0:00

Neil, do you think long form content still matters

0:02

for SEO? I

0:05

do, But what I

0:07

I'm going to give two disclaimers with it. One

0:10

is it depends on the keyword, Like if

0:12

you are a keyword was how to tie a tie? Long

0:15

Form content doesn't matter because

0:17

for those kind of queries people don't want long form.

0:19

The user intent would show that people

0:22

just want to video or animated gifts that just quickly

0:24

show you how to tie a tie. But for a lot of

0:26

queries, long form still matters from the data

0:28

we're seeing. The second caveat is

0:31

creating content, whether short form or long

0:33

form, that's not continually updated

0:36

doesn't do as well. But if you look at Wikipedia,

0:38

it's a great example of long form content

0:41

that crushes it and they continually get

0:43

the pages updated. So check this out.

0:45

This tweet over here is from David G. Quaid,

0:48

and he says for people who still believe that Google

0:50

needs quote unquote long form content, especially

0:53

when it's what it's in the

0:55

SEO starter guide as a myth, we took a

0:57

single PDF on this site and turn it into

0:59

six d stubs pages with their

1:01

own URL about a paragraph each. So

1:03

like to your point, it's just like a Really it

1:06

addresses the query very quickly, some just

1:08

ten words, so you

1:10

can call this thing content. This went on to

1:12

double traffic outside of the blog, but more importantly

1:15

to double traffic on the solution slash point pages

1:17

that made sales. Eighteen months later,

1:19

Rapid seven acquired this company for three hundred

1:22

and thirty five million dollars. Isn't that interesting?

1:24

That is? But I also think it goes back to the queries.

1:26

If you're answering a lot of question and answers, yes,

1:28

shortened to the point. But if someone's doing

1:30

a research paper and they want to learn more about Abraham

1:33

Lincoln, a quick you know, one hundred

1:35

words or two hundred words is even get you ran? It

1:37

depends. I mean, the search engines have gotten smarter, right, they

1:39

understand the intent behind your keywords.

1:42

So yeah, it's just like the tie example I gave. Dude,

1:45

you know, I don't wear a tie often. I don't know when the

1:47

last time you were a tie is, But when I had

1:49

to wear a tie, I typically have to Google

1:52

how to tie a tie? Yeah, same here.

1:54

And it used to be on Google ages

1:56

ago that I would see an article with images

1:59

and everything, but it would have tons of text. I'm

2:01

like, I don't care for this. Yeah, now when I google it

2:03

because I'll wear tie recently for a gala

2:06

video. It was a

2:08

video and the page also had animated

2:10

like just step by step and that was

2:13

great. That's what I want. And I think

2:15

it goes back to intent because they're really good at measuring

2:17

who's clicking the back button and scrolling down

2:19

and when they're not happy. It goes

2:21

down to user experience. User experience not being the

2:23

design of the website, but the design of the

2:25

content, how it's consumed. Can you just

2:27

have your wife tie it for you? She doesn't

2:29

know how to tie a tie? Oh? Well some

2:32

do, but but

2:34

it is what it is. So what else

2:36

do you have? Oh dude, this one's interesting. Speaking

2:39

of SEO, is seo AB

2:41

testing back? So this

2:44

tweet was from GoFish Chris and

2:46

he said, seo a B testing ten case studies

2:48

of SU experiments that produce a plus

2:50

ten percent in organic traffic. So

2:52

I never thought SEOAB testing was

2:54

gone or dead. Yeah, me

2:57

neither, but nobody really talks about it, especially with a ten percent

2:59

increase in organ traffic. So

3:01

this is a great post from search Pilot. So search

3:03

Pilot, by the way, I don't know if you remember, but distilled

3:06

they sold to brain Labs and then they spun

3:08

out search Pilot to be its own

3:10

entity. So search Pilot's continuing

3:13

down the AB test SUAB testing

3:15

path. And so this

3:18

is a great post from search pilot that aggregates some of

3:20

the most successful SEU posts they've highlighted over

3:22

the years. The search Pilot platform allows you to

3:24

a B test the se impact of changes at scale,

3:27

so they have a lot of data around successful and unsuccessful

3:29

experiments. Some highlights include

3:31

adding dynamic pricing to title tags

3:34

ten percent lift in organic traffic interesting,

3:37

replacing templated content with unique content

3:39

fourteen percent improvement in traffic, highlighting

3:41

freshness in title tags. And by the way, well we'll make this an

3:43

image in the video highlighting

3:46

freshness and title tags eleven

3:48

percent organic traffic. So difference with that

3:50

and that would be the control

3:52

was freelance copywriters for higher June

3:55

twenty twenty two versus freelance

3:57

copywriters for higher updated daily and

4:00

shortening title tabs eleven percent increase in organic

4:02

traffic, bringing content out of tabs

4:04

fourteen percent increasing organic traffic this

4:07

one number six, removing

4:09

product caresels from category

4:11

pages. Twenty nine percent lift

4:13

in traffic. Oh wow, that's

4:16

pretty big. That's pretty big. So the

4:19

carousel, just so everyone knows, is like when it scrolls

4:21

the product scroll right, which I

4:23

find really freaking annoying. I do too.

4:26

I hate that. Yeah. What's funny,

4:28

dude, is so many people just publish this data.

4:31

I don't get why businesses just don't look

4:33

at the data being published online that others are sharing

4:35

to be like, hey, team, check some of these out,

4:37

if any are relevant, go on experiment.

4:40

Well, so I guarantee you have the same problem

4:42

that I have. But I was listening to a podcast with Darmesh Shaw.

4:45

It's start Messhaw right, Yeah, hubs Pubs. So

4:48

he did a great podcast with Lenny, So it's

4:50

it's the podcast is called Lenny's Podcast.

4:52

I even know I can't pronounce Lenny's last name, richis

4:54

Ski. But Darmesh

4:58

has this system. So you know how when you an article

5:00

like this there's really good stats, and you send it to maybe your

5:02

lieutenants for example, yea, And the

5:05

problem is when you send it to them, they have no idea what you want

5:07

from the article. I don't know about you. Sometimes I just send an

5:09

article, but sometimes it might be just

5:11

be like FYI. Sometimes it might be,

5:13

hey, I took a look at this. I recommend that you really

5:15

look at it. Sometimes like hey, I did a

5:17

lot of researchers, Please God do

5:20

something about this. And then that like the highest levels,

5:22

like I am pleading with you from all I might

5:24

like prioritize this. But most of

5:26

the time I don't do a good job of

5:28

telling people what I want from a lot of the articles that

5:30

I share I don't know about you. I do. So

5:32

my format is I actually don't just send a URL.

5:36

You know, I've read whatever I'm sending

5:38

the team, and I let them know what I want

5:41

from it. So like, for example, the

5:43

distilled, They're not distilled. Now, what is it called

5:45

search pilot? Search pilot? So the search

5:47

pilot stats. Let's say I have that,

5:49

I'll go dig it up after and I will

5:51

go share it with my team, and I say, check

5:53

out these stats, see if any of

5:55

these experiments are relevant for us and our

5:57

clients, and test them out.

6:00

And I won't tell them what to

6:02

prioritize or not prioritize. My

6:05

team knows for me, because we have weekly stand ups

6:07

to prioritize the stuff that they think will have the biggest

6:09

results based on either data they

6:12

have or other people have shared, or what you see

6:14

in the articles, or what's hard to implement

6:16

versus what's easy to implement. Right, It all affects

6:18

the priority levels, and then they go and

6:21

they go and implement, and on our weekly

6:23

calls they talk about some of the experiments

6:25

they run, whether it's from articles I

6:27

sent or things that they've learned, or from

6:30

an event that they may have attended, or

6:32

something that someone internally shared with them, and

6:35

they report on here's what we tested

6:37

this week, here's what we learned, Here's what didn't

6:39

work, and why we think it didn't work, because sometimes

6:41

you don't really have the answer on why it didn't work. And

6:44

when it does work, hey, it works, here's

6:46

what we're going to do next to either iterate on it

6:49

or roll it out to more sites

6:51

or more sections and double check to see

6:53

if it actually provides a lift in traffic and

6:55

conversions. And if it does, then you just roll it

6:58

out everywhere. After the second time, what

7:00

I'm hearing is, excuse

7:03

me, you are sending

7:05

the links out there's an expectation with it, or there's

7:07

an ask with a link, and then every week you

7:09

have an experimentation meeting where they talk about the

7:11

experiments that they're trying, and some of your tests may or

7:13

may not be in there, or so many recommenations

7:15

may or not be. More So, when I send a

7:18

link or anything like that, I

7:20

summarize what I'm what

7:22

I saw in the article, or what I'm expecting

7:24

from them. Got it. So my

7:26

model is actually very similar to Darmash's and I rolled

7:29

my model out like a couple of months ago. But again it's

7:31

more like FII, no need to respond

7:33

to me, and then it's like highly

7:35

recommended. And then sometimes

7:38

if it's like if I'm pleading, I have to sometimes

7:40

I might have to like double emphasize it. I might

7:42

have to repeat it like twice. So that's

7:44

how I do it. I used to do just to sending

7:46

links years and years ago. Nothing happened.

7:49

Nothing happens. Yeah, But when

7:51

you send a link and you summarize

7:54

what you're expecting and what you learn, people

7:57

know you took the time to read it, and they go

7:59

and act upon it, especially when they know you have weekly

8:01

follow up calls with them and the team. Oh

8:03

you're you're on those weekly called the follow ups.

8:05

Yeah. Oh, it's a marketing call every week

8:08

with all the marketing people on the team,

8:10

and we go over some of the experiments, what worked,

8:12

what didn't. So I'll

8:14

ask them on the call, Hey, send

8:16

those links, and I summari, what do you guys

8:18

think of it? It doesn't mean that they've implemented

8:21

it, because I'm not going to tell them what to prioritize

8:23

because they may have some better stuff in the works. But

8:25

I'll ask them what do they think about it. They

8:27

know not to email me back because they know I have too

8:30

many emails coming in, But on our calls,

8:32

they'll tell me what they think. And it

8:36

looks bad to your boss.

8:38

If some of your boss asked you a question for something

8:40

you set them and you don't even respond, or you say like,

8:42

hey, I don't read it. I never I ignored

8:44

it. Like that just sounds bad. It very rarely ever

8:47

happens. Did you send this link to your team?

8:49

The search pilots one, Yeah, I don't have it yet.

8:51

It's in the document. You have to find

8:54

it here. Okay, oh, okay, yeah, anyway, either

8:56

way, I'll end up sending it to them. But yeah,

8:58

it's interesting stuff. So we never thought

9:00

AB testing was dead. In fact, I

9:02

had a SaaS focus on SEOA B testing,

9:05

but we decide to focus on the agency

9:07

instead. All right, real quick, I

9:10

need to tell you about the group that Neil

9:12

and I created called the Agency Owners Association.

9:14

And this is a group that's similar to entrepreneurial

9:16

organizations such as YPO or EO. By

9:19

the way, Neil and I are both a YPO, but we

9:21

thought it would be really cool if we're able to

9:23

create a group that's dedicated to agency

9:25

owners, to helping them scale. So you could be at six

9:27

figures, seven figures, eight figures. We have different groups

9:29

for different levels. All you have to do is go

9:31

to Marketing school the io Slash

9:34

agency. Again, that's marketing school the Ioslash

9:36

agency, and you can go there to apply.

9:38

And I will tell you right now what we're doing is there's

9:41

an online community there is

9:43

we do calls every now and then there's stuff that

9:45

we share in there that we don't share publicly,

9:48

and you can at least the online community, you can

9:50

counsel at any time, so you can go there to learn more about

9:52

it, and that being said, back

9:54

to the podcast. Dude,

9:56

on a random note, did you see the Eclips? No?

9:59

Did you? No? I didn't go to travel, but

10:01

Disney streamed it live okay

10:04

on the Disney Plus app. All right,

10:07

I didn't check that out either. Yeah,

10:09

I saw Elon's tweet of it with the exit.

10:11

Did you have people take the day off for the eclipse?

10:15

I don't know. I didn't. I

10:17

don't know. Maybe someone did, but I did. It was a very big

10:19

deal. I didn't check

10:21

what the team, if anyone took day off or not. But

10:24

check this out. Okay. So, according

10:27

to the Perryman Group estimates

10:29

that the impact could have been more

10:31

than several billion dollars, between

10:33

direct tourism spend of roughly one point six

10:36

billion dollars and knock

10:38

on consumption as much as six billion

10:40

dollars. So in total, the eclips

10:42

could have generated seven point

10:44

six billion dollars in extra business

10:47

revenue. How

10:49

though, like where's that? How's that? One

10:51

point six? And travel? So

10:54

hotels? Oh, because people were flying

10:56

to like Houston to watch the Yeah yeah, yeah,

10:58

devil who works for me? Yeah, I know one

11:00

person who at least took some time off. He

11:02

went to go see the clips. He'd been posting about it

11:04

on Instagram. Look at all these pictures, people have all

11:07

these pictures. It's like, it's the most amazing experience

11:09

ever, which I guess we missed because the next one's

11:11

in nineteen forty four, which

11:13

I sorry, twenty forty four

11:17

forty four, I'm probably gonna miss that one too. It's

11:19

not that it's it's not, of course

11:21

it is cool, it's just for me. It's like, that's

11:23

not my cup of tea. I saw a meme where there's

11:25

like a private guy, like a private equity jacket.

11:28

It's like, I can either watch the eclips or I can lock

11:30

in three more M and A deals. But

11:33

he's probably not going to lock in three more deals because it takes

11:35

them like six months just to close a deal. Who

11:37

knows. Or he can source three more Yeah,

11:40

but just dude, there was so much hype in marketing around

11:42

that clips. Dude. Airline companies were

11:44

making a killing, hotel companies, local

11:46

restaurants were making a killing. So

11:49

what can people learn from this eclipse? Have any clips?

11:51

No trend jack, think about what's

11:53

trending and how you can combine

11:55

your marketing with what's trending? Oh yeah, I

11:57

saw someone put up their products

11:59

like someone was like against the sky

12:02

as if it's like a yeah, so trend

12:04

jacking. It's like when Oreo was

12:07

on top of the Super Bowl blackout

12:09

when the lights went out when I think the Ravens

12:11

were playing the Niners and they did We're

12:14

always like something like we're always on or something

12:16

like that, and they trenjacked it. Do you

12:18

remember that? No, I didn't

12:21

see that one. But did you see was

12:23

it Hurricane Sandy that hit New York years

12:25

ago and power was

12:27

out but Goldman Sacks had their lights on? Oh

12:30

yeah, right, that's amazing. It's not

12:32

really pr but it started going viral. But

12:34

like the lights never turn off at Goldman Sacks,

12:37

which is good if you're a

12:39

client, yes, but it also

12:41

shows the power of the company and the organization.

12:43

And it doesn't really matter because it's just one building.

12:46

Their services are in the cloud. They're so rich

12:48

that they have generators. Usually

12:51

New York, you didn't need generators. We're

12:53

so rich we can keep one hundred

12:55

story buildings still power even

12:57

if mother and Age tries to knock down other buildings.

13:00

Good you you

13:02

had one here This was interesting because we have a mutual

13:04

friend that actually spends on putting

13:07

sports sponsorships. Basically, so you

13:09

put here, is it worth having your company logo

13:11

on a sports jersey? Dude?

13:14

So I got hit up by the San Antonio

13:16

Spurs, the NBA team, and

13:19

they said, hey, do you want your NP digital

13:22

logo on the San Antonio Spurs. I

13:24

haven't checked. I don't watched the San

13:27

Antonio sports. I really watch the Lakers, and I

13:29

don't track basketball every single game,

13:31

but I know the RUSS standing San Antonio

13:33

is not like, oh, We're the best team or anything like

13:35

that, right, I mean, but they do have like the

13:38

next Lebron James basically, sure,

13:41

but you know, I don't think they're gonna win the championships,

13:44

not in the next three years. So when

13:47

you think about that twelve million

13:49

dollars per year to just have

13:51

your name thirty six million dollars, I

13:54

don't know where you're gonna get from that. I don't think

13:56

I'm going to get much of a return. Yeah,

13:58

I don't even if I had a bet on it.

14:00

Because we worked with companies that have sponsored

14:04

professional UH sports

14:06

teams, leagues, et cetera, and

14:09

we've seen logos in Jersey

14:11

on jerseys, stadium naming

14:13

rights, et cetera. And we've done

14:16

brand recall studies for them. Dude,

14:19

most of the time, if you had a guess how

14:21

much revenue do you think it generates versus what

14:23

they spend from the brand recall

14:25

studies? Five

14:28

percent? It's somewhere

14:30

closer to two to three percent.

14:32

I'm close, You're close. It's

14:35

you know, you gave such a low number. It really

14:37

is terrible. And that's extra revenue

14:40

added. That's not that's

14:43

not profit. A great example of this is

14:45

Crypto dot com arena seven hundred

14:47

million dollars. Yes, what do you think

14:49

they got from it? Almost not Probably

14:51

less than that, probably less than two percent. Dude,

14:53

No one talks about Crypto dot com. No, Like,

14:56

I still think it's the Staple center. I

14:58

still call it the staple. Yeah, it's

15:01

just like I still call Twitter, I

15:03

still call ex Twitter. And by

15:05

the way, when was this stable center? Did that ever make

15:07

you go to stables? No? No, yeah,

15:10

I can't. No, that's why Staples is bankrupt.

15:12

I think. No, they're not bankrupt. The company is

15:14

doing well. Are they really search

15:17

the stock? There's no I don't think Stables

15:19

is bangru. I'm like ninety nine percent sure

15:22

I could be wrong. I'm sure some p firms

15:24

snatched them up if they, like were about to go

15:26

bankrupt. But anyway, while

15:28

Neil finds that we do have mutual friends that invest

15:31

in sports teams, could be like the Pac

15:33

twelve for example, or like

15:35

the Minnesota Timberwolves as an example, right,

15:37

or could be like the Phoenix Suns

15:40

like those are all examples. But

15:43

when we talk to our mutual friends, when we ask

15:46

about the results from these patches, it

15:48

seems like it's pretty negligible.

15:52

And I think our key takeaway

15:54

here is if you are looking to

15:57

invest in marketing and grow

15:59

directors spons wise, probably can

16:01

look elsewhere. Probably better

16:03

bet you can make elsewhere. Yeah. On a side note,

16:06

I went back to the Stables things owned by private

16:08

equity. We'll see, but

16:10

it's still doing well. What I mean well is like

16:12

I don't have their financials. The last

16:14

number that

16:17

they reported in revenue was

16:19

fourteen billion dollars. Yeah,

16:22

what was the profit? I have no Idea's private

16:25

so they're not releasing it. A lot of them have shut

16:27

down a lot of the stores. I think

16:29

they're cutting the fat on what's not working, just

16:31

doing it online. Yeah, because here's a

16:33

TikTok video from January. Fifth Stable

16:35

is closing stores quick, but it

16:37

isn't why you think. So, I'm

16:39

assuming that means they're doing something else and it's not because

16:41

the bankruptcy. Yeah. Well, like I said, private

16:43

equity probably saved them. So yeah,

16:46

so we're going to end it. Go to marketing

16:48

school. That io slash agency if you want to go your agency

16:51

faster. That's the community that Neil and I have.

16:53

We're like communities everything. We think it's the next funnel,

16:55

the next way of growing your audience

16:58

through community. Check it out, don't forget

17:00

to rate, for you to subscribe, it helps scrow let us what you let

17:02

us know what you continue to think about these

17:04

long form episodes and we'll

17:07

see you. We'll see you in the next episode.