Tag: Retention
The business value of SEO in 2021: From revenue generation to reputation and retention
30-second summary:
- SEO is without a doubt the most cost-effective channel for enterprises today.
- SEO also adds incremental value in a number of different ways.
- It helps maintain brand equity, helps inform product and sales.
- SEO can also be used as a PR channel and vice-versa.
- From consumer behavior trends to market and demand volatility, search behavior can provide the data businesses need to understand market drivers and pivot in real-time.
- SEO adds value by providing a model for continuous digital improvement of the user (customer) online experience.
Those within the industry understand that the inclusion of SEO as part of a comprehensive marketing strategy is an absolute. But while we recognize that SEO holds the keys to digital success – from the insights and context it provides, to the optimization of content it can deliver – we sometimes overlook the additional business value of SEO.
The power of doing SEO now cannot be understated. As the most cost-effective channel for enterprises today, SEO also adds incremental value in a number of ways. In this article, we’ll consider just seven ways of them.
1. Brand awareness
Some tend to think about SEO primarily in terms of rankings and traffic. While both are great ways to measure the success of your SEO strategy, limiting yourself to those metrics alone can miss the wider value provided by a first-page result – whether it converts to click through or not.
Every search returns pages of results, and each time your product, service, or brand appears on page one of those results you create an impression. Those impressions are fundamental to brand awareness, which is the extent to which consumers recognize your brand, your product, or service.
In an endless sea of options, brand awareness is the first step in the marketing and sales funnel. Whether you’re promoting a new product or focused on retention, recall and recognition are key. SEO presents an opportunity to build brand awareness with every search.
In creating your SEO strategy, you will have ensured your site is easy to navigate, simple to search, accessible, and – critically – credible. Landing your business on the first page of results not only increases visibility but also means you’re more likely perceived as a leader in your industry.
2. PR and reputation
The shift from print media to digital has exponentially expanded your company’s potential audience. Online publications often have much higher readerships than traditional media outlets, and as such digital public relations support increased visibility of your brand.
Understanding that both online and traditional print publications leverage industry experts as content contributors, as step one in your PR and reputation strategy you’ll want to ensure you’re visible to be considered an expert in your local area and/or your industry.
Once in the virtual domain as an expert, your credibility continues to grow and has an incremental impact with each piece of coverage. News publications tend to have high domain authority, as links continue to be one of the most important ranking factors for search engines, each and every media mention further optimizes your searchability with a multiplier effect that continually increases your credibility. and visibility.
3. Consumer and market insights
Throughout the ongoing global pandemic, we’ve seen incredible shifts in consumer behavior worldwide. As consumers continue to re-evaluate everything from their careers to lifestyles and demand more from the brands they choose to buy from, seeking meaning in their purchasing, the insights SEO can provide offer incredible value. From consumer behavior trends to market and demand volatility, search behavior can provide the data businesses need to understand market drivers and pivot in real-time.
Using SEO results and search patterns, combined with the right strategic thinking, can lead to continuous improvement across a number of departments.
Consider content strategy, for example. Marketers know that high-quality content is critical to sales strategies, but what makes for success depends on the needs and wants of users. Understanding user search patterns can help to inform desirable content throughout the buying stages, ultimately leading to better conversation rates.
4. Content and cross channel activation
Of course, we can’t consider content strategy without addressing cross-channel activation. Integrating and activating content across marketing channels – from video to email to verticals and beyond – allows you to reach your customers in the places they are. It acts as the starting point for the personalization we know consumers crave.
By implementing optimized content in an integrated approach that covers everything from paid search to social, an intelligent content framework supports strong organic search success while fulfilling consumer curiosity by ensuring that content is optimized not just for one channel, but for all channels.
Source: BrightEdge SEO Platform Research
Smart content is optimized from the point of creation and ready to activate across channels. The key to successful cross channel activation is a true understanding of customer intent, targeting customers with the detail they want and need, when they need it, and optimizing to ensure visibility.
5. Customer experience and retention
The hallmarks of a good digital experience are key components in the assessment search engines perform when considering whether your site is the best result to showcase. From usability to the relevance of content and simple search functionality, Google wants to see that your site and content are the best answer.
SEO adds value by providing a model for continuous improvement of the user (customer) online experience. Add to that the personalization facilitated by SEO and you’ve got yourself the basis of a top-notch customer experience.
As customers across the globe are craving more personalized experiences, successful businesses are looking at the customer experience holistically – and SEO is a great tool to support the complete customer view. Providing a package of integrated tools and features, SEO insights are an opportunity to take digital strategy from the page to the personal by leveraging data to deliver personalized experiences to customers in real-time.
6. Offline and local
Consumers leverage online research to inform their offline activities, as we well know. Mining SEO insights informs offline and local campaigns, as well.
From a service perspective, from comments to questions online, what consumers want to know in the digital space can lead to conversation starters in the physical space. Arm your customer service representatives with these insights for more meaningful in-person engagements, ultimately deepening the customer relationship.
Informing an in-store experience with SEO insights doesn’t end with sales training. In understanding search terms that returned no results, your buyers are presented with items your customers want you to offer, providing opportunities for new product lines and/or diversification in your services.
7. Revenue and lead generation
Customer acquisition can be costly. We know that inbound strategies are the most effective, and that SEO is a key source of leads. Rather than investing countless hours in outbound marketing strategies, drawing in customers with the information they need – when they need it – as they research and review throughout their buying journey provides a cost-effective avenue of lead generation.
Whether B2B or B2C, revenue grows when the right content is delivered to the right customer, at the right time. Optimizing online content across channels can generate more traffic, more conversions, and thus provide more revenue.
In short, having the right SEO strategy can bring success well beyond the digital space. Understand that set-it-and-forget-it is a strategy doomed to fail. Committing to monitoring and activating SEO insights in as near to real-time as possible gives organizations the opportunity to meet customers and prospects where and when they’re most receptive to your messaging.
From sales to service and loyalty, when supported by the right insights there are almost endless opportunities for companies to reap the value of SEO.
Jim Yu is the founder and CEO of BrightEdge, the leading enterprise SEO and content performance platform.
The post The business value of SEO in 2021: From revenue generation to reputation and retention appeared first on Search Engine Watch.
The Account Manager’s Guide to Effective Communication & Client Retention
I’ve worked for, and learned from, several remarkable agencies in my career. Great account managers stand out in any agency environment, no matter the industry. They are able to build relationships with clients quickly, establishing trust out the gate.
They may provide the same results as other account managers, but they communicate the value of their team’s efforts more effectively, in a clear and succinct fashion that their clients understand.
Great account managers solve problems.
They speak in goals and objectives and provide strategies and tactics to overcome obstacles.
If you are currently in a client facing role, no matter how technically skilled you are, no matter what your job is, all the value you bring to the table adds up to nothing if you can’t:
- Speak in a manner that evokes confidence in your abilities.
- Reinforce a client’s belief that they are making a solid investment with your agency.
- Demonstrate through your words and actions that you value your client’s trust.
- Establish that your goals and your client’s goals, are one and the same.
Where To Start?
Start with being grateful. In the agency world, without clients, we have nothing. Every account manager needs to keep that in mind when dealing with their clients. They wont always appreciate how amazing your strategies are – but you *must* appreciate the investment they are making with your agency. Never forget how much they are spending on just a 30-minute weekly call.
Three Types of KPIs
There are three sets of KPIs for any account.
Client-Agency KPIs:
These are mutually agreed upon at the start of the contract between the agency and the client company. It’s the basis for all of your reporting. Many SEO agencies use a variation of traffic, rankings and conversions as standard KPIs.
Client Company KPIs:
These are the metrics you don’t report and likely don’t have access to, but the client company communicates with them internally. i.e. churn rate, LTV, AOV, revenue by channel tracked outside of analytics, etc. Ask about these KPIs frequently.
Point of Contact KPIs:
Just like you are trying to grow professionally, your point of contact has their own career goals, both long- and short-term. If you, as an account manager, can help them hit their short-term goals, they will retain you to help them hit their long-term goals.
Some companies I have worked with set aggressive internal goals for their channel or marketing managers. These goals can be major factors for their career trajectory, or the focal point of they next review. It could even be explicitly tied to their bonus. Once you’ve started developing trust with a client – do your best to learn if your point of contact has these types of goals.
Communicating with Two Audiences
Whenever you communicate with a client, you have the potential to be speaking with two audiences, your individual point of contact, and everyone that they forward important information to. All communication you send a client needs to have context. Without context, your point of contact will have to explain everything they forward along – creating a lot more work for them.
Your job is to minimize the amount of SEO work your point of contact has to do – including explaining SEO to their co-workers. If your emails and reporting can be passed on to other parties effortlessly, your point of contact will have a bigger incentive to keep you around.
The Big Stuff That Shows You Care
Ask Questions – Often
Goals change for companies over time, and that isn’t always communicated to an agency. Great account manager’s ask questions about a client’s business often – they stay in the know. They learn the direction the company is heading, and they ask what the internal marketing team is planning for the next year, they formulate strategies around that information.
Ask if They Are Seeing Noticeable Improvements
Ask about lead quality, lead to close rate, daily order counts, phone calls – get a feel for how your efforts are impacting their business. No matter how much traffic you drive or how many conversions you rack up – if your client doesn’t “feel” like you’re adding value – they aren’t going to retain your services. Triggering a conversion in Google Analytics isn’t the end of the story, it’s your job to try and get your point of contact to tell you the rest. There is nothing stopping you from asking them how they feel about how things are going so far or what they would like to see done better in the future.
This line of questioning also demonstrates that you go beyond the role of Account Manager, it shows you genuinely care about their company.
Story time: I once had a client I thought I was doing great for, we saw a huge spike in month-over-month growth… but there was more to the story. Nigerian hackers actually racked up $ 40,000 in fraudulent charges… and there’s no refund/return/fraud option in GA – so the numbers couldn’t be corrected. If I hadn’t of asked how things were going, I would have never known about the fraud. I would have gone on thinking I was kicking ass. Once I found out about the Nigerian hackers, I used that information and got the client an interview in CNN. Keeping an open line of communication with your client about their business is a *good* thing.
Frame Your Communication Around Growth
Ask how you can help make a bigger impact for the client-company often. Figure out what goals matters most to them, then frame your communication around those goals. You still need to report on your mutually agreed upon KPIs – but you also need to show how hitting those KPIs allows them to reach their actual business goals.
Value your Client’s Time
Always come to a meeting prepared with an agenda and don’t be hungover. Clients want and need for you to be ready to go the second the call starts. There’s no excuse for showing up to a meeting unprepared. It’s a quick way to lose a client.
Listen More, Talk Less
SEOs are a smart bunch. We elegantly explain complex technical concepts on the regular – we do such a great job of explaining that sometimes we forget to listen to the people that are actually paying us.
Clients will have difficult questions and legitimate concerns over the course of an account. Skipping over those tough topics, not listening to their concerns, and avoiding awkward and difficult discussions is the mark of a weak account manager. A great account manager is one that identifies potential issues before they become problems and addresses the situation directly.
The Little Stuff That Show Clients You Care
This is a list of little stuff I like to do, I think it’s just as important as the big stuff, if not more important.
Update them frequently after big content pieces launch, just to let them know things are going well (or not so well). Trust me, they want updates.
Check in to see what’s up – even if they haven’t emailed you and don’t seem concerned.
Let them know when you are going to be out of the office in advance.
Avoid rescheduling regular meetings at all costs, always work around their schedule.
Send them small gifts or cards on their birthday and holidays, when they get married, have a child, or when someone in their life is sick.
Engage in small talk whenever possible and appropriate.
Ask them about their vacations and holidays – Where did they go? What was the best part?
Know what sports teams your point of contact roots for, know when those teams are in the playoffs and be able to talk about the game on the next call.
Know what music they listen to, concert tickets make a great gift (GWAR tickets do not).
Know what type of food they enjoy. When meeting over food, take them out for that cuisine.
Congratulate them on promotions or title changes.
Learn the names of new hires who join the weekly call, they may become your point of contact.
What Does This Get You In the Long Run?
Great account managers retain and grow accounts and move up the corporate ladder quickly, often into leadership roles. Mainly because impeccable social skills, solid strategy and empathy are the marks of not just a great account manager, but a great leader that people respect and listen to.
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