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SEOLeverage’s Gert Mellak joins James once again in this podcast episode, to explore the potential for businesses to boost revenue through strategic SEO methods Gert uses for his own clients.
Gert will be showing the efficacy of his techniques through a case study in which his client actually triples revenue with his help.
He and James will look at the SEO strategic plan Gert applied, the importance of content quality over quantity, and the website overhaul that got such amazing results.
Table of contents
1. James’s own case study
2. Navigating family business dynamics
3. The cost of stagnation
4. The shift from quantity to quality
5. A strategic SEO overhaul
6. Keyword research for enhanced conversions
7. Maximizing impact with minimal content
8. Essential content for every website
9. Adapting to Google’s content extraction
10. The strategic race in SEO
11. How soon can you expect to rank?
12. Cloning and optimization for market dominance
13. The results of Gert’s efforts
14. The easiest way to get help
James’s own case study
James loves case studies, for the way they provide real-world examples that businesses can learn from. And when the outcome is as significant as tripling revenue, a case study has even more impact.
James shares his own personal success story where, after following Gert’s advice to majorly prune content, his website saw a dramatic improvement in search engine rankings, moving from page 100 to page one for a targeted term.
It’s important, says Gert, to have clear communication with search engines to achieve desired outcomes. Pruning unhelpful posts made for a focused and strategic content approach that Google recognized and rewarded.
Reflecting on his experience and the broader context of internet marketing strategies, James continues to appreciate the effectiveness of SEO among various tactics such as video sales letters, high-ticket sales, TikTok shops, and artificial intelligence.
Navigating family business dynamics
Gert introduces his client case of a family-owned business in Madrid, describing a common challenge where the dynamics of running a business within a family can lead to stagnation.
The father is at the helm, while the son aspires to step into his shoes and take on more responsibility. The business struggles, however, with the rigidity of traditional methods and the inability to implement significant changes due to a deep-rooted loyalty to “the way things have always been done.”
James relates this situation to his own experiences with motor dealerships, which are often multi-generational family businesses. He highlights the complexity of transitioning leadership and the potential conflicts between preserving the legacy and introducing innovation.
Questions of competence, the risk of losing the family’s achievements, and the intricacies of internal politics are brought into focus, emphasizing the delicate balance needed between generations.
Gert took a studied approach to navigate these dynamics, involving regular updates and demonstrations of progress to both the father and the son. This method of building trust through transparency and evidence of positive outcomes helped to gradually expand their involvement and solidify a strategic partnership with the family business.
James has had his own experiences with family-run companies. It’s important, he notes, to secure the elder generation’s trust to ensure that innovative strategies are welcomed and that there’s a collaborative effort towards the business’s success.
The cost of stagnation
What are the consequences of maintaining the status quo in a family-run business, asks James, where traditional methods are upheld without adaptation to change?
Change is inevitable, says Gert, and so is the failure of businesses that resist it. The assumption that past strategies will continue to work is flawed due to shifts in the competitive landscape and consumer behavior. He illustrates his point with the downfall of a nearby family business that failed to innovate.
The outcomes of stagnation, says Gert, include decreased revenue, staff layoffs, and potential downsizing to a single product to sustain the business minimally. There’s a critical need, he says, for adaptation in a competitive market. Sticking to outdated practices without empowering the next generation for leadership and innovation leads to business decline.
The shift from quantity to quality
James and Gert discuss the evolving competitive landscape, stressing the shift from quantity to quality in digital marketing and content creation.
As digital marketing gains traction in Spain and globally, the focus has transitioned from prolific content production to refining and updating content to maintain its relevance and quality. This change reflects a broader evolution within the online world, where staying ahead now requires adapting to technological advancements and changing consumer behaviors.
A strategic SEO overhaul
Gert’s approach to revitalizing his client’s online presence began with a comprehensive audit of their existing digital marketing efforts. This revealed a lack of SEO optimization and inefficiencies in their Google Ads campaign.
By implementing strategic changes, they managed to reduce costs and lay the groundwork for a more focused and effective digital marketing strategy.
This included optimizing the website and aligning content creation with the goal of attracting their specific target audience, such as architects, construction firms, and educational institutions, by offering detailed information on office partitions and refurbishment services.
To ensure the content was as relevant and engaging as possible, Gert engaged directly with the client’s sales team to understand the common inquiries and needs of their customers. This allowed for the creation of content that closely mirrored the real-world questions and challenges faced by their target audience, leading to enduring success with some articles generating leads years later without further updates.
This strategy highlighted the importance of deeply understanding industry-specific customer needs and integrating that knowledge into SEO and content marketing efforts.
Keyword research for enhanced conversions
Gert emphasizes the dynamic nature of Google searches, noting that a significant portion of daily searches are unique, underscoring the importance of Google understanding your content beyond just matching keywords.
This evolving search landscape calls for a strategic approach to content creation, focused not on quantity but on driving conversions by targeting content that attracts the right type of traffic for sales.
In addressing the challenge of enhancing conversions, Gert highlights the need for targeted SEO strategies that focus on attracting quality traffic with a higher likelihood of conversion. This involves a precise combination of local and regional SEO tactics to capture traffic at a more advanced stage of the buying process, ensuring resources are allocated efficiently to areas most likely to generate sales.
Maximizing impact with minimal content
James asks if a more efficient strategy in digital marketing now means achieving greater impact with fewer, but highly targeted content pieces. He suggests that a thorough analysis of a company’s existing content, goals, target audience, and what has already worked could inform a minimalist yet precise content strategy that directly hits marketing goals.
Gert agrees but notes that the applicability of such a strategy varies by site and industry. He describes a methodical approach where different aspects of a website are evaluated and scored based on their SEO significance. This evaluation informs a phased roadmap prioritizing immediate areas for improvement, such as page experience and content creation, tailored to the specific needs and data-driven insights of the business.
Essential content for every website
Gert highlights the importance of including essential content that addresses frequently asked questions and common issues encountered by customers. This content serves not only to inform but also as a valuable tool for engaging with the audience’s needs and concerns directly.
Additionally, Gert advocates for the creation of comprehensive guides or extensive pieces of content that cover industry-wide topics. Such content not only provides market research opportunities but also helps in establishing a website’s relevance within its field according to Google’s search algorithms.
This strategic approach allows for an initial assessment of the site’s standing in search results, paving the way for further optimization and targeted content development.
Adapting to Google’s content extraction
Gert acknowledges the ongoing trend of Google extracting snippets from websites to provide direct answers to users’ queries, which can lead to concerns about content being used without driving traffic to the original site.
Gert explains that this method aims to improve user experience by quickly directing them to the most relevant section of a website. However, it also calls for websites to clearly communicate their content’s intent and structure it effectively to ensure visibility and relevance in search results.
Moreover, Gert anticipates that Google will need to evolve its approach to content extraction, possibly by providing clearer citations and pathways to the original content sources, such as websites. This change would address concerns about content use and attribution.
Gert also points out that for queries with straightforward answers, like factual information, websites that rely solely on such content for traffic might need to reconsider their strategy to remain relevant and successful in attracting visitors.
The strategic race in SEO
Gert suggests that the rapid pace of content indexing and adjustment to search intent by search engines like Google presents a significant challenge for language models to maintain relevance and accuracy in real-time.
Despite their advancements, there is an inherent delay in how quickly these models can incorporate new content, which highlights a strategic opportunity for businesses to optimize their online presence.
Gert points to the importance of establishing a clear and authoritative digital footprint now, as a way to ensure language models accurately recognize and trust a website. This involves strategies like link building and public relations to distinguish a business from its competitors, especially in light of the evolving capabilities of AI and search technologies.
The current landscape, says Gert, is a pivotal moment for companies to secure their place in the digital space, anticipating the developments that will shape online search and discovery in the coming years.
How soon can you expect to rank?
James remembers when one could rank within minutes or hours of publishing content. Is that still possible?
Gert explains that the speed at which new content ranks on Google depends significantly on the website’s established authority and the nature of the content.
Websites recognized as authoritative sources in their industry are likely to see their new content ranked more quickly, as Google tests user engagement with the content to determine its relevance and value. This process can lead to higher and faster rankings if the content aligns well with user expectations.
Gert further illustrates that some sites might unknowingly restrict their potential to rank higher by not fully leveraging their high-quality content. By strategically optimizing and releasing this content, websites can achieve significant improvements in their search engine rankings.
James’s own experience supports this, where removing irrelevant pages led to a dramatic increase in his website’s ranking, effectively “letting the handbrake off” and allowing the site to reach its full potential in search visibility.
Cloning and optimization for market dominance
Gert achieved remarkable results for his client by first ensuring their main website dominated the market with top rankings for their primary services. The breakthrough came when he opportunistically acquired the domain of a competitor who had ceased operations due to the industry’s challenging payment terms.
Over a weekend, Gert reconstructed the competitor’s site, which quickly turned into a significant revenue source for the client, effectively doubling their online presence in organic search and ads.
The success of this strategy led to further replication, creating a third entity that mirrored the client’s business, thereby amplifying their market dominance. This approach resulted in the client’s services appearing multiple times on the first page of search results, significantly increasing their visibility and customer engagement.
James had his own similar experience in 2008. Taking a tip from Jo hn Reese’s Traffic Secrets, he cloned a site for his software affiliate efforts and effectively began dominating the first page. Interesting, he says, that it still works.
But one needs to maintain separate business identities to ensure long-term sustainability and avoid penalties, right?
Gert agrees. He recommends a clean and distinct separation between cloned sites to avoid potential issues with Google, using different company details, phone numbers, and addresses.
This strategy, while simple, requires careful execution to maintain the integrity of the business and avoid detection and potential backlash from search engines.
The results of Gert’s efforts
Gert’s strategic SEO efforts led to a substantial increase in his client’s business performance, growing from a few proposals a day to up to 50, and escalating revenue from around two million euros to a projected seven million euros.
This growth has been so significant that the client is considering expanding their operations further by acquiring a larger factory and equipment, with plans to continue this strategy of market dominance by introducing more competitor sites into the mix.
The approach not only transformed the client’s business but also cemented the younger generation’s leadership, demonstrating the strategy’s effectiveness beyond traditional methods.
The success story has inspired other clients to consider similar tactics, indicating a broader applicability of this innovative approach to business scaling and online presence enhancement.
Gert even received a desk from the client, highlighting the personal and professional rewards of such successful partnerships.
The easiest way to get help
James always appreciates Gert’s insights, particularly the strategies of website cloning and focusing on creating high-quality, long-lasting core content for sustainable success.
It’s important, too, to align all stakeholders and build trust with your service provider to achieve significant outcomes.
The case study shows how a competitive company can thrive, crediting much of its success to a solid SEO foundation, willingness to innovate, and effective service delivery, which collectively contribute to remarkable business growth.
To get help from Gert, it’s easiest to visit SEOLeverage.com, where you can initiate contact and also utilize a scorecard to evaluate your current SEO processes and their potential for success. Following this initial assessment, a conversation will determine the feasibility of assistance and outline the next steps.
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