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We share our thoughts and ideas on how to grow a business.
How much does the quality of writing
impact the conversion rate of blog posts?
It actually turns out
that it matters a lot.
A lot more than we initially
even thought it did.
The data we're gonna show is from
multiple clients now, updated the
pieces that are already ranking.
And we increased the conversion rate.
And we'll show some that
is somewhat significant.
3 again is, is 10x.
It is massive.
I myself surprised by this.
Until this past year where we
started to get a lot of these
results, I thought for sure the
writing and sales copy is important.
Not this important though.
On the low end we're seeing like
a 66 percent increase and on the
high end yeah 950 percent increase.
How much does the quality of writing
impact the conversion rate of blog posts?
It actually turns out that it
matters a lot, a lot more than
we initially even thought it did.
Uh, and in this video we want to
talk through two different clients.
Uh, one is more recent, one
that we've had for a long time.
The first one we had started updating
plug posts to increase the ranking
position, but on a closer inspection
of the pieces, we realized the
writing quality could be improved.
And Even despite some ranking positions,
not even moving up, we've seen the
conversion rate increase just from
implementing our GNC writing style.
And then the second client we've been
working with for a really long time,
I think something like almost four or
five years at this point, and after
getting results from producing new
pieces, they asked us if we could go
back and update some old pieces that
another agency had written to basically.
Implement our GNC writing process and
sell their product better in the pieces.
And through that engagement, we also
have seen an increase in conversion rate.
And so we wanted to record this video
just to kind of share our thoughts and
what we improved on the writing style.
And just to share overall that the writing
inside of blog posts really does matter.
And I think a lot of people
have this misconception that.
If you just rank for a keyword, you're
automatically going to convert people.
And just from our data, that's
actually not always true.
And so I'll open it up to you, Davis,
to kind of go into the details here.
Yeah, I want to add some
clarity to what you're saying.
That people think, I think most
people listening will be like,
Of course, writing matters.
Everyone has been saying content is
king and it matters, but most of the
discussion on writing I'm seeing and
kind of the content and SEO space
that I have seen is everyone is
doing it for the purpose of ranking.
And that's what you were saying is like,
they say writing matters in so much as
you fulfill the algorithms demands you,
I don't know, fulfill search intent.
And like, you should
write to the customer.
And I want to just emphasize what Benji
said, which is like this critical part.
We have the data we're going to show
is for multiple clients now updated
the pieces that are already ranking.
And we increase the conversion rate
and we'll show some that is somewhat
significant, like increasing the
conversion rate significantly.
Yeah.
And I want, I want to emphasize that too.
So it's not the, the conversion increases
aren't because the ranking position moved.
So for example, The one piece
is was at position five before
it's still at position five.
Just the number of conversions that we're
getting for that piece has increased.
And the only variable that changed
was the actual writing in the
piece and how we sold the product.
And we have those examples across a
number of different clients where.
the variable that was changed was
the actual writing in the piece.
And that is what has led to
the conversion rate increase.
And so, I mean, recently we've gotten
to discussions with prospects and
existing clients around writing
style, about when to sell in
pieces, when to not sell in pieces.
And people have varying levels of like
comfortability with, I don't even know
if that's a word, but comfort of, yeah,
they have varying levels of comfort
around how much to sell their product in
pieces from the extreme of like, I don't
want to be salesy to kind of where we're
at, which is definitely more on the,
we're very comfortable selling products.
And the, the data is just going to
go to show that selling the product
well and positioning the product well
inside pieces really does matter.
And on that second client, especially
because all of their pieces that
were written previously, I think
didn't take that approach of
selling the product in pieces.
They were kind of more top
of funnel pieces that were
just meant to purely educate.
And then when we took this conversion
based writing approach and looked at their
pieces and added ways to sell the product
inside of the piece, we see articles
that go from not converting anyone.
To now seeing articles that
are converting prospects.
And so it kind of just goes to show
that this stuff really does matter.
And this is something that we don't really
see any content marketers or writing or
writers talking about probably be just
because they don't have the data to prove.
Things one way or another.
No, not just that.
It's because they don't write like this.
True.
That's because they, because
they do the top of funnel content
marketing, which is don't sell shying.
I'm shy about selling.
So let's get into it.
So.
As Benji said, just quick summary,
client number one, actually, that
we're going to look at their data first
because we have more data from them.
Their data, um, well, we have very
clear data from them, let's say.
They are bought into the GNC
process and they tried to sell,
um, and, and, and did an okay job
and those pieces were converting.
But we found that.
We think that sales
copywriting could be better.
Client number two is they hired us
to do this bottom of funnel stuff
and found that our blog posts were
converting so much higher than everything
else that they had, and they had a
ton of content, multiple agencies
and in house content being written.
So they said, in addition to
your content, can we add onto the
engagement and just have you guys
update some historical content?
And those are the ones that were like
traditional, what most people are doing.
You are probably, unless you are
implementing the grow and convert process
in camp number two, which is content
marketing for you and SEO for you is
top of funnel stuff where, and you're
like, for whatever reason, either shy
or you just have been taught, right?
There's nothing wrong where you've
just been taught that this is the
way content marketing is supposed
to be, that you don't sell.
So let's look at the first one.
Um, so we're going to do data from
the first one and we'll do a deep
dive into articles in the second.
This is a very touchy subject to get
client approval, to like talk about.
And so we, in order to show an
article, you have to show the
keyword, talk about who the client is.
We're only doing that for the second one.
And so we got permission
to show certain articles.
We felt it was inappropriate to do
that and show the exact conversion
rates, cause you're going to
see like search volumes and all.
It's just not, they're in a
competitive space and other
competitors, like competitors could
potentially see or be exposed to this.
So we're going to save that, that
deep dive for that second client.
And we'll show the data only completely
anonymized for the first one.
So you have no idea who
we're talking about.
So to protect sort of client privacy.
So should we give some more
background on client one too?
So client, client one, I
mean, you can show this data.
It doesn't really matter while we
talk through this, but client one
previously had taken our course.
us because they were looking for a
way to scale up content marketing.
And so I think they took our course.
Tried to implement the
process on their own.
So identifying bottom of the funnel
keywords and doing the writing with then
a contractor that they hired internally.
And did a good job to be perfectly honest.
Exactly.
So when, when we initially engaged with
them and we looked at what they're already
ranking for, we just kind of felt like
it was going to be an uphill battle.
And, and to be honest, it was
for the first few months because
they had identified a lot of the
bottom of the funnel keywords.
It's a very specific space.
where there's only, let's say a limited
number of keywords that we could go after.
And so initially we had started
identifying new bottom of the funnel
keywords and going after those.
But then I, I think a few months into
the engagement, we looked at what they
were already ranking for, and a lot
of those pieces, we felt like we could
improve the ranking position for them.
And so we came up with this idea of just
updating some of the pieces that were.
Already going after some of these high
intent keywords for the main purpose, just
a purely moving that ranking position.
So for example, if something was
ranking number five and we felt like
there was no way to move that piece
up just with link building, could we
relook at the SERP, analyze it, figure
out either what sections we needed
to add or where the intent mismatch
was, and then update the piece.
Or for example, Something was on
page two and we never felt like
it was going to get to page one.
Could we update that piece
in the process of doing that?
When the strategist was looking at
the writing, she identified, actually,
I feel like the overall way that
the piece is positioned and the
product is positioned could also be
improved significantly, significantly.
And so a lot of this data that we're now
about to sh to show is coming from now.
Having done four months of updating
pieces, not only to improve the
ranking position, which we've done
for a few of those pieces so far.
Obviously there's some work on the link
building side that still needs to be
done there to keep moving those up.
Um, but yeah, also what's improved
a lot is, is the writing and the
data we're going to show is, is
largely just what happens when you
improve the writing for the piece.
Yeah.
I mean, this one's pretty straightforward.
She looked at what the conversion
rate was or no conversions.
This is demos booked directly
attributable to this one piece.
So I think this data is from HubSpot
where you can see the first page that
they landed on for someone who books
a demo, um, for this client and it was
hovering between mostly one to two demos
or zero from September, 2023 to April.
So And we updated this piece and it's
like the keyword it's ranking for, um,
is again, for, for this data, since we're
showing the conversion data, we're not
going to discuss the client or the, or the
keyword it's like the category keyword.
It would be like, if you sell,
you know, a CRM, it'd be like best
CRMs or some equivalent of that.
Right.
So it's like, it should convert.
And it was only converting
this much despite.
I forgot where I was ranking.
This one's ranking in position 5.
Yeah, so middle of page 1.
So again, like Benji said, our initial
thing was like, well, if it's already
converting at position 5, let's try
to just improve it, um, from a ranking
perspective and get it to position 1.
And along the way, our strategist
was like, hold up, actually now that
I'm reading this closely, like this
thing, the way they wrote it, is not
really Um, the most compelling sales
copy is, was her hypothesis and it
worked completely, but do you track
the rankings more closely than I do?
So this one, the ranking position
hasn't moved, which is why I think
this one's the most interesting case.
Maybe if I were to look in the details,
we rank higher on some secondary keywords,
but largely for the main keyword, the
ranking position hasn't moved again.
The only variable that's changed
here is the writing of the piece.
So And you can see the demos book.
We, I think we published it like last
week of April and May immediately it
got five demos, which it hadn't done
basically for like a year ish before that.
It only got one, two, and then
it had three in one month.
And then we said, okay, that's
fine, but maybe it's an anomaly.
Let's see.
June three, which ties the previous high.
And we were like, okay, let's see, let's
see, let's see if it'll stay up this high.
And this last month we're recording
this video in August, but in July.
The last complete month it got 11 demos.
This is like 10 X basically the
average that it was getting.
So we were like, Oh my goodness.
So we started doing this for other
pieces and if I scroll to the right
here, this is now you're going
to have to bear with me again.
We're protecting kind of client privacy,
not showing the URLs or who the pieces,
but every row in this spreadsheet, Is one
of the pieces that we've updated this and
the left column is the demos per month.
It was averaging before our update.
This one that I just showed
the graph of is the first row.
So if I just take the average of all of
these months from September to April, it
was averaging about a half a conversion,
like one demo every two months.
So half, so 0.
6.
Technically, demos a month, and because of
this massive month of July having 11, May,
June 3, May 5, the average of those is 6.
3.
I'm really hoping that that's true,
but it's, it's in the spreadsheet.
Um, you know, some astute reader is
going to quickly average 11, three
and five and decide whether it's 6.
3 or not.
It should be, um, but nonetheless, you
can see both visually when I scroll to the
left for those of you watching on YouTube,
but listening like 3 again is, is 10 X.
It is massive.
Um, I myself am surprised by this.
Like until this past year where we
started to get a lot of these results,
I thought for sure the writing and sales
copy is important, but I thought like
just not, not this important though.
Right.
Not, not, not like, I mean, I was doing
the math on some of this stuff earlier.
So like on the low end we're seeing
like a 66 percent increase and on the
high end, yeah, 950 percent increase.
Yeah.
I didn't think that you could.
affect how many conversions you get that
much just by how the piece is organized,
how you position the product in the
piece, and all that kind of stuff.
I was probably more in the camp
of, yeah, if you get a piece to
the top of the, like, basically the
serfs, And it's like pretty on topic
and it kind of sells your piece.
Well, like, yeah, it's going to do fairly
well from a conversion perspective.
But I didn't think on top of that, if
the writing is, follows our process and
is, is kind of top notch in terms of like
selling the product and the piece that
you could on top of that now move the
conversion rate up even that much more.
Yeah, same.
I mean, this idea of it increases
by 10 X is what we tell clients
on our sales call about.
Like, that's what I've always said
is pain point SEO itself does.
In other words, going
after bottom of topics.
In other words, going after bottom of
funnel topics versus top of funnel,
low buying intent topics that 10 X.
That instead of ranking for what
is content marketing, ranking for
content marketing agency will get
us 10x the conversion rate, like for
a grow and convert type business.
Um, you're right.
I was, I was with you where I thought,
okay, and like how you write and
how you sell the product will could
maybe give you, I don't know, like
20 percent or something like lift.
I never really quantified it in my head,
but this kind of 10x, I mean, this is
basically the left side is what life
looks like when you think in your head.
Yeah.
Content marketing is not
really working for me.
And the right side is what you think when
you're like, we're killing it in content.
Like it's like on versus off.
And the thing is, and again, like, we're
not going to show the actual pieces
of this client because we're showing
their, their numbers in such details.
We're keeping them completely
anonymous, but like you were saying
earlier, if you look at their pieces
before, it looks like it should work.
It looks like it's exactly
as per our product.
Like they're talking about feature by
feature their screenshots or whatever.
But when.
Our content strategist, who's very
experienced, uh, worked to grow and
convert for a long time when she looked
at it, she said, I was like, are you sure?
I remember having this discussion with
her and she was like, Davis, like, look
at this, it looks like it should work.
But if you really sit down and think
about the copy, and if you're get
yourself in the prospects, like shoes,
there's just the story isn't quite there.
Like it's not compelling the
way they're comparing features.
And then she would, our content
strategists and writers, they get
really into the detail of how our
clients products stack up against
competitors because they have to,
in order to write these pieces.
If SEO methodology, We have like
comparison and alternatives is like a
key part of our piece, but even category
keywords, like the example I use best CRM
in order to rank for that, like that, that
keyword demands you list a bunch of CRMs.
You can, I haven't even Googled
this, but you could Google it now.
And I guarantee you it's like
list after list, meaning.
To rank for those keywords, you need to
be able to discuss multiple options in
that category, that product category.
And so our writers and, and, and,
and strategists get really into
understanding these different options
and how our clients products stack up.
So their radar for hold on, when you
talk about this feature, this way.
When you talk about this benefit this
way, that actually doesn't, it's not
persuasive because everyone else does,
or actually this other really famous
competitive in the space has that
feature or is better in that respect.
Or they're talking about it in this
way, which I think is more compelling.
Like they're like in those details
and their, um, you know, antenna
for their like sense of taste for
like, Whoa, like this is compelling.
And this is how everyone else
talks to you is really refined.
When they get into an account.
So she was spot on on this where she
was like, yeah, it's not working.
And you see this for other pieces.
So the first row is the graph
on the left, but after that 0.
5 before demos per month, 2.
0 after the next one equals so far,
the next one, a slight increase from 0.
3 to 0.
5 this one.
I think we don't have data yet
because we just published it.
Um, this one goes from averaging
about one demo before to four.
That's another like multiple
fold increase 0.8 to 2.2 to two,
which is another 10 x increase.
Like if you're getting 0.2 demos a month,
it means it's taking you five months to
get one demo from the piece that's like,
nah, this piece is not really converting.
If you get two demos a month, you're
like, yeah, this piece really converts.
I want to maintain that.
So this, that is the data from one client.
Now we got, um, Before we move on, I
actually think what people might find
interesting too, is then like, what
was the strategy around identifying?
The pieces that we would update.
Yeah.
Because I think we were looking at, so
initially we were looking at it through
the lens of how could we move a piece
from position five to one to get more.
We thought the conversion
rate was the conversion rate.
We were all like, okay, like for
whatever reason, and this, for this
client, like it doesn't really,
there's not that many demos, but like
they're converting somewhat, so let's
just like move them up to get more.
So, so what we did in the very
beginning, when we hit, when we
initially had the hypothesis around.
Let's update pieces to improve
ranking position and that
will yield more conversions.
Overall, we weren't thinking about
impacting the conversion rate at all.
But what we did is we looked at the
last, I think, like 13 or 15 months of
data, and we're looking at which pieces
have shown to convert in the past.
And then where are they currently ranking?
in the search results.
And what we're looking for is
pieces that have shown to convert.
So they have one or more
demos associated with them.
And then obviously we're looking
for the highest converting pieces.
So which are the pieces that
have the most demos associated
to them and that currently don't
rank in those top three spots?
And those were the priorities for us.
And so we organized a
spreadsheet like that.
And then we basically just prioritized
by the highest converting pieces that
don't rank in those top three spots.
And that when we analyze the SERP,
we felt like there was something
that we could change in the
piece to get it to rank higher.
And that was what we proposed to the
client then was all those pieces that
had those combinations and we've just
kind of worked our way down the list.
And so.
Which by the way, that's a
perfectly fine approach to do
regardless of conversion rate.
For sure.
Like, like, even if you have nothing to
improve in the sales copy, like we're
talking about, like you should do that
if it's already converting and it's been
stuck at position five, position five
is pretty good for a lot of keywords.
It's really good.
But if it's, if it's, if it's stuck
there, try to increase it because you
know that that thing is converting.
Well, go ahead.
Yeah.
And I would just say, see the, uh, we
have a whole piece with David on updating.
And we kind of walk through the same
methodology of putting everything into
a spreadsheet, all your conversion
data, and that will help you identify
these opportunities of pieces to
update, like without having this
conversion data, you're just kind
of looking at the stuff blindly.
Like you wouldn't, you wouldn't be
able to see, like, like there'd be
pieces in there that you'd be updating
that maybe have never converted that
you're spending time and effort on.
And that's a good segue though,
though, into this next client who.
That was the case when we started
updating where they gave us some pieces
that have never ever converted in the
past from all their conversion data, a
piece shows zero conversions, and now
we're able to see conversions come from
that piece from updating the, the, the
piece and the writing in it, not, not
only improving the ranking position.
Yeah.
So I'm going to show a few examples here.
Um, and the, the takeaway
from all of these.
Is we sold the client's
product in this case.
So this is what we were
saying at the beginning.
The first client, they
actually sold their product.
It just wasn't done kind of in,
in the way that we would do it.
And, and it wasn't done to
like the best way really.
Um, but, and so it converted, but
it didn't convert, um, as high as it
could, as per the data we just showed.
In this case, this client's doing a
problem, has a problem that I think is
far more typical than the first client.
Most people don't even sell it all and
so in this case there was tons of Kind of
not pure grow and convert style, bottom
of funnel, pain point SEO keywords.
Like we are doing that for them and
we have been for years, but they had
keywords, um, and, and they also had a
lot of pages and landing pages on our
marketing site going after those kinds of
bottom of funnel keywords, but they had a
lot of content written by other agencies
or in house teams, whatever, historically
they were going after what we would maybe
loosely called mid to top of funnel.
So our process of identifying these.
to actually start on where you left off,
Benji, is we did the same thing on this.
Um, this account, me and the
writer that, uh, does this.
We looked at post by post on the
blog, conversions, total conversions,
traffic, and therefore conversion rate.
And we actually started this the
same way as the second client,
where we looked at conversion rate
first and said, what are the highest
converting or maybe total conversions?
One of the, one of the two.
And we said, what are the
highest converting posts already?
And then we looked, we clicked into
them and said, are they actually
doing a good job of selling?
Because we figured if it's already
converting, we know at least that
keyword has high conversion intent.
Like, cause like there's some
keywords that it's like, look,
regardless of how much you try to
sell your product, client's product
is not going to convert that well,
because like, there's just no intent.
So we wanted to not, not
waste time on those initially.
We can make an, make you like stab at
those later, but like, start with the
ones that are already converting and
then look at it and say, does this sell
the client's product and does it do it?
Well, could we do it better?
So I'm going to give, and then we
started moving on to other pieces,
many of which just straight up when we
clicked into it, it had like no section
talking about the client's product.
And yet it still had a few,
like a trickle of conversions.
That's the sign of a ripe opportunity.
If you're literally getting customers
without selling your product, imagine what
would happen if you sold your product.
It means that keyword has buying intent.
So I'm going to show a few
examples for various like different
types of keywords for them.
Um, so example number one is a piece
we're literally working on draft colon.
So the client, by the
way, is service Titan.
They are an absolute, um, industry
leader, behemoth, like awesome company.
And like, yes, there are clients.
So maybe I'm biased, but like, so be it
in their space, which is like operating
software for home service businesses.
electricians, plumbers, people that come
to homes or commercial establishments to
work on HVAC, electrical, plumbing, etc.
and they do a bunch of others.
This is the software that kind
of runs their whole business.
You can invoice on it.
You can, like, get quotes on it.
It will, like, text the client and
customer and say it were, you know, the
technician's 15 minutes from your house.
They'll book calls.
It'll do all kinds of stuff, right?
It's like all encompassing software.
Um, let's just look at the original piece.
This is pre update to get a sense of it.
First.
Let's analyze the intent of it.
Electrician interview questions.
So what does that, you know, that
is definitely mid, or we would even
probably call it top of funnel.
The per this, this is the keyword
they're going after most people
Googling like who's Googling this.
They're not obviously asking for
like field service software, which
is kind of a name, one of the names
of the category of the space at all,
they are likely hiring electricians.
And maybe some of the intent is
actually electrician studying for an
interview, but they are a manager.
We're presuming some fraction of
the people are manager, owner of
an electrician business where they
hire electricians to, to, to run
their business as technicians.
Right.
Um, and so we figure, and service
Titan has product features around
making the life of electricians better.
So we thought, okay, is there a
way to tie in the product to this?
And we figured, okay, yeah, like you, if
you're hiring an electrician, you're also
going to need to do payroll for them.
We do that, right?
Once you hire them, maybe
because you're hiring, you're
in the mindset of expanding.
And so, like, the idea of, of, you know,
also improving your operational software
is like, you're like, maybe open to it.
And you can also argue that having
a business that takes a lot of the
grunt work off of your electrician
and your technicians plates,
like which service Titan does.
So instead of asking your technicians
to use paper invoices, it can
automatically invoice on an iPad.
Um, what, when they're in the
field, instead of having them to
like manually deal with, you know,
what their routes are, it can
automatically push to their phone.
Like here are the next that
you have to get to, et cetera.
We thought You could say, Hey,
like, that's a compelling way to
say, like, your life would be good
as an electrician with our company.
So, so like, that's like step number one.
And I spent a lot of time on it, but
like, that's kind of the level of extent
that you need to be thinking about this.
If you can't think of a way to tie in
your product to the keyword, you might.
Not necessarily, but you might want to
consider moving on because maybe that
keyword has no possible way of converting.
So with this in mind,
let's just look at it.
There's an intro and then there's
all these actual interview questions.
This is important.
This is literally what they Googled.
So like, yes, this has nothing to
do with selling and conversions.
But like, you need this to
fulfill the search intent.
So there's, you know, maybe we can
make some tweaks to that section,
but whatever, another category of
interview questions we keep going.
Right.
Um, and you see here,
this is the existing post.
We haven't updated this, their way
of trying to tie in the product.
These are product screenshots
from service Titan.
Um, and so it's in this question of
like, given you a question, you can ask
an electrician in a job interview, give
an example where you turn an unhappy
customer into a satisfied customer.
And the way they tied it in, in
my opinion, is not the best way
to sell the software to the owner
who is asking these questions.
It says like, You know, look for
electricians that are emphasizing, like,
good customer service, blah, blah, blah.
And so, and it says, like, bonus
points for candidates who are familiar
with customer experience software.
But it's like, come on, like, like, no
one in this interview question is going
to be like, and by the way, I turned an
unhappy customer into a satisfied customer
by using customer experience software.
It's just like kind of a way to,
like, mention this, but it's not
like the most compelling way, right?
And then there's another
set of interview questions.
We're just going to scroll to the bottom.
Um, And then FAQ, notice what's missing.
There's no dedicated section
selling service Titan or
even attempting to tie it in.
Now look at our proposed draft red
is the stuff we're going to add in.
Okay.
So yes, there's like tweaks to the
intro, et cetera, that our writer
Susie, that you can see does it.
But what I want to scroll
to is we're look at this.
There's no red here.
We're largely not touching this.
This is just the list of questions
that you can ask if you're interviewing
an electrician to join your company.
There's not much to do there.
It's fulfilling search intent.
But if we get to the bottom now,
look at her proposed addition.
This is just at an outline stage.
She's proposing an entire H2 section,
how Service Titan can help attract best
electricians, and she's proposing like,
you know, what we're gonna say inside it.
The details of this are not particularly
important, but what I want to highlight
is before right now, the current piece
makes no attempt to tie in service Titan.
And what we are going to do on
this piece is say, now here's how
field service software can help
electricians work more efficiently.
Here from their perspective is how
like they can make their life better.
So you can recruit the best
electricians to your company
better if you have service Titan.
Will that work?
I don't know.
Let's see.
But this is maybe like the hundredth or
more, um, update we've done for them.
And we have many, many examples
of this working like gangbusters.
And like, I shouldn't have to
sell that this is that effective.
Think about what we're talking
about if you just zoom out.
We have content that the target customer
could be Googling their way towards.
Otherwise, why would
have written it, right?
And previously it didn't tie in
the product to the pain point
associated with what they're Googling.
It didn't sell the product at all.
We are now selling the product by
tying it into the thing they Google.
Like, shouldn't that convert?
Yes, it should.
And it does.
Um, and I'll show another example.
This is an example where it literally,
um, I, I have data showing that it
increases conversion rate or an increased
conversion rate pretty, pretty quickly.
Significantly, which is
a competitor keyword.
So as per pain point SEO, this
is like one of the categories.
And in their case, they have home
advisor competitors was a blog post.
And what we did again, if we scroll
to like the bottom is we added a whole
section sort of revamped the section
selling service Titan in detail.
A very common problem we see if people,
even in these comparison keywords,
this versus that, or your competitors
name alternatives or whatever, in this
case, competitors namespace competitors
is they feel uncomfortable or too shy
to do a deep dive on their own piece.
They try to write that from a
position of neutrality, like they're.
CNET or wire cutter.
Like they're trying to write
that as like, we evaluated all of
these software products or these
physical products or whatever.
And like, here is our take or whatever.
And so they feel like they need to give
the same number of screen real estate.
To their company and their
product as much as the others.
Some people so feel uncomfortable that
it would be disingenuous to put their
product first on the list that they
like, shove it down to the bottom.
That will kill your conversion rate.
And the before and after data, again,
we're not going to show it for this,
this one in detail, but I just wanted
to say this one did convert way better.
Afterwards shows that
you should not be shy.
And, and here's why a lot of people
would think, why would you include
this huge service Titan section?
Like, doesn't it come across as like
a little bit kind of, um, I don't
know what the word is, but we are
biased, like they're on like service
Titan is calling themselves the best.
My answer is one, you don't actually
have to, um, call yourself the best.
You can just say, we're a competitor and
we're really proud of how we designed our
product and we think it's really helpful.
And like, let's walk through it.
And just if you walk through it in a
really compelling way, um, and you don't
have to trash competitors, none of that.
You just have to say like, this is why
we've designed it in a certain way.
We were like, we think
this is really working.
Like customers really love this
product, whatever, whatever.
Um, it will sell.
And the second reason is
the reader is not stupid.
Like they know they're on your website.
Look at how Service Titans blog is.
Like format it.
This is how basically
everyone's blog is formatted.
You know, you're on service Titans thing.
Why try to feign the neutrality?
Why try to pretend you're
some third party neutral site?
Just be like, it's almost like if they
called a salesperson, awesome to give
them a pitch about the product and then.
They're like, Oh, all the other
competitors are pretty good.
Here's like the feature
differences and that kind of stuff.
And then they just never pitched
why they're the best at that.
And it's the same thing.
I don't, I don't get why people think
blog posts are so much different.
If you're educating the customer on
a topic, obviously you're going to
have a unique point of view, like this
whole video that we're doing right now.
Sure.
It's self serving towards our
process, but we're educating people
on something that we've learned.
That we do differently than everyone else.
And I think it's the same
thing in these blog posts.
Like you have, every company has their
own unique perspective on a topic and
you should be able to communicate that
without feeling bad about selling yourself
or communicating your own learnings
that are different than everyone else.
And I think, I think you're right.
Like people have this like, Oh, we
can't say that from a brand point of
view because it'll make us look bad.
Or like.
It's too salesy.
Like it's going to make us
look bad, but it's like, no,
like people are on your site.
They want your point of
view and give it to them.
Like, and, and I feel like so many
marketers are afraid of doing this or so
many writers are afraid of doing this, but
time and time again, this is what we've
seen worked and we've never really seen.
People be like, Oh,
this is way too salesy.
I'm never going to the site again.
Or like, I'm never communicating
with this brand again, because
they said this in their blog posts.
It's just like, no, I think people do
expect that in particular, if you're
Googling for a bottom of funnel phrase.
So if you're already Googling home
advisor competitors, You want to be sold
to, like your problem, like when you're
that bottom of funnel, the pain point is
that you're looking for software, right?
So if you like show up at a
Toyota dealership, you want them
to sell you the Toyota, like,
like, give me your best pitch.
I'm not stupid.
I can compare to Honda on
the side myself, right?
You don't need to pretend to be neutral.
Just like give me your best pitch.
I will decide.
And so that's these
bottom of funnel keywords.
So for a bottom of funnel keyword to
not have a really thorough compelling
section on service Titan, when they're
Googling for certain like competitors.
It is, is a waste.
So like the two comparisons here,
electrician interview questions, way up
funnel, there's no intent to be buying.
So you need to, so you need to sell
the product in a much more tactful way.
Maybe you sell only certain features of
it that relate to hiring electricians
or technicians, it needs to be whatever.
And it's a bit of a bet.
It may convert, it may not
convert that well, whatever.
But like our point of updating this is
if you're not making any attempt, To get
a sale from a mid funnel, top of funnel
keyword, like electrician interviews
questions, what is it even doing it?
Then it's just pure top of the
funnel, which is like, okay, it's
there because we just want to like
be top of mind or whatever, whatever.
Those are just basically not
going to convert long term top
of funnel has its purposes.
Don't get me wrong, but like, it's,
it's not going to convert immediately
as much, so like make an attempt
to do it and it has to be tactful.
Then the other side of the spectrum
is a total bottom of funnel
keyword like competitor there.
It's like, if you're being shy,
really, what are you doing?
Like that is a real waste.
Cause like, if you went through
the trouble of ranking for this
or writing it or whatever, they're
literally looking for products.
They're wanting you to
clarify differences.
Just give them your best sales pitch.
Do not be shy.
Do not then easy, like general rule, like
a litmus test of if you're doing a good
job is, are you, um, is there a S the same
amount of real estate or words or screen
space for your product as everyone else?
If the answer is yes, you're
not selling it well enough.
I will fight anyone about this.
I have had arguments as recently as
a couple months ago with some people
who do the grow and convert process
saying like, your stuff was too salesy.
I'm like, yeah, but you're not
measuring that as much as us then.
Because like, we have the
before and after data.
So, like, you can be subjective and
say you don't want to be salesy.
That's your brand choice.
It's a brand choice that basically
is wasting this marketing channel.
Yeah.
Even if it's converting, it's
not converting as well as it can.
Speaking of before and after data, I
know we said we're not going to share
like conversion data for specific pieces.
Do we just have a general sense
of how many conversions total
those pieces got before and after?
And I know like even the increases
might not seem drastic because a lot
of these are top of funnel pieces that
historically really didn't convert.
And so I wouldn't expect
something to go from zero to now
a hundred conversions, but just.
I think it's even beneficial for
people to know, like, even if these
updates can yield a hundred more
demos, and one of them leads to a
hundred thousand dollar contract,
like, it can be pretty meaningful.
Yeah, even way less than a hundred.
Yeah, I'll just give this one example.
You're right, it's this, this one
is typically in single digits.
Um, so, cause these are, like, a lot
of them are not bottom of funnel, but
even some of them that are, like, Yeah.
So, I actually should clarify,
HomeAdvisor is not a direct
competitor of ServiceTitan.
It's, it's like a, it's like a side thing.
It's not really a competitor.
HomeAdvisor is a place where,
it's, I think it's like Thumbtack?
Yeah, I was gonna say, isn't it like
Yelp for the space, essentially?
It's like a review site
or something like that?
Right, so it's places like HVAC,
electrical, and plumbing, like,
businesses would like advertise.
It's not ServiceTitan.
ServiceTitan is like the, the,
the software they would use to run
their business, but ServiceTitan has
marketing, um, marketing features.
So if I actually share the screen
again, this is all a prelude
to answer your question, um,
of the number of conversions.
Let me just answer your question
quickly so we don't get lost on it.
This from what we were seeing, I
think for a year or two, literally
we saw zero directly attributable.
Um, first or last touch
conversions from it.
And we thought, okay, like either this
is just not going to work where we go
after these kind of side, like not real
competitors, like the, the, yeah, like
you said, yell, poem advisor, thumbtack
where these people would advertise.
Either this is just not something that's
going to lead to conversions or we need
to make a really good attempt at it.
And see if it converted.
And in the few months after we
published that I had the data
for, we had seen three demos.
I, I don't, I wasn't ready to do
this because I was planning on not
showing any data for service Titan,
but I forget how many months it
was that we had it, but like it
went from still interesting though.
I mean, we're like nothing in like
over a year and demos and we know
for this client, Sorry, I said demos,
just qualified, like MQL leads.
I was going to say for service
Titan, they have a very specific
definition on, on, on leads.
And so, or like demos.
And so not all demos are good for them.
And so these are marketing qualified
demos that came from this, this piece,
which is pretty significant for them.
Yeah, it's a big deal.
Like you went from nothing to,
to like, yes, there is something.
And so that's what I was saying is like
the way we sold it actually, um, is
we actually had to be tactful again.
So I apologize before I said
the electrical interview
questions was top of funnel.
This is actually still kind of mid funnel
because it's not a direct competitor.
Um, but you can see here, it's like.
HomeAdvisor helps them like market because
you can buy ads and say like hire us
in what your city or whatever and so I
do see the way that you positioned it
because yeah, we stay like HomeAdvisor You
would go there to basically buy ad space
or just your your entire goal is to get
more leads Essentially as the rightness
owner And so we're like, that's fine.
And here are other competitors
and places where you can do it.
There's a site called porch
where you can buy ads as like a
thumb tack where you can buy ads.
And that's just, this is just not house.
This is just not a place
where service Titan competes.
So we're fine.
Like thumb tack is a place where
you find like plumbers and stuff.
So like you can, that's an, that's an,
that's a competitor to a home advisor.
And then even like Google logo service,
then we say now beyond that, yes.
You can buy ads or try to like increase
your reviews and ratings on all of these
sites where people look for plumbers,
HVAC, electrician, but have you thought
about measuring the ROI of your marketing?
How are you doing that?
Service Titan can help.
Do you have a systematic way to
book calls directly from them?
Service Titan can help.
And then there's more detail later
where we're like, and service
Titan is really great at doing
that directly from Google ads.
Um, How are you managing
your appointments?
What is your conversion
rate afterwards there?
And then what about
other marketing channels?
Instead of only chasing new customers,
are you maximizing the revenue you
can get from existing customers?
They're the ones most likely to do it.
Email marketing is a great way.
Like we can automate email marketing or
like make, you know, we can run, sort
of, I can run your email marketing.
Or even help you do
like direct mail cards.
And I think there's later where
it's like, we can help you get
better reviews and more reviews.
Um, so like there's stuff in service
Titan where it's like, Oh, you had this
competitor and the technician can click
one button and it's like, it sends
a text asking them to review them on
whatever platform they found it on.
So like it's semi related, right?
So if you're like looking to, you know,
advertise or find places like porch,
like thumbtack, like home advisor.
You may be open to this
and we sell it in that way.
And that was the bet we're taking.
And this thing previously converted,
not at all, because if you don't have
this section and all you're doing is
saying, Oh, you're looking for home
advisor competitors, how about porch?
How about thumbtack?
You're not going to get sales
for service Titan because you
didn't even try to sell it.
And, and this is like, there's, I don't
want to make sure, like, we had to be
really tactful and like asking them for
permission to share this, like a lot of
clients and like, thanks to the service
Titan team for being willing to, a lot of
clients don't want to, want to share this.
Like, cause it's like, well, don't,
we don't want to be in this grown
convert video saying like the
way we're not doing it as good.
The thing I want to say is like, so
first of all, service Titan kicks
ass at SEO with and without us.
Second of all, this is like the normal
process that everyone talks about.
Like you had said something
earlier and I didn't want to
interrupt about like adding value.
The reason why people don't do this
is because there is this, this culture
that I've said in a million videos where
they've been taught that like, this
is how you're supposed to do content.
That it's like uncouth or like, I
don't know, like, weird and salesy
and like a bad way to sell and
people are going to not trust you.
And the whole point of content
marketing is just, you just, yeah, just
they want home advisor competitors.
Just give them porch and thumb
talking Angie's list and house and,
and then, and then they'll consider
it service tight and really helpful.
And later when they're looking for
software to run their business,
They'll remember and like you
because you were so helpful.
Be like, Oh, I remember that
article at service Titan road.
Yeah.
There's zero chance they're
going to remember that article.
They're going to remember, Oh,
I found this site house and I
looked up some random article.
Right.
So like that is, yeah, it's right.
It's like advice from
like people to people.
It's like how to be friendly
or like how to get a date.
Like, just, just help this, help
this girl out or like, just, you
know, say hi and like, be helpful.
Like that's good in your personal life.
Like we're doing marketing.
Like these people are Googling things.
Right.
And so just like, just say
what you are and it doesn't
have to be in some salesy way.
We're not out here being like.
Don't use HomeAdvisor,
Thumbtack, and Porch.
ServiceTitan is better.
Only use ServiceTitan.
That, that is kind of like tacky.
Um, you know, we're doing it in like
a really sort of straightforward
and mature, um, and respectable way.
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