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Drop in Organic Traffic? Here’s How to Get Back on Track 7 Mar 12:20 PM (last month)

Organic traffic has always been unpredictable, especially when it comes from Google search. A single Google algorithm update can throw things off, and as in the case of Google’s Helpful Content Update, sometimes it can create entirely new marketing landscapes. 

If you’ve seen a drop in organic traffic in the latest year or two and you’re wondering if you need to bounce back from an update, you’re not alone. I’ve seen companies lose all of their traffic from the Google Helpful Content update. Some have suddenly recovered. Others have had a harder road back to the top. Still others are still struggling or have given up.

Don’t be one of those who give up. Google updates are a reality of the digital marketing space, but that doesn’t mean you’re helpless. If you want your brand to survive and grow, it’s important to study why traffic for some companies and individuals is dropping. 

Let’s break that down here. Then, I’ll run over a few suggestions that we’ve found are helping brands restart growth marketing momentum in the new age of AI-driven search.

Why Is Traffic Dropping?

Sometimes understanding the problem gets you halfway to the solution. In this case, if you’re seeing less organic traffic, understand there’s a chance it is from no fault of your own. Google’s AI Overviews (and similar generative AI search engines) are generating huge quantities of basic responses for consumers. This is grabbing a chunk of organic traffic from the traditional “blue links” SERPs.

SERPs are evolving in other ways, too. Along with AIO, Google’s search engine results pages include things like business profiles, featured snippets, and answer boxes. Most of these are designed to keep Google search users within the Google platform, rather than sending them away as organic search traffic to a third-party site. And these SERP features are expanding to better respond to queries and search intent.

User behavior is changing, too. Rather than a starting point, generative AI tools are quickly becoming a place where the bulk of an individual’s research takes place. 

I know this from personal experience. For instance, I’ve been looking for a new car. Rather than go out and dig up the data to compare models and features, I am using ChatGPT to aggregate and clarify my options, like comparing the different trim levels of a 4Runner to see exactly what I want. Using ChatGPT allows me to search in one place, rather than having to click through to multiple pages for each trim level. 

You can hear more about how I use ChatGPT for research nine minutes into this webinar I recently hosted with Relevance President Misty Larkins called Navigating the AI Landscape. The key takeaway here is that search engines and their users are causing a significant drop in organic search that so many companies are experiencing. The question is, what can you do about it?

What Can You Do About AI-Driven Search?

I’ve talked to enough people at this point to know that I’m not an outlier. This is the new way to get search results, and it is dramatically influencing organic search traffic. This isn’t the end of search. It’s just a shift in function — and it means we need to be ready to adjust and adapt. 

That said, here are three of the best ways I’ve either experienced or seen others take action to align with and benefit from the new reality of search.

1. Diversify Content Channels

Diversification is a healthy piece of any SEO strategy. With AI profoundly impacting traditional SEO, setting up multiple content channels is more important than ever. 

This spreads out your impact and allows you to build multiple SEO traffic sources. It also develops an owned distribution network that enables you to invest in various content formats — any one of which might benefit from a Google update, even if another is negatively affected.

Diversification also forces you to focus on a broader growth marketing strategy. Rather than being too granular by over-emphasizing one thing like your social media strategy, you are forced to consider how each piece feeds into your larger strategy. This omni-channel approach to marketing is a bigger need than most people like to admit. For instance, I find many clients who come to Relevance for growth marketing have failed to focus and optimize their nurturing campaigns. Sure, their lead gen is identifying potential clients, and their brand awareness is solid. But this leads to email campaigns that are short-sighted, half-thought out, or non-existent. 

If you want to stay relevant, don’t just think about fresh traffic. Make sure you’re diversifying your channels, being holistic in scope, and A/B testing to make sure you’re meeting nurture and conversion metrics, too. Speaking of metrics…

2. Measure What Matters

Measuring everything tells you nothing. In the past, organic traffic was a major indicator of the success or failure of an SEO initiative. That simply isn’t the case anymore. 

I already touched on the fact that AI Overview and AI-powered search tools are siphoning away traffic. If you’re curious how much traffic, Search Engine Journal recently shared that nearly three-quarters of problem-solving queries feature a Google AI overview answer. 

The reality is that people simply aren’t clicking through search results the same way they used to. So, what metrics still matter, then? Some things are the same. Impressions, keyword ranking, and on-site technical SEO, for instance, are still worth watching. In addition, track meaningful metrics including:

• Return on investment for SEO
• Customer lifetime value
• Cost of acquisition
• Conversion rates

Each of these is still relevant, even as AI search influences them. Conversion rate optimization (CRO), for example, is even more important now that traffic is lower. If you’re getting a decent amount of traffic, make sure you're converting that traffic efficiently.

Direct traffic is also a growing factor. At Relevance, we’re seeing more people with increasing direct traffic as people discover brands in GSEs and on social platforms and find they want to learn more.

One great example of this is one of my ecommerce clients that sells to distributors. While they had a slight dip in organic traffic over the last three months compared to the previous year, their direct traffic increased by 10%. We’ve attributed this shift primarily to this ongoing change in search behavior.

The takeaway here? The way people search is changing. Make sure your metrics are adjusting along with this shift.

3. Stay Adaptable

My final piece of advice is an oldie but goodie. Stay adaptable. This has been true for years, and the need for flexibility is only increasing as technology becomes more sophisticated and capable. 

If you’re noticing changes in your growth marketing results, take the time to adjust your strategy. Use tools like Google Trends to track changes in your industry and audience. Be proactive about tracking and testing new AI marketing tools and features. 

In a broader sense, make sure you’re evaluating quality over quantity while the entire digital marketing world is making this AI-powered pivot. Stay focused on your audience and always create content for readers first and search engines second. Watch the right metrics, and above all, make sure you keep a human touch in all that you’re doing. 

Adjusting to Lower Traffic

If you’ve seen a drop in your organic traffic, don’t panic. A lot of brands are doing the right things right now and seeing the same kind of discouraging results. 

If you want to recapture some momentum, don’t just go back to the same-old SEO playbook. Invest in diversified content channels, omnichannel growth marketing strategies, and tracking helpful metrics. Stay adaptable, and foster a teachable mindset as you go. 

If you are looking for a helping hand, our team at Relevance can help. We have walked alongside our clients throughout the last year, helping them make adjustments and stay on track toward their growth marketing goals. Contact us for a FREE strategy session, and together we can look at the best next move for your brand in the new era of AI search.

The post Drop in Organic Traffic? Here’s How to Get Back on Track appeared first on RELEVANCE.

Supercharging Your Growth Marketing With AI Marketing Tools 5 Mar 11:09 AM (last month)

As president of the leading growth marketing agency Relevance, I've had a front-row seat to watch the potential of artificial intelligence play out. It’s still a bit shocking how quickly AI tools have developed, and yet, here we are. We’re already at the point where they can positively transform daily workflows and boost productivity across all stages of marketing. 

Our marketing team has spent months exploring the nuances of generative AI in digital marketing contexts through client meetings and hands-on experiences. We’ve seen what AI marketing tools can do, and trust me when I say it’s something marketers can’t ignore anymore. 

If you’re looking for ways to supercharge your growth marketing with AI marketing tools, I have some ideas for you. Here’s what I believe to be some of the most effective ways to leverage AI technology for better results as you promote your brand this year.

Smart Ways to Leverage AI Tools

Below are several key insights I've gathered that can transform each marketing campaign you put together. (And as a marketer, I don’t use that word lightly.) Keep in mind as you read that the goal isn’t to replace you or your staff but to help AI and marketing automation work for you. 

These suggestions are inspired by insights taken from a recent live webinar hosted by myself and our Chief Strategy Officer Emma Kessinger on Navigating the AI Landscape. You can find the webinar in its entirety at that link. 

Alright. Let’s dive in!

1. Use AI Note-Taking for Enhanced Meeting Engagement

Tools like Fathom have revolutionized how we handle meetings as a team. Again, the goal here is to expedite and enhance ongoing activities as a growth marketing agency, and having a competent note-taking AI application has been a key factor in easing the everyday gruntwork.

One of those activities is interviewing subject-matter experts. Adding expert analysis and opinions to your content has become really important for any good growth marketing strategy, but gathering that information can be time-consuming. 

Using AI note-taking tools allows us to automatically capture and organize SME meeting notes. We found this doesn’t just help you take notes faster. When I’ve done this, even with in-person clients, Fathom has allowed me to stay engaged in the conversation. I can focus, knowing that when it’s done, I’ll have all of the notes recorded and even highlighted at important points.

2. Capture Content Creation Tone with Claude AI

Streamlining note-taking is a pretty obvious use of AI (even though we’ve found you need to be thoughtful about how you implement it). However, you can also confidently use the right AI tools when creating content for clients, too. 

You can use tools like Gemini, Perplexity, and ChatGPT—and I’ll talk about some of those in a minute. Personally, though, I need to start with my favorite. I’ve found Claude is the best way to handle something as personality-driven as branded content, making it a game-changer for marketers. 

This is because the AI platform excels at capturing perspective. Trust me when I say that Claude is exceptionally good at capturing tones and voices. We used it for parts of our email newsletter and found it was actually helping us expand our content precision and resonance. 

For instance, we trained it on different brand voices, like “professional with a sense of humor” and “a little bit of snark.” By testing our prompts across different email subject lines, we found that our customer engagement went up with more punny subject lines.

As with all good AI tools, Claude doesn’t thrive in a vacuum. You have to tell it the “role and the goal” in each prompt if you want that personality to come through. Still, for me, Claude is one of the best options to maintain a professional, individualistic, and approachable branded writing style, whether you’re composing an email, summarizing lengthy content, or anything in between.

3. Conduct Research and Data Analysis with ChatGPT

Content creation and growth marketing strategy are multi-faceted. In the same way that you wouldn’t work with one single person to strategize, develop, and execute an entire marketing campaign, you shouldn’t use a single AI marketing tool, either. Something like Claude might be great for tone, but when it comes time to dig deep into that customer data or market research, I still say ChatGPT is one of the best options out there—especially if you’re springing for the paid version.

The OG AI tool is great at analyzing data sets and spreadsheets. From conducting product research to the ability to drop a URL into the search bar to analyze an entire website, ChatGPT is great at aggregating information from multiple sources, analyzing that information, and then synthesizing it into understandable takeaways. 

ChatGPT also excels at breaking down complex concepts. If you’re trying to understand nuanced elements of a growth marketing campaign or a client’s product functionality, it can help break things down. It’s even a great assistant for personal things, like car shopping or, from my own experience, helping your child with her math homework.

4. Experiment With Visual Content Creation with Adobe Photoshop AI

Text-based AI tools are common, and most people are more comfortable with them. But I’ve found most people are neglecting the visual side of AI tools. In a year where AI is expected to shift from experimentation to targeted execution, expect more comprehensive applications of AI to follow, including more sophisticated forms of visual AI content generators.

There are already several options out there. Traditional tools like Canva have built-in AI features. Sora just released a text-to-video AI solution in December of 2024. My favorite option, so far, though, is the generative AI features in Photoshop, which remain one of the premiere ways to produce realistic computer-based visuals.

This is perfect for creating quick custom graphics. It’s ideal when you’re trying to generate website imagery to support text pieces or sales pages, too. It can also help with making minor design adjustments when you don’t have a full-time designer on staff. We even use the tool on our own website at Relevance to refresh our images.

5. Content Analysis Tools

Relevance has always been big on content audits. You have to be willing to give your existing content a hard look and decide where to optimize and where to delete things if they aren’t performing well.

Not surprisingly, AI is making major inroads in the content analysis side of things, as well. Specialized tools like MarketMuse and SEOmonitor are streamlining this side of long-term content marketing by automating content quality assessments, keyword research, keyword grouping, assessing topical authority—you name it. 

As you create content, let AI ease the burden of babysitting it over time. You can create prompts and even use an AI-powered tool with built-in features specifically designed to help you prune bad content and optimize the good stuff. Tools like SEOMonitor can help you clarify topical authority. You can also use AI to identify content gaps and page optimization opportunities. This area is less defined than content creation. Don’t be afraid to be creative as you look for ways to use AI tools to manage your content over time. 

Embracing AI in Growth Marketing

AI is changing things quickly, but marketing is still a necessary part of business. Don’t let the disruption discourage you. Look for ways to embrace AI as part of your daily marketing activity.

At Relevance, we have learned that you always need to look for the latest marketing AI tools, try them out, and then see if and how they can help your internal activities. If you can learn to thrive in that kind of ongoing evolutionary process, you’ll be able to recapture that momentum and transform your brand from a reactionary follower to an industry leader.

If you’re looking for help integrating artificial intelligence into your growth marketing plans, contact our team at Relevance. We can set you up with a FREE strategy session to look at your best options and help you chart a profitable path to growth.

The post Supercharging Your Growth Marketing With AI Marketing Tools appeared first on RELEVANCE.

How To Strategically Build Your Brand's Topical Authority Online  3 Feb 9:55 AM (2 months ago)

Every brand has its area of expertise. This is your unique selling proposition. It’s your competitive advantage that helps you stand out in your field — at least, that’s true if you can build your topical authority.

Topical authority is the process of successfully signaling your subject matter expertise (SME) online. Typically, this happens through the creation of high-quality, comprehensive content that is higher ranking in search engine results. This is aimed at building thought leadership rather than other content marketing goals, like brand awareness or conversions.

Establishing your topical authority is a critical part of a holistic growth marketing strategy. Recent updates in Google’s algorithm prioritize expertise, and the world’s largest search engine is rewarding established topical experts with greater traction in search. This includes ranking higher in SERPs and being pulled into AI Overview summaries.

If you’re not sure how to infuse your content with perspectives that reflect topical authority, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve gathered our team’s thought leaders and created a step-by-step resource (along with examples) to help you strategically build your brand’s topical authority in the year ahead.

Let’s dive in.

1. Research and Clarify

The first thing we always recommend to any brand is to do your research. Data and a rich understanding of your brand will be your best friend during the research process. Here are a few questions to help you get this started:

• What is your swim lane? What are the topical areas you should be known for above everything else? Based on that, what pages on your site are already getting the most traffic that coordinates with those swim lanes? 
• What does your company do? Where do you provide unique value within your swim lane? 
• What areas do your offerings focus on? Where should your brand stand out based on the products and services you offer? Based on research, where can you differentiate yourself from others in the industry?

You already know your company like the back of your hand. As you answer these questions, think bigger. Use competitor keyword research to find the search queries that are driving your target audience to search for solutions you can provide. Consider how these relate to your brand and services, and then use that information to target your swim lane topics.

2. Review Your Current Site

Don’t add to your site’s content until you’ve conducted a content review. A blog audit can help you understand what content you have surrounding each topic cluster you want to build. Vectorizing your site can also provide a clearer picture of where your site stands in relation to topical authority.

Along with seeing what you have, this reveals helpful insights. You can see what articles already perform well and which ones need optimization. You can also find ones that might need to be deleted entirely if they don’t have topical relevance.

We did this for a company in the insurance space and saw that they had great relevant content for one state where they did business. While this was a win, it also revealed other target states where the brand wasn’t ranking well for geographically targeted keywords. This helped us find areas of opportunity to expand quality content in those areas to better showcase their knowledge in those target states. Seeing gaps in content is just as important as seeing what you already have. 

A thorough site analysis helps you see the value of current content, where you have gaps, and where there are opportunities for growth and a higher ranking. This orients you and makes it easier to take effective next steps.

3. Build Your Onsite Authority With Content

Once you have a thorough understanding of industry trends, competitor analysis, and your own website audit info, you can start to build your onsite authority through fresh content. This should be well-optimized to ensure it is easy for search engines to find. 

It should also be educational and personal. Educational content goes beyond sales and marketing CTAs to educate users about your brand, your solutions, and relatable consumer pain points. 

In the AI age, generic information isn’t helpful anymore. Personalize your content with unique perspectives and personal examples that show your company and its leadership have hands-on expertise and cutting-edge insights. Use things like customer feedback, unique takes on the industry, and questions from your sales team to inform your topics, too.

Don’t be discouraged by the up-front investment here. There is a domino effect to focusing on topical areas within your swim lane. 

When working with a healthcare brand (See? Using a personal example!), we found that building strong topical authority in one area helped us gain topical authority in other areas much more quickly. The foundational work in one area will often help give you a leg up when you start targeting the next topic cluster. Google already sees you as having a high topical authority, and it allows your content to cut through the white noise in different areas of expertise faster.

Quality content is key for ranking well in organic search at this point. You need a strong base of informational content that can inform AI Overview summaries, knowledge panels, and similar AI-generated content. Keep in mind this is easier content to create. 

4. Build Thought Leadership for Your Experts

Along with creating informative content, you need to cultivate thought leaders. This has become an essential part of any content strategy. It makes sense, too. If your content enhances your brand’s topical authority, where does that influence come from? The people behind it.

It’s important to invest in who those thought leaders are. Who are your brand’s experts? Who are the thought leaders in your midst? Who has key information essential to your brand’s success?

These are your experts. They don’t have to be expert writers. Just make sure they are working with content creation teams to provide unique information and editorial feedback. Have them byline your onsite content and build out bios on your site for them.

It’s also a good idea to have them byline resources and thought leadership pieces on third-party sites. Authoring something on Forbes, Entrepreneur, an industry publication, or even social media such as LinkedIn can help reinforce their clout as leaders in their fields. This ultimately has a trickle-down influence on your content as Google connects the dots and sees that your site content is created in collaboration with recognized experts.

The bulk of your content strategy should be focused on this type of content that is perspective-driven and will show the brand’s unique POV. This authoritative content is how you build thought leadership in your industry and set your brand apart from the pack.

5. Develop a Strong Linking Strategy

Despite the recent shakeups with Google’s search algorithms, linking still matters — and it’s an essential part of building topical authority. 

Internal linking strategies tie your website’s content together. As you create your content, make sure to link back to relevant sources and related content across your site. 

If you mention a product or feature, place a internal link to its correlating product page or money page to move them down your sales funnel. Make sure your internal links are using good anchor text, too. Link to a keyword or phrase that honestly cue a reader to what is on the other side of that blue text. 

Backlinks are also important. These are links from third-party sites that point back to your own website. In early 2025, Backlinko released fresh data showing that pages with a lot of backlinks continue to perform better than others. Invest in a SEO strategy that builds credibility through backlinks from quality sources to your onsite content. These can come from a business publication with a high DA (domain authority) or an industry publication with a targeted readership.

Be the Lighthouse: Building Topical Authority in Uncertain Times

Digital marketing is changing faster than ever. While content marketing remains at the core of an effective growth strategy, the kind of content you create matters.

This is why you want to use your content strategy to do more than create SEO-rich content. Use it to build your brand’s topical authority online. This is one of the most effective investments of marketing resources you can make in the current age of fewer clicks, changing user expectations, and the growing use of AI Overviews.

If you need help creating your topical authority-building strategy, our experienced team at Relevance can help. Reach out for a free strategy session, and together, we can explore how to take your brand to the forefront of your industry’s conversations. 

The post How To Strategically Build Your Brand's Topical Authority Online  appeared first on RELEVANCE.

Vectorizing Your Website: How It Can Boost Your SEO Efforts 22 Jan 1:05 PM (2 months ago)

We live in the new age of AI Overview. As the search world adjusts and, in many ways, resets itself, content marketers are analyzing how they can improve their approach to SEO strategy in the new normal created by artificial intelligence powered search. 

I’ve found that website SEO vectorization is one of the key elements to optimizing a SEO strategy in 2025. Here are some insights that our team has found through recent Google leaks and ongoing research and data analysis. They underline how important vectorizing your website is for your content marketing strategy to succeed moving forward.

What Does It Mean to Vectorize Your Website?

Let’s start with the obvious question: What does it mean to vectorize your website in the first place? 

The mathematical term sounds overwhelming, but in reality, it’s a fairly simple concept. All vectorization means is that you are looking at points of data to see how closely all of your content connects.

Vectorizing your site builds a mathematical 3D model structure for your content. It creates a visual representation by assigning everything a data point — something called vector embedding — and then plots where each item lives on your site in relation to one another. 

Once you’ve thoroughly plotted out your site, you can compare data points between pieces of content to see how closely related they are. This is super important, as it gives you, in essence, a “Google filter” that shows you how the biggest search engine of them all likely views your content. 

Once you’ve vectorized your site, you can review what are called cosine similarities. This is another mathematical term that measures the similarity between two things. Consider, for instance, a vector embedding for the word “cat” on your website. Another vector embedding for the word “kitten” should show up as relatively close to cat because of their close similarity. In contrast, the word “dog” would be less strongly related to cat, while a word like “rocket” or “philosophy” would be even further away in your model.

Why Is Vectorizing Your Website Important Today?

Why do vectorization and cosine similarities matter? Because the recent Google Docs Leak from earlier in 2024 revealed that this is how Google, at its base level, is getting search results. That’s right. Google is vectorizing websites — and so should anyone who wants to rank as a top search result.

SEO vectorization shows whether your content is clustered around areas that you consider topical authorities for your brand. It ensures that you’re staying in these topical swim lanes and that you don’t have outlier content holding you back. 

Here are five more ways that our team has found vectorizing your website can boost your SEO in 2025.

1. Understanding Where Your Topical Authority Stands Right Now

Owning topical authority has been a central part of the content game for years now. However, it’s difficult to know if you’re actually accomplishing that in the eyes of a search engine. SEO vectorization gives you a clearer picture of where your site stands at any given moment. 

One example that comes to mind is an email platform company that we worked with. They sent us a list of 10 or so ideas of what they thought were their areas of topical authority. At the same time, we came up with our own list based on the data we had from their site. 

We compared the lists to identify what they were hoping for and measured that against the reality that the vector database had revealed from across their site. We looked at what they, up until then, had hoped was their topical authority against how Google was actually grouping their content together. 

This contrast of hope versus the reality of data analytics helped open their eyes to where their content was off the mark, underperforming, or simply an outlier. From there, we helped to strengthen known areas of authority and came up with new topic ideas where they were needed. This process is key in building up your topical authority in the important areas, which will in turn help your SEO performance.

2. Map Where You Want Topical Authority to Go

Another benefit of vectorizing your website is figuring out where to take your content in the future. If, for instance, you’re creating a new service line or product, this can help you understand how you already cover a particular topic. From there, you can map out next steps to strengthen this fresh area of local authority that you want to rank for.

I’ve been diving into this for Relevance’s own site in recent months. We vectorized our site to analyze it and see where it stood at the moment (see the previous step). Then, we used that data to be proactive by overhauling our blog strategy.

We considered baseline data to see where we were actually considered a strong authority compared to where we wanted to go. We also found areas that were weak or that we hadn’t previously realized we wanted to rank for and focused on those niches in our content creation and optimization. This can help with prioritizing areas of focus for your content team, guiding your content optimization efforts as well as broader ideas of topical areas you want to own in the future.

3. Finding Areas of Opportunity

Vectorization also shines a light on the areas where you think you’re shining out — but, in reality, you simply aren’t. 

A great example of this is a multi-state insurance agency that we are currently working with. When we vectorized their site, we found that their content in connection with an entire state was marked as “anomalous content.” This was a state where they had specific product offerings and wanted to rank as an authority. This realization opened up the opportunity to create targeted, state-specific content that strengthened their ranking in that geographic area. 

4. Cleaning Up Site Content

Vectorization can also help you clean up your site. If you’re getting a ton of anomalous content in your vectorization report, it may be a sign that you need to do some trimming.

You can use your vector embeddings to find where cosine similarities are weaker. Once you identify these off-brand areas of your content map, you can decide if you need to strengthen them (like in the previous point), optimize them through things like keyword mapping and internal linking, or simply delete them as outliers that are detracting from your site’s main topical focus.

5. Understanding How Google Sees Your Site

Finally, vectorization gives you a broader perspective of how Google sees your website. This helps you create meaningful, optimized SEO initiatives that are backed by clear data.

This also helps you reinforce your topical authority in the eyes of Google. 

It is a surgical rather than a broad approach to SEO that trims, reinforces, and adds to your vectorized site in ways that reinforce your primary messaging. This can send the message that you’re staying in your swim lane and encourage Google’s algorithm to keep you high in the rankings that you want to own.

Using Vectorization to Own SEO in 2025

Vectorization is a big part of how Google search views your site and ranks its content. That’s why, as we’ve learned about its critical importance in recent months, we’ve woven it into the services we offer clients.

Relevance has used tools like Screaming Frog and our own internal code to help us vectorize client sites and look for pieces of content that are related to the search queries that matter for their brand. We identify outliers, too, and either build them up, optimize them, or remove them.

The result is a clean, targeted SEO content strategy that packs a punch in a world where most SEOs are spinning their wheels. If you want to see how our system works in action, contact us for a free strategy session. Together, we can see how site vectorization can improve your brand’s SEO, traffic, and, ultimately, your bottom line.

The post Vectorizing Your Website: How It Can Boost Your SEO Efforts appeared first on RELEVANCE.

Why Brand Marketing Matters More Than Ever 19 Dec 2024 9:04 AM (3 months ago)

It takes a strong brand to stand out in the age of AI Overviews. As artificial intelligence soaks up search queries and provides general, amalgamated answers, only well-known brands with recognizable authority can continue to break through the artificial white noise.

This is why I’ve been paying more and more attention to brand marketing. This is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on broader elements like brand positioning and your brand’s image, values, and identity, as opposed to typical product- or service-oriented marketing messaging.

With AI overtaking everything in online search, brand marketing has never been more important. Our team has found that Google is prioritizing brands that have a strong identity and clear content marketing goals that reinforce a delineated brand identity. 

Successful brand marketing will do more than land you references in AIO summaries, too. It can help you rank in those blue links and stand out to your target audience. Overall, brand building should be an integral part of any growth marketing strategy you have in place today.

If your branding is struggling in 2025, here are some tips to boost recognition, engagement, and SERP ranking through marketing your brand.

1. Research What Is and Isn’t Working Right Now

A solid brand strategy works from a place of data-backed knowledge. Start your branded marketing initiatives with a thorough analysis of your branding. Here are a few questions to ask:

• Is your brand a thought leader in industry discussions?
• Is your brand receiving consistent, positive digital PR and online mentions?
• Is your brand getting backlinks to boost SEO and signal your authority to Google?
• Is your ideal audience finding you through organic, earned, or shared marketing channels?
• Are you up to date on competitor research and aware of what they’re doing right and where they may be weak?

Where are you doing well? Where could you be doing better? Gather this information as your starting point so that you can first determine your brand marketing goals and engage in effective brand marketing that builds on what you’ve already accomplished.

2. Understand and Reinforce Your Topical Authority

Every brand marketing strategy should have clearly defined areas of excellence and knowledge. These are your swim lanes, as we call them. They are clear areas of expertise that all of your onsite content should focus on, reinforce, and connect to in some way. Vectorizing your website is a great way to see how well your content lines up with your swim lanes. It’s worth the effort to clarify where you want to focus and then invest in those areas.

For instance, when I was working with a greens powder company, after a thorough review, I found that the site only had a few blogs—and they were unrelated to greens powder. My response was to build brand awareness by implementing a content strategy focused on brand identity and topical authority.

I created content about greens, drinking greens, and their health benefits. Given time (SEO can take months to fully flesh out), we saw clicks for queries related to "greens" go up by 31%. Impressions for those same queries went up by 131%. 

Creating content in your swim lane helps you perform better in your topical areas. It generates targeted brand engagement, builds brand consistency, and associates your company with the topics you want to be known for.

3. Show Your Unique Expertise

Everyone knows by now that Google wants to see people-first content. This is also a critical part of being a brand marketer. Brand recognition must come from content that doesn’t just rank for the right queries in SERPs. It has to actually provide genuine value to readers.

While it’s good to create foundational content within your swim lane, AI Overviews and related tools are already answering those queries, often without click-throughs to the sources they use. If you want to serve your readers (and coax them onto your site), you need to back up your basics with content that demonstrates your specific industry expertise.

From what I’m seeing right now, the brands that are shining aren’t the ones offering 101 knowledge. They have those content pieces, and it helps signal their topical authority to Google. 

However, they reinforce the rudimentary knowledge with unique, helpful perspectives. These integrate subject matter expert knowledge and show a new angle, process, or solution search engine users might not have thought of before. This kind of association with quality, mid- and bottom-of-funnel content is what builds a strong brand marketing strategy.

4. Build Your Thought Leaders

Your branding won’t have substance without thought leaders. Consider the people within your leadership, teams, and departments with innovative ideas and industry-leading knowledge. How can you build these people up? How can you promote your brand story through their unique takes on the industry? 

You can interview an expert for a piece of content on your site. Use quotes from them in your social media marketing and in your email marketing, too. This is important for Google's Knowledge Panels and new SERP features that highlight individuals at companies. The more publicly authoritative your experts are, the more likely your branded content will show up.

I built up thought leaders when working with the founder of the new kids' phone company, Gabb. Along with posting on their own site, we worked to get the founder bylined on major sites like Entrepreneur and Forbes. We also reposted his commentary and insights on Medium and LinkedIn. 

I encouraged him to talk about relatable things surrounding the struggle of kids having phones. This built his thought leadership and, in turn, helped to build the brand for the company overall. They saw a 26% increase in branded traffic, as well as a 605% increase in organic traffic and a 1586% increase in the number of ranking keywords during our time working together. Emphasizing a thought leader helps not only improve the brand but also helps all the marketing efforts you have in place be more successful.

5. Optimize Your Brand Messaging

Finally, make sure your brand story is always putting its best foot forward with each piece of content that you create. Highlight what sets you apart whenever it organically makes sense, and make sure you’re communicating your areas of expertise across your website. To do this, have a strong grasp on your brand story, set brand guidelines in place, and always keep an eye on your goals.

Our team saw the benefits of the cohesive messaging of a telehealth company we worked with—not just on their website but across all marketing and communication channels. From their email newsletter to their social profiles, the brand voice, messaging points, and unique value proposition were the same. 

They also featured their clinicians on their social channels (subject matter expert power!). And while we weren't in charge of those channels, it was integral that their messaging was consistent, regardless of its location online, and was supporting their overall branding for a cohesive strategy to support a strong brand. That work helped to increase the success we saw with their SEO strategy and led to a 358% increase in keywords ranking in position 1 and a 319% increase in organic traffic during our work together.

Investing in Brand Marketing Strategy Right Now

The wave of AI content is building, and brands that remain passive will eventually fall behind. Building up your brand equity is the best way to safeguard your business against whatever the future of search may hold.

A strong brand identity provides consistency in messaging, clear areas of topical authority, and unique perspectives and expert advice. These are the building blocks of a business that can weather the AI-driven future, no matter what that future looks like.

If you’re looking for support in building a rock-solid brand that can thrive in an AI search world, reach out to our team for a free consultation. We can get started on step one right away, evaluating where you stand and considering what steps could help you reinforce your brand story. I look forward to hearing from you!

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How to Create a Fintech Marketing Strategy 9 Dec 2024 11:54 AM (4 months ago)

Growth marketing is a universal approach to digital marketing and promotion. While effective, though, you want to tailor your growth marketing strategy to the specific industry you’re operating in.

Case in point: Fintech. 

If you’re a fintech company, you’re doing business in the competitive and ever-evolving financial technology sector, rife with competition and burdened by regulations. On top of that, fintech companies operate in YMYL (your money, your life) territory, which means accuracy and trust are critical. I’ve worked with quite a few clients that fall into this industry, and the first step is always to make sure trust is at the center of your strategy. 

Acquiring customers in the fintech industry isn’t easy, which is why you need to have a solid plan in place to reach your marketing goals. Whether you’re a startup or an established fintech company, here are some top tips (backed up by experienced examples) that can help you establish a strong fintech marketing strategy.

1. Look at the Data

Google may have rolled back its plans to kill third-party cookies in 2024, but that doesn’t change the fact that privacy is a priority for the internet. This de-emphasis on third-party data has made first-party data more available and important, including when you’re building a marketing campaign. First-party data provides valuable insights into the behavior and beliefs of your audience.

Before you begin allocating marketing efforts, look at your data. Where are your customers coming from? Where are they converting? What channels are yielding the results you’re looking for? Which ones need improving? 

I saw the power of a first-party data review when working with a fintech client that had been marketing and tracking their data but wasn’t paying attention to it. I conducted a thorough review of the information to identify what areas were working and which ones had the highest opportunity so that we could prioritize them. This included a deep dive into GA4 and GSC to see what was getting traffic and what keywords were leading to sessions. It also included reviewing their internal data about their ideal client profile so we could align with it.

If you’re building a fintech marketing plan, always start with your data. Use the past to help you direct your future moves.

2. Identify Strengths and Understand Your Landscape

Every brand should have a clear unique selling proposition or USP. This factor helps you build brand awareness and makes your product or service stand out — and it’s just as important in the financial service sector as anywhere else.

The fintech landscape is fiercely competitive. There are many well-established fintech companies and countless startups all fighting for market share. If you want your marketing to stand out above the next brand’s ad or message, ask yourself these questions in this order: 

• What areas should you be known for in your industry?
• What are your main services, and how do they align with those areas?
• What elements about your business make your service unique?

Along with internally identifying your USP, you want to consider the external factors influencing the fintech business landscape. What kind of content marketing is ranking in the SERPs? Do you need to run paid ads to cut through the competition? 

While working with the same fintech client mentioned above, we used competitor research to illuminate the best opportunities available to that brand. I studied larger companies, reviewed similar-sized enterprises, and even looked at a fintech startup or two. This gave me a broad sample of what marketing resonated with fintech audiences at the time, rather than only focusing on similar-sized brands. This research shows not only what is working and what isn’t for others, but also helps to find more niche areas of opportunity that others could be overlooking in their content marketing efforts.

If you want your fintech marketing strategies to succeed, start by identifying your strengths and studying the landscape you’re operating within.

3. Create the Right Content

Inbound marketing, especially content, is a core part of any marketing strategy. However, the kind of content you create has become an increasingly important part of the strategic planning process to drive brand awareness and customer engagement. 

The internet is still reeling from the impact of major changes, like Google’s Helpful Content Update and the shift to AI-generated search responses. One of the big changes here is that you want your content to be more engaging, unique, and invaluable. 

Simple answers are no longer going to cut it. Instead, think through the types of content that encourage fintech audiences to engage with your brand’s marketing assets and attract potential customers. This could be:

• Educational content that informs.
• Helpful content that instructs.
• Product reviews that explain the features and benefits of complex tools.
• Interactive demos that provide multimedia elements.

The relevance of the topics that you cover is just as important. For instance, when I was working with a fintech client, I emphasized the need for timely content. They were focused on alternative investments, and at the time, they barely had any content on their site about them. Because of that, I helped them develop 401(k)-focused content centered around alternative investments. 

First we created some foundational content about what alternative investments are and why they can be beneficial, but then got deeper into specific types of alternative investments and specific strategies for incorporating them into your retirement plan. This helped them rank for a competitive, up-and-coming search term by demonstrating their authority without fighting against stiff competition or paying for expensive ads.

If you want your content to stand out and build customer loyalty, make it unique, engaging, and relevant.

4. Iterate and Optimize

You saw this one coming, right? It’s the necessary final step to any successful marketing strategy, especially in an industry that moves as fast as fintech.

As the finance and technology sector evolves, so should your marketing strategy. Regularly review your data (see Step 1) and see what is working and what isn’t. Hone in on what resonates with your audience and produces results. Fix what isn’t working or ditch it and reallocate the resources.

I’ve found that the devil is in the details with this stuff, too. For instance, with a fintech client, I noticed the author bios on their site did not contain information that we know Google appreciates according to E-E-A-T guidelines. I used the review process to optimize their bios and highlight their team’s credentials, linked their social bios to provide more social proof, and elaborated on their background in their bio. This simple action helped meet Google’s E-E-A-T standards and established the fintech brand’s content as coming from thought leaders who provided insightful, cutting-edge information.

If you want your fintech marketing to have an impact, perpetually revisit it and look for ways to optimize, update, and improve it.

Building a Successful Fintech Marketing Strategy

If you’re going to invest in growth marketing, you want to do so with an eye toward industry ownership. With fintech, this requires a thoughtful strategy. 

Start with your past data. Assess your strengths and study your current industry competition and landscape, too. Then, use your research to inform targeted content that you regularly review. An effective strategy is a great way to stand out in an industry with high customer acquisition and the need to develop a unique level of trust both before and after the point of purchase through targeted marketing efforts. 

If your fintech startup or even an established company is struggling with its marketing, reach out for a free consultation. Our experienced team can help you assess your situation and develop a marketing strategy that can propel your company to prominence, even in an industry as crowded as the finance and technology sector.

The post How to Create a Fintech Marketing Strategy appeared first on RELEVANCE.

How to Incorporate Subject Matter Experts Into Your Blog Strategy 6 Dec 2024 12:39 PM (4 months ago)

A subject matter expert (SME for short) infuses your content with a unique kind of value. SMEs provide cutting-edge thought leadership that is up-to-date and mindful of the future. They often have access to insider information and experiences, as well, which can inform their perspectives and lead to one-of-a-kind takeaways and higher-quality content.

SME input can help your content perform better in the search engines, too. For instance, Google’s Helpful Content Update in 2023 put an emphasis on insight-rich content that provides specific, professional information. The search engine’s expanded E-E-A-T standards (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) make SME input invaluable, as well.

While it’s easy to see the value a subject matter expert brings to the table, that doesn’t make adding their thoughts and takeaways to your blog content simple. As with most growth marketing activities, you want to have a strategy in place. 

Here are six steps to help you incorporate SMEs into your content marketing strategy.

1. Determine Your Experts

Start by identifying who your SMEs are. Which individuals in your network are industry experts who can deliver a unique degree of subject matter expertise in their field? A few areas to consider in your search include:

• Your leadership team: Who in your internal leadership has specific experiences and insights they can share?
• Your staff: Do you have employees with training, certifications, or experience that stand out in their field?
• Your contacts: What relationships do you have outside your organization with individuals who are respected and looked up to in their industry?

You want your SMEs to stand out. Choose them with care and make sure they have the credentials and clarity to speak for your brand.

2. Create Swim Lanes

Not everyone is an expert in every area of your business. That’s why you want to categorize and organize your SMEs into areas where they shine. 

We call these swim lanes. Select topics that your business focuses on, and then make sure you have SMEs who can confidently address each area.

As you do this, keep in mind that every business should avoid covering too broad of a range of content on their blog. Hone in on your primary area of focus and look for an individual or two in each area of your business who can provide consistent expertise in their area of strength.

3. Bulk Your SME Interviews

One of the best ways to get information from your SMEs is to interview them about current industry and Google trends that relate to your content strategy. This is a good way to regularly glean their unique points of view and see how they’re adapting to the current changes in their field.

That said, interviews are a time-consuming activity. To save time, try to bulk your SME interviews into single sessions. Start by identifying the current trends and areas that you want your experts to speak to.

Then, interview your experts in batches to get bulk insights into where their industries are going. You can do this in person, on a recorded call, or through written questions. Each has its strengths and applicable scenarios. The key is to streamline the interview process to make it repeatable and avoid wasting resources. And after those bulk interviews, add all the best pull quotes to a spreadsheet so you can easily access and incorporate those in your content.

4. Use Unique SME Insight

Once you’ve interviewed your SMEs, it’s time to use their unique thoughts to infuse your blog with one-of-a-kind content. The key here is to preserve their SME individuality.

The best way to use SME opinions is to present their thoughts in an individualized, perspective-based format that is highly unique. Don’t make their takeaways part of your brand’s general amalgamated opinion. Maintain each SME’s identity and the unique qualifications that they have for providing an opinion on each subject (more on that in the next step). 

Google loves this kind of content. When a unique and up-to-date perspective is provided, it has a better chance of showing up as a reference in Google’s AI Overview content compared to more generic content.

5. Consider Creating Bios

In the past, it was important to keep content takeaways broad and simple. Many brands would stick to the collective “we,” too.

Now, the script has flipped. You want readers to know why an opinion or perspective is specific to your subject matter experts. You can do this by directly attributing their thoughts and knowledge to themselves in your content.

Another option is to create bios when it makes sense. These can either be positioned as the author of a piece, or they can be included alongside an author to support the information presented. In either case, use a bio to highlight who your SME is, include any credentials like MD or PhD, and add why they’re authorized to speak to a subject.

6. Have SMEs Share Content

SMEs are often pre-established influencers within their fields and industries. They can have robust networks and a significant reach amongst your target audience.

Use this influence to broadcast your content whenever you can. Tag SMEs in your branded posts that they’ve contributed to as you share them online. Ask them to share recent posts on social media, too, and even see if they’ll post original content linking to each blog post. 

The buzz that this generates provides social proof and indirect endorsements of a blog asset. This can signal to search engines and readers alike that it is a piece of quality content worth reading.

Creating Effective SME-Infused Blog Content

Subject matter experts can introduce a unique aspect of authority and information to a company blog. They can provide up-to-date information and share cutting-edge thoughts and perspectives that genuinely add value to the online conversation in their industry.

Using SMEs in your blog strategy is a good idea, but you want to do so the right way. Use the steps above to incorporate SME perspectives into your blog in a way that helps your content shine out, attract attention, and rise to the top of search engines and social pages alike.

If you need any help creating a content strategy that includes SMEs, we’d love to chat. Relevance can help you create a strategy that goes beyond your blog, infusing all of your online content with a level of expertise designed to help your brand thrive in the unpredictable and ever-changing modern online landscape.

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How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency 4 Oct 2024 10:37 AM (6 months ago)

Outsourcing your digital marketing is a great way to reach your business goals. It can streamline and supercharge your marketing efforts, helping you hone your marketing strategy and execute your promotional vision.

At least, that’s possible when you work with the right digital marketing agency. The challenge is choosing which agency to partner with. 

There are many different kinds of digital marketing agencies, which can make the decision even more intimidating. Some specialize in niche areas, such as social media marketing, content marketing, or brand awareness strategies. Others are more comprehensive in their approach. 

Relevance, for instance, is a growth marketing agency. That means we use content, digital PR, SEO, and other online marketing tools to create an individualized, comprehensive, and synergistic digital marketing strategy for each client.

So, how do you narrow down which is the right agency for your business? Here are some tips to help you make the best choice for your company based on your resources, needs, goals, and circumstances.

What to Consider When Choosing a Digital Marketing Agency

Before we review the actionable steps you should take to narrow down your options, let’s consider what factors you should assess when looking at digital marketing agencies. 

Remember, you’re not talking about a platform or a campaign. This is a collaborative effort. It requires relationship building and ongoing investment. To work well, you should treat it as a serious, long-term investment. Here’s what to consider when making such an important decision.

1. Assess Requirements and Goals

What are you trying to accomplish? Do you already have an in-house marketing team, and you’re struggling in a specific area like social media or email marketing? Or do you need a partner that can create or overhaul your entire marketing apparatus?

As you consider your current situation, identify the goals, benchmarks, and metrics that matter. What are your marketing objectives? Don’t be vague. Try to identify timelines, expectations, and additional data that can guide your digital marketing agency research.

2. Research Potential Agencies

Once you have an idea of what you’re trying to accomplish, it’s time to look at your potential agency options. Research potential marketing agencies on the market (there are a lot of them out there) and curate your list to reach out to.

The goal here shouldn’t be to create a massive compendium of marketing agencies. Instead, keep your shortlist, well, short. Only add agencies that closely fit your requirements and goals. As you conduct your research, keep these three things in mind:

• Expertise: Does an agency have the know-how to back up what they claim they can do? For instance, if they offer social media management, do they have staff with the training, and knowledge to function in that capacity at a high level?
• Experience: There’s a reason Google considers experience and expertise two separate things. Just because an agency has the knowledge doesn’t mean they have the experience. Investigate each agency’s track record. Have they been around the block a few times?
• Reputation: What do others think about a marketing agency? Feedback and reviews provide effective insights into an agency’s track record. Do they have good case studies that demonstrate an ability to deliver what they promise? Have they gone above and beyond for clients?

Expertise, experience, and reputation. These are your guiding lights when assessing your options.

3. Consider Communication Methods

How does a marketing agency’s communication methods align with your own? This may sound like a minor issue, but inconsistent or misaligned communication can lead to unnecessary stress.

Consider how you communicate with your own team. Make sure a digital marketing agency is prepared to communicate with you at the frequency and level of detail you expect from a collaborative partner.

4. Review Agency Networks

Don’t trust an agency that says they can do everything. From the nuances of marketing strategy to the finer details of Google Analytics, there are many things that go into a good marketing campaign.

A good agency should be able to deliver on most things. However, they should also have a high-quality network of trusted partners that they already utilize to refer work. That way, if you need a unique piece of marketing collateral or a service you can’t access, they will be ready with top-shelf recommendations.

How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency

Once you’ve considered your own marketing goals and the potential agencies that can meet them, it’s time to make a decision. Here is an easy, four-step process to narrow your choices down to the single, best candidate for your enterprise:

1. Start by conducting interviews and consultations with your shortlisted agencies. Ask each digital agency the same questions so that you can compare and contrast the answers.
2. Clarify pricing structures and service offerings. Don’t leave any stones unturned. An reputable agency should be open and forthcoming about how they will charge you and what digital marketing services each package includes. If you’re confused, ask for clarification, expecting an informed and helpful answer.
3. Expect customized proposals. If an agency doesn’t offer one, request it. These should do more than detail their services. They should incorporate and be tailored to your business needs.
4. Ask for client references and testimonials. A good agency should always come backed by satisfied customers. Everyone doesn’t have to love them, but there should be a consistent crowd of past and present clients singing their praises. Reviews are an essential form of validation. Look for them.

Use these filters and benchmarks to whittle your options down to the one that best fits your unique marketing needs.

Discovering the Best Digital Marketing Agency for Your Business

It’s hard to overstate the impact of choosing the right digital marketing agency for your business. You want to give an agency months to create marketing plans, set them in motion, and assess the results. That means you want to start with the right group from the get-go to avoid wasting time and resources on digital marketing efforts.

Using a strategic approach in your agency selection (like the one outlined above) can help you choose an agency that isn’t just a good fit. They can help you meet your business goals. 

Once they understand your business better, they should also be able to continuously evaluate your progress and adapt to ongoing changes to sustain your marketing success. They can even help you expand your vision, see new markets and opportunities, and reach for bigger, better results. If you’re looking for a good digital marketing agency to help you achieve your marketing goals, Relevance can help. Reach out now for a free strategy session. Let’s see if we’re a good fit, and we can give you the information needed to make an informed decision about your company’s marketing future.

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Generative Engine Optimization: What Is GEO and What Should You Do About It? 30 Sep 2024 1:34 PM (6 months ago)

In late 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, and the world was never the same. Since that launch, countless competitors have thrown their hat in the ring and accelerated a cycle of artificial intelligence-driven change that was inevitable as soon as the world realized how far AI has come. 

In the two years since the launch of ChatGPT, generative AI has soaked up a significant portion of the search engine traffic that used to go to traditional SERPs. This has prompted content creators to adapt their search engine optimization tactics to include another element in the optimization calculation: Generative Engine Optimization or GEO. 

This emphasis on GEO and SEO is happening now because AI search already works — and it’s gaining momentum. Generative search may not be able to address everything, but its solutions are at least as good as a standard search engine in many situations.

The question is, how can content creators and marketing leaders incorporate GEO into their marketing strategies? Here’s what you need to know about this new and exciting area of the Internet.

What Generative AI Tools Are Impacting the Marketplace?

Before we dig into the ways you can incorporate GEO into your traditional SEO strategy, let’s look at some of the Generative AI tools transforming the marketplace. This isn’t just for fun. It sheds light on an important new reality of GEO marketing: we aren’t exclusively catering to Google rankings anymore.

 Honestly, we’re not even catering to Google anymore.

You can get answers from an AI tool that has nothing to do with Google’s search engine. We already mentioned ChatGPT, which is focused on providing human-like, conversational answers to questions.

Perplexity is another one that emphasizes concise, fact-based, and cited responses. Gemini and Google AI Overviews blend search-based results with AI-generated text summaries. Microsoft’s Copilot is a productivity-based AI tool that optimizes work experiences. 

These are just a few of the big AI platforms. And don’t misunderstand. Google is still the biggest fish in the pond. It just isn’t the only fish worth caring about anymore. There are countless others both in existence and coming down the pipeline. The era of machine learning and AI technology providing answers to search queries has officially dawned, folks.

The most important difference between the results provided by these generative AI tools and traditional SEO tools is that you aren’t trying to rank at the top of a list. You want your text to be incorporated into an AI-generated answer (and thus featured as a source for that answer). 

Google AI Overviews, for instance, include “cards” that show where it sourced its information. These showcase multiple sources and are displayed along with the AI text to allow users to dig deeper into an answer if they wish.

How to Optimize User Experience with Generative Engines

The question for marketers and content creators is how to incorporate this new generative AI reality into their marketing strategy creation. 

1. Hone in on User Intent

User intent is the driving force behind AI responses. These are intended to personalize responses for specific user queries. Make sure every piece of content you create has a strong emphasis on how it serves the user.

For example, you trying to inform on a simple concept? This is something likely to be pulled into a Google AI overview, so write your content knowing that. Get straight to the point quickly and clearly.

2. Study AI Responses: 

AI responses aren’t mysterious. They’re right there, available for everyone to see. Use that to your advantage. Study how AI responds to topics where you are an authority. Then, optimize your content to provide information that is easy to incorporate into those AI solutions. 

Review the keywords that are important to your business and evaluate which have AI overviews showing up for them. Once you know what is being prioritized by AI overview, you can adjust and update content accordingly.

3. Remember E-E-A-T: 

E-E-A-T content is Google’s acronym for high-quality content. It must flash expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness. In other words, make sure your content strategy is relentless in its pursuit of providing exceptional and insightful solutions for your target audience.

The best content and most authoritative brands will show up in generative engines, so make sure you’re priming your content and your brand to be just that with E-E-A-T tactics.

4. Optimize Content: 

Optimization remains essential, but its specifics are changing (or at least expanding). Along with traditional SEO, generative engine content optimization should focus on holistic messaging. In addition to comprehensively and clearly communicating important information, this includes a range of keywords that relate to the core subject and should be backed by solid technical GEO (which basically follows technical SEO practices). 

Investing in a GEO Future

Search engines aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. However, the Google-dominated, search-driven behaviors of the past are quickly becoming obsolete. In their place, we are seeing a rapid rise in AI-driven search engines that are already dominating top-of-funnel questions and answers. 

Gartner predicts that traditional search engine volume could drop by a quarter in the next couple of years. This is because generative search and AI-driven tools are working. They may not have all of the answers. Still, they are siphoning away a significant portion of search queries — especially for simple things, like how to convert from imperial to metric measurements or what continent Montana is located on.Generative search is gaining momentum, which means businesses must react now if they want to stay ahead of this technological revolution. If you need help understanding generative engine optimization and how it integrates with search engine optimization practices, our team at Relevance can help. Reach out for a free strategy session, and together, we can make sure you stay ahead of this epic-defining shift in the online marketing world.

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Healthcare Digital Marketing: How We Used Content + SEO to Grow a Telehealth Brand's Traffic 4 Sep 2024 1:51 PM (7 months ago)

Digital marketing is important in every modern field—including healthcare. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The online healthcare industry can be brutal. Competition is fierce, and major healthcare providers like the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, or government organizations like the CDC typically win that coveted #1 spot in the SERPs. 

So what can you do to stand out in such a tough space? As with most things in life, I think one of the best ways to find the answer is from the experience of others.

Four Takeaways From Our Telehealth Growth Marketing Experience 

To succeed in digitally marketing themselves, small and mid-size brands in the healthcare industry must build credibility through consistent, strong content marketing. They must invest in high-quality, targeted educational libraries that align with their core mission and that use SEO strategies to help show up in search engine results.

How do I know this works? Because I’ve seen it up close and personal over a 5-year span.

Here are four takeaways on how critical that content and SEO marketing strategy is in healthcare marketing. They come from a case study where we helped a telehealth company rank better for key commercial terms. 

1. Always Start With Thorough Research

I’m going to assume you operate in the healthcare industry. Picture this with me for a second. Imagine a patient comes in, and you a healthcare provider hand them a prescription without even looking at them or saying a word. 

Crazy, right? If you don’t skip the diagnosis stage for your patients, you shouldn’t do so with your SEO strategy or content marketing, either.

That’s why, when we started working with the telehealth brand, we performed an SEO audit, did keyword research, crawled their site, and observed their existing paid campaigns and social media marketing. We wanted to understand where they stood, their strengths and weaknesses, and their technical foundation.

We always do this because you have to know where you currently stand if you want to set goals and strategies that will work — and trust me when I say that this is a very important part of the process. Too often, we’ve seen brands balk at paying for strategy. They want to jump to the visible, measurable stuff. The problem is, if you don’t research and strategize, your action plan will inherently be weak, uninspired, and possibly even flawed. If you want to know where you should place the most value in the process, it’s here, in your strategy.

In this case, we found the brand had a solid foundation for building topical authority in the health space, but it wasn’t perfect. For instance, they had a robust FAQ library, but it was on ZenDesk, not their site, which meant they were missing out on SEO and traffic benefits. Their content was also limited in scope, they lacked internal linking, and they weren’t maximizing the impact of their existing content.

The Takeaway: Always start with a thorough analysis of where you are if you want to maximize your chances of getting to where you want to go. You will miss key optimization opportunities on a site if you don’t first review your current state.

2. Identify and Go After the Big Opportunities

Marketing used to be a fairly limited activity. In the digital marketing age, you have limitless opportunities. From SEO and back-end optimization to email, social, on-site, and digital PR, there is an endless list of owned, earned, and paid ways to promote your brand.

The question is, where should you direct your limited resources?

In the case of our telehealth client, we looked at the site by service line to see where traffic was coming from. We pulled in keyword research to identify targets based on these service lines, too. At the same time, we studied other areas of existing healthcare marketing to see what was working and what wasn’t.

Our goal was to tie in all of this information to ensure we were reinforcing and building on what was already working in their digital marketing strategy. If you silo your marketing effort, you’ll end up wasting resources and, at times, even working against yourself. Instead, use a holistic, knowledgeable approach to figure out the best places where you can put fresh emphasis and focus.

With our client, we found their core service line was actually capturing a decent amount of bottom-of-funnel (or BoFu) traffic. That was great news, and we were able to use it to direct our attention to improving middle- and top-of-funnel marketing in that area. 

We applied a similar approach to auxiliary service lines and found plenty of opportunities for additional improvement. We evaluated each one’s ROI, such as average cart value, one-time vs repeat purchases, and lifetime value, and set our priorities based on that information.

The Takeaway: Don't put your efforts into something that won't have a chance of performing well. Always invest in improving and complementing the marketing that is already working. But make sure you’ve reviewed core information to create a strong, data-backed strategy.

3. Figure Out Your Starting Point

All of this leads you to your starting point. (I know, it’s easy to feel exhausted just getting here, but hear me out. It’s worth it!) 

Once you’ve studied your current situation and invested in finding and prioritizing opportunities, you’ve set the stage. Now, it’s time to pick your starting point. Some primary factors to consider when choosing include:

• Figuring out if your content is educational, helpful, and following E-E-A-T best practices. 
• Ensuring your content is focused on topical areas where you want to build brand awareness and industry authority. (Optimize or eliminate everything else.)
• Determining how much traffic you’re getting and where in the funnel you need to focus on increasing those numbers.
• Assessing your backlink portfolio and considering where you can feed that credibility through third-party validation from authoritative sites.

Use your assessments from sections one and two to guide how you choose from this list. 

With our telehealth brand work, we found, along with a healthy content library, the brand already had a solid foundation for SEO. They were also using pay-per-click, internal and external PR functions, and a conversion rate optimization agency and social media team. 

In other words, all of the pieces for success were there, and we didn’t need to reinvent the wheel. We just needed to orchestrate everything so that it produced the synergy and results they were looking for.

The Takeaway: When shaping digital healthcare marketing strategy, don’t reinvent what’s working. Perfect it. And ensure all areas of marketing are supporting each other so any one area isn’t working in a silo.

4. Focus On the End User

So far, my advice has been about technical elements, gauging metrics, and observing marketing activities. My final thought is to focus on the end user throughout your detailed planning. Everything else is important, but you always want the user in mind while you’re considering them.

SEO is the best example of where this can go astray. It’s tempting to focus on search engine results when using SEO. But that isn’t the goal. SEO works with content marketing to improve the user experience. The goal should always be to use search engine optimization to get your healthcare services and content in front of the right people.

That means you want to create a comprehensive library of robust SEO content that meets user needs at all stages of the funnel. You can use it to secure backlinks from external outlets, create social media content, and boost your credibility—but always keep that end user in mind.

By doing that, we were able to not just provide our telehealth client with genuinely good, optimized content but also ensure that it spoke to customer needs and pain points, serving their audience at every step.

The Takeaway: Always keep the end-user in mind. Write for the reader instead of a search engine if you want to actually create useful content that will engage and help people.

The Results of Good Healthcare Content Marketing and SEO Strategy

Okay, so if you do all of these things I’m recommending, what does it look like? What does it accomplish? After three years spent creating 146 online pieces and seeing 700 assets and links for our telehealth client, here are a few of the biggest takeaways:

• They had a 119% increase in conversion rate.
• They experienced a 254% bump in pageviews on optimized pages.
• They saw a 358% climb in the number of terms that were ranking #1 in Google SERPs.
• They had a 142% growth spurt in terms of ranking 2nd to 10th in those SERPs.

I also noticed that over the course of the partnership, new services ranked quicker for important terms as they benefited from the synergy of the site’s overall success. This is key to show that if you focus and put the effort in one topical authority area at a time, you’ll be rewarded when it comes time to move to the next.

Learning and Moving Forward to Greater Success

As we look back, there are also a few things I’ve learned from the telehealth case study that I think we could have done better. 

For instance, I wish we could have created more content in those three years to match their expanding service lines. I also wish we could have added more first-person perspectives from healthcare providers, clinicians, and patients. 

These aren’t shortcomings. Every marketing strategy requires some sacrifice. As the marketing world evolves, though, it’s always important to have these in mind as we form each new plan moving forward. 

As you look over the four lessons above, what stands out to you? Where are you already killing it with your healthcare digital marketing strategy? Where can you use some help? If you find you’re looking for a partner as you sort through things, reach out for a free strategy session with our team at Relevance. We can shed light on your current situation and orient you toward future success, even in an industry as crowded as healthcare.

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