How to Align SEO Strategies with Revenue Objectives

If the company ranks in the top positions and receives a lot of traffic, yet the conversions and revenue remain unchanged, who is responsible for this? I always ask CEOs and CMOs this question, as it triggers different thinking and sets SEO strategies in the right direction by showing how they approach SEO performance. This establishes clear boundaries and prevents the worst outcome: investing thousands of dollars in SEO programs only to see a complete flatline in conversions and attributed revenue. Because SEO teams are 100% responsible if that happens, every serious SEO strategy should begin not with assumptions but with historical data to justify future actions. Proof of concept examples: - Leverage previously run Search Ads campaigns with keyword-level conversion and revenue data (if the data is available immediately; otherwise, launching and testing new segments in Search Ads can take 30-180 days). - Run a pilot SEO campaign by investing a fraction of resources (e.g., a $5,000 one-off) to analyze input-output results quickly. Depending on the site's authority, data should be available within 90 to 180 days. It’s recommended to have both approaches in place. On another note, if certain web assets already produce a solid amount of non-branded transactional traffic, YET without any improvements in conversions, a simple CRO audit and heuristic analysis can identify where the biggest blockage is and suggest changes to the site/page to increase CR. SEO teams, especially moving forward, can’t deliver meaningful results (revenue, conversions, net new customers) without deep involvement in PPC and CRO efforts. Each side complements the other, and this is where the future of SEO performance lies.

Driving more visits to your website is great, but it's a little meaningless if those visits don't convert into sales. The smartest digital marketers pair SEO with conversion rate optimization (CRO) to attract qualified traffic and then guide visitors to convert. While SEO and CRO strategies sometimes conflict, with planning you can optimize for both search rankings and conversions. Here are afew best practices to align SEO and CRO to get more value from your website traffic: 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗚𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀 Determine your main website goal (e.g. online sales) and the smaller steps that lead to conversions. Macro conversions are purchases, micro conversions are downloads, newsletter signups, etc. Optimize content for both.  It can't all be macro goal focused. 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 Align content to search intent. Transactional queries ("buy product X") need pricing, specs and clear calls-to-action. Informational searches ("best product X") require detailed content that informs and builds authority.  And - unless you're fantastic at content - it's hard to solve for both in a single piece. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 Create content that speaks to your audience and attracts qualified traffic. Use an authoritative but conversational tone, share expertise through case studies, add graphics/videos. Develop content to guide visitors step-by-step toward conversion. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗹𝘆 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 Use A/B testing to identify what converts best. Track key metrics - click-through rate, time on page, bounce rate. Quantify the user experience and remove what doesn't work. Refine and optimize what performs best to keep the metrics moving up and to the right. SEO brings more visitors. CRO converts those visitors to leads and buyers. With intent-focused content, frictionless UX, testing and refinement, you can align SEO and CRO to get more from those improving rankings. Focus on delivering value, not just ranking keywords. When your content informs and persuades, traffic and revenue will grow together. #SEO #contentmarketing #CRO #digitalmarketing

How I went from doing SEO for $500 to working with multi-million brands like ClickUp, DoNotPay and Privacy(.)com: ✅ Radical content quality standards Our strategy is based around creating the most valuable page of content Google could show for the relevant KWs. So, maintaining quality is our #1 priority. Here’s how: 1.Hire only top 1% writers Last hiring cycle we screened 850, tested 237, and hired 3 writers (2 didn’t pass probation). Sifting through 100s of writers to find one good one is a hard reality. Manually, this would take months, so we’ve developed Workello that helps us do it in just a few hours. 2.Retain people who care about content over long periods of time Finding these folks is hard. That’s why we do everything to make them stick around. But you need more than generous benefits, compensation and PTO… For us, that’s culture. And one of its key aspects is shielding them from business problems. Consistently delivering highest-quality content is hard - to do that, they need to be able to focus only on this. 3.Integrating product & thought leadership into content ‘Quality’ has to also mean that content contributes to revenue, otherwise it’s just pretty words. We ensure revenue scales linearly with traffic by integrating product & POVs of the organization’s subject matter experts into all content we produce. ✅ Relentless focus on the outcomes I decided early on that each project we work on should be bigger than the previous one. And I figured out how to do it repeatedly: 1. Play the game where you control the outcome + be obsessed with ownership Our strategy = great content + at scale. Very different from the old SEO playbook = technical SEO + backlinks. The old approach makes you rely on things you don’t fully control - you’re basically praying to Google gods. Not good if you want a scalable, predictable revenue generating machine. Our approach is 100% focused on playing the game where we fully control the outcome. 2. Become too good to ignore Once we achieve these outcomes, we turn these successes into case studies. It’s a simple, but powerful mantra: do good work > document the process > distribute Once big brands see that we’ve taken projects from 0 to 1,5M in traffic and generated 100,000s of paying customers… We’ve become too good for them to ignore us. And the third and final part of this equation… ✅ Strong processes & systems Once you’re too good for big brands to ignore you, you need to prove you have strong processes & systems that ensure you win repeatedly. This is also the only solution to one of the greatest failings of agencies: maintaining quality of delivery when going from founder-led to team-led. The answer is simple: build a culture of documentation. Document any task that is done more than once. If you were able to sit through this whole thing, you’ll probably like my newsletter on Content Ops. You can find the link on my profile. And if you have any questions, ask away!

"Nobody loves their digital agencies." Lisa (Ramirez) Ames, the marketing operating executive at Norwest Venture Partners dropped this 💣 on me halfway through our conversation last week. She said "SEO, paid search.... everybody walks in to a relationship thinking it's going to go great. They have a great pitch meeting and the initial meetings are successful and positive." "And then somewhere along the way they call me and they go, Lisa, my agency is underperforming….can you introduce me to a few candidates?" She asked "Where do you think people fall down and why that's so often an issue for companies?" Working in the agency space for 20 years I was able to think of a few reasons but there's really only one reason that I boil it down to... In most agency-client engagements, the agency and client are operating under completely different objectives. The agency is thinking about short term revenue gains for the agency. "What do we need to do so the client pays again next month?" The client is thinking about growing revenue for the client. "What is the agency doing so we hit our revenue goal for the quarter/year?" The misalignment in these goals between both sides IS the issue. Example: an SEO agency will focus on moving tons of keywords up in the SERP and then present reports showing how a bunch of keywords moved up from page 5 to page 3. They'll say: "Look we're making 'progress', just keep investing with us and we'll get you to the first page in a few more months and then you'll start seeing the $$$." What happens: Six months go by, many of those keywords move up to the 8-12th positions, and there are some noticeable bumps in traffic to certain blog posts... but no measurable increase in quality leads (because those blog posts are super TOFU). The revenue promised never comes 😡 Bunch of BS in my opinion... At Takeoff, we are very intentional about understanding what success looks like for the SaaS companies we work with and for the individual stakeholders. Understanding your success metrics allows us to assess how likely the scope of work is to get you there. Sometimes we have to come back and reset expectations to ground them in reality. I'm thinking... "if I help YOU drive more revenue, you will keep paying for our services, refer business to us, and hire us again at you next role." This way of thinking leads to both sides working towards the same goal. p.s. - I don't recall the last time I met someone in the VC space that was as kind and helpful as Lisa. Learned a lot from our conversation and she inspired me to get to know more operating partners who's portfolio companies Takeoff is working with. -------------------------------------------------- I'm the CMO at Takeoff Web Design Agency where our strategic narrative is “A company’s website should fuel its growth 🚀." If your B2b website is NOT fueling your company's growth - Send me a DM and I'll send you a video outlining ways you can fix that. 🚀🚀🚀

Too many of us are told conflicting advice and “facts” about SEO: • Focus on publishing velocity—publish huge volumes as fast as possible • Make every piece absolutely perfect, even if it means you can only publish 1x a month • Your Lighthouse report, SEMRush and Ahref audits have to be 100%—or there’s something “wrong” with your SEO • It’s normal to get hit heavily when there’s an algorithm update • SEO is unpredictable and changes all the time • Metrics like domain rating are vital and something worth investing lots of time and money into • Search is just about “showing up on page 1” for a handful of keywords When your focus is contributing to business KPIs, none of the above is true. When do you “do SEO” like everyone else, you’re writing what’s already been written and competing with bigger budgets in a zero-sum game. When you’re distracted by trivial details, you’re prolonging your own economical result. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝘂𝗰𝗲 to behind how ActiveCampaign added 83k new users and 4.1 million impressions in 8 months. How Zapier grew to 2.1 million users and reached $140M ARR with a primarily organic strategy. Search done right drives millions for B2B SaaS—we’ve seen it over and over again. Those success stories always put the user’s journey first, and the algorithm & keyword research tools second. They all found their “Singular Approach” that set them apart from the competition. And their content & SEO strategies are consistently named as a part of their business success and remarkable ability to exit or close new funding rounds. 𝗧𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝟰 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: • Short-term results to validate bigger scale  • Your 𝗦𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 to make the competition meaningless • A defined 𝗕𝘂𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 to only attract who you want to attract • A Scalable 𝗘-𝗘-𝗔-𝗧 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 to make algorithm updates irrelevant and drive true value for your users    A growth strategy that includes these 4 factors gives peace of mind that you’re reaching your buyers and that the website drives a significant part of user growth It might work if you’re just trying to “give it a go” or drive a little bit of traffic, but not if you’re a 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝘆𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. If you miss the last 3 factors you’ll never be able to hit 50/50 paid and organic parity. 𝘼𝙩 𝙗𝙚𝙨𝙩 you’ll be growing far more slowly than you could. 𝘼𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙩 you’ll waste tens of thousands and years putting in work that will have barely generated a few demos for the company… and will be the first channel to get cut when the going gets tough. Getting all four of these factors in place is what we have seen lead to business-changing, predictable revenue growth (in the millions) through organic search. What's your secret sauce?

SEO isn't easy or cheap. But when it's done right, it works and works extremely well. Here's how you can make sure your eCommerce SEO strategy is on the right track: → Leverage your data. ↳ Tools like Google Search Console, Google Analytics and Ahrefs are great for tracking how your target keywords are performing in search. ↳ Regularly analyze this data to refine your strategy and adapt. → Prioritize your keywords. ↳ Focus on high-impact keywords that drive sales for your top products. ↳ Reevaluate and expand your keyword focus as your catalog grows and customer preferences shift. → Understand customer behavior. ↳ Monitor metrics like session duration, engaged sessions, and conversion rates to see how customers interact with your site. ↳ Optimize product pages and categories based on this behavior. (Microsoft Clarity offers valuable insights for free) → Align with sales data. ↳ Use this data to fine-tune your SEO strategy, ensuring it supports your business goals. Continuous optimization in e-commerce requires an unrelenting focus on the user and their behavior. How do you ensure your eCommerce SEO strategy stays effective?