This article is from our Agency Playbook—a collection of guides created to help local SEO agencies grow and succeed. It is chapter two of ‘Part One: Pitching and Onboarding’. You can find chapter one on defining your services here. Believe it or not, you’re not the sole agency providing local marketing, SEO, or digital marketing services. Surprising, right? The reality is that you aren’t just competing against a couple of other agencies; you could be competing against hundreds. According to IBISWorld, in 2023, there were 187,705 SEO and Internet Marketing Consultants in the USA. That makes for a very busy space. It also means that setting your agency apart is imperative. You can’t just set up shop, offer the exact same services as others around you, and hope that’s enough. We touched on this briefly in the first part of the Agency Playbook, where we helped you define your positioning. In some cases, it could be as simple as being the only agency specializing in local SEO in your town. In others, it could be the niche you choose to target. Sometimes it isn’t that simple, though. So today, we will hear from agency experts on how they help their agencies stand out from the crowd. We asked each of these experts the same three questions, and here’s what they had to say about getting noticed, creating a unique selling point (USP), and hindsight. We asked each expert the following three questions:
Amanda Jordan Director of Digital Strategy at RicketyRoo Amanda states that the key for RicketyRoo has been being a positive part of the local SEO community, offering true transparency to its clients, and looking ahead. 1. Getting Noticed Honestly, what we do to get noticed is what we tell our clients to do to rank and grow their businesses. We just work on being a positive and impactful part of our community. 2. Developing a USP Blake Denman is the man behind our USP. We are refreshingly transparent and upfront. This isn’t just with our clients but also applies to how we work within our team and present to the industry. 3. Hindsight Focus on the horizon, not the rearview mirror; hindsight is not a guide. We’re focusing on seeing where this road takes us.
Joy Hawkins Owner/President at Sterling Sky For Joy, the key has been tapping into their in-house expertise and properly showcasing it to the world. It’s about being knowledgeable in a noisy way to help bring a strong inbound funnel for their sales. 1. Getting Noticed I think the best sales approach is to have a strong inbound funnel so that you have people contacting you who have already researched you. 2. Developing a USP Our USP is that we are trend leaders in the local SEO space and understand the local algorithms very well. We are often the first to put out case studies about new concepts and ranking factors. We have also discovered and named almost every local algorithm update Google has done in the last decade. The most recent one was the Openness algorithm update, which we shared and got Google to confirm shortly afterward. Our other advantage is that we have a team of well-known experts in the local SEO space. There are nine employees at Sterling Sky that contribute to the Local Search Ranking Factors Study every year. 3. Hindsight I’d probably change nothing. We share a ton of information about SEO tactics we have succeeded with. Some people think this idea of “giving away your secrets” is nuts, but I would argue that it helps identify us as experts and is also the main reason why businesses want to work with us.
Emily Wassell Head of SEO at tmwi Emily says that tmwi focuses a lot on educating its clients. In addition to sharing their knowledge with the wider community, they double down on keeping their clients up-to-date and in the know. For tmwi, it’s all about using this education to help uncover things that many other agencies simply don’t look at and make new processes around it. 1. Getting Noticed SEO still has a reputation as a ‘dark art,’ meaning many brands and marketers have limited trust in SEO services. We do everything agencies should be doing – smart work for clients, entering awards, SEO training and workshops, and creating insights and content to share with the industry. 2. Developing a USP We didn’t want to get boxed in by having a USP for specific sectors, projects, websites, etc. But we do have a unique process for content–our audience-led content strategy offering, Audience and Search Intent Modelling. 3. Hindsight We’re definitely more focused on connecting search optimizations to paid activity now–how can we improve the website and UX, using SEO insights, to get more conversions from the traffic we’re driving? It means we can demonstrate the value of SEO outside of just organic metrics and encourage clients to consider SEO alongside paid media rather than an either/or debate on budgets. Greg Gifford Chief Operating Officer at SearchLab Greg wrote about people being more important than money in a BrightLocal Spotlight in 2023. A few of the tidbits from that piece on how SearchLab sets itself apart highlight how mindset is key: “He [Mark Bealin] talked about true work-life balance. Continuous drive for learning and self-improvement
For more on this, you can read Greg’s Spotlight: ‘People are More Important Than Money’ Be Loud and Plan for the FutureIt may not feel like rocket science, but a common theme from these agency experts is transparency and expertise. You don’t have to be reinventing the wheel or doing anything completely earth-shattering. It can go a long way if your clients and prospective clients can see you by openly sharing your knowledge and expertise. Whether through social media, on a one-on-one basis with clients, at conferences, or simply on your own website, it can go a long way to help set you apart. Look hard at how you can use the experts you have in-house to help tell your unique stories on SEO. Do this, and you’ll not only show you know what you’re doing, but your happy clients will tell others, too. Being true subject-area experts can even stop you from having to work so hard at outbound sales. That being said, looking ahead is important. Put together a robust plan, look at investing in the right people, and then nurture them to be the best they can be. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/GPen0LK Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/
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