Sure Oak: Digital Marketing, SEO, Online Business Strategy, & More

How to reach out to Jay Baer: Jay Baer shares his 25 years of marketing experience and New York Times best-selling content on this week’s show. He’s used his marketing savvy to launch 5 startups as well as his strategy consulting firm, Convince & Convert.  He sits down with host Tom Casano to explain how word-of-mouth can transform your marketing strategy,  discuss how your customers are your best marketers, and give a sneak peek into his latest book. WHY WORD OF MOUTH? Word-of-mouth directly influences 19% of all purchases in the US. Another 20 to 30% is influenced by indirect word of mouth. With nearly half of every dollar spent in America impacted by word-of-mouth marketing, you would expect most businesses to have a word-of-mouth marketing strategy. Yet, 99% of businesses do not. The vast majority of businesses have no strategy to manage this crucial aspect of marketing. WORD-OF-MOUTH IS NOT A CAMPAIGN Word-of-mouth is often confused with campaigns. Word-of-mouth is not a flashy stunt that receives a buzz of coverage. “The best way to do word-of-mouth is to do something different every single day,” clarifies Jay. It’s the regular feature of your business that people can talk about without any encouragement or event. In order to define word-of-mouth strategies, Jay created the concept of the ‘talk trigger’. He defines it as an operational difference that creates marketing. For example, the Cheesecake Factory has an extraordinary talk trigger that allows them to spend 5X less on advertising than their competitors. Their 5,490-word-long menu. The surprising length of the menu causes people to talk about the cuisine and the business without encouragement. Jay’s research shows that 38% of customers proactively told someone else about the menu in the last 90 days. Word-of-mouth is what propels a current customer into creating a new customer. This is the best referral program you can have. WHAT MAKES GREAT WORD-OF-MOUTH In order to work, your talk trigger has to be remarkable in the true sense of that word: Worthy of remark. People don’t talk about average. They talk about what’s different. “Good is a 4 letter word in the context of word-of-mouth,” Jay explains. It should align with the brand while still standing out. Good may keep customers, but it will not create new ones. For example, Paragon Direct offers a 24-hour car repair service. Use their company’s app to book a service, and they promise to complete the car repair overnight and have it ready before you go to work in the morning. This highly responsive service is so unique that it creates its own word of mouth. This service level goes beyond ‘good’. TALK TRIGGER SYSTEM Jay’s new book lays out the complete word of mouth system. He gave us a sneak peek at their pioneering 6-step process to create talk triggers: * Understand and observe your customers and use internal insights * Develop candidate talk triggers * Find the Goldilocks zone * Roll it out in a test environment * Look for evidence of conversation * When you see conversation development, roll it out to all customers These steps allow you to develop an everyday business feature that wil...

How to reach out to Sujan Patel: Optimizing your marketing sales funnel takes one essential but basic step. Understanding your sales funnel. Digital marketing leader Sujan Patel explains how to break down your funnel using the right metrics on this week’s podcast. Sujan runs six SaaS businesses, including Mailshake and Web Profits, a growth marketing agency, and they all use the same highly effective sales funnel. On this week’s podcast, you’ll learn how to build traffic and leverage your own network and customers in your sales funnel. EXPOSURE Exposure is not what you do to increase your own exposure. “It’s the things people say about you when you’re not there,” remarks Sujan. “Exposure is your reputation.” If someone recommends you to a potential client, exposure is all the information they provide to the client. Whether it’s good, bad, or a mixture, that’s the exposure. It’s outside of your direct control in the sales funnel, but you can control it indirectly by creating work that is beneficial to your reputation. Exposure builds trust, and you can build exposure by doing guests posts and creating videos and other content. Using the content to answer the questions clients might ask about you gives you a bit more indirect control. AWARENESS How big of a reach do you have? Where are you ranking? These metrics are how you qualify your awareness. For some people, their big reach comes from social media. For others, it may be paid advertising. At MailShake, Sujan explained that they crush it on private Facebook groups where members share their major content guides. When potential clients move through the sales funnel from a strong awareness area, you already have some credibility and trust with them. Every business will have awareness areas that are stronger and weaker. You need to be aware of your strengths to know where future leads will come from. Sujan recommends asking every lead: How did you hear about us? This metric is more accurate at predicting your strengths than Google Analytics. Google Analytics shows their direct search pattern but not the first time the lead had awareness of your brand. CONSIDERATION With those potential leads identified, you’re moving into the consideration phase of the sales funnel. According to Sujan, “this is where a lot of people fail.” Think about the flow that will move the potential client through consideration and into a sale. The process will vary. From blog traffic, someone in consideration may download an e-book or join a webinar. That action may move them into becoming an active lead. You need to know your process and optimize it to ensure potential leads successfully complete the consideration phase. That optimization can be seriously simple: Ask. “A lot of people are not aggressive enough in their nurturing to ask for conversions.” Yes, you need to offer a lot of value so your value-to-ask ratio is high.

How to reach out to Sujan Patel: Optimizing your marketing sales funnel takes one essential but basic step. Understanding your sales funnel. Digital marketing leader Sujan Patel explains how to break down your funnel using the right metrics on this week’s podcast. Sujan runs six SaaS businesses, including Mailshake and Web Profits, a growth marketing agency, and they all use the same highly effective sales funnel. On this week’s podcast, you’ll learn how to build traffic and leverage your own network and customers in your sales funnel. EXPOSURE Exposure is not what you do to increase your own exposure. “It’s the things people say about you when you’re not there,” remarks Sujan. “Exposure is your reputation.” If someone recommends you to a potential client, exposure is all the information they provide to the client. Whether it’s good, bad, or a mixture, that’s the exposure. It’s outside of your direct control in the sales funnel, but you can control it indirectly by creating work that is beneficial to your reputation. Exposure builds trust, and you can build exposure by doing guests posts and creating videos and other content. Using the content to answer the questions clients might ask about you gives you a bit more indirect control. AWARENESS How big of a reach do you have? Where are you ranking? These metrics are how you qualify your awareness. For some people, their big reach comes from social media. For others, it may be paid advertising. At MailShake, Sujan explained that they crush it on private Facebook groups where members share their major content guides. When potential clients move through the sales funnel from a strong awareness area, you already have some credibility and trust with them. Every business will have awareness areas that are stronger and weaker. You need to be aware of your strengths to know where future leads will come from. Sujan recommends asking every lead: How did you hear about us? This metric is more accurate at predicting your strengths than Google Analytics. Google Analytics shows their direct search pattern but not the first time the lead had awareness of your brand. CONSIDERATION With those potential leads identified, you’re moving into the consideration phase of the sales funnel. According to Sujan, “this is where a lot of people fail.” Think about the flow that will move the potential client through consideration and into a sale. The process will vary. From blog traffic, someone in consideration may download an e-book or join a webinar. That action may move them into becoming an active lead. You need to know your process and optimize it to ensure potential leads successfully complete the consideration phase. That optimization can be seriously simple: Ask. “A lot of people are not aggressive enough in their nurturing to ask for conversions.” Yes, you need to offer a lot of value so your value-to-ask ratio is high.

Josh Steimle became a contributor on Forbes and grew his business 1400% in one year. On this week’s podcast, Josh explains how to pitch editors, how to maximize publications for content marketing, and his two key questions to contributor success.

How to reach out to Josh Steimle: One blog post can be worth $3 Million. Josh Steimle wrote that blog post as a contributor for Forbes. Writing for Forbes took his business from near failure to 1400% growth in revenue. The founder of MWI Digital Marketing Firm and Influencer Inc. joins Tom Casano on this week’s podcast to discuss how to pitch a publication, how to write for Forbes, and how to become a Forbes contributor, and why you’ve got to be an editor’s exotic animal. 1400% INCREASE IN REVENUE Josh’s marketing agency was just on the verge of bankruptcy when he made his best business decision yet. He asked a friend in PR how to promote his business. She connected him with Fast Company to contribute an article. And then he asked to be connected with her own editor at Forbes. The Forbes editor liked his writing and offered Josh a spot as a contributor. He wrote the same content he was putting on his blog, ranging from entrepreneurship, business and marketing. Six months in, he figured out how to (ethically!) generate leads with the Forbes platform. In the next year, the leads turned to sales and revenue jumped to 1400%. So, how did he do it? TWO QUESTIONS There are two questions everyone has to answer before they become a forbes contributor: * Who are you and what’s your unique focus? * Who’s your audience? Your focus is whatever differentiates you. It’s how you provide value to people. It’s likely related to what you’re selling or your job. Your audience is who buys the products or services you’re selling. Josh made the mistake of not focusing when he first started writing. He wrote about anything from business matters to entrepreneurship. He didn’t deeply consider his audience. People liked it, but he got zero results. “Then, I wrote a few articles about marketing. I gave tips away based on my experience,” he explains. “Once I started giving out those tips, that’s when the leads started coming in. I realized ‘Wow, I’m onto something here.’” Focus + audience = results. THE THREE MILLION DOLLAR BLOG POST “I can track almost three million dollars in revenue to this one post I wrote on Forbes.” The article? How to hire an SEO firm. He wrote a valuable, experienced-based article in his key focus area for his target audience. People who were Googling ‘hire an SEO firm’ were finding his Forbes article. They liked it, they were looking for a marketing SEO firm, and they hired him. “That’s the power of having a focus and knowing who you’re going after.” PLAN YOUR CONTENT STRATEGY Once you know who you are and who your audience is, it’s a lot easier to create content. Figure out where your audience is hanging out. Are they on Forbes? LinkedIn? Twitter? Based on that channel, create content in the way your audience wants to consume it. Create content that aligns with your focus. And write with your audience in mind.

How to reach out to Lexi Mills: Is your PR making you uncomfortable? It should. Lexi Mills is a public relations specialist who combines PR and SEO to maximize promotion. She knows how to grab journalists' attention, how to hunt stories for backlinks and how to use Twitter in unexpected ways to support a campaign. THE BEST PR CAMPAIGNS MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE The best campaigns present a story that is unique and interesting. Yet, many campaigns focus on something comfortable to the company. But, comfortable doesn’t get great take-up. In order to find the most interesting angle, dig through the company story and data for ideas. Then rank them according to how uncomfortable they make you (or your client) feel. The more uncomfortable, the more likely it is to garner interest and land great placements. But, it can't be so uncomfortable that the story gets stalled internally. Lexi advises, “You’ve got to find that sweet spot between what a journalist finds interesting and where someone is comfortable.” PUBLIC RELATIONS AND SEO FOR CONTENT CREATION It’s more important for SEO and PR to work together than ever before. A few years ago, link building could happen on sites that weren’t really relevant to the content. Today, SEO backlinks need to come from related sources and are best to come from authoritative sites. PRs can hunt out the stories that will bring backlinks. They’re great at finding stories that align with brand identity. For example, someone creates a piece of content. A PR will ask for a 600-word story on the content. Most people will say, “What? Why?” But PRs know that building the story about the content makes promotion way easier. In order to write that story, a PR will consider: * On which site or publication do I want the story to place? * What’s the average word length on that site? * How many publications have a targeted section on the topic? FIND OUT WHAT’S THE MOST INTERESTING ABOUT YOUR COMPANY Still unsure of what’s the most interesting angle? “Ask a journalist.” Lexi started out with an informal network of journalist friends that she ran ideas or potential stories by. Their feedback is a great indicator of what will be picked up well in the media. She’s formalized the conversations into her own journalist consulting board. She recognizes the huge value it adds to her campaigns. This pre-launch confirmation boosts her success rate and campaign confidence. And it’s not that hard to do: “It’s not that hard to find a couple of journalists who will want to have a chat with you.” You can also simply have a conversation with a journalist. It’s not pitching a story, but discussing a client or concept. Then, they’ll ask you questions. Their questions will identify what’s unique or unusual from the media perspective. 2 KEY FACTORS FOR PR CLICKBAIT Quality clickbait titles have two elements: * The human factor * The trending factor To get clicks, the title needs to work on an emotional, human level. Ask: What would make me interested? What would make my grandmother interested? Matching titles with trends is a natural way to grab attention. Watch Google Trends or any major news site to find the latest topics.

How to reach out to Lexi Mills: Is your PR making you uncomfortable? It should. Lexi Mills is a public relations specialist who combines PR and SEO to maximize promotion. She knows how to grab journalists' attention, how to hunt stories for backlinks and how to use Twitter in unexpected ways to support a campaign. THE BEST PR CAMPAIGNS MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE The best campaigns present a story that is unique and interesting. Yet, many campaigns focus on something comfortable to the company. But, comfortable doesn’t get great take-up. In order to find the most interesting angle, dig through the company story and data for ideas. Then rank them according to how uncomfortable they make you (or your client) feel. The more uncomfortable, the more likely it is to garner interest and land great placements. But, it can't be so uncomfortable that the story gets stalled internally. Lexi advises, “You’ve got to find that sweet spot between what a journalist finds interesting and where someone is comfortable.” PUBLIC RELATIONS AND SEO FOR CONTENT CREATION It’s more important for SEO and PR to work together than ever before. A few years ago, link building could happen on sites that weren’t really relevant to the content. Today, SEO backlinks need to come from related sources and are best to come from authoritative sites. PRs can hunt out the stories that will bring backlinks. They’re great at finding stories that align with brand identity. For example, someone creates a piece of content. A PR will ask for a 600-word story on the content. Most people will say, “What? Why?” But PRs know that building the story about the content makes promotion way easier. In order to write that story, a PR will consider: * On which site or publication do I want the story to place? * What’s the average word length on that site? * How many publications have a targeted section on the topic? FIND OUT WHAT’S THE MOST INTERESTING ABOUT YOUR COMPANY Still unsure of what’s the most interesting angle? “Ask a journalist.” Lexi started out with an informal network of journalist friends that she ran ideas or potential stories by. Their feedback is a great indicator of what will be picked up well in the media. She’s formalized the conversations into her own journalist consulting board. She recognizes the huge value it adds to her campaigns. This pre-launch confirmation boosts her success rate and campaign confidence. And it’s not that hard to do: “It’s not that hard to find a couple of journalists who will want to have a chat with you.” You can also simply have a conversation with a journalist. It’s not pitching a story, but discussing a client or concept. Then, they’ll ask you questions. Their questions will identify what’s unique or unusual from the media perspective. 2 KEY FACTORS FOR PR CLICKBAIT Quality clickbait titles have two elements: * The human factor * The trending factor To get clicks, the title needs to work on an emotional, human level. Ask: What would make me interested? What would make my grandmother interested? Matching titles with trends is a natural way to grab attention. Watch Google Trends or any major news site to find the latest topics.

How to reach out to Rand Fishkin: The Wizard of Moz is here! The man who founded SEO industry leader Moz and built it to revenues of $29.3M. The man who began the blog on SEO. The host of Whiteboard Fridays. Yes, Rand Fishkin joins us on this week’s podcast. As he gets ready to depart from Moz, he gives us a sneak peek at his new venture (we can’t wait!), his new book, and, of course, his SEO strategies. He shares stories of SEO success and failures, his preferred marketing techniques, and how to make it easier to build links. SILICON VALLEY ‘WISDOM’ Rand digs into Silicon Valley wisdom in his new book due out this year. Lost and Founder divulges his journey of building Moz, being CEO, stepping down, and, as of later this month, departing the company, and those major learnings. Each chapter analyzes startup world wisdom: from pivoting to products from services, SaaS metrics, funding, and more. Rand dissects the benefits and drawbacks of the accepted wisdom and dismantles the common perceptions. LAUNCHING AN MVP He shared a preview of his chapter on the minimum viable product (MVP). MVPs are great, if: * You’re launching internally * Nobody knows who you are He warns that MVPs are terrible if you are building on your reputation in a crowded marketplace. People remember the first view of the MVP, and that association is very, very difficult to change. No one gives Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, a second chance. Even though it could be better than Google by now, “none of us know that because [Microsoft] launched an MVP.” In crowded marketplaces, you have to be considerably better than the competition to even be considered. RAND FISHKIN’S SEO STRATEGY Rand takes a high-level approach to SEO strategy. He moves SEO link building to the tactical level. Instead, his top-level strategy is to “get a large group of trustworthy, authoritative folks to know about what I’m doing, care about, pay attention and want to amplify it.” To accomplish this, you need to ask 2 key questions: * Who will care enough to amplify your company/product/project? * Why? To find your answer, your company should: * Have unique positioning, * have your product/service in a space that it can get attention (“the air isn’t all sucked out of the room already”), and * have solid knowledge of the people who cover this space (whether journalists, bloggers, industry groups or otherwise). Building out the answers usually gives you your best link builders now and for the next few years. SEO AND INFLUENCER MARKETING Rand identifies this SEO strategy as influencer marketing in the broad definition. Influencer marketing has narrowed to mean reaching out to someone with lots of Instagram followers and pay them to amplify your product. That’s not influencer marketing.

How to reach out to Rand Fishkin: The Wizard of Moz is here! The man who founded SEO industry leader Moz and built it to revenues of $29.3M. The man who began the blog on SEO. The host of Whiteboard Fridays. Yes, Rand Fishkin joins us on this week’s podcast. As he gets ready to depart from Moz, he gives us a sneak peek at his new venture (we can’t wait!), his new book, and, of course, his SEO strategies. He shares stories of SEO success and failures, his preferred marketing techniques, and how to make it easier to build links. SILICON VALLEY ‘WISDOM’ Rand digs into Silicon Valley wisdom in his new book due out this year. Lost and Founder divulges his journey of building Moz, being CEO, stepping down, and, as of later this month, departing the company, and those major learnings. Each chapter analyzes startup world wisdom: from pivoting to products from services, SaaS metrics, funding, and more. Rand dissects the benefits and drawbacks of the accepted wisdom and dismantles the common perceptions. LAUNCHING AN MVP He shared a preview of his chapter on the minimum viable product (MVP). MVPs are great, if: * You’re launching internally * Nobody knows who you are He warns that MVPs are terrible if you are building on your reputation in a crowded marketplace. People remember the first view of the MVP, and that association is very, very difficult to change. No one gives Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, a second chance. Even though it could be better than Google by now, “none of us know that because [Microsoft] launched an MVP.” In crowded marketplaces, you have to be considerably better than the competition to even be considered. RAND FISHKIN’S SEO STRATEGY Rand takes a high-level approach to SEO strategy. He moves SEO link building to the tactical level. Instead, his top-level strategy is to “get a large group of trustworthy, authoritative folks to know about what I’m doing, care about, pay attention and want to amplify it.” To accomplish this, you need to ask 2 key questions: * Who will care enough to amplify your company/product/project? * Why? To find your answer, your company should: * Have unique positioning, * have your product/service in a space that it can get attention (“the air isn’t all sucked out of the room already”), and * have solid knowledge of the people who cover this space (whether journalists, bloggers, industry groups or otherwise). Building out the answers usually gives you your best link builders now and for the next few years. SEO AND INFLUENCER MARKETING Rand identifies this SEO strategy as influencer marketing in the broad definition. Influencer marketing has narrowed to mean reaching out to someone with lots of Instagram followers and pay them to amplify your product. That’s not influencer marketing.

How to reach out to Marie: Has your site ever experienced a drop in Google rankings, and you had no idea why? Search engine marketing consultant, Dr. Marie Haynes specializes in Google algorithm updates and Google’s recently released, Quality Rater’s Guidelines. She’s been featured on the Moz blog, she writes on Search Engine Watch, and this week she shares her industry expertise on the Sure Oak Podcast. For anyone who’s worried about the impact of Google algorithm changes or who has experienced a drop, Marie offers insight into Google’s 160-page Quality Guidelines, the three most important factors, how to future-proof your site, and more. Quality Rater’s Guidelines Google has clear guidelines for website quality. And only in the last couple of years has the public had access to the 160-page book. Google provides these guidelines to contractors who rate websites for their quality. There are an estimated 10,000 contractors who complete a careful review of websites through an interface. Many people confuse the role of these raters, thinking that the rater’s assessment impacts website ranking directly. However, these ratings actually feed into Google’s algorithm and machine learning. The raters improve the algorithm’s ability to identify quality in websites and rank them appropriately. Content Optimization: EAT So, what does Google consider to be high quality? “We’ve noticed a lot of attention being paid to is EAT,” explains Marie. EAT stands for Experience, Authoritativeness and Trust. Sites with these qualities rank higher. Marie noticed Google’s implementation of EAT in February 2017. While important for all sites, it’s especially important in “your money or your life” sites where people seek information for a financial or medical decision. For example, if a user is seeking financial information and they have a choice between a site written by: * a journalist who’s a really good writer or * a financial advisor who’s been practicing what they’re writing about for years. Google will put more emphasis on the site from the financial expert. Google will use on-site information and off-site reputation about the authors to evaluate their level of expertise. To rank higher, Marie advises: “Anything you can do to show to Google that you are the expert is a good thing.” Find an Expert If you are not the expert in your industry, you should bring one (or more!) on-board. Marie shares the story of a client with a medical site whose ranking “dropped like crazy” with the February 2017 update. The sites that were ranking #1 instead had medical expertise on staff on their site. These positions showed they had “tons of medical EAT.” The client engaged with physicians to review their articles to increase their site EAT. Sure enough, their site ranking increased again. Future-proofing for Google Updates Every day, Google’s algorithm has 3 or 4 updates.

How to reach out to Marie: Has your site ever experienced a drop in Google rankings, and you had no idea why? Search engine marketing consultant, Dr. Marie Haynes specializes in Google algorithm updates and Google’s recently released, Quality Rater’s Guidelines. She’s been featured on the Moz blog, she writes on Search Engine Watch, and this week she shares her industry expertise on the Sure Oak Podcast. For anyone who’s worried about the impact of Google algorithm changes or who has experienced a drop, Marie offers insight into Google’s 160-page Quality Guidelines, the three most important factors, how to future-proof your site, and more. Quality Rater’s Guidelines Google has clear guidelines for website quality. And only in the last couple of years has the public had access to the 160-page book. Google provides these guidelines to contractors who rate websites for their quality. There are an estimated 10,000 contractors who complete a careful review of websites through an interface. Many people confuse the role of these raters, thinking that the rater’s assessment impacts website ranking directly. However, these ratings actually feed into Google’s algorithm and machine learning. The raters improve the algorithm’s ability to identify quality in websites and rank them appropriately. Content Optimization: EAT So, what does Google consider to be high quality? “We’ve noticed a lot of attention being paid to is EAT,” explains Marie. EAT stands for Experience, Authoritativeness and Trust. Sites with these qualities rank higher. Marie noticed Google’s implementation of EAT in February 2017. While important for all sites, it’s especially important in “your money or your life” sites where people seek information for a financial or medical decision. For example, if a user is seeking financial information and they have a choice between a site written by: * a journalist who’s a really good writer or * a financial advisor who’s been practicing what they’re writing about for years. Google will put more emphasis on the site from the financial expert. Google will use on-site information and off-site reputation about the authors to evaluate their level of expertise. To rank higher, Marie advises: “Anything you can do to show to Google that you are the expert is a good thing.” Find an Expert If you are not the expert in your industry, you should bring one (or more!) on-board. Marie shares the story of a client with a medical site whose ranking “dropped like crazy” with the February 2017 update. The sites that were ranking #1 instead had medical expertise on staff on their site. These positions showed they had “tons of medical EAT.” The client engaged with physicians to review their articles to increase their site EAT. Sure enough, their site ranking increased again. Future-proofing for Google Updates Every day, Google’s algorithm has 3 or 4 updates.

How to reach out to Andres: Andres Aguero is a high-level SEO with deep on-page knowledge. Coming from web development, he understands the technical details and combines them with broad strategies for successful keyword research here at Sure Oak. On this week’s episode, he breaks down the (sometimes overwhelming) process. From keyword discovery to keyword filtering to keyword clustering to site optimization, Andres guides listeners to the right keyword. Starting Keyword Research Andres says it straight: “If you don’t have keyword research done before a campaign or before starting a business, you’re setting yourself up for failure.” Even niche markets can have 1000 keywords. Using the right keywords is crucial to be found by your market amongst the noise. But, how do you find the right keywords for your website? The first step is to prepare your research with these 3 questions: * Where are you targeting? * Who is your audience? * Who are your competitors? With thoughtful answers to these questions, you will have a clear starting point for your keyword research. Competitors are Key Andres very wisely takes the Tony Robbins school of thought to marketing: Find the people who are successful in your area and replicate their success. Specifically, he advises selecting three high-performing competitors for three stages of your business: * A model for where you would like to be in the future * One for the medium term * A close competitor for near-term comparison Your marketing budget may not be near your future model competitor, but their tactics and keywords may be useful models. Keywords Discovery Competitor landing pages are the first review point for keywords. Enter competitor sites into Google Keyword Planner. This tool produces helpful ideas that are very relevant to your business. Then, pull your keyword impression data from Google Search Console and Google Analytics.  This is real impression data and is more reliable (especially from Search Console and not Google Analytics). With all sets of keyword data: * Remove brand names * Remove unrelated or irrelevant keywords to your business Then, with this smaller list, find search volume for each keyword. These tools are a “lifesaver for all SEOs.” Keyword Analysis Then, the real work begins. Keyword analysis and filtering take the longest in the keyword research process. Move your data to a spreadsheet to analyze easier. Find the keywords with a high occurrence - these are your hot words. Frequently-occurring keywords indicate they are important in your niche. Look for and flag variations of keywords, such as synonyms or similar stems. For example, note the variations in: * Sourcing * Source * HR sourcing * Recruiting * How to do sourcing Also, note the long-tail keywords that are targeted to your business. Keyword Clustering

How to reach out to Andres: Andres Aguero is a high-level SEO with deep on-page knowledge. Coming from web development, he understands the technical details and combines them with broad strategies for successful keyword research here at Sure Oak. On this week’s episode, he breaks down the (sometimes overwhelming) process. From keyword discovery to keyword filtering to keyword clustering to site optimization, Andres guides listeners to the right keyword. Starting Keyword Research Andres says it straight: “If you don’t have keyword research done before a campaign or before starting a business, you’re setting yourself up for failure.” Even niche markets can have 1000 keywords. Using the right keywords is crucial to be found by your market amongst the noise. But, how do you find the right keywords for your website? The first step is to prepare your research with these 3 questions: * Where are you targeting? * Who is your audience? * Who are your competitors? With thoughtful answers to these questions, you will have a clear starting point for your keyword research. Competitors are Key Andres very wisely takes the Tony Robbins school of thought to marketing: Find the people who are successful in your area and replicate their success. Specifically, he advises selecting three high-performing competitors for three stages of your business: * A model for where you would like to be in the future * One for the medium term * A close competitor for near-term comparison Your marketing budget may not be near your future model competitor, but their tactics and keywords may be useful models. Keywords Discovery Competitor landing pages are the first review point for keywords. Enter competitor sites into Google Keyword Planner. This tool produces helpful ideas that are very relevant to your business. Then, pull your keyword impression data from Google Search Console and Google Analytics.  This is real impression data and is more reliable (especially from Search Console and not Google Analytics). With all sets of keyword data: * Remove brand names * Remove unrelated or irrelevant keywords to your business Then, with this smaller list, find search volume for each keyword. These tools are a “lifesaver for all SEOs.” Keyword Analysis Then, the real work begins. Keyword analysis and filtering take the longest in the keyword research process. Move your data to a spreadsheet to analyze easier. Find the keywords with a high occurrence - these are your hot words. Frequently-occurring keywords indicate they are important in your niche. Look for and flag variations of keywords, such as synonyms or similar stems. For example, note the variations in: * Sourcing * Source * HR sourcing * Recruiting * How to do sourcing Also, note the long-tail keywords that are targeted to your business.

How to reach out to Eric: How do you grow content from 9 downloads a day to 100,000 downloads a month? Digital Marketing thought leader Eric Siu knows how. He has worked with major brands like Amazon. As the host of two seriously successful podcasts (Growth Everywhere and Marketing School) with a combined 700,000+ monthly downloads, he understands the work and the value of content marketing for business growth. He joins us on this week’s podcast to explain how to be successful when starting out in content marketing, his creation-to-promotion ratio, the future of digital marketing, and more. The Top Marketing Mistake Eric found that every client makes one major mistake: Their marketing funnel. Some clients have a bad funnel, others don’t have one at all. Marketing requires that a great funnel to be in place and drive people to the point of sale. The funnel is broken when email automation isn’t really set up, the marketing plan is one-dimensional, and the client relies entirely on paid advertising to make up the difference. “[It] generally doesn’t work that well,” Eric remarks. Think Big: Digital Marketing Strategy To solve the problem, Eric gives us some insight into how his company successfully markets itself. The key is to be holistic. Single Grain clients arrive looking for one specific service. But, one service can’t make a complete digital marketing strategy. The Single Grain strategy includes a strong sales funnel, paid ads, content marketing, website chatbot, and a range of (growing!) social media accounts. There’s no one answer. The mix of digital marketing strategies ensures “it all rises together.” Starting Out in Digital Content Marketing When you start building branded content, no one knows who you are. And that’s ok. “Everyone likes to compare themselves to a chapter 25 when they’re starting at chapter 1 and that’s not fair.” At chapter 1, you need to build your audience by serious content promotion. Eric recommends a 10/90 time ratio. Use 10% of your time creating the content and 90% promoting it. For your initial content promotion budget, he finds an 80/20 ratio works well. Spend 80% of your budget on content promotion. Only 20% is spent dragging them further down the digital marketing funnel. Growing your audience is the primary focus. SEO is still a strong tool in 2018. Video content marketing also offers huge value because video combined with large social media platforms build relationships at scale. You can even target customer views: those that watch just the first 10 seconds or first 25% of the video. Reaching these views is cost effective for the scale. How to Measure Marketing ROI Clients (and colleagues!) want to see short-term results. What is the ROI on content marketing this quarter? This year? Eric takes the opposite approach.

How to reach out to Eric: How do you grow content from 9 downloads a day to 100,000 downloads a month? Digital Marketing thought leader Eric Siu knows how. He has worked with major brands like Amazon. As the host of two seriously successful podcasts (Growth Everywhere and Marketing School) with a combined 700,000+ monthly downloads, he understands the work and the value of content marketing for business growth. He joins us on this week’s podcast to explain how to be successful when starting out in content marketing, his creation-to-promotion ratio, the future of digital marketing, and more. The Top Marketing Mistake Eric found that every client makes one major mistake: Their marketing funnel. Some clients have a bad funnel, others don’t have one at all. Marketing requires that a great funnel to be in place and drive people to the point of sale. The funnel is broken when email automation isn’t really set up, the marketing plan is one-dimensional, and the client relies entirely on paid advertising to make up the difference. “[It] generally doesn’t work that well,” Eric remarks. Think Big: Digital Marketing Strategy To solve the problem, Eric gives us some insight into how his company successfully markets itself. The key is to be holistic. Single Grain clients arrive looking for one specific service. But, one service can’t make a complete digital marketing strategy. The Single Grain strategy includes a strong sales funnel, paid ads, content marketing, website chatbot, and a range of (growing!) social media accounts. There’s no one answer. The mix of digital marketing strategies ensures “it all rises together.” Starting Out in Digital Content Marketing When you start building branded content, no one knows who you are. And that’s ok. “Everyone likes to compare themselves to a chapter 25 when they’re starting at chapter 1 and that’s not fair.” At chapter 1, you need to build your audience by serious content promotion. Eric recommends a 10/90 time ratio. Use 10% of your time creating the content and 90% promoting it. For your initial content promotion budget, he finds an 80/20 ratio works well. Spend 80% of your budget on content promotion. Only 20% is spent dragging them further down the digital marketing funnel. Growing your audience is the primary focus. SEO is still a strong tool in 2018. Video content marketing also offers huge value because video combined with large social media platforms build relationships at scale. You can even target customer views: those that watch just the first 10 seconds or first 25% of the video. Reaching these views is cost effective for the scale. How to Measure Marketing ROI Clients (and colleagues!) want to see short-term results. What is the ROI on content marketing this quarter? This year? Eric takes the opposite approach.