and to the,
and to the industry they're in.
Because I know it well.
And so, yeah, for sure.
Like there's no, there's no regret.
That's the word you're gonna use.
Uh, it's worth it.
It's worth it.
And also what I've learned about
SEO and content marketing and the
process is also very valuable.
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