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werank · 5 years

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17 Ways to Improve Your SEO in 2019

Today you’re going to learn EXACTLY how to improve your site’s SEO.

In fact, these 17 techniques helped grow my site’s organic traffic by 21.30% in 3 months:

The best part?

Everything here is working GREAT right now.

1. Get More Organic Traffic With “Snippet Bait”

2. Improve Dwell Time With This Simple Step

3. Find Low-Competition Keywords With “Ghost Posts”

4. Use Sitelinks to Boost Your Organic CTR

5. Want More Links? Be The Source

6. Target Keywords With BIG Commercial Intent

7. Grab More SERP Real Estate With YouTube Videos

8. Rank for “Topic + Statistics” Keywords

9. Optimize Old Content For User Intent

10. Content Partnerships

11. Repurpose Content Into Different Formats

12. Double Down On Broken Link Building

13. Find Backlink Opportunities With “Link Intersect”

14. Target Brand New Keywords

15. Use Concept Visuals

16. Use Industry Glossaries for Keyword Ideas

17. Get Backlinks From Content Curators

Bonus #1: Find Question Keywords With Question DB

Bonus #2: Rank For Brand Name Terms

1. Get More Organic Traffic With “Snippet Bait”

Over the last few weeks I’ve got my site to rank in 41 different Featured Snippets.

Like this:

And this:

My secret?

A new strategy called “Snippet Bait”.

Here’s how it works:

First, find a keyword that you already rank for.

Why is this important?

According to Ahrefs, 99.58% of Featured Snippets come from the first page results.

So if you’re on page 2, you have pretty much zero chance of getting in a Featured Snippet.

For example, here’s a page from my site that was ranking on page 1.

Next, look at the Featured Snippet at the top of the SERPs:

And identify what TYPE of Featured Snippet you’re looking at:

Definition Snippet (“What is content marketing?”)

List Snippet (“Top 10 Content Marketing Tools”)

Table Snippet (“Content Marketing Tool Prices”)

Finally, add a snippet of content to your page that’s designed to fit inside that Featured Snippet box.

(This is the “Snippet Bait”)

For example, I wanted to get in the Featured Snippet for the keyword “nofollow links”.

So I wrote a little section that would fit PERFECTLY inside of a Featured Snippet box:

And it worked! About 2 weeks later, the section I wrote was at the top of the search results.

Nice.

2. Improve Dwell Time With This Simple Step

Is Dwell Time a Google ranking factor?

In my opinion: YES.

After all, if someone quickly bounces from your page, it sends a clear message to Google: people hate that page.

And they’ll quickly downrank it:

The question is:

How do you prevent people from bouncing?

Embed videos on your page.

For example, I recently compared my bounce rate for a sample of pages with and without a video.

And pages with video had an 11.2% better bounce rate than pages without a video:

That’s why I embed videos in almost every new post that I write.

Sometimes I make the video an entire step or tip:

Or as a way for people to learn more about a specific topic:

Which leads us to…

3. Find Low-Competition Keywords With “Ghost Posts”

Here’s the truth:

Most “Keyword Competition” scores are WAY off.

That’s because most of them focus 100% on one metric: backlinks.

Are backlinks important?

Heck yeah!

But backlinks are only one piece of the puzzle. First page rankings are also based on:

Organic click-through-rate

Search Intent

Page speed

Mobile-friendliness

Lots more

That’s why I now ignore most keyword competition scores.

Instead, I use “Ghost Posts”.

For example:

A few months back I wanted to rank for the keyword: “Free SEO Tools”.

According to Ahrefs, this keyword is “Super Hard” to rank for:

Instead of giving up, I decided to test this keyword’s difficulty with a new technique: The Ghost Post.

Specifically, I whipped up a quick post and published it on the 4th page of my blog feed.

In other words: I didn’t promote the post in any way (hence the name: “Ghost Post”).

To my surprise, I cracked the first page for long tail versions of my keyword (like “best free SEO tools”) within a week or so:

And I even started to pop in and out of page 1 for my target keyword.

That’s when I decided to promote the post on social media:

And give the content a much-needed upgrade.

As it turns out, this “Super Hard” keyword was ridiculously easy to rank for.

In fact, I now rank #1 for that keyword:

Even though my page has WAY fewer backlinks than the other first page results:

(Note: I’m not bashing Ahrefs’s Keyword Difficulty score. I’m just showing you another way to figure out keyword difficulty).

With that, it’s time for…

4. Use Sitelinks to Boost Your Organic CTR

Last year I decided to make Organic CTR a top priority.

But I quickly ran into a problem:

Besides optimizing your title and description for clicks, how can you push more people to click on your result?

Sitelinks.

You probably already have sitelinks underneath your result when you search for your brand in Google.

As it turns out, you can ALSO get sitelinks on all sorts of pages… from blog posts to ecommerce category pages.

And these sitelinks can make a BIG dent in your click-through-rate.

How do you get sitelinks?

A table of contents.

For example, when I published this post, I added a table of contents with “jump links” to each tip.

And once my page cracked the top 5, Google hooked me up with sitelinks.

As you can see, these sitelinks REALLY help my result stand out.

In fact, sitelinks are one of the reasons my page has a 14.9% CTR.

5. Want More Links? Be The Source

Here’s the deal:

People don’t link to “great content”.

They link to sources.

For example, I published this guide to the Google Search Console last year.

And I’m not afraid to say that it qualifies as “great content”.

The post is full of actionable tips:

It even has a custom design:

Despite being a very solid piece of content, it only has 159 referring domain links:

On the other hand, check out this voice search study I published around the same time:

Most people would also call this post “great content”.

But this piece of content has 764 referring domain links:

(That’s 79% more backlinks than my GSC guide).

What’s going on here?

Well, my Google Search Console guide isn’t that easy for someone to link to.

Unless you’re writing about the GSC and want to send someone to a resource to “learn more”, there’s no compelling reason to link to my guide.

On the other hand, my voice search study gives bloggers and journalists data that they can EASILY reference.

Which has led to hundreds of high-quality backlinks.

6. Target Keywords With BIG Commercial Intent

When I first got started with keyword research I’d focus 100% on search volume.

If a keyword got a bunch of searches, I’d say: “that’s good enough for me!”.

Not anymore.

Today, I put A LOT of weight on commercial intent.

(In other words: how much are Google Ads advertisers spending on those clicks?)

For example, I recently started targeting keywords like “link building services”.

This keyword doesn’t get that many searches:

But with a CPC of $25.00, I know that the traffic is made up of legit buyers:

(Fun fact: I published this page as a “Ghost Post”. As it turns out, “link building services” is MUCH less competitive than most tools claim)

7. Grab More SERP Real Estate With YouTube Videos

Found an AWESOME keyword that converts well for you?

Get bonus traffic from that term with a YouTube video.

For example, this post is targeting the keyword “how to get more traffic”.

Unfortunately, I’m stuck in the #4 spot.

To make matters worse, I’m cramped below 3 video results.

(But I’m working on it

)

In the meantime, I decided to create a video on that topic.

And because I optimized my video the right way, it takes up valuable real estate at the top of Google’s search results:

Want to see how I optimized that video? Check out this quick tutorial:

8. Rank for “Topic + Statistics” Keywords

This is the dirty little secret that lots of sites use to get LOTS of backlinks on autopilot.

For example, Student Loan Hero has over 21.1K links to its “US Student Loan Statistics” page:

Here’s how they did it (and why this approach works so well):

First, they identified a topic that bloggers and journalists tend to write about.

(In this case, stats about student loan debt)

Then, they created a page that curated stats from different sources.

Finally, they optimized that page around the keyword: “Student Loan Debt Statistics”.

Which now ranks on the first page for that term:

Why does this work so well?

Think about it:

Who searches for “Topic + Statistics” keywords?

Journalists!

Specifically, journalists looking for stats to include in their articles.

And when you rank for that term, you’re going to get linked to like there’s no tomorrow.

Very cool.

9. Optimize Old Content For User Intent

I’ve talked about matching your content to search intent before.

But the bottom line is this:

If your site isn’t what searchers want, Google won’t rank it.

(No matter how many links you have)

For example, I first published this post in 2015:

As you can probably guess, my target keyword for that page was “SEO Campaign”.

And I quickly carved out a spot on the middle of the first page of Google.

So far so good.

But one day my rankings and organic traffic started to drop.

This wasn’t a super high-priority keyword. So I just kind of ignored the problem and hoped it would go away.

It didn’t.

That’s when I realized that my content was a HORRIBLE fit for user intent.

Specifically, my post didn’t outline an SEO campaign. Instead, I talked about a single strategy (“Guestographics”):

So I went back to the drawing board. And I rewrote the post from scratch.

This time, I made sure to publish something that someone searching for “SEO campaign” would love.

Sure enough, the new version of the post now ranks #1 for that term:

10. Content Partnerships

I’m a BIG fan of Content Partnerships.

Why?

Because it makes your content promotion twice as powerful.

Think about it:

When you publish something on your site, you send as many people as you can to your post.

But you’re only one person (or company). So your reach is pretty limited.

But when you partner with someone else, BOTH of you send people to your new content:

Which doubles the amount of eyeballs, links and social media shares that you get.

For example, earlier this year I partnered with BuzzSumo to create this content marketing study.

And because we both promoted it to our audiences, it got A TON of traffic:

11. Repurpose Content Into Different Formats

Last year I realized that I was making a HUGE mistake.

The mistake?

Every time I sat down to write a new blog post, email newsletter or video script… I was starting from scratch.

Which meant it would sometimes take me 14 days to finish a single blog post.

That’s when I realized something…

I already had TONS of content on my YouTube channel. Content that people loved.

So I decided to base my next blog post on a popular video from my channel: a video about getting more YouTube subscribers.

It took some time to turn my video into a blog post.

But it was 10x faster than starting with a blank Google Doc.

The best part?

My post did GREAT.

That post brings in 15,701 search engine visitors per month.

And it currently ranks in the top 3 for my target keyword:

Pretty cool.

12. Double Down On Broken Link Building

I already published a guide to Broken Link Building.

So I’m not going to go over the process again here.

Instead, I’m going to show how I used Broken Link Building to get this sweet backlink:

First, I looked for a piece of content on my site that I KNEW people would want to link to. And I chose this CRO guide:

Next, I found a site that wrote about content marketing. And popped their homepage URL into Ahrefs.

And clicked on “Outgoing Links” → “Broken links”:

Which showed me all of that site’s broken external links:

Once I found a broken link that was similar to my guide, I reached out to the person that runs their blog. I let them know about their broken link and offered my content as a replacement:

And because I added value with my outreach, they happily linked to me:

That’s all there is to it.

13. Find Backlink Opportunities With “Link Intersect”

It’s no secret that reverse engineering is a GREAT link building strategy.

But it’s not perfect.

After all, let’s say you find a site that just linked to your competitor.

You have no idea if that site linked to them because they have an existing relationship, they just sent an awesome outreach email… or a million other reasons.

But when you look at who links to MULTIPLE competitors, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of the equation.

(After all, what are the odds that the site has a great relationship with three different sites?).

That’s where Link Intersect comes into play.

To use it, fire up good ol’ Ahrefs and enter three domains into their Link Intersect tool:

And make sure to put your site in the “But doesn’t link to” field:

And voila!

You’ll see everyone that links to these 3 sites… but doesn’t link to you.

And if your site publishes better content than your competitors, there’s a really good chance these peeps will link to you too.

14. Target Brand New Keywords

Want to find popular, low-competition keywords?

Of course you do

Question is:

How?!

Target NEW keywords.

I’ll explain…

Most keywords are competitive for the simple reason that there are LOTS of sites trying to rank for them.

But when you target new terms, you’re competing with fewer people.

Which means you can often rocket your way to the top of the search results.

For example, last summer I created a guide optimized around the growing term “Voice Search”:

Because the term “Voice Search” was relatively new (especially compared to old school keywords in my niche like “link building”), my guide cracked the bottom of the first page within a week.

And it currently ranks on the first page of Google for that term:

15. Use Concept Visuals

This is a way to get high-quality backlinks WITHOUT having to grind with outreach.

In fact, I’ve used this approach to get links like this:

And this:

All without sending a single outreach email.

With that, here are the steps:

First, create an AWESOME visual that helps people understand a tricky concept or idea.

This can be a graph, chart, visualization or table.

Here’s an example:

Next, feature that visual in your content.

And if the right person sees your visual, they’ll use it on their site:

Rinse and repeat for every post that you publish.

Pro Tip: Focus on creating visuals for NEW topics. That way, you’ll be one of the few sites with a high-quality visual of that topic.

16. Use Industry Glossaries for Keyword Ideas

Want some creative keyword ideas?

Check out industry glossaries.

For example, this nutrition glossary covers 100+ different terms:

You can either straight up copy these keywords into a spreadsheet.

Or use them as seed keywords and pop them into a keyword research tool.

Either way, glossaries are an AWESOME way to find new keyword ideas.

Pro Tip: Pop the glossary URL into the Google Keyword Planner for a mega list of keyword ideas:

17. Get Backlinks From Content Curators

Most people struggle with outreach because they send garbage like this:

There’s a lot wrong with this outreach email.

But the biggest issue is that I don’t have a place on my site where a link to their content makes sense.

So I hit “Delete”.

That person would have had a lot more luck reaching out to a Content Curator.

Content Curators are just like they sound: people that curate their industry’s best stuff.

For example, you might have seen the SEO Marketing Hub that I created a few months back:

Well, because I got my content in front of Content Curators, I was able to get a handful of links to my site like this:

No arm twisting required.

Bonus #1: Find Question Keywords With Question DB

QuestionDB is like Answer the Public.

But in my opinion it’s actually a little bit better.

Why?

First of all, it’s MUCH easier to use.

Unlike Answer the Public, with crazy charts and images of some bearded dude, the questions are laid out in a simple table.

And because QuestionDB focuses on questions that people ask on Reddit, you can find keyword and topic ideas that most other tools won’t show you.

Bonus #2: Rank For Brand Name Terms

Low competition.

High volume.

Great CPC.

I’m talking about brand name terms.

For example, look at these two keywords:

That’s right: Mailchimp gets searched for 280x more than “email marketing software”.

And it’s the same story with most categories:

The brand gets WAY more searches than the topic or category.

(The one big downside of targeting brand names is that you’ll never rank #1. But it can still be totally worth it)

That’s why I’ve started to publish content designed to rank for brand names.

For example, I have this BuzzStream review post on my site.

Not only does my page rank for “BuzzStream Review”:

But it also ranks high up on the first page for the popular brand keyword “BuzzStream”.

Now It’s Your Turn…

Now I want to turn it over to you:

Which of the 17 SEO strategies from today’s post are you going to try first?

Are you going to target brand keywords?

Or maybe you want to try Snippet Bait.

Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below right now.

[Read More …] Source: SEO News

The post 17 Ways to Improve Your SEO in 2019 appeared first on WeRank Digital Marketing Agency.

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werank · 5 years

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The 2019 SEO Services Report

We surveyed 1,200 business owners to better understand the current state of the SEO services industry.

In this new report you’ll learn:

How much people spend on SEO.

Where people find SEO services.

Why people choose one agency over another.

Why people decide to leave their current SEO provider.

Lots more.

Without further ado, let’s get into our findings.

Highlights and Key Statistics:

1. American small businesses spend an average of $497.16 per month on SEO services.

2. We found a strong correlation between higher spending and higher client satisfaction. In fact, clients that spent over $500/month were 53.3% more likely to be “extremely satisfied” compared to those that spent less than $500/month.

3. Most small business owners find SEO providers through referrals, Google searches and online reviews. A small fraction of SEO clients (8%) found their current provider from online advertising.

4. When it comes to choosing a provider, 74% of business owners consider an SEO provider’s reputation “very” or “extremely” important. Monthly cost and the provider’s own Google rankings were also noted as important factors.

5. On the other hand, an agency’s presence on social media and client case studies were seen as relatively unimportant factors in deciding who to work with.

6. Most small business owners expect SEO agencies to help them drive immediate growth to their customer base and bottom line. Specifically, 83% of our respondents stated that SEO providers should be able to help them “access new customers”.

7. However, most small business owners don’t seem to value a provider’s ability to grow a social media following. In fact, only 26% of respondents cited “getting followers on social media sites” as extremely important.

8. Overall SEO client satisfaction is decidedly low. Only 30% would recommend their current SEO provider to a friend or colleague. However, we found that client satisfaction among marketing agencies was higher than freelancers.

9. Not surprisingly, clients are highly satisfied with SEO providers that help them get more traffic and customers. Also, 61% of business owners cite that “increasing brand awareness” is important to them.

10. An SEO provider’s location also seems to play a key role in whether or not a client chooses to work with or stay with an SEO agency. 78% of US-based small business owners consider their provider’s location a “very” or “extremely” important consideration.

11. 44% of small business owners leave their current SEO provider largely due to “Dissatisfaction with business results”. 34% cite “customer service/ responsiveness” as a key reason they left. Only 21% leave because they were pitched by a competitor.

12. SEO provider turnover is high. 65% of our panel stated that they’ve worked with several different SEO providers. 25% have worked with 3 or more providers.

We have more detailed and expanded findings on our results below.

Average Monthly SEO Spend is <$500 Per Month

On average, small businesses spend $497.16 per month on SEO services.

However, we did discover a large range in SEO spending. Half of our respondents reported that they spend less than $1,000 per year on SEO. 14% spend $5k+ per year. Only 2% spend over $25k/year.

We also found that agencies tend to get paid significantly more than freelance SEO providers.

Specifically, agencies were 2x more likely to get paid $1k-$2k/month than freelancers, which mostly get paid in the $500-$1k per month range.

Agencies also tend to dominate the high-end pricing range (clients that spend $10k-$25k/year on SEO).

As you can see, 24% of small businesses that work with agencies spend between $10k-$25k/year, compared with 2% that work with a freelance SEO.

Key Takeaway: The average small business owner spends $497.16 per month on SEO services. Also, small business owners spend considerably more with SEO agencies than freelance SEO providers.

Monthly Spend Is Tied To Client Satisfaction

When it comes to SEO, do you “get what you pay for”?

According to our data, yes.

Specifically, we discovered that clients spending over $500/month were 53.3% more likely to consider themselves “extremely satisfied” compared to people that spend less than $500/month.

We also found a clear relationship between dissatisfaction levels and cost.

Specifically, business owners that spent less than $500/month were 75% more likely to be dissatisfied than those that invested at least $500/month on SEO.

This relationship played out whether a client worked with a freelancer, agency, or a mix of both.

Key Takeaway: Small business owners that spend more than $500/month are significantly happier with their SEO provider than those that spend less than $500/month.

Referrals and Google Searches Are the Top Ways Businesses Are Finding SEOs

When someone wants to hire an SEO agency, where do they look?

According to our panel, most people find potential SEO service providers through word of mouth, Google searches and online review platforms (like Yelp).

On the other hand, relatively few find SEO providers through online or offline advertising, or referrals from other vendors (like web designers or writers).

If you’re an agency owner or a freelancer, this is a key finding. If you know where small business owners look to find SEO service providers, you can invest resources to make sure your business has a presence in those places.

Key Takeaway: 28% of small business owners find SEO services through word of mouth, 26% use Google and 18% use online review platforms like Yelp. Only 11% find SEO providers via online or offline advertising.

Reputation and Cost are Key Factors Involved In Choosing a Provider

Once someone finds a list of potential providers, how do they decide which one to go with?

We discovered that reputation, cost and a provider’s own Google rankings influenced their decision the most.

Small business owners cited client case studies and the provider’s social media presence as significantly less important.

However, even these relatively minor factors played a role in whether or not someone decided to work with a particular SEO provider. For example, 55% of our panel cited “referrals” as an important consideration.

Although the importance of referrals pales in comparison to a provider’s reputation (55% vs. 74%), it’s still something that influenced more than half of the people we spoke to.

Interestingly, we found that a provider’s location mattered quite a bit.

Only 51% knew exactly where their SEO provider was located.

However, 78% of US-based small businesses stated that knowing their provider’s location was “extremely” or “very” important (with 46% stating that a known location was “extremely important”).

If you provide SEO services, making your location clear and obvious may help you land more SEO clients.

Here’s a great example from Siege Media, who actually includes a picture of their office on their about page:

Key Takeaway: Small business owners largely decide on an SEO provider based on their online reputation. Location also seems to play a role. 78% our panel noted that location was a factor that helped them decide whether or not to work with an agency or freelancer.

The Vast Majority of Business Owners Expect SEO Services To Increase Customers and Traffic

We asked our panel about their expectations. Specifically, we asked them which benefits from working with an SEO provider were most important to them.

They stated that “accessing new customers”, “increasing traffic”, “increasing brand awareness” and “building trust” as most important.

“Gaining social media followers”, “increasing number of email subscribers” and “helping to attract new talent” were cited as relatively unimportant.

In fact, even though this is a common goal set by marketing agencies, only 18% of respondents cited “getting followers on social media sites” as extremely important.

This finding is especially key for SEO providers that are taking on new clients.

For example, a newly-hired SEO provider that says: “Our first step is going to be to get more likes on your Facebook page” isn’t speaking their client’s language.

On the other hand, kicking off the client-provider relationship with: “I look forward to helping you get more targeted traffic and customers” will likely result in a more satisfied client.

Needless to say, for the relationship to last, you need to deliver on those promises (more on that later). But it does help to understand what clients hope to get out of SEO so you can mold your services and reports based on that.

Key Takeaway: SEO clients value an SEO provider’s ability to land them new clients, increase traffic and build brand awareness. However, only 18% of SEO clients want their providers to help them increase their social media following.

Overall Satisfaction With SEO Services Is Low

We asked out panelists to rate their current SEO provider (or the last SEO provider they worked with) using the Net Promoter Score.

The results were markedly low.

First off, we found that only 30% of small business owners would recommend their current SEO provider.

Importantly, 30% of our respondents considered themselves “detractors”. Which means they would leave a negative review for their last or current SEO provider.

In fact, the SEO services industry as a whole has an NPS score of 0, which is considered “not likely to recommend”.

When we broke down the NPS scores among agencies, freelancers, and a combination of freelancer and agency, we discovered that agencies had a higher average NPS score than freelancers.

However, all three types of services had fairly low NPS scores.

Key Takeaway: Only 30% of clients would recommend their SEO service provider.

Clients Cite Lack of Education and Resources as Top Reasons for Low Satisfaction Levels

NPS is a helpful benchmark. However, NPS can only tell you so much. In other words, it’s difficult to understand why SEO services have such low levels of satisfaction.

That’s why we decided to dig deeper into this finding.

And when we dug a bit deeper to understand more about what’s happening, we uncovered a few surprising insights.

First, many unhappy SEO clients fully or partially blamed themselves.

Specifically, 50% stated that “I feel like I need more training to fully benefit from what SEO offers“ and 28% told us that they “do not have the staff resources to properly benefit from SEO”.

This means that low satisfaction levels aren’t solely due to poor quality work. In fact, many clients are simply not in a position to benefit from SEO due to a lack of resources.

Plus, even clients with resources may not make SEO a priority because they don’t have the training to fully understand how SEO benefits them.

For example, let’s say an SEO provider wants to change a title tag on a client’s site. But it doesn’t happen because their developer is swamped with a website redesign. Also, this client may not understand that this simple change can increase their Google traffic due to a lack of training. So they don’t make that change a priority. And progress stalls.

Which leads us to our second interesting finding, the importance of reporting and transparency.

27% of the clients we spoke with agreed with the statement: “I find SEO to be confusing and unclear about what services they offer” 25% said that “I am not sure what I am really paying for with SEO.”

In other words, many clients are confused about what their provider is doing for them or what they’re getting out of the arrangement.

These are two points that could be remedied with better reporting and increased transparency.

I should point out that a fair number of clients stated that “I feel like SEO companies are very unreliable” and “I don’t think SEO is worth the money for my business.”

Which means that a simple lack of results and ROI is often the culprit behind low client satisfaction levels.

However, as you just saw, there are usually non-performance based factors at play as well.

Key Takeaway: Low SEO service satisfaction is largely due to three main factors: 1. Lack of client education, 2. Lack of available resources and 3. Poor understanding of how SEO is helping them.

Turnover In the SEO Services Industry Is Extremely High

Likely due to low global satisfaction levels, we found high levels of turnover in the SEO services industry.

Specifically, we found that 65% of small business owners have worked with at least one SEO provider before:

We also found that 1/4th of our panel have worked with 3 or more providers:

However, our data suggests that most clients don’t switch between SEO providers without careful consideration.

In fact, the clients in our panel have been working with their current SEO service for an average of 3 years. And lapsed clients give their service provider an average of 2 years to deliver before moving on.

That said, we did discover a small subset of clients that do rapidly switch between different providers.

These “rapid switchers” tend to hire and fire SEO companies at a fever pitch.

For example, we classified 10% of our panelists as “rapid switchers” (worked with 3 or more SEO providers over the last year).

Key Takeaway: 65% of SEO clients have used two or more SEO services in the past. 25% have worked with 3+ providers.

Most SEO Clients Leave Due to Lack of Results and Cost

We wanted to know why people decide to leave their current SEO provider or switch to another company.

We referred to folks that worked with multiple SEO providers as “lapsed clients”. And we asked this subset of lapsed users what went into their decision.

Here were the results:

Not surprisingly, 82% of our respondents cited “Dissatisfaction with business results” as a factor in their decision. 81% reported that cost played a large role as well.

This suggests that clients don’t look at results in a vacuum. They also pay attention to the ROI that they’re getting from SEO. In other words, delivering results for clients is one thing. But it’s also important to demonstrate the ROI that SEO is having on their business. Otherwise, they may leave.

Although lack of results and cost were the two largest factors, they weren’t the only reasons that clients decide to stop working with an SEO provider.

In fact, 80% of lapsed clients stated that they found a better option on their own, which suggests that clients are happy to shop around for an alternative to their current SEO provider.

And 34% cited poor “customer service/ responsiveness” as a factor in their decision.

However, relatively few clients cited “pitched by a competitor” as a reason for leaving. In other words, as long as you can keep your clients happy, they’re not likely to leave. This remains true even if a competitor attempts to poach your client with a better offer.

We also asked our “lapsed clients” panelists to describe to us why they decided to stop using an SEO service. Here’s a sample of those responses:

We also asked a group of users that were happy with their SEO service (“existing clients”) what they liked about it. Here’s what they told us:

Key Takeaway: Most clients stop using an SEO service due to lack of results, cost and finding an alternative on their own.

Existing Clients are 2x More Likely to Be Web Savvy Than Lapsed Clients

We asked our panel to self-report their level of “web savviness”.

Here were the results:

As you can see, 37% of SEO clients consider their web savviness as “somewhat” or “not very”.

The upshot here is that many clients simply don’t have the web savviness to understand key digital marketing terms, like “title tags”, “CSS” and “backlinks”. Which suggests that SEO companies should largely avoid this sort of jargon in favor of terms like “leads”, “sales” and “first page Google rankings”.

In fact, this is backed up by another finding from our panel: that lapsed clients are significantly more likely to consider themselves not web savvy.

Specifically, we found that existing clients were 2x more likely to consider themselves “extremely web savvy” than lapsed clients.

This suggests that web savvy users are in a better position to understand how their SEO service is helping them. So they decide to stay. On the other hand, clients who aren’t web savvy may not fully understand what they’re getting from their SEO provider. So they decide to leave.

Key Takeaway: Clients that stick with their current SEO provider are 2x more likely to be “extremely web savvy” compared to those that leave or switch.

Conclusion

I hope this survey helped you get a better feel for the SEO services industry in 2019.

I’d like to thank Northstar Research Partners for helping me design and conduct this survey.

And if you’d like to learn more about how this survey was conducted, here’s a PDF of our study methods.

And now I’d like to hear from you:

What’s your main takeaway lesson from today’s survey?

Or maybe you have a question about something you read.

Either way, go ahead and leave a comment below with your thoughts.

[Read More …] Source: SEO News

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