019 – Can you guarantee SEO results?

00:00.00
Jeff
Hello everybody welcome to the wp seo show I am your co-host Jeff joined here by my co-host pete how’s it going pete.

00:09.60
peteeveritt
I’m all good. Thank you Mate How are you.

00:11.95
Jeff
Um, pretty good, pretty good. We were we we did our pre-weather discussion before we start recording. So we won’t bother you all with that today.

00:20.82
peteeveritt
Needless to say Jeff is what we would call in Sheffield nash.

00:25.24
Jeff
Yeah I don’t know what that means I don’t know what that means which is something. We also do almost every episode is I learn a new English word or term or phrase or whatever you want to call it. Ah.

00:37.11
peteeveritt
Granted, granted, don’t rock up but he throw and say hey Ma are you nash because he won’t have a clue what you’re talking about. But um, yeah.

00:43.32
Jeff
Um, right? Ah, well not to jump straight to it. But honestly I’m just going to do it. Um, today we’re talking about something kind of um.

00:50.73
peteeveritt
Let’s go go for it.

00:55.69
Jeff
I Don’t know kind of bold a bold statement maybe or I don’t know it’s an interesting statement but that is guaranteeing traffic. Um, this kind of came up in a recent tweet or X or what do we call it now. Do we call it are they X’s I don’t know I don’t use.

01:07.64
peteeveritt
Well I would have thought they’d be called kisses.

01:11.92
Jeff
That is yeah like I got you there I see that I see what you did there? How have I not even like heard anybody make a reference like that in this whole.

01:16.64
peteeveritt
Yeah I I don’t know what it I mean we’re we’re going sideways already. But I don’t know how it works in the Us but in the UK whenever we see x mentioned in the news. It’s always x formerly called Twitter so Twitter still mentioned.

01:33.72
Jeff
Yeah, it’s it’s I don’t get it I don’t get it and whatever they’ve talked about this on every other podcast. He’s this darn Twitter thing anyway, Google’s the John Mueller recently responded to a tweet. Um, you know I’m just going to read it since we’re not showing on here but um.

01:47.89
peteeveritt
Go for it.

01:50.67
Jeff
Ah, tweet from someone else said I’m asking my boss to remove these parameters but he’s asking okay suppose we remove these will our traffic increase then I’m uncertain about what to do in the situation should I still push him for this step. So essentially his boss is asking him. What kind of results are we going to get from this what you know what? what can we see or what’s going to happen and he’s kind of same I have no idea and John Mueller from Google said man that’s pretty accurate. Nobody can guarantee you traffic sorry and this kind of blew some people up I think there. Like I read some of the chats and some of the discussions and stuff and I had to just kind of walk away from it because I was like oh I’m never going to leave this discussion or whatever. but but I like this statement I don’t know what what is like just at face value. What do you What’s your reaction to that statement.

02:34.32
peteeveritt
I I completely I completely agree and I know look we we have to remember that this is one of the reasons that Seo or selling Seo is hard because you can’t make any guarantees.

02:47.99
Jeff
Yeah.

02:51.89
peteeveritt
And unfortunately our industry is kind of tainted by a bit of a black hat history which granted you know we’re in 2024 now. Granted, we’re starting to get a reasonable distance away from the sort of link stuffing and you know content duplication type days. But it’s still still there still in our recent history. And I think actually to hear it literally from the horse’s mouth and what he’s written 6 words. That’s it and he’s made his point.

03:18.92
Jeff
Um, yeah I know I was like 1 sentence I’m going to do a whole podcast episode on 1 sentence like the second I read this I knew we were going to do an episode on it.

03:29.80
peteeveritt
Yeah, and look we we talk about it in lots of different contexts don’t we you know we talk about we we hear marketing gurus and and business coaches and whatever talking talking all the time about you know how things like your email I saw it from Troy Dean from ah, wp Mavericks Troy de might even tag him in this episode to see if he yeah see if he notices that we’re what we’re doing um but he he said he sent a message out day or two ago that said your email list is your most valuable business asset because you own it and he’s kind of right? But. We we hear it all the time in all of these different places you know don’t base your business on Facebook because what if Facebook disappears don’t base it on Youtube because what if Youtube disappears and it’s kind of the same with seo you know you can’t you can’t necessarily guarantee anything with Google because what if Google what if what if elon. Decides that his next acquisition is Google and breaks that too.

04:32.91
Jeff
A mortified thinking about that I’m not going to rant too much about that. But I’m just mortified even thinking about you scared and Jesus out of me right there for sure. Yeah.

04:41.34
peteeveritt
But you you know you know what? I mean you know if you if you rewinded 2 years you would never ever have anticipated that Twitter would be broken now we don’t even know what to call it.

04:54.31
Jeff
No yeah I literally don’t yeah I have no idea. No, you’re right I mean it was such It was such an ingrained thing of our kind of you know life. Ah business wise or just personal or social or entertainment wise and. I don’t know I kind of ran away from Twitter a few years ago but um yeah it was one of those we used it every single day and you know they started doing advertising on there at at some point in history and that kind of changed the analog of it. Not enough. You know it’s still kept blowing up.

05:16.17
peteeveritt
Yeah.

05:26.63
Jeff
And then the last couple years is just completely you know or last months or so’s completely gone the toilet and I’m I’m pretty sure it’ll be extinct sooner or later. But you know who knows and and yeah I mean technically speaking that exact thing could happen with Google or you know search engines that could completely be revitalized overnight. Um. Probably not hopefully not.

05:48.25
peteeveritt
Yeah, yeah, and granted the odds are against it. But it’s not impossible. Um, and you know so I realize we’re may be slightly off the the topic that ah John Mueller was talking about. But.

05:51.14
Jeff
Right? Good Apple.

06:03.65
peteeveritt
It starts. That’s where the discussion starts is nobody can guarantee you traffic. Sorry not even from the standpoint that Google might not exist tomorrow.

06:13.28
Jeff
Yeah, well you know you you alluded to or mentioned the the kind of the black hat tendencies and stuff and I know that you know you’ve you’ve been around and you know in the Seo world for a long time and you’ve seen that stuff come and go and you know like you said the link stuffing or keyword stuffing and all that fun stuff. Um, yeah, you know I mean I witnessed that we’ve all we’ve all have plenty of that. But what I actually see is still very very prevalent today is more so with you know Seo providers and stuff is really just selling people stuff. They don’t need and or not doing anything for it. Um. I would say I’m afraid I’m exaggerating. But I honestly think probably 80% of kind of the pre-sales calls that I take and I’m I’m curious what it is for you if we don’t hear a horror story from somebody about their either current or previous and I’m not trying to.

07:03.49
peteeveritt
Yeah.

07:08.85
Jeff
You know, talk trash by any company or any specific person or what out there but it’s like almost every conversation we have with a lead or you know interested party or just networking and stuff. We’re just chatting with some of the folks in our industry. They’re always talking about. Oh yeah, I just got this client. They were paying this seo guy 10 grand a year and. We don’t know what he did and here’s here’s you know here’s the backend of the site and you can look at it and you’ve done nothing I mean I had had call last week where we found out that their client site didn’t even have a blog built by their Seo team and yet there’s a blog is just not access well to anybody.

07:42.00
peteeveritt
Yeah, yeah, and well we’re we’re currently, we’re currently fixing a site that didn’t even load properly after an open quotes Seo team had been working on it for months.

07:53.43
Jeff
Oh yeah, they would they did they they I’m probably buttering exactly what they did. But yeah, they put all these performance optimizations in completely destroyed the themes loading ability or the ability for the theme to load any Css or anything and it was so bad.

08:06.67
peteeveritt
I was just you know it was just ah that that was I’ve got to say and I’m I’m not going to name and shame obviously and if the client’s listening because I know that they reached out to us because of the podcast and we we do really value your custom. We really value. The fact that you trusted us enough to reach out and. And and speak to us and I’m not trying to sort of exploit that at all. But um and I did say this to you in an email but that really was one of the worst sites I’d come across.

08:33.47
Jeff
Yeah, well maybe clarify. It’s not 1 of the worst sites one of the worst things that happened to to a website. Yeah yeah, that that was that was tough and what and it just pains me it pains me and sure.

08:40.40
peteeveritt
What you? what? Yeah yeah, what? What? What? What? what? 1 of the biggest car crashes in terms of what other people are done to a website that I come across. Um.

08:53.66
Jeff
We’re happy to make a new sale and make some money.. Ah obviously but it just oh man, it just ah it infuriates me or breaks my heart everything when I see people getting take advantage by this because if anything even at the very lightest it. It’s now something that we have to Overcome. You know what I means it’s like well we’ve got to prove to you that we’re not that shady or we’re not that lazy or whatever it is. You know? So. It’s just yeah, that stuff just kind of kind of tease me off in the industry.

09:20.40
peteeveritt
Yeah, yeah, and you know I in all honesty that is one of the key things I find from from doing not I’m I was gonna say from doing the podcast which is true but from doing you know I’ve had. 2 podcasts now and I’ve done some Facebook stuff and I’m relatively active in the admin bar thanks to the generosity of Kyle Van Duzen who’s getting his weekly shout out in this episode and um, but part of the reason for that is is just to show people that you know what.

09:56.91
peteeveritt
I’m hopefully a nice guy I’m hopefully a trustworthy guy. We both are and we we do things the right way and whilst people do stumble across certain providers that are horror stories. There are also good people out there into the industry as well and if you want to if you want to talk to the you know if you want to talk to any of them go for it.

10:10.70
Jeff
Um, oh yeah, yeah.

10:14.57
peteeveritt
And I’ll put my stake in the sand and sort of say Yeah, that’s that’s the side of the fence I Want to be known for being on.

10:21.39
Jeff
I’m optimistic that more providers freelancers Whomever out there are positive than there are negative ones you know? um I think though like it’s like our experience doesn’t tell us that though, but that’s also probably because we’re.

10:27.52
peteeveritt
Yeah.

10:38.40
Jeff
We’re commonly getting ones that are leaving providers. You know I mean the ones that are happy are going to stay there for years and years and years and you’ll never have those discussions so you know’s it’s probably’s probably skewed a little bit but but yeah, it’s 1 like 1 of the things that I I really do take pride in and it’s an awkward thing to say sometimes when I’ve have had this topic come up in conversation.

10:40.96
peteeveritt
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

10:57.37
Jeff
Sales calls and stuff and it’s like I can’t guarantee you X results I I Just can’t and I won’t because it’s irresponsible. But what I can guarantee you is that we will do what we’re promising to do. We will do the work and we all know from experience and you you know you probably know that meaning the person I’m chatting with you know from their experience too that. Um, that this stuff works and if you’re doing it and your competitors aren’t doing it. You win. It’s pretty much as simple as that. Um, and if not then you are putting the work I mean if they are doing it then you’re putting the work in and you know we can analyze further from there but at the very like lightest you you just got to put the work into it and we can guarantee that you know. And most people can guarantee that if they’re honest and you know confident their their skills and that a lot fun stuff. But yeah.

11:42.58
peteeveritt
Well, you know I I was ah well we yeah, we’ve been talking about. We’ve been talking about this a little bit offline as well. But I I’ve always for as long as I can remember anyway. Tried to tie like an Seo success into a metric that is something internal to the client’s business so that could be turnover that could be number of new customers. It could be number of sales. It could be number of enquiries through a lead form or whatever. It might be It could be anything but rather than. I always get really feel really uncomfortable if the seo target is I want x many words in position 1 because actually you know I can get you keywords in position 1 but whether that that’s actually going to make any tangible difference to anybody is a very different question. So.

12:27.99
Jeff
Yeah.

12:30.75
peteeveritt
I’ve always found that having the having an element of context I’m not saying that clients shouldn’t care about how we get results. That’s that’s absolutely not what I’m saying but by having a a context or a grounding in a context that isn’t seo I find that a far. More productive. Um approach to Seo results in inverted commas which is what we’re talking about today than actually a traffic a traffic promise or a position promise or a keyword promise or whatever it might be.

13:05.32
Jeff
Yeah I mean I and I know what? what we’re talking referring to a little bit here and let me just say pete could be much more than like ah Seo and marketing and all this guru I mean he’s straight up business consultant. Um, when it comes to. You know, looking at that numbers and other finding. No that that breakdown you showed me earlier was was just insane. So I mean I don’t I don’t even know how to get into it on a podcast like this. but but yeah that was and that’s the type of thing where again even with what you what you were showing me.

13:23.46
peteeveritt
Nah shucks.

13:41.75
Jeff
Feel like I’m like it’s like not secret I Just don’t know how to describe it on here. But even with that you’re able to show the client What is necessary to reach some certain levels. You know what? I mean and there’s some variance here and there but like that painted a very good picture. It’s still not a guarantee though it but it but what it did was it showed them what is going to be required and put it into context and it was It was amazing.

14:05.78
peteeveritt
so so so what? it what I and I must admit I kind of feel a bit bad for bringing it up now because we’re not now is not the time and and on a podcast probably isn’t the best format of kind of talking through it essentially what it is is a simulator. Ah, simulator that takes a commercial goal for the client that I was initially building it for it was annual turnover and it then breaks that down through their sales numbers through their conversion rates through the opt-in rate on their website. Through the keyword research. We’ve done and then gives an indication as to how many pieces of content. You need to write in order to be in the ballpark of that kind of sales number. That’s what it what it is so. If that sounds like something that’s ah, interesting to you? Um, and you want to know more about it I think that probably the easiest thing would be to maybe a ah range a live stream or something if people want to see this or ah we we we used to run some webinars. Maybe we use that webinar platform again Jeff and get get people on it. Um, but if you’re interested in seeing that. Drop us an email to hello at seohive.co and set the email subject liners show me the simulator or show me the simulation right? And if we get enough of those in over the next couple of weeks will add we we’ll email you back with a date and ah how we’re goingnna do it and we’ll we’ll talk through it then but it’s um.

15:23.82
Jeff
Ah.

15:34.22
peteeveritt
Yeah, if if that is something of interest to you then then let us know and we’ll we’ll arrange it.

15:34.29
Jeff
Um.

15:39.10
Jeff
I like that. Well we’ll see if anyone’s listening and interested because trust me, you should be if you are listening. It was really cool. Um, and I but I also I kind of want to want to put it into context too. Um, the business that we were going through that one. Ah, was doing multiple tens of millions of dollars a year in sales. Um, this is good stuff. Yeah I wouldn’t put Joe the plumber down the street through this process is probably not necessary. Um, yeah I’m just trying to.

15:58.39
peteeveritt
Yeah, there was around about 35000000 in sales a year

16:08.92
peteeveritt
No no.

16:13.90
Jeff
Paint a picture because you know we’ve we’ve got such a variance of of people that listen to this show and stuff and some of them are working for fortune 500 companies some of them are working for Joe the palmer and Bob’s pizza bot shop. You know.

16:26.18
peteeveritt
Yeah, and and and granted granted, there’s an element of the way it’s built There’s an element of genericism about it. I mean I mentioned on a show a few weeks ago. Um, we worked for a client that sold luxury yachts. He only had to sell 4 of them a year um and he was full. He literally couldn’t build them any faster than for a year. So. There’s an economy of scale with this thing which is you know? Ah, if if you only have to make 4 sales a year to in order to survive this probably isn’t the the simulation that’s going to work for you. Um. But I’d I’d safely say look anything. That’s 6 figures maybe 2 or 3 6 2 or 3 times 6 figures. Um, ah up it would work absolutely fine for.

17:11.93
Jeff
Yeah, you have to have some some numbers there. Some info some data some traffic some sales. Ah yeah, it’s it’s but yeah anyway, um I Just like I said that was I know.

17:13.75
peteeveritt
Yeah, yeah.

17:21.76
peteeveritt
Feel like I’ve just dangled a really big carrot and now we’re going to say yeah but we don’t want to talk about that anymore.

17:29.67
Jeff
And it totally wasn’t our intention with this at all I casually brought it up and next thing you know we’re we’re coming up with promotion ideas live on the podcast and dun du.

17:37.13
peteeveritt
So so so but but let’s let’s bring us back to topic that the whole point of that that simulator was to was to to take that commercial goal and sort of reverse engineer what an Seo strategy would look like and that’s that that that was kind of the point I was really making which is. I wouldn’t even guarantee commercial goals but actually having that grounding having that context. That’s that’s the starting point for your seo plan that is by far a more grounded approach to figuring out how Seo can serve a business rather than.

18:09.60
Jeff
Are.

18:15.57
peteeveritt
Using an Seo metric as the benchmark for success.

18:17.89
Jeff
Yeah, and really at the in a day they’re they’re estimates no matter what they’re always an estimate. It’s just not a guarantee I mean if you if we’re getting down to the you know the nitty gritty definition of the word I mean that’s what it comes down to.

18:23.79
peteeveritt
Oh yeah.

18:32.70
peteeveritt
Yeah, absolutely and you know what? yeah, there’s you also some another thing that’s worth noting in all of this is that unless you’re an e-commerce business or ah taking payment for your goods or services online. However, you want to describe yourself. The minute that you have to put in place a sales process which leans on humans squidgy organic bags of flesh that you know so that are going to sit on a phone or a Zoom call or whatever it might be the minute you insert that into a sale then. You open up this whole kind of worms to do with variation to do with you know, ah personal differences between the per you know the enquirer and the person that’s on the end of the phone. You know they might just not get on. They might hate each other and have a big argument and and you know, hang up and but that’ll be the end of it you you There’s a whole load of stuff. You can’t control like subliminal subliminal stuff. You can’t control that then gets put in at that place. It’s great to have a sales process. Absolutely I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t use squidgy organic human beings. But um, the all I’m really saying is that. None of this stuff is like clinically. Um, it’s not a clinical process. You can’t guarantee any step of it the whole point of like the simulator that we’ve just been talking through is to give an estimation and that’s exactly the same with anything else. You know if we do this for your business. We estimate that it would have this kind of impact we may be.

20:04.24
peteeveritt
We may be right? We may be wrong and don’t forget wrong could be either way wrong could be well. It doesn’t work at all or it could overwork and we could meet hit your target even quicker. Um, but it’s just to. It’s just to have that kind of Benchmark I suppose.

20:21.10
Jeff
Um, yeah, um, it’s ah I was thinking it’s it’s it.

20:27.41
peteeveritt
Sorry I’m dealing I’m dealing with a squidgy organic you know bag of flesh on the other end of the podcast here. So I can I can see the cogs wearing behind the glasses. Ah.

20:33.77
Jeff
Who’s.

20:38.89
Jeff
And whose brain is like fighting its itself just and on multiple thoughts at the same time. Um, no I was just thinking about you know we’re sitting here saying you can’t guarantee traffic yet. How many times have you seen guarantees for traffic or guarantees for whatever.

20:44.17
peteeveritt
Ah, hit.

20:56.13
Jeff
And they’re doing it because they’re what they’re saying is they’re putting where they’re putting their money where their mouth is and I respect that I mean exactly the way I want to go all the time but like I do respect that like that does say something that also I’m pretty sure is contextual and relative to again, you know. Income levels and and you know certain turnaround and things like that. But but there’s companies that say we are confident that we can deliver these results for this much., But you know the problem. Not the problem is you know that this much figure is big. And it gives them the ability to pivot and to do various things and to make those things happen. So It’s a much different way to approach the situation as well.

21:40.54
peteeveritt
There’s a spectrum with this isn’t there I mean there’s there’s the emails that we’ve all received that start with I get you number 1 in Google and that is that is one and that’s that’s the very tame end of this spectrum where people literally just don’t have a clue. It’s it’s clickbait to get you to. To open an email and to start an email discussion with them. Um, and then you have the opposite end of the spectrum which is what you’ve just you what? what? you’ve just ah described where you say look yeah, we can. We can run Seo for you where it’s going to cost you a hundred grand this year and guess what within a hundred grand. You’ve got the budget to do.

22:15.79
Jeff
Yeah.

22:16.66
peteeveritt
Hell of a lot stuff and you know have multiple plates spinning and actually I would I would guess that at either end of that spectrum if they hit a target and get you to what they’re promising neither end of that spectrum would be able to pinpoint and say okay we did that and. Got you to there instead. It would be well. We did all of this stuff and somehow we managed to sort of have a whole load of spit grit and duct tape and made it happen just my two pence

22:48.46
Jeff
I I agree and I’m I’m sitting here and thinking well you probably could collect the data and make some assessments off of that. And then my hope my brain started doing that thing again where it was like holy Crap. That’s a lot of things to try to compute. How would we ever Even I mean it’s possible but like I’m not going to do it.

23:10.63
peteeveritt
Yeah, yeah, but that’s you know that’s where we are so in answer to ah, can you ever guarantee Seo results. The answer is no um because yeah, and actually we could have the whole episode in light. It would have been so funny welcome to the.

23:20.31
Jeff
Not I think we clarified that I think we’ve clarified that pretty well. But ah, no.

23:28.12
peteeveritt
Go DPSeo show today. We’re asking. Can you guarantee ever guarantee seo results. No thanks for listening.

23:30.96
Jeff
Now but given that let’s let’s safely say let’s let safely say we all agree on that and given that though how do you,? you know? How would how would you approach these type of topics If you’re you know, a freelancer or small agency talking about this with with a client you know. Because you don’t want to tell them? No I can’t guarantee anything you know that’s going to sound ridiculous. But at the same time. How do you say that? How do you tell them that.

23:57.70
peteeveritt
So I’m going to hate myself for saying these next 2 words because I hate them being said to me it depends. Um the number of times I have to say it depends to a client is ah is kind of untrue. But.

24:02.53
Jeff
Um, nay.

24:14.54
peteeveritt
The the way as I say the way I approach it is to look at the commercials to to say that the way I normally phrase the question in the first in the first instance is I normally say to the client as part of a discovery session or ah, a call or you know, ah an intro call or whatever it is is okay so if we could fast forward twelve months from now. What would success look like for you. We’ve been working together for a year you’ve paid me some money. Whatever that’s going to turn out to be what would your business need to look like for you to turn around to me and say yeah pete did a good job. You know I’d fully recommend him. We’d do it. We’d go again and. If you can then articulate to me what that is. We can then start to put in place. We can then look at where you are now and of course we’ve then got ah we’ve then got a scale. We’ve got an x to y and we can look to see if that’s achievable. We can look to see if that’s um. You know what seo techniques we’re going to use in order to get there. We can look see what you’re bringing to the table already to see to gauge how much work we you know how much for runway. We’ve got and and we could look see if anything’s wrong, you might bring me a website that’s blacklisted. Well no I’m not going to get you anywhere. That’s that’s probably about the only guarantee I would make.

25:23.81
Jeff
Um, yeah I guarantee you I can’t do Jack for you.

25:25.97
peteeveritt
Um, yeah, so that’s ah normally to answer your question. How do you have these conversations you so I normally start by talking to the the business about their business and about what it is. They are wanting what has made them pick up the phone or have the bright idea that seo is what they need to do and if it’s because oh well I want to be number 1 in Google. Okay, well why? And in all honesty if I’m working with the client if the client that’s speaking to me is somebody that is that vain. They just want to be number one then they’re not the client for me and I’ll I’ll say no and move on I realize I’m in a very luxury place that I can say no to work I get that not everybody can, but that’s my kind of that’s my take on it anyway.

26:16.41
Jeff
That’s ah, that’s that’s good. It’s informative because a lot of yeah I kind of come in from a different way I guess and it’s not a different way. It’s just maybe a different experience and it’s you know you’ve obviously worked your leads and stuff in your agency life. You’ve got. Bigger businesses I know a lot of the ones you work with they’re all just larger in so in size and you know employees and and you know fun everything than the ones I’ve gotten over the years now I’ve distanced myself from direct agency work over the last few years but most of the ones I’ve dealt with have been startups. And so that’s kind of a different you know topic and and when I say startups I mean you know startups is an exaggeration. These are these are side hustles or small businesses started by you know people like you and I entrepreneurs. So no disrespect by ah, any means just they don’t have you know a hundred grand of in the bank. Let alone. 5 or 10 grand probably of reserve funds or anything and so with that said, they also don’t have the experience and the you know the years of doing sales and knowing what their conversion rates are and knowing what kind of you know profit margins they have so a lot of those topics that I’ve had just been like. Yeah I don’t know we just need it and I you know at that stage I got to go I agree you know I I agree you need it and let’s do the work. Let’s put it in. Let’s collect the data. Let’s get some sales. Let’s get you moving Um, and you know we’ll assess as we go, we gets not.

27:43.28
Jeff
And you know it’s not to spend money unnecessarily. It’s always on priority things. But you know you can make more informed decisions once you’ve actually done some of the work and or have the data and info to you but day 1 You don’t know.

27:53.98
peteeveritt
But that’s yeah, but that’s that’s absolutely fine and that’s absolutely sound advice. There’s there’s nothing wrong with that. All you’re doing is you are starting. Ah maybe 2 discussions further down the process than I am with the client that knows all this stuff and I need to extract this from them and you’re.

28:08.10
Jeff
Um, yeah.

28:11.45
peteeveritt
You’re just you’re kind of relying on the process a bit more to begin with in order to start delivering those things and what I would do in that instance is say right? We’re going to have a startup process and it’s going to look like look like this. Basically exactly what you’ve what you’ve just described. And then when we get to a point where you have a regular stream of customers coming in. We’re then gonna we’re then gonna get around the table together be that virtually or in person and go through it all and then guess what we’re gonna have those first 2 discussions and we might need to course correct it that way. So there’s there’s absolutely no problem with.

28:42.40
Jeff
Um, yeah.

28:49.18
peteeveritt
With working with smaller smaller businesses or startups or people that don’t have that information but you do need to be. You do need to have ah a confidence in what you’re doing and be able to read almost read between the lines of the data a little bit until you get the information that you need and have that have that as a. As I say as a process as ah as a marker in the sand that says you know this might take us six months it might take eight months it might take us a year but it doesn’t matter how long it takes what I’m guaranteeing with you is we are going to have that discussion the as soon as we can we will have it until then this is what we’re going to do.

29:22.14
Jeff
Yeah, and you know we’re obviously talking mostly about seo specifically stuff you know whether that’s improving the website or writing content or you know various things like that doing working on their local business focus. But as. The professional that these companies were working with. You know you is it. The agency owner or consultant or freelancer. Whatever you’re describing yourself as you’re in such a good position to help them with their efforts overall as a business consultant like um, um, you know like I said ah you’re walking me through that thing earlier and I’m going this is this is so much bigger than seo. Yeah, it’s going to help with figuring out what you need to do and what’s going to be required and you know all that stuff. But this is the info that they need and and you know one of the metrics. Um on that was like the conversion rate and so when we’re chat and we realized. Well you know going over this? Okay, it’s going to require this that and this to reach these ranks or blah blah blah and it’s a daunt it was daunting. But if we could tweak the conversion or the sales process somehow to increase that conversion rate by 10 percent then we’d only need to do half of the effort we were talking about and get twice. The results. Like it was ah like that right. There was a much more valuable piece of information to have than knowing how many pieces of content they need for example, like just knowing that right there and that’s you know you might just.

30:40.37
peteeveritt
Um, yeah.

30:46.39
Jeff
Give that to them for free in a conversation over Zoom you know or a meeting face-to-face or whatever because you’ve uncovered that and you’ve learned it but like they’re going to put you on a pedestal for something like that. They’re going to get. You’re going to be employee of the month and you don’t even work there. You know like that’s like my goodness.

31:00.50
peteeveritt
Hey I’ll take that bonus. Ah.

31:04.40
Jeff
You know and it’s like well yeah, obviously everybody knows if you increase your you know sales conversion rate then you’re going to get more sales but like being able to conceptualize that or contextualize that and put that into into hard data and facts like that’s really valuable stuff.

31:21.45
peteeveritt
Ah, you know playing with those numbers is I enjoy doing it especially when it’s with somebody else’s business. Um, but playing with those numbers is um.

31:33.24
peteeveritt
I I was taught that process so I have we’ve talked about it before the circle of truth essentially that’s what the circle of truth is it’s just got an extra bit added on the bottom which helps you sort of tangible figure out like a content plan but the doing all of that stuff is. What positions you as ah, it positions you away from being an seo consultant or a web developer or web designer orb insert web industry specific term to your job title and instead positions you as a trusted advisor to the client. And if you can become a trusted adviser then you just become the go to and not only do you become their go to but when business people are people people mix or people become the sum of the 5 people they spend the most time around. So if you’re working with the Ceo of a. Company. That’s doing $35000000 a year. You can bet your bottom dollar he is mixing with people that are doing have businesses that are doing between. Let’s say twenty five and fifty million dollars a year right? So when they’re having their discussions and he’s saying you know what we’ve got this we we met this guy. We got him in to talk about some seo but you know what he actually he just lifted the roof off the business and he helped us work on our conversion rate he has he’s delivered on the seo but because of he you know he hit his original seo target but he also helped us increase our conversion rate. So he’s kind of like.

33:02.51
peteeveritt
Double bubble there and then he’s helped us improve our average customer values. That’s Triple bubble and you know this guy’s better than gold his form Mas guess who they’re going to ring right? So that’s ah, that’s it.

33:10.93
Jeff
Um, she.

33:19.42
peteeveritt
I’ve mentioned this on the show before I truly feel that as somebody that comes in if somebody’s going to trust you with open quotes improving their business close quotes you have a duty of care over that person to make sure that they do that in a responsible way. Because if you’re playing with business. It can just as easily go wrong as go right? And if you’ve got if if you do something that improves their business so much that they can’t handle the workload they couldn’t in this this simulation that I taught you through it was like they’re going to need like 1200 quotes a year. If they can’t handle 1200 quotes a year in order to get that. That’s not to win them. That’s to produce them because they have a a win rate. That’s only a portion of that. Um, then all, you’re going to do by getting them to that level is disappoint people and like I’ve said about this guy and is speaking to his mates. That conversation could just as easily go well I had this I met this Seo person and they they they kind of did a lot of things but you know what they they got us so much stuff. It. We couldn’t handle it and then people started complaining then we couldn’t deliver on the work for clients that were paying us so we lost some of them and we ended up sacking them off because we couldn’t afford them because we’d lost too much money. There’s no way I want to be in that place I want to be in the first place with all the recommendations as much as possible and I never want to be in the last place. So I yeah, that’s that’s why I just think as a as the web professional that they have entrusted to help develop their business. You.

34:33.89
Jeff
No.

34:51.37
peteeveritt
It it may seem like I’m a bit being a bit sort of moral and a bit kind of above my station I suppose but that’s the way I that’s the way I view it I don’t just tactically want to deliver some messy I it doesn’t excite me to get out a bed and write how many work how many meta descriptions were on that website hundred and seven

35:08.92
Jeff
I Don’t remember him.

35:11.40
peteeveritt
That that that doesn’t excite me I don’t want to get out of bed and write 107 meta descriptions to tidy up and and you know an seo health check and if you don’t want to do that either. We have a team at seo hive that can help you with that. But I promise you neither me or Jeff will be writing a met’s descriptions.

35:27.15
Jeff
No, we will not thankfully our team enjoys doing that or they at least enjoy being paid to do that. Ah.

35:29.57
peteeveritt
Ah, yeah, ah, but yeah, that’s okay I’ll finish preaching now I feel like I’ve been on my soapbox.

35:38.28
Jeff
No I well I mean I agree through 100% and I said even though I’ve got a slightly different experience or whatever I mean that’s that’s you know that’s that’s gold right there and that’s how you do something yourself as the person and you know maybe you want to? maybe you don’t but at the same time I also know for a fact that you wouldn’t. Overstep if you’re if you’re in that situation and the owner or finance guy in a meeting or whatever brushes it off and doesn’t want to hear any about it. You’re not going to be like no I need you to understand this It’s like all right? Well, you don’t want that information then? okay fine I tried but you know all right? Yeah, we’ll we’ll do it. We want to do for a while. But yeah, so it’s not like you said it’s it’s not trying to overstep your station or anything like that. It’s hey you know I’ve I’ve found this out and I mean you know a couple times I’ve had to have some tough discussions where people are wanting. This is more about just wordpress general stuff or whatever but people are requesting things that are frankly. Too expensive given the sales that I know they aren’t getting because I’m managing their website and we’ll see that they’ve made $75 this year in ecommerce sales. Well guess what you probably don’t want to drop $500 on you know, changing the design of this footer because it’s not valuable to you right now like. And I’ll tell somebody that because I don’t want them to waste their money but at the same time. Um, if they if I had a better idea that would actually get them sales that would that’s what I would want to bring to the table and you know you can you can kind of cement yourself as that person in this industry more so than just being an seo provider just being a wordpress.

37:10.64
Jeff
Developer or whatever.

37:11.42
peteeveritt
And you know I had this discussion the day before? Yeah no, we we’re on Tuesday aren’t we must have be on on Friday um, whenever it was the the guy a client of ours got in touch with us because they wanted to put they the request was.

37:16.55
Jeff
I Don’t know I don’t know a date is.

37:30.84
peteeveritt
We want an a I chat bot to handle all of our support tickets I’m like yeah, that’s not gonna happen and you know the you know how much will it cost right? Well, let’s let’s just back up a second here. Ah, how many variants of support tickets have you got have you mapped out how many no no, we’ll go away do that and they came back like 4 hours later yeah we we reckon. There’s about 535 different outputs that we could get is that right before we go and do that. Let’s go and put a chat Apple on your website for free and see if your customers are going to engage with it. How about we do that first right? If if it’s going to be useful. We can chat about it. But if it’s not I’m not going to waste your time or mine.

38:22.76
Jeff
So how long was the chat bot up before realized no one’s using our chat bot or a chat prompt or whatever. Oh okay.

38:29.90
peteeveritt
It’s it. It only went it ah because it’s Tuesday the the chat but only went live yesterday. So I don’t have the information to to ah to tell you that yet. But yeah, that’s that was look that’s that’s just the right advice. It’s not.

38:43.83
peteeveritt
Say I know I know of agencies that ah know of people that run agencies that need the money and I don’t I don’t envy that position at all I’ve been there I get it. It’s it’s not a nice place to be and I realize I’m in a privileged position where I can say I don’t want to take your money. Because it’s not the right thing for either of us. Um, yeah, you know so I feel for people and that’s exactly why seo hive exists is to help people that are in that position to get recurring revenue so that they can have their bases covered and then they can not have to scratch around for every dollar or cent that. That comes their way to make the bills pay to pay the bills each month um that’s exactly what we’re here for right.

39:23.90
Jeff
But and it’s why we have a pretty clear defined. You know couple of services that we do so that there isn’t that vague question Mark of what am I getting this month what’s going to happen I mean you know we can’t guarantee the results but we know what we’re going to do. We know what. Goes into that and you know it’s all about kind of doing the hard work but and putting the effort in.

39:47.10
peteeveritt
That’s it what we can guarantee is the work will be done the work will be done to a very good standard. It will be delivered on time. It will be uploaded. It will be white hat. It will be done in accordance with Google’s rules and regulations as they are at the time that the work is done. And we have enough experience to know that if you follow that process religiously enough over and over and over again then the results do come but those results may not be traffic which is where we started with John Mueller nobody can guarantee traffic. The results will come with. And improvement to the client’s business and that needs to hopefully be tied into some discussion you’ve had with the client about what they’re expecting to happen. Um, but yeah, we.

40:26.10
Jeff
And like ninety nine Point Ninety Nine nine nine percent of time. It’s going to end up with increased traffic. But.

40:35.33
peteeveritt
Look I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this one on the on the show before but the when I started my agency um the old finance director at the agency that I left he’d he’d left about three months before me and had moved to this new this other company as manufacturing company. And when he found out that I can’t kind of gone out on my own so I was maybe two or three months in he got in touch and wanted to talk about um Seo you know Seo provision for the for the new company and we started working together and over the first twelve months. I increased their traffic by 1 visit twelve months on twelve months they had an increase of one visit I was gutted I wanted it to be identical but it was 1 visit but their sales had increased by 500 % so all of a sudden. They didn’t care what the traffic was on their website or they cared about was the money that was in the bank. Um, so that was yeah that that was a fun project to work on and that was all about quality of traffic rather than quantity of traffic traffic itself is a vanity metric if you’re.

41:44.67
Jeff
Yeah.

41:47.77
peteeveritt
If you’re getting. It’s for I often say this to clients. It’s it’s not that difficult to get 100000 people to view your website to get 1000 people to view your website that actually want what you do or could help them with that’s a far harder task to to achieve and um, yeah, that was exactly. But was exactly the case with that first client.

42:09.18
Jeff
Yep, you can you can send people there but that doesn’t mean they’re targeted. They’re interested and that’s one of the things I Love the most is being able to and and this isn’t even like doing this going out of my way to do it. But. Just reviewing something and like catching something where you go Oh my goodness this is going to improve their business or their website or their life. It’s going to make customers have a better experience on their and and I mean I usually find something like that just by browsing a website like for myself, you know what? I mean like not even a client website I’ll be like oh hey I want to email. This company that I’m shopping at and let them know about this you know idea for their website that would help and no, that’s unsolicited. They don’t probably want that but you know, ah.

42:50.19
peteeveritt
But this this is where seo is every other form of in of marketing apart from Seo and Google ads is interruption marketing. So if you think about running Facebook ads I’m not saying you shouldn’t run Facebook ads of course I’m not there. Audience demographic targeting tools are some of the best on the planet. But if you think ah, but if you think about Facebook ads you that that ad gets mixed in amongst a whole feed of stuff where you’ve got your friends’ kids and their holiday snaps and.

43:09.67
Jeff
But we are running a Facebook ad right now.

43:27.99
peteeveritt
Memories about you know, ah a drink you had in a bar five years ago and you know you some skiing holiday or some memory with somebody that you went to school with or somebody getting engaged and then all of a sudden you’ve got an adverb selling you light bulb and then you’re back to Grandma’s knitting and.

43:45.40
Jeff
She.

43:47.59
peteeveritt
You know what? I mean it. it’s it’s not it’s not contextual in the space that it appears um, whereas anything that you can do in the search engines that is triggered by the keywords the user types in so they are already looking for. Something around the theme of what you ask? you’ve already if what you offer you’ve already. You’re already one step further down the line than anybody that’s running Facebook ads or Youtube ads or Instagram ads or Linkedin ads or you name it your 1 step closer before you begin and there are damn site cheaper in a lot cases. Um.

44:21.66
Jeff
Um, yeah.

44:24.52
peteeveritt
So that that is why that for me personally that is why Seo and Google ads are the 2 sort of top of the tree type ah marketing approaches for for companies to go for. But.

44:41.20
peteeveritt
Yeah, that’s not to say that any of the stuff’s bad and I know people earnt a lot of money and got serious results for clients using it. But it’s not my bag.

44:48.34
Jeff
Yeah, I’m kind of pigging backing off for that. One of the things that I’m just really having such like ah I don’t know such a positive experience like seeing the results of and realizing how valuable it is and kicking myself for not putting more of a focus on it for so long and that’s local Seo. And you know for brick and mortar businesses obviously but like I said now I mean just now that we’ve had such an effort ah such a focus on this for the last year or so um and then just my day-to-day life like I’m constantly seeing people not utilizing these features and I just have to go why you know why? Why aren’t you doing it because it’s it’s right there for you to do it and.

45:20.36
peteeveritt
Um, yeah.

45:25.12
Jeff
Website’s 1 thing right? It’s it’s easy enough to get a website. We know in this business that it’s hard enough to get a good website that does everything you need it to do and and all that stuff but like it’s possible, but it can be a lot of work. Um, and then you you know you start doing seo you’ve got to. Get your testimonials on there and make sure your business hours and stuff and yes you should do that you should do that but you could also do it for your Google listing and boom you just get everything right there if people are coming by your business. They find you on there. They see your reviews like it’s all it’s all right there you almost don’t even need a website and to utilize this stuff almost almost and it just drives me notts seem more and more people not utilizing it like I said my day my day-to-day life every time I’m searching for something most businesses.

46:02.57
peteeveritt
Almost almost.

46:17.35
Jeff
They haven’t claimed their listing. They don’t have the info. Everything’s outdated. There’s negative reviews from seven years ago that haven’t been responded to like like it’s just wild why people don’t do it and hey Mr or Mrs Consultant a perfect opportunity to lead your clients there.

46:33.63
peteeveritt
Cool. Well I think I think that’s a good place to end I think we’ve.

46:39.47
Jeff
Yeah, you know seeing as I was really worried how we were going to talk about this for for a lot longer and that was at like 6 minutes and here we are ah 40 minutes later

46:50.58
peteeveritt
I I honest I I just think that’s a that’s ah, you’re dead right? It’s um, local Seo the local Seo features on the map pack if you have a brick and mortar business where you need footfall. it’s it’s invaluable you cannot you cannot it’s so overlooked. That’s the that’s the thing and the misnomer with all of this is when people have websites delivered I don’t mean agencies here I mean clients and clients have websites delivered and they class it that they’re that’s it their website is finished and yeah, absolutely. We’re done.

47:23.70
Jeff
It’s done. We’re ready.

47:26.73
peteeveritt
We’ll we’ll sit here and watch the money money beprinted and it it just don’t work like I where’s the tuble boyid and I I I had somebody on my other podcast. Um I guess called Candi Phelps and she used this expression that a website is never finished. It’s born and i. I can’t I have never been able to come up with a ah better expression for it. You’re dead right? You then have to nurture it and you then have to get it to kindergarten and then you have to get it into into school and and it grows it grows with your business and um I think we’ve touched on that through everything we’ve talked about today. So thank you for listening. Um, if you found this show or any of our shows valuable please do go and leave us a review on your podcast player of choice as long as it’s 5 stars. That’s amazing and if you do want us to arrange something to walk through the ah the content simulator. Um then feel free to so send us an email to helloseohive.co.

48:25.30
peteeveritt
With the subject show me the simulator.

48:27.50
Jeff
Yep, thanks for listening and we will talk to you later.

48:29.10
peteeveritt
See you in the next one.