5 Actionable Ways To Drastically Improve The ROI Of Your SEO Strategy Ep. 571

Hi, and welcome to the SEO podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, one of the owners of EWR Digital. And my name is Matt Burris from the Lead Strategist here at EWR Digital. Welcome back to, look right here, EWR Digital. Nice, nice. We got some swag going on in this video if you're watching. Welcome back to another, by the way, before I even get to that, if you are watching, you should subscribe and follow and click the notification bell because you're probably doing that on YouTube. So do that. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our podcast. This is podcast, I don't know, approximately 573. That's a big number. We're getting there. That is a big number. Before we jump into anything, and it's not going to take long, a patiff to Heather Campbell. We are covering an article, five actionable ways to drastically improve the ROI of your SEO strategy. Anybody out there interested in ROI? Yeah, I think they are. And this actually is a repurposed article from a webinar. Yeah. So it's getting repurposed again. It's like inception. Yeah. We encourage you to repurpose content. Yeah. So, so somebody did a webinar, turned it into an article. We're talking about it on this podcast because, you know, we look at five actionable ways to drastically improve ROI. Yeah. And we're like, yeah, let's do that. Our audience needs to hear that. Before we jump into that real quick, we have a sponsor, Bright Local. What is the only local platform that you'll need? Go check out Bright Local. It's a service we use, have used it on and off for years. We use and does a phenomenal job of managing your local citations, all of the kind of citations that really have to be in place to do, frankly, even a mediocre job at it. And I would just say like to just stay on this for just two seconds, they, they certainly started out with a citation service, but they're really like a local search platform. So

there's other platforms out there that you use for national search. Really having a good local search platform. That's what they're building out. They got a lot of other tools, a lot of other ways to dice up that data and get that analytics to look at how you're ranking and also great reporting for clients from the local standpoint. And so if you're a brick and mortar store or you're like focused on local as an SEO agency, recheck out this tool if you haven't checked it out in a while. So check out brightlocal.com. And do we have a short, do we have a link for it? Anyway, when they go there, there is a special for best SEO podcast listeners. I think it's brightlocal.com forward slash best SEO podcast. Best dash SEO. Best dash SEO dash podcast. And there's certain tiers that they have. There's a lot of different packages they have at a certain tier. They're given, I think, $75 worth of citation builder credits. So go do that. Make sure you're in the right plan. Yep. That works. All right. Let's jump into this article. Again, Pitiff to Heather Campbell. How can you keep your SEO strategy performing ahead of your competitors? Because this is a, what is it? A zero sum game. It's a loss. It really is a zero sum game. SEO is how you're doing versus everybody else based on the search that the person's looking for. And then there's all these other metrics that go into it. It's really convoluted, but you know, is your answer better than, than, than another answer out there and new people are updating answers and adding new answers all the time. So it's constantly changing. It's like the, the guys who were out hawk hiking, right? And they see a grizzly bear. And one guy plops down and starts putting on his tennis shoes. And he was like, what are you doing? You can't outrun a bear. And the guy looks at him and says, I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have

to outrun you. That's what SEO is. You haven't heard that one? I have not heard that one as it relates to SEO. All right. So Heather says that she moderated a webinar with John Ershaw. He's with PI data metrics. You guys can go check them out. It's enterprise level data. Begin with the strong SEO foundation and follow these five strategies. Number one, identify seasonal keyword search trends. This big. Yeah. Paying close attention to recurring search trends and spotting the significant peaks can ensure your content is ready and optimized at just the right moment. I would add to this, like when you're doing reporting, you know, maybe seven days, seven days, or, you know, 28 days, 28 days, but really look at the previous year too. Yeah. And you want to chop this data up a lot of different ways to see what's happening. And also you can use like Google trends, a keyword planner. There's other tools out there and figure out seasonally if there are spikes and we've found a lot of opportunities with those seasonal spikes. And if you're in an industry that's focused on that, you're already aware of like seasonal offers, but really content. And I would even tell you that if you're doing podcasting, there's podcast platforms, you want to align with seasonally and also with the company of what they're trying to promote to try to get alignment in that, in that place. And so, you know, I just don't think people think seasonally enough. They just look at things month over month or, or whatever. And as an SEO or right, when you can go to your client, whether the client is the CMO, whether the client is actually a, you know, a medium sized business, if you can go to your client and say, listen, we already know that next month is going to be a little bit slower. Like, do you like, we already know this is a fact. Here's what we can do to mitigate it. And sometimes there isn't like if, if, if searches

go to zero in March for gems, because everyone's given up on their new year's resolution, like you just like, you're fighting for a smaller piece of the pie. And so by, by, by you being the knowledgeable person who goes to the business owner, who goes to your report, the CMO and says this, then it just puts you in a great place. You want to stay in front of the trends. And I can tell you that we have grown clients, SEO rankings tremendously month over month. And when a seasonal downtrend hits the search volume just drops off, right? So even if we've made huge improvements in the rankings, it sometimes doesn't matter. And to stay ahead of that and to communicate that and to mitigate that with ads or other things that you can do, it's certainly something to be aware of because you don't want to be shocked by a seasonal trend that you're not aware of. It's so much better to preempt it than to post explain it. Oh, as we look back the data, right, there are okay. Yeah. Right. If they're like a super smart business person, but that can be really challenging because you're already, you're already in this negative mood about bad results, but if you preempted them, it doesn't even happen. Yeah. You just, you know, people look at data in the aggregate, so they don't think about the seasonal things and you just want to connect the dots for them. That's the big thing. Yep. All right. So here are five ways to make sure your SEO strategy stays ahead of popular searches. Number one, categorize your search terms to align with the categories and subcategories on your website, right? So you've got to have this organization monitor cooperative search volume data over time. They recommend three years. So you're like looking, looking at more. It's at least a year, right? Depending on how much data you have access to. COVID, right? So you, you really, that's what we had to start going to with the number of

clients is like three year, three years of data, especially as we were going into COVID and then we were looking at like pre COVID and with COVID and then there was like a blend and you know, now everything's normalized, but it's different. Right. And so data is jacked up right now. And, and really you want to stay on top of what's going on because everything has changed since COVID. Yep. Identify and note peaks and troughs as you're looking at that three-year data, four years, maybe five-year data, plan your content to launch far in advance of the peak for that particular search phrase. That's absolutely true. Share this data with other teams within the business, you know, product and merchandising. And again, that's just when you can do it preemptively. Really you're the hero at that point. I would tell you we're starting in the year strategies mid-year. Yeah. Okay. To get everything ready, to get everything approved, to be able to launch those for the last quarter, you got to start a quarter ahead. Yep. All right. Number two, again, this is five actionable ways to improve the ROI of your SEO strategy, find and capitalize on low hanging fruit. Duh. Prioritize low hanging fruit, focus on high ROI and low effort opportunities. So here's a, here's a bullet pointed list. Look at collective rankings of terms within a category. Identify where you are generating revenue and the opportunity and benchmarks for your sector versus competitors. Yeah. Right. Find content that ranks on page two and three and investigate how you could tweak this content to get into the conversion zones. I love that. The conversion zones. Well, first page, top of first page. Yep. Yep. Communicate to the business how much the changes will be worth in terms of revenue that is so very, very valuable. Well, here, here's what I would say actually with like the idea of low hanging fruit. Uh, we do these audits and we just, uh, did audit, I think last week where, um, they had like a keyword

Bible quote unquote, right. That they were focused on. Right. And we looked at the data of where they were ranking and what keywords were converting. Okay. And, um, there was a few other metrics that we looked at, but as you slice that data, we realized, well, you're ranking number one for all these terms. And that actually looks great on the surface, but there's not enough volume. That's not the right keyword. Um, wrong intent. Yeah. Like this, these con these keywords over here actually have higher volume. They're easy to rank for. And this is actually where your conversions are coming from, right. Outside of like branded terms. And so, um, it was, it was really interesting. Uh, we had, uh, a couple different ways that we cut the data and it was when we first talked to the client, we did a quick audit. We're like, Hey, it looks like things are going great. Right. And they're like, well, we really want you to investigate what we're doing at a deep level. And we want to see it, like I get a second opinion. Right. And they came to us like, okay, we'll do that. You're also ugly. That's your baby's also ugly. That's the second opinion. Oh, okay. Uh, and actually by the end of it, they, they, they were a little defensive. Um, and, and we, we, we balanced it, right. Like, like, they were like, well, those were bad ideas. Yeah, no, like, well the audit. Okay. So this was like something, something we learned in the audit. We, we showed them all the areas improvement. We didn't highlight like this to you. Oh, you have a chatbot. That's great. Like we didn't highlight things as best we could as far as where they did good. So we, so we, we basically dug into it because we wanted to give them value of like, here's all the things that you need to improve. And then, and then, you know, in the call, the, the SEO, I was like listening and I was like,

okay. Uh, and that was a big takeaway is like, we, we need to do the audit, but we also need to check the box and show people, Hey, here are the things that you actually did. Awesome. And they did do a ton of things awesome, but we helped them take it to the next level. So we're in conversations about ongoing services, but at the surface, I was like, man, I don't, I don't know if we can help you, you know, that way, because that's what, uh, one of our reps looked at. And then when we dug into it, how you look at the data and how you look at those conversions, big deal. So I'll, I'll move on from low hanging root, but there's a lot of ways to look at that data to figure out what low hanging fruit is and how to go after it. And, um, you know, this article highlights a lot of those things, but there, there's certainly other things that you should be looking at. So, well, yeah. And I, I always felt the, the, the, one of the best ways to kind of boil down low hanging fruit is what do you sell the most? Right. Cause that, that's the door opener and what makes you the most money. Yeah. And very often one or both of those, right. So they, a business owner, a CMO may approach an SEO agency and say, I want a place for this thing that makes me the most money, but a lot of opportunity is missed because the thing that you sell the most leads into the sale of the thing that makes you the most money. Right. Well, I love when the business owner or whoever comes and we want to rank for this thing that we, we don't even sell and we don't even have, we're having the whole conversation of, well, when are you looking to have this happen? When do you want to start that? They're like, they're like this season. They're like, we want to go

into it and the season starts next month. Yeah. And it's like, well, SEO might not be the right strategy. Yeah. So. All right. Number three, maximize opportunities from the entire SERP search engine result page before questioning how to reach the first page or why your ranking has decreased, examine the SERPs and determine if that's where you want to be. Right. Yeah. The issue could be a mismatch of intent, intent between the existing landscape and your specific offering. You may need to try refining your search and exploring other opportunities. And this is broken down this way. Look at your performance for different terms. Okay. Compare your performance with competitors and refined doorway SERPs. I don't know what a refined doorway SERP is. Well, a doorway page is basically a keyword that leads to another keyword. Well, what's a refined doorway SERP? Well, yeah. Well, a doorway page is this page. You want to convert on this where you want to bring them in on this page. You want to direct them this page. I would assume a doorway SERP is like a seed keywords, right? Yeah. It gets like intent. So you're looking at, I've never heard that term either, but I'm assuming they're saying, um, you know, a category that, uh, where, where they're at in the search or something like that. Look for opportunity. We always learn stuff when this is why we do it. Look for opportunities past SERP zero. Optimize your, by the way, SERP zero is the infographic. Well, I, you know, that there's a whole debate. There's a whole debate there. Yeah. Optimize your images, own the answer box and compliment it with a classic link. Trust building that, I mean, that, you know, position zero trust building. I think, um, actually where I thought this was going was you're ranking for something that you don't want to be ranking for. Google's show you're making you show up for things that you don't necessarily want to show up for. And I would actually say that even goes back to like

site architecture and interlinking and, and headers and, and all, again, all the basics. But if Google doesn't understand what your site's about, it can't help you rank for other things in association to get those, I guess, doorway SERPs. So my thought is make sure you're ranking for the, the, the core seed keywords and, and make sure you're doing your SEO properly. And then Google will start showing you to, for, for all these long tail keyword searches, even terms that are not even on the page. If it knows what your page is about, it'll help start ranking for that other stuff. So you just got to really get it right. And you and Google are locked in and then boom, you're, you're going to start showing up for tons of SERPs. That's what I like doing. All right. Next optimize your content for informational searches. The search landscape is constantly evolving. She, she mentions AI by observing these constantly evolving changes. You can discern shifts and intent, identify emerging priorities and recognize declining trends. It's crucial to optimize your content to own the answer card and to send out quality signals. Research indicates that directly, excuse me, directing users to informational content, especially when addressing their questions through features like people also ask, leads to higher conversion rates, increased average order value, and more return visits. This approach supports your commercial objectives by helping users find answers and build trust. Yeah. I would just say that there's data out there. I don't have it in front of me, but the more times you show up along the search journey and at the different micro moments of when people are searching for attention, interest, decision, action, maybe that's a Google funnel. Um, the more times you show up, like SEO is a trust building and a conversion building tactic because they get more familiar with you. We talk about this and, um, content generation, content marketing, uh, the more that people know, like, and trust you, the more they're willing to do business for you. And I

think the data said, if they've seen you before, or they know of your, the name of your company before when they're in market, they're three times more likely to, to lean your direction or have a positive, uh, cognitive dissonance towards you than if not. So SEO has this, um, kind of wind at the sales wind at your back kind of, uh, effort that a lot of people don't talk about. All right. Number five, this is the fifth of actionable ways to improve the ROI of your SEO strategy, find and increase your share of value. Uh, an effective way to communicate the impact of your SEO efforts is through the share of value metric. Now let's be realistic. This is a very specific metric. I don't even know what this is. Honestly, this data, no, this data tool has it right. Oh, right. And so I'll go through this and then kind of suggest things that you can do to determine the share of value use tools to analyze the visibility of various websites across thousands of relevant keywords, voice. Yeah. Then overlay these visibility scores with commercial value derived from metrics such as conversion rates, average order value, and CPC rates. Okay. I'm doing that right. This analysis enables you to identify areas where you outperform or underperform compared to your competitors. Right. So when you start digging into it, I think in this tool, they've just kind of put that all together so that it can be, uh, looked at in one graph, but yeah, you, this is, Hey, what is the opportunity that we're, uh, that, that people have to see us based on our keyword visibility based on industry averages that visibility translates into what dollars, where are those opportunities? Find and increase your share of value. Cool. And I think that's it. Like that wraps up the article. Well, we're trying to hit the 20 minute mark. Yeah. That's actually my goal, Chris. Yeah. You should share that with me. Yeah. Share of value. I think 20 minutes is what people

are liking right now. Uh, after, after the whole COVID thing, there's less windshield time. Um, you know, and, uh, I would just tell you, look, like SEO is so powerful today more than ever. If you're trying to grow your business, you need to be getting online, all the data points to the number one way that people find new businesses is through SEO. So if you're not doing SEO, you need to do it. You need to find a trusted expert. We've been doing it for a long time. We can get you ranking, call us. I would love to help you. Wait. If you would like to increase your revenue and grow your business using the simplest, largest marketing tool on the planet, the internet, go to EWR digital for increased revenue in your business. Uh, once you're at EWR digital.com, go up to the right and click the free consultation. Yes. Uh, and schedule a time that works for you, convenient for you, valuable for you. Uh, you just heard, uh, actually an internet, one of our experts was like, Hey, we don't know if we're like, it's totally honest. Hey, we're not sure that you're, you look like you're doing pretty well. They were struggling inside of their own business. They're like, Hey, we still would like to have you take a deeper dive. And in that deeper dive, they learned even more. Right. So understand you're going to get value from that free consultation. Yeah, no, we're, we're, we have, uh, two guys right now, uh, answering the phone. Uh, it's round Robin. Um, they've been, uh, with us a long time. They've been podcast listeners a long time. I mean, I would say 10 years plus. So you're, you're, you know, you're going to get a lot of value. We have a lot of experience in a lot of different industries. Um, we're doing some really cool things. Uh, we're getting a lot of great phone calls. Thank you all. Um, we're getting some great reviews. Um, so, uh, you know, um, I'm

just really enjoying what's happening and, and we definitely have some more capacity we've been growing. So we would love, uh, to, to talk to you, to find out your story, to work with you. We are going to be rolling out a lot of educational stuff as well. We do do, uh, corporate consulting. We do, do one-on-one consulting. We have a one-on-one coaching 90 minutes. You can ask me or anybody else, anything you want. Uh, we can get you the right answers. If, if you can't find the information, AMA, right. Ask me anything. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So crypto, right. But, uh, uh, do know a lot about crypto market too. I have a podcast or actually it was going to be a podcast, but it's just a newsletter on LinkedIn about decentralized marketing on my LinkedIn. Um, I'm on LinkedIn a lot. Check me out, uh, connect with us. Uh, we thank you for supporting us. Uh, thank you for, uh, our sponsor that keeps this thing going, uh, bright local. We appreciate you. Please go check it out. Um, uh, mention best SEO, uh, when, when you're calling them, that will really help to know that we drove them your way. If you haven't looked at their platform in a while, go check it out. They have a great resource tool that they're using. They don't just do citations. Um, they're, they're really expanding and they're one of the leaders in a local. So check them out until the next podcast. My name is Chris Burris. My name is Matt Bertram. Bye bye for now.