Boost Your DTC Marketing with SEO & CRO: Expert Strategies from Andrew Maff

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Speaker 1: Would you like to unlock new revenue for your

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business?

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Direct-to-consumer or DTC marketing strategies may sound

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like old news, but do you truly grasp their transformative

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potential in reducing customer acquisition costs and boosting

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your e-commerce sales?

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And I don't care if you're B2C or B2B.

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There is a way to use the strategies that we're going to

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go through today, so we're going to dive into expert insights

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with Andrew Math, a seasoned pro in SEO and CRO.

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From the latest Google updates to creating high converting

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content, you'll discover actionable strategies to elevate

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your digital marketing game.

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We're going to cover this and lots more, so stay tuned to this

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next episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach Podcast.

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Speaker 2: Digital social media content, influencer marketing,

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blogging, podcasting, vlogging, tiktoking, linkedin, twitter,

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facebook, instagram, youtube, seo, sem, ppc, email marketing

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there's a lot to cover.

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Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or

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business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert

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advice.

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Good thing you've got neil on your side, because neil shaffer

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is your digital marketing, marketing coach, helping you

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grow your business with digital first marketing, one episode at

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a time.

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This is your digital marketing coach and this is Neil Schaefer.

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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer, and welcome to

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episode number 367 of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.

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Before we get to today's interview, I always like to

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cover the things that I'm following in the industry of

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digital marketing.

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Not a lot of news this last week, but the things that I am

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focused on that I want you to focus on are number one the

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Google SEO leaks.

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Hopefully by now you're aware of this, but there was a formal

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Google SEO algorithm search engine algorithm engineer who

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leaked a number of data points about how the Google algorithm

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works, and since then we've started to see a lot of blog

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posts that have analyzed what the engineer leaked and then are

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recommending steps to write SEO content according to those

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leaks.

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So obviously, the algorithm is always changing and I believe

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the leaks are from a little while ago, but it's still really

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insightful and if you want to get a feel for the things that

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you should do to better optimize , I would definitely check out

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one of these posts.

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One that I recommend is called how to Write SEO Content

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According to the Google Leaks.

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You can find this on the Foundation blog post, which is

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foundationincco.

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Other interesting news is that we knew that this was coming, if

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you are involved in video marketing and do anything on

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YouTube.

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Up until now, you've probably used my recommended YouTube tool

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called TubeBuddy to A-B test YouTube thumbnails.

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In other words, you know, create multiple different

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versions of thumbnails, as if you're creating an ad with

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different ad variations in terms of the ad image and the copy.

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In this case, it's just an image, and then you're testing

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what does best in terms of colors or features, or what have

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you, and then it'll automatically TubeBuddy will

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just automatically choose the winner based on the criteria you

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give it, and that'll help you optimize your click-through rate

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for your YouTube videos when they appear in search on the

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screen.

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What have you?

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So now YouTube is now officially allowing creators to

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test multiple video thumbnails.

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So this is a new feature that is currently being tested and I

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assume at some point it's going to come out to the entire

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platform.

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So this is something.

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If you haven't been doing it, you should.

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And even if you're using TubeBuddy, it still has a heck

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of a lot more functionality than just what Google is going to

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offer you through YouTube, but nevertheless, it is exciting

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news.

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Google is going to offer you through YouTube, but

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nevertheless, it is exciting news, and YouTube is.

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You know we thought that this was going to come earlier,

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actually, because they've been talking about this since man

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VidSummit of last year, I think, but it is finally coming, and

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it's good news to be a YouTube creator, so definitely check

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that out.

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And just on the topic of AI, it's really interesting because

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LinkedIn is now using AI to streamline your job hunt For

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those of you that might be in transition, that LinkedIn is

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using AI to assist you in creating personalized job

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application materials, suggesting job opportunities and

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providing tailored recommendations.

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Now these AI tools automate time-consuming tasks, making the

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job search process more efficient, helping users find

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relevant positions more quickly, and I love this approach.

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And it's just another example how, just like the internet

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itself, ai is going to be naturally embedded in many of

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the things we do.

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And while last week or last episode, I went over the 21

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different ways in which I use ChatGPT, it's great to see you

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know not just other marketing tools vendors, but social

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networks what have you embed this technology to help its

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users with very, very specific tasks?

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So, once again, another reason why, if you are still feeling a

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little bit late to the AI game, listen to that last episode,

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number 366, on the 21 ways that I use ChatGPT and hopefully you

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will find something there to inspire you to use AI a little

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bit more than maybe you did the day before.

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And that's really what it's about incremental usage, muscle

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memory, finding ways, imagining ways in which you can use it to

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up your game and to stay competitive, not just in the job

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market, but in the business market, for your business as

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well.

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So today's interview is going to be with Andrew Math.

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Now he is a DTC expert.

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He works with a company called Blue Tusker.

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He'll talk a little bit about that in the interview, but we're

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really going to focus on how blog articles and the features

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that you can add to them drive more conversions and not just

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traffic.

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How to focus content creation on keywords at a buyer intent,

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not just informational keywords and areas on your e-commerce

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website to add additional copy to improve SEO rankings without

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sacrificing conversion rates.

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Now, this is very D2C focused but, as I said in the teaser,

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even if you're a B2B company, we can still be using the same

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concepts right to make sure that we are optimizing our blogs,

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our SEO, more for conversions than just mere traffic.

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The endorsements, which took a little bit longer than I would

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have liked, but I want to give these influencers and other

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authors the chance to read the book and give a thoughtful

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endorsement, so willing to wait a little bit more time for that,

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and creating images for the Kickstarter campaign has taken a

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little bit longer than I'd expected, but I am hoping that

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these things are going to wrap up in the next 48 to 72 hours,

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in which case I will be able to go forward, finalize the

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interior and the back cover of the book and finally request

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Kickstarter permission to launch the pre-campaign, and then I

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can introduce you to that landing page so that you will

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know the first moment that I launch the campaign and that you

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can get your hands on my upcoming book.

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All right, so, without further ado, let's jump right back into

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this interview with Andrew Math from Blue Tusker.

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You're listening to your Digital Marketing Coach.

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This is Neil Schafer.

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Hey everybody, neil Schafer here.

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Welcome to another live stream edition of the your Digital

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Marketing Coach podcast.

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E-commerce is still a critical piece for many businesses out

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there, and when it comes to e-commerce marketing or, these

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days, the focus away from Amazon and the way for us to directly

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sell to customer ie DTC, direct-to-consumer e-commerce

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marketing there is a lot of work that you need to do and of that

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work, something that doesn't get talked a lot about, I think,

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in the e-commerce space.

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We've had previous guests a lot of talk about Facebook ads and

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what have you.

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A lot of things that don't get talked about revolve around SEO.

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So today I'm really excited to have an expert in the space.

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He is the host of the Ecom Show podcast.

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He is also the CEO of the e-commerce marketing agency,

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blue Tusker, andrew Maff.

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Andrew, welcome to the show.

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Hey, neil, thanks for having me Appreciate it.

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Now I'm excited to get into the topic today.

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I've had previous guests, like I said, talk about the topic.

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Before that I want to get started.

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I've talked with e-commerce marketing experts that have

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different backgrounds.

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Some have had their own product , some have worked at big DTC

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brands and have sharpened their axe there.

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So, andrew, tell us the backstory of how you got started

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in all this.

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Speaker 3: I've been in eCommerce digital marketing for

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a little over 15 years now.

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My father actually acquired a small business that was just

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brick and mortar at the time and he wanted to bring it on online

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and so I was like that sounds really cool.

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So I actually worked in his warehouse for a while and then

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joined him, and so that's kind of where I learned in the

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beginning.

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Then in college I was actually in a touring band.

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I was a drummer and we needed a marketer as well, someone who

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could handle doing promotions and things like that, and I was

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like I have most of the experience and so I started

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there.

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I then started an agency in college that was kind of around

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retail and hospitality Merged.

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That exited.

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That went in-house for several years with multiple I was at the

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time two different eight plus figure brands, d2c sole marketer

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in-house.

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So I spent all my time juggling different agencies and

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different contractors, then left that started another agency.

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We exited that in late 2019.

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And I started Blue Tusker in early 2020 with the concept of

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having an agency of agencies, simply because of the issues I

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had when I was in-house.

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Speaker 1: Awesome.

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Thank you so much.

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Two interesting things.

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I was smiling because I also play drums and I also was the

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marketer.

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I mean, this is in Japan, early internet days but I was the one

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who put up our website, who printed out all our flyers and

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everything that's so funny.

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I'm curious the timing of Blue Tusker of 2020, was it in any

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way related to a response to COVID or was it just

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coincidental timing?

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Speaker 3: It was just coincidental.

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We actually started in January, technically Gotcha, so we had

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exited another agency in late 2019.

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And it was also a full service e-commerce agency and left there

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relatively quickly, started in January of 2020.

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And within about a year or less we ended up getting a majority

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of our clients back and even some of the people that work

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there.

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So it kind of got dissolved from the people that had

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acquired us and I've basically started it up all over again.

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Speaker 1: Nice.

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So I'm sure you work with lots of different types of brand

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seven figure, eight figure, if not above and I'm really curious

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.

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Obviously I want to interview you because you brought up the

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topic of SEO, which I'm a big fan of, and I also believe in

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the e-commerce space.

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It's not given enough love.

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So why, of all the things that we could talk about today in

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terms of e-commerce marketing for DTC, why SEO?

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Let's start there.

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Speaker 3: I'm always a big fan of SEO because to me it's you're

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building the asset right, specifically for DTC the way I

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see it.

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If you're building the asset right Specifically for D2C the

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way I see it, if you're going to exit one day, whether you're an

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Amazon seller or you have your own website, really the only

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thing that you have is your profitability, your processes,

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the people that you have, that kind of stuff.

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But what other assets can you have that are very valuable?

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One is obviously going to be like an email list, so if you

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have a good community to work with, your valuation is

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significantly higher.

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But another is the amount of traffic that you're able to get

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to your website because you can pixel those.

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So I always use an example of if I was, let's say, a D2C fishing

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company and a company that did hunting wanted to acquire me, my

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audience is going to be really aligned with theirs.

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They could just drop their pixel on our site and be able to

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expand their other business.

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So when they go for an acquisition, people start to

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look at what other assets does this company have?

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And then you look at the obvious.

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Let's say you're not looking to exit, having that organic

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traffic coming in and letting people just get introduced to

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the brand that way really starts to reduce your customer

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acquisition costs over time.

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So you're not so reliant on CPC , and if CPCs keep going up the

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way that they've been doing every year, it's not going to be

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very feasible for a lot of people.

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It's just forcing more inflation online.

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So by having an SEO approach, you're not so held to that.

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Speaker 1: So I think thank you very much.

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I think, theoretically, a lot of people sort of they get it

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but they'd never seen an action, or they don't know how to track

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it or they're doing it the wrong way.

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So, on that note, before we set up this interview, you were

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talking about how seven and eight figure DDC brands

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structure their blog articles and the features they add to

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them to drive more conversion and not just traffic.

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So traffic is great, but a conversion is even better, right

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?

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So take us behind the scenes of what that looks like.

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Speaker 3: I always say you can't pay your bills with

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organic traffic.

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It's a vanity metric.

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Yes, you can retarget them and that kind of stuff, but if you

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can get them to convert, you can get them to convert.

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And the one thing that's always very interesting that I find is

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you do work.

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We will work with people all the time that actually do have a

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strong focus on SEO and maybe they're getting a lot of traffic

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, and if it's mostly non-branded traffic, there's a good chance

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a lot of that's going to their blog.

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So if the first place that someone lands on your website is

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your blog because of what they were searching for you, it's

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kind of ridiculous to not put some kind of elements into your

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blog to get people to convert.

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So I'm a big fan of CRO as well , because I think investing in

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your website also helps reduce customer acquisition costs over

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time, improves retention, et cetera.

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Nine times out of 10 blogs as a CRO strategy are completely

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overlooked, and so we love doing Right.

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When we get started with people we're working with a new brand.

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The first thing we do is we'll actually do a CRO audit of just

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their blog so that we can look at do you have?

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We'll make little custom banners, that you're not going

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to run ads on your own website, but you can make them so they

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look like yours.

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So let's promote a product, let's promote a collection page.

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Certain apps will give you the functionality to change them all

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on each blog that you do.

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So if you're having a sale, let's put that front and center.

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The pop-up that you have, is it relevant to the blog that you

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have?

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Is it got any kind of gated content?

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Do you have a sidebar where you want to feature certain

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products?

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Or maybe you have some kind of gated content you want to offer

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there?

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When people come to your blog, they're really there just to

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learn something.

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Your bounce rate is still it shouldn't be too high but the

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amount of time that they have on that actual page is not very

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long.

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They're only there for a few minutes trying to find an answer

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.

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They're not reading your massive article.

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So to have stuff on there to try to get them to convert is

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really important, so that you're not solely focused on organic

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traffic.

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You're also focused on how do I get them to convert or at least

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get their email address.

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Speaker 1: That's so true.

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Obviously, if you're in the B2B space and you're doing blogging

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, you might be having more lead magnet types of things, but I

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always find it funny when so many companies don't make use of

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their own internal blog within the text of placing those things

00:15:13
that look like ads.

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Don't know why so many people don't think about that, but I

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think that approach is awesome.

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I love the personalized approach based on the content

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topic that defines what those things look like the sidebar,

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the pop-up and, once again, I don't think a lot of companies

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go that far into that.

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So, based on doing that, I always say the success of the

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SEO is the traffic, but if it's not converting and obviously

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there's a hard convert and a soft convert the hard convert is

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to become a customer, the soft is that email.

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How do you balance those two things?

00:15:42
Obviously, we want to promote the product first, but how do

00:15:45
you balance that if they don't buy the product, at least get

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their email address?

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When you construct this CRO strategy, yeah, when we're

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looking at just blogs.

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Speaker 3: For that specific example, I will typically lean

00:15:57
more towards getting gated high, so it could be more likely that

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they're willing to convert, and it could also depend on the

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article.

00:16:20
If the article is written and the keywords that you're

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targeting do have a bit of a higher purchase intent, then I'm

00:16:28
going to lean more towards like let's push them to product,

00:16:30
let's push them to collection page.

00:16:31
Maybe I give them 10% off their first order or something

00:16:34
classic like that.

00:16:35
But if it's something that's a lot more informative and it's a

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little bit more top of funnel, then I'm going to ease into it.

00:16:41
Then I'm going to look at more of that soft conversion, gated

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content.

00:16:45
To your point.

00:16:46
This is a relatively standard practice for B2B marketing and

00:16:51
it's always something that I found shocking at D2C sellers.

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They just don't do it.

00:16:55
Their blogs are just they're not structured correctly.

00:16:58
There's a couple H tags and that's it.

00:17:01
There's no links, there's no imagery.

00:17:02
People think that I'm just going to write all these words

00:17:05
and throw it up on a blog and I'm going to start to rank

00:17:07
really well.

00:17:07
But if you're not breaking up copy and you don't have any

00:17:12
images, you don't have bullet points, stuff like that.

00:17:13
It's hard to read and so you get this high bounce rate.

00:17:16
You're not going to convert anything.

00:17:18
There's so many different things where there's just not a

00:17:20
focus on the way your blog looks and functions, let alone the

00:17:24
copy that you're putting up there.

00:17:27
Speaker 1: Right, and I've worked as a fractional CMO.

00:17:29
I work with a lot of different industries and I've worked with

00:17:30
some e-commerce minds and it's always they don't get the blog.

00:17:33
But it's funny going through what you just mentioned.

00:17:36
I guess even if they don't hard or soft convert, they're still

00:17:39
pixeled in.

00:17:40
So there's still that potential right At a worst case scenario,

00:17:42
which once again, is another benefit of the blog.

00:17:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, you can have those keywords that

00:17:48
you're going after that have a very high intent, right.

00:17:51
They have a purchase intent or they're clearly looking for

00:17:53
information that's relevant to your product.

00:17:55
But what a lot of sellers don't think about is you can also

00:17:58
look at how do you just attract a relevant audience, right?

00:18:01
So, for example, we've done a lot of work with this beef jerky

00:18:06
company and we're putting out like two or three articles a

00:18:09
week that really don't talk about beef jerky very often, but

00:18:14
it's kind of a keto-friendly snack and so it also kind of

00:18:17
comes into exercise and take care of yourself.

00:18:19
It's a travel snack.

00:18:20
So we're doing articles about hiking and outdoor events and

00:18:24
different snacks to take to games, and it's very, very high

00:18:28
level.

00:18:28
But all I need to do is attract a relevant audience and then

00:18:32
either my gated content or my retargeting ads are going to

00:18:35
pick up and do the work from there.

00:18:36
So it's a much more top of funnel approach.

00:18:39
But a lot of D2C sellers will be like what do I need a blog

00:18:42
for?

00:18:42
My audience isn't reading blogs , but that's not accurate at all

00:18:46
and pretty much everyone is reading a blog.

00:18:48
It's just a matter of what is the content you're putting out,

00:18:51
and is it very high, like top of funnel, where you're putting

00:18:53
out, and is it very high, like top of funnel, where you're just

00:18:54
trying to bring in a relevant audience, or are you writing it

00:18:57
to try to get them to convert?

00:18:58
Because there could be two very different things.

00:19:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree 100% and, on that note, another thing

00:19:04
that we discussed was how to focus content creation on

00:19:06
keywords that have buyer intent, not just informational keywords

00:19:11
.

00:19:11
So can you go a little bit, and I think that's that's really

00:19:13
where the rubber hits the road when it comes to SEO, but can

00:19:16
you talk about or elaborate on that a little bit?

00:19:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly so kind of like I mentioned with some

00:19:23
stuff is really top of funnel, others is not.

00:19:25
It's got more of a purchase intent.

00:19:27
So let's go back to the fishing one, the fishing example I had

00:19:30
I don't know why, I don't fish very often so let's say you're a

00:19:39
fishing company and you sell bait, right, or you sell fishing

00:19:42
lures.

00:19:42
So you're writing an article about the top X fishing lures to

00:19:45
catch sea bass, right?

00:19:47
So that is a very clearly high intent.

00:19:50
They're trying to find fishing lures.

00:19:53
So that one's got a higher intent.

00:19:54
So that one you definitely want to make sure you've got.

00:19:57
You know little like we'll do like custom banners over to

00:20:00
products or to collection pages If you want to have some kind of

00:20:03
incentive like hey, try one of these lures, get 10% off, that

00:20:06
kind of thing, those are fantastic.

00:20:08
But we focus really heavily on on a relatively like traditional

00:20:12
pillar approach.

00:20:13
So basically you write a significantly longer article

00:20:18
that is very a ton of information in it, and then it's

00:20:22
broken out into all these different sections and then we

00:20:24
make other articles that expand on those sections.

00:20:27
So basically you're writing one big piece, you have all these

00:20:30
other little pieces that link to the pillar piece and you focus

00:20:32
on driving traffic to the pillar piece, your page authority for

00:20:35
the smaller blogs goes up.

00:20:37
And then, with that pillar piece, let's say that part of it

00:20:41
was the best lures to use when fishing, and one of those was

00:20:45
specific to sea bass.

00:20:46
So that's my tiny little blog that I've got.

00:20:48
Now I've got all my product links to it.

00:20:51
So the more that I can improve the page authority of that page,

00:20:54
my products page authority will also go up.

00:20:57
So when you're looking at words that have a higher buyer intent,

00:21:00
you really have to make sure that that's where you're

00:21:03
layering in promoting certain products, linking to certain

00:21:06
products, because if you can get the ranking of that article to

00:21:10
improve, your products will go along with it.

00:21:12
So it's really an approach to get your products to rank better

00:21:16
, because we'll get questions all the time about should we be

00:21:21
having 2 words on our product pages, and I personally

00:21:25
don't think that that works very well at all.

00:21:27
Yes, you can do it and yes, from an SEO perspective it might

00:21:31
get you to rank better.

00:21:33
But the issue is, when you load up that much copy on a product

00:21:36
page, it's extremely overwhelming.

00:21:38
The consumer feels like there's so much information here I

00:21:41
don't want to read it, but I also feel like I'm going to miss

00:21:43
something important.

00:21:43
So they just don't buy it at all, so it'll hurt your

00:21:46
conversion rate.

00:21:47
So, product pages while you make sure that they're written

00:21:50
for a keyword perspective so that you can try to get them to

00:21:53
rank, you've got to walk a really fine line so that you can

00:21:56
try to get them to rank.

00:21:57
Speaker 1: You've got to walk a really fine line so that you're

00:21:58
not hurting your conversion rate .

00:21:59
Yeah, and I love that you also mentioned the unsung hero of SEO

00:22:01
, which is internal linking, of actually making it easy for

00:22:04
people to get from your blog to the page but also giving them

00:22:06
that SEO juice should that blog post rank.

00:22:09
So, yeah, excellent advice.

00:22:10
I wanted to ask you and I guess because of the timing this is

00:22:13
March 15th I don't think we could have a conversation about

00:22:15
SEO without talking about the recent Google updates.

00:22:19
So and this is the first time that my site, actually the first

00:22:22
two times over the course of more than a decade that even my

00:22:25
site has taken a hit.

00:22:26
So we had the Google helpful content update, obviously last

00:22:29
fall, and then we had the most recent sort of anti-spam update,

00:22:32
and I suppose if you're always writing great content for humans

00:22:37
with personal experience, personal opinion, then you're

00:22:40
not going to have any issues right, but unfortunately in

00:22:43
business that doesn't always happen all the time.

00:22:45
So I'm curious what you have seen.

00:22:47
Have you seen any changes?

00:22:49
Would you change any advice that you're giving based on

00:22:53
what's been going on?

00:22:53
Because there's certain industries, for instance, recipe

00:22:56
bloggers, I know, that rely on ad revenue, have really taken a

00:23:00
hit, and that's obviously if you have a lot of ads in your site,

00:23:02
and most DTC brands would not have ads on their sites.

00:23:05
It's not an issue, but just curious if you've seen anything.

00:23:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've definitely seen a handful of

00:23:12
clients already where they got hit and others where it did the

00:23:15
opposite and all of a sudden they were scaling up over the

00:23:18
past week.

00:23:19
So it's still very new that we're trying to figure out like,

00:23:22
all right, how is this going to shake out?

00:23:23
Every time Google does something, though, like this, it

00:23:27
goes up and it goes down, and then it kind of levels out a

00:23:29
little bit.

00:23:30
Everyone panics for a little while and then they forget about

00:23:32
it At the end of the day, though, it's still really funny

00:23:36
to me, because it's a very common thing, for all marketers

00:23:38
is like how can I hack this system Right, quick?

00:23:41
Speaker 2: wins.

00:23:42
Speaker 3: Back in the day it was little tricks of the trade

00:23:45
you can do with Facebook.

00:23:46
Amazon sellers had more little things that they thought they

00:23:50
could do that were like kind of gray hat, like all the time and

00:23:55
every single day.

00:23:55
It never ceases to amaze me the amount of people that still

00:23:58
implement strategies like that and don't realize that if you

00:24:02
just play the game correctly, you're in a much better position

00:24:06
.

00:24:06
Every great, every large company you think of all the

00:24:09
Fortune 500 companies, all these big guys from a marketing

00:24:13
perspective, they're not sitting there trying to hack the system

00:24:16
.

00:24:16
They're not getting black hat backlinks, they're not doing

00:24:21
these weird drive traffic to a page that's a blank page but

00:24:24
auto redirects and it gives you like it's ridiculous.

00:24:26
All that stuff is so wildly unnecessary and so if you're

00:24:30
writing bad content or if you are just spamming a ton of

00:24:35
ridiculous keywords into an article, you deserve to get hit.

00:24:39
Fine, let them fall.

00:24:41
You have to be putting out quality content and I know that

00:24:46
this is going to come up.

00:24:47
It's the same conversation we have with AI all the time

00:24:51
Sometimes.

00:24:51
Yes, we absolutely use AI because it's quicker.

00:24:54
It allows us to speed up the research.

00:24:56
From a writing perspective, it's great.

00:24:58
However, you still have to have a subject matter expert

00:25:02
overseeing the writing process.

00:25:03
You still have to have a traditional editor who's editing

00:25:06
everything and ensuring that you're following the brand voice

00:25:09
guideline and all that stuff.

00:25:10
You still have to have people back double checking, research,

00:25:15
linking to correct places, implementing it into your

00:25:17
website correctly with the proper structures and imagery

00:25:21
and breaking it up so it's easy to read.

00:25:23
There's so many other aspects outside of the AI thing that

00:25:28
everyone's like why do I even need articles anymore if I can

00:25:31
just do AI?

00:25:32
Go ahead, go do AI for a month and let me know how that works

00:25:36
out for you.

00:25:37
It does look good.

00:25:38
It does sound good, but it's like, looking at which I'm sure

00:25:42
you've seen, like the AI videos you just know it's a little off.

00:25:47
It's like there's something that makes you uneasy about it.

00:25:49
That's how I feel about if you just let AI write the article

00:25:53
and just leave it as is.

00:25:54
It's like it's kind of uncomfortable.

00:26:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think, if we look back at history, this

00:26:02
is obviously one way Google is trying to control every company

00:26:04
on earth just AI generating tons of content and throwing it up

00:26:06
there.

00:26:07
It's just interesting, because my content doesn't do any of

00:26:10
those things you talked about, and I'm sure other companies get

00:26:13
hit and yeah, it'll be interesting.

00:26:15
And I agree that if you're doing the right thing from the

00:26:18
first part, you just keep doing what you're doing and over time

00:26:20
it'll adjust.

00:26:21
I'm a big believer in that.

00:26:22
I don't think the algorithm or Google hates any business in

00:26:25
particular, but they want you to create helpful content.

00:26:27
Speaker 3: You should be creating helpful content, so

00:26:29
yeah, yeah, and I find it's also with just refreshing your

00:26:33
content.

00:26:33
That's another issue that I find so many people they write a

00:26:37
blog, they publish the blog and then they just move on to the

00:26:39
next one.

00:26:40
And Google likes it when you refresh things.

00:26:42
So, like to your point, our site.

00:26:44
There was a handful of articles that I saw in the past week.

00:26:47
They all took a hit, but they're also articles that we

00:26:50
haven't updated since like 2021.

00:26:52
So I looked at it and was like, yeah, I kind of understand it.

00:26:55
And then there's other ones where we've refreshed them

00:26:57
recently, like in the past few months, and they went up.

00:27:00
So it's kind of a matter of like , so many people write articles

00:27:04
and then they just publish them and go ah, we didn't rank for

00:27:06
that word, let's move on to the next one.

00:27:08
But really, what you're supposed to do is focus a

00:27:11
specific article on a specific keyword and then just keep

00:27:14
tweaking it and keep adjusting it.

00:27:16
You're going to write your other articles that are relevant

00:27:19
to it and linking, and there's a lot of other technical aspects

00:27:21
that go around that.

00:27:22
But you can't just write one for a keyword and it doesn't

00:27:25
work out and you move on to the next.

00:27:26
You have to constantly be refreshing it, constantly be

00:27:29
adjusting it, pulling reports, seeing what you've got to adjust

00:27:31
so that Google likes to know that it's fresh, new content and

00:27:35
you're keeping an eye on it, as opposed to just pumping out a

00:27:37
ton of stuff that ChatGPT did for you.

00:27:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's also interesting.

00:27:41
I don't have a DTC site, it's more of an information site.

00:27:44
I'm a speaker, consultant, author, right, so I tend to have

00:27:48
a lot of listicle posts, but a lot of listicle posts about

00:27:51
technology, and what I've noticed is specifically in these

00:27:55
sorts of like I'm looking for an AI paraphraser, or like

00:28:01
influencer marketing tools I'll give that as a great example and

00:28:03
in the past, in the top 10 results, there'll be a lot of

00:28:06
articles like top 15 influencer marketing tools or what have you

00:28:09
, and I've seen a lot of those keyword phrases that used to

00:28:12
have a lot of those listicles.

00:28:14
Google is just not showing listicles anymore, it's just

00:28:16
showing companies, right, and I'm wondering if Google is

00:28:18
realizing that the future of the search engine is pay to play.

00:28:22
Is those companies that they want to pay up?

00:28:24
They're starting to give them a little bit better search engine

00:28:26
results so that they see the value of the traffic.

00:28:28
I don't know, it's just my own personal feeling when I see that

00:28:31
Obviously this comes down to search intent and how they rank

00:28:33
things based on search intent, but definitely some significant

00:28:36
shifts and that might explain why some companies are actually

00:28:39
seeing an improvement in their traffic.

00:28:40
So we'll wait and see.

00:28:41
That's just my personal theory.

00:28:43
No data yet, but I do feel that this was a pretty significant

00:28:47
the first in like a bird panda on that scale of change age.

00:28:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's proven stuff around.

00:28:57
If you're running a good amount of Google ads and all of a

00:29:00
sudden you were to stop them, you're going to see your organic

00:29:03
traffic fall.

00:29:03
And that is.

00:29:05
You could theorize it's Google just knowing that they're not

00:29:08
getting money from you anymore and so they did it.

00:29:10
But there's also just a matter of less page views, less traffic

00:29:14
to the site.

00:29:15
Your bounce rate might not be as good.

00:29:17
There's less activity on your site.

00:29:19
So from a ranking perspective, that's what Google is looking at

00:29:21
.

00:29:21
So you start to fall.

00:29:22
It makes a lot of sense.

00:29:23
Google is starting to show more companies to your point, as

00:29:27
opposed to listicles.

00:29:28
You could argue that maybe it's because those companies are

00:29:32
probably running a pretty good amount of Google ads and

00:29:34
spending a good amount of money and getting a good amount of

00:29:37
traffic for it, and so they're like you know what we actually

00:29:40
know the best influencer marketing tool out there,

00:29:43
because they're paying us to say so and so they get increased.

00:29:47
You get theories around that, but then you start looking at

00:29:50
longer tail keywords and you find different approaches to it.

00:29:53
But it'll be interesting.

00:29:56
Every time they do a big update like this, there's a really big

00:29:58
shakeup.

00:29:59
I remember one in fall.

00:30:00
We had a client of ours that just when Google did the update

00:30:04
in fall, we had a client of ours that just threw us in a panic.

00:30:07
We were like, ah crap, it just tanked and then in a week they

00:30:11
were completely back where they were and trending back in the

00:30:14
right direction, and we didn't do any major changes.

00:30:18
So it was kind of a matter of it was extremely drastic, which is

00:30:21
why I remembered it, because I was like I don't know what

00:30:22
google's doing, but like it's sometimes it's just a matter of

00:30:25
like, wait it out and let the algorithm kind of shake itself

00:30:28
out, because it's almost like they put in new rules and then

00:30:31
they almost do like a reset as well at least that seems to be

00:30:35
how it feels a lot of times.

00:30:36
So sometimes I'll just let it like let's let it sit for a good

00:30:39
like 30, 60 days and see what happens and then see if there's

00:30:42
anything else we need to change.

00:30:43
But nine times out of 10, google is simply putting new

00:30:47
rules into place to make sure that you're putting out quality

00:30:50
content.

00:30:50
So as long as you're always focused on that, it'd be fine.

00:30:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, as you're always focused on that, it'll be

00:30:57
fine.

00:30:57
Yeah, and to your point, I often see, before these big

00:30:58
changes, I often see a little spike in traffic, then a huge

00:30:59
drop and then a level off and it seems okay.

00:31:01
When I see the spike in traffic , I want to celebrate, but I

00:31:04
have a feeling the change is in the air, like when we have hot

00:31:06
weather.

00:31:06
Here in Southern California I used to call it earthquake

00:31:08
weather because we tend to get earthquakes on hot days.

00:31:11
So anyway but yeah, it's really interesting and I mean,

00:31:14
obviously you have AI and you have the competition from them

00:31:17
that's also in the background here but yeah, it'll be

00:31:21
interesting to see what happens over time and we really don't

00:31:23
know what's going on.

00:31:23
I also take this as an opportunity because I think

00:31:26
there's the content quality, but I think there's also this you

00:31:29
know, the EEAT and just the trustworthiness of the website.

00:31:32
Like, do you have a cookie management software, which I

00:31:40
actually never had, and I'm sort of embarrassed about that.

00:31:41
So I started implementing that and really looking at the top

00:31:43
sites in my niche that didn't get hit and then saying, okay,

00:31:44
what are they doing that I'm not doing, and using this as an

00:31:46
opportunity to improve not just the content but also those

00:31:49
infrastructure pieces or the user experience.

00:31:51
So so, yeah, it's all good, we learn from these algorithm

00:31:54
changes for sure, and hopefully we improve yeah exactly.

00:31:57
Speaker 3: That's why they do them.

00:31:58
At least I think yeah, so exactly.

00:32:00
Speaker 1: I think they are there to educate us.

00:32:01
So one other thing we talked about at a micro level about

00:32:06
blogs and SEO keywords, and one other thing we want to talk

00:32:09
about today is taking a step back areas on your e-commerce

00:32:12
website to add additional copy to improve SEO rankings without

00:32:17
sacrificing conversion rates.

00:32:19
It sounds like getting the best of both worlds.

00:32:20
So I'm curious as to what your strategy is there behind that.

00:32:25
Speaker 3: So that kind of is a little bit about what I was

00:32:28
mentioning too with the product pages.

00:32:29
You can add on more copy to try to get your product pages to

00:32:33
rank better, but if you add on too much it can really hurt your

00:32:37
conversion rate.

00:32:38
I know everyone who's listening to this podcast right now.

00:32:40
If they Googled something and they went to a page and it was

00:32:44
all copy unless you're Googling a certain novel and you found it

00:32:48
, there's a good chance you're going to be really overwhelmed.

00:32:51
You're not going to want to read it.

00:32:53
You can't skim through to try to find the exact answer you

00:32:56
want by just headlines catching your eye.

00:32:58
So too much copy can really hurt your overall conversion

00:33:02
rate.

00:33:03
Now this is where SEO and CRO kind of combine and typical of

00:33:08
every marketing strategy, they all overlap with everything.

00:33:11
But this one is where it can get a little interesting because

00:33:14
so for us specifically, we're a full service agency, so I have

00:33:18
a team that just does CRO, I have a team that just does SEO,

00:33:21
and sometimes they butt heads and it's simply because SEO

00:33:25
wants more words on the page.

00:33:26
Cro teams tell them like uh not happening, so like it's comical

00:33:30
to watch it, but like you've got it on a product page.

00:33:33
Let's say, right, like.

00:33:34
You'll get people like, oh, I'll just, I'll stuff up the

00:33:36
product description.

00:33:36
Like, no, no, no, no, you don't want to do that.

00:33:38
What you could explore, though, is maybe down below, towards

00:33:42
maybe where your reviews are at, add in like an FAQ section with

00:33:45
, like an accordion option.

00:33:46
So if they want more copy, let them have it, but that way it's

00:33:50
on the page, it's getting indexed, but you're not forcing

00:33:52
it on them.

00:33:55
The thing that came to my head, though, when you first brought

00:33:57
that up nine times out of 10, I'm looking at their collection

00:34:01
page, right, so the page where all their products are listed,

00:34:04
before they get to their product page, adding additional copy

00:34:08
underneath the products, right?

00:34:10
So let's say, you're shopping.

00:34:12
You're looking at we can do fishing.

00:34:15
Again, you're looking at lures.

00:34:16
You've got pages and pages of lures, right.

00:34:19
So down at the bottom, you have the paginated like oh, there's

00:34:21
five pages of lures here Beneath that.

00:34:24
It's usually just it goes right into your footer.

00:34:26
So, nine times out of 10, underneath the pagination and

00:34:29
above your footer, we're going to add a good chunk of copy.

00:34:33
We might do like a paragraph or two, but then we might also

00:34:37
layer in FAQ.

00:34:38
We might layer in, like some like more like branded areas

00:34:41
with imagery and copy and even though, like, if you upload like

00:34:46
a heat map to your website and you take a look at, like you

00:34:48
know where are people going, they may not get down there,

00:34:51
it's going to help you from an SEO perspective because you have

00:34:53
more terms and more keywords on that page and, depending on the

00:34:58
words that you're using, typical SEO structure you want

00:35:01
to have internal links, maybe you want to have outbound links.

00:35:03
You know you want to have specific call-outs.

00:35:05
That's another great spot for you to link to specific articles

00:35:09
that you're mentioning or other products.

00:35:11
So there's areas on your D2C site that you can get to rank

00:35:15
better from an SEO perspective.

00:35:17
You've just got to tread lightly so that you don't hurt

00:35:19
your conversion rate and typically the ones that have the

00:35:23
highest intent that you want to make sure are showing up are

00:35:26
going to be your product pages and your collection pages.

00:35:29
So that means you've just got to be careful about overloading

00:35:31
with too much copy.

00:35:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, even getting to the battle between

00:35:35
CRO and SEO is a positive thing that you're seriously looking at

00:35:39
both issues, so that's good.

00:35:40
But yeah, it's funny because, for those that don't know,

00:35:43
shopify CMS will just automatically create this

00:35:45
collections page and it becomes an integral part of your website

00:35:48
and it's sort of like these category pages on WordPress that

00:35:50
become pages that you have the ability to add text, you know,

00:35:54
on top of that before they show all the posts once again for SEO

00:35:57
, I never thought that about collection pages, so that makes

00:36:00
you know, a lot of sense, but obviously if you have too much,

00:36:03
then your conversion goes down.

00:36:04
So you need that.

00:36:04
You need the yin and the yang right, that perfect combination.

00:36:07
So that's really awesome advice , andrew, I really love you know

00:36:09
to all of my listeners.

00:36:11
There's a lot of people that pitch me to want to come on this

00:36:13
podcast and you know, obviously , andrew and I this is the first

00:36:17
time we've ever talked, but I try to do my best beforehand to

00:36:20
really understand what their thoughts are, what value they

00:36:22
can add, and it's really awesome talking with an Truly knows his

00:36:25
stuff, as I think you all hear from our conversation here.

00:36:29
So, andrew, yeah, really love the talk.

00:36:31
Just real basic meat and potatoes.

00:36:34
Real straightforward, easy to understand advice, obviously

00:36:36
based on a lot of experience.

00:36:37
Tell the listener how they can find out more about you, your

00:36:42
podcast and your agency.

00:36:43
What types of customers you're looking for.

00:36:45
How can they contact you.

00:36:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, bluetuskercom, it's B-L-U-E-T-U-S-K-R.

00:36:51
We are a full-service marketing company for e-commerce sellers.

00:36:55
We basically act as like an outsourced marketing department.

00:36:57
For the most part.

00:36:57
You can find out more about me let's say LinkedIn, obviously,

00:37:02
andrew Maff, I also andrewmaffcom is easy enough,

00:37:04
and all my social stuff is on there.

00:37:06
The Ecom Show podcast it's a weekly podcast where I interview

00:37:10
different D2C sellers and other experts in the industry, and we

00:37:14
also have the Click and Conversion newsletter, which is

00:37:16
a weekly newsletter that I co-author.

00:37:17
That goes out on a weekly basis , kind of an update of what's

00:37:20
going on in the e-commerce industry, specifically more on

00:37:23
the D2C side, and that's relevant for people with their

00:37:26
own D2C sites Amazon sellers, walmart sellers, pretty much

00:37:29
everything from an e-commerce perspective.

00:37:31
Speaker 1: Awesome, we heard it right there.

00:37:32
If you're in, if e-commerce is your thing, you definitely want

00:37:36
to hook up with Andrew.

00:37:36
Follow him on the socials, listen to his podcast, subscribe

00:37:40
, subscribe to the newsletter and if you're looking for an

00:37:42
agency, definitely reach out Andrew.

00:37:43
This has been awesome.

00:37:44
Any other advice?

00:37:45
Just looking at as the year goes by, we obviously have the

00:37:49
SEO part, email part.

00:37:51
We have paid advertising, paid media.

00:37:53
We have organic social.

00:37:59
Speaker 3: Any other sort of trends or advice you'd like to

00:38:01
give our listeners.

00:38:02
Really, seo and CRO are the two things that I always find to be

00:38:04
something that most sellers don't take a strong enough focus

00:38:08
on, and mainly, in my opinion, it's because, specifically paid

00:38:12
ads, it's money in, money out.

00:38:14
You get quick wins.

00:38:15
It's like gambling, but SEO and CRO are going to reduce those

00:38:21
customer acquisition costs over time.

00:38:22
So your paid advertising will actually perform better if you

00:38:26
start focusing on your SEO, getting in organic traffic and

00:38:29
CRO making sure that the traffic you are getting is converting

00:38:30
better.

00:38:30
If you start focusing on your SEO, getting in organic traffic

00:38:31
and CRO making sure that the traffic you are getting is

00:38:32
converting better.

00:38:32
So investing into your website's improvements over time

00:38:37
and building that website into an asset to me is significantly

00:38:41
more important than just pouring gas into Google ads and

00:38:45
Facebook ads and TikTok ads, if TikTok survives, ads and

00:38:53
Facebook ads and TikTok ads if TikTok survives.

00:38:54
And so it's just a matter of focus on the future as well as

00:38:55
the present, so that you're thanking yourself later on down

00:38:58
the line, because SEO and CRO take a long time to start to

00:39:01
show their face, but once you start, you're going to be really

00:39:04
glad you did.

00:39:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, and I just hope that

00:39:08
more eCommerce business owners would listen to what you're

00:39:11
saying and the world will be a better place.

00:39:13
And to me.

00:39:14
I mean, it's about building an asset.

00:39:16
And the Facebook ads, the Google ads, just do not build

00:39:20
assets so you might be successful today.

00:39:21
There's no guarantee you're successful tomorrow.

00:39:23
You don't own any of that, but you own your asset, your content

00:39:26
, the traffic optimized.

00:39:28
So all great advice.

00:39:29
Andrew, thank you so much for spending your time with us today

00:39:32
and looking forward to connecting again in the future.

00:39:33
Thanks for having me Appreciate it.

00:39:35
All right, I hope you enjoyed that interview.

00:39:38
I love bringing on different experts.

00:39:40
As you know, I tend to bring on other influencers, other

00:39:45
authors and other experts that you know.

00:39:48
I have a lot of people that reach out to me.

00:39:50
In fact, just FYI, I just wrote this the other day, but just

00:39:54
this year, right as I record this, it is June 15th, 2024.

00:39:59
And I have already had let's see here, I've already had 75

00:40:04
people reach out to me this year and I only interviewed 25

00:40:07
people a year and I prefer to interview, like friends of mine

00:40:11
that are also fellow authors and fellow influencers in the

00:40:14
industry, like you've heard in past episodes.

00:40:16
So I'm really selective as to who I bring on, because I want

00:40:19
to make sure that they offer you the absolute value, and I think

00:40:23
Andrew definitely did and, by the way, at the beginning I

00:40:26
covered some of this industry news with you.

00:40:28
If you want to stay up to date, that news actually came from

00:40:31
what I just shared in my weekly newsletter, so obviously you can

00:40:37
stay tuned on a weekly basis for this podcast.

00:40:39
But if you want to get the email version and you want to

00:40:41
get more industry news and also my latest updates in terms of my

00:40:45
latest YouTube videos and blog posts, make sure you sign up to

00:40:48
my newsletter.

00:40:48
It is neilschafercom slash newsletter.

00:40:51
Hopefully you know how to spell my name, but, just in case,

00:40:54
n-e-a-l-s-c-h-a-f-f-e-rcom slash newsletter.

00:40:58
Alrighty.

00:40:59
Well, that's it for another episode of the your Digital

00:41:01
Marketing Coach podcast.

00:41:02
Speaker 2: This is your digital marketing coach, neil Schafer

00:41:24
signing off that Neil has published to support your

00:41:28
business.

00:41:28
While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group

00:41:32
coaching membership community if you or your business needs a

00:41:35
little helping hand.

00:41:36
See you next time on your Digital Marketing Coach.