Scaling SEO Within an Agency

Copyright © 2013 PM Digital. All rights reserved. This information is deemed PROPRIETARY and CONFIDENTIAL by PM Digital. Unauthorized use or disclosure is prohibited. 1

SCALING SEO WITHIN AN AGENCY

BY RICHARD CHAVEZ, VICE PRESIDENT OF SEOSEPTEMBER 26, 2013

2Copyright © 2013 PM Digital. All rights reserved. This information is deemed PROPRIETARY and CONFIDENTIAL by PM Digital. Unauthorized use or disclosure is prohibited.

Creating a SEO practice in an already 20-year established agency was the biggest challenge of my career. Creating a practice that is competitive, profitable and scalable is the holy-grail. With limited resources this took a lot of planning, trial-and-error, time and patience.

About PM Digital About Me Creating a SEO Practice in an Established Agency

• Benefit to the Agency

• Challenges Journey to Success

• Understanding Strengths and Weaknesses

• Initial Success and More Investment

• More Success / Greater Recognition / Integration / Further Advancement

• Continuum of Development and Improvement Case Studies

OVERVIEW


ABOUT PM DIGITAL

Digital Agency servicing clients in retail, financial services, non-profit, CPG and more

Primary service offerings: SEO, SEM, Display, Email Marketing, Social Media and Creative

Clients include The North Face, Kirkland’s, Steve Madden, Burt’s Bees, Cricket Wireless and many more

8 clients in the Internet Retailer Top 100 Based in New York with offices in

Scottsdale, AZ, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Columbia, SC


ABOUT ME

Vice President of SEO at PM Digital 14 years of SEO experience (client side

and agency side) Cloaking to Today’s Best Practices

World Traveler Visited over 20 countries and speak

four languages Rockin’ Guitar Player

Shared the stage with Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robin Trower, Big Head Todd and Blackberry Smoke

I’m also the “nerd” that wrote the very first SEO rock song “Bot, Bot, Bot Let Me Show You What I Got” in 2006


Creating a SEO Practice in an Established Agency

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SEO can be a very valuable revenue stream for agencies and enables them to deepen client relationships

SEO on average drives 30% of total client site traffic1

Investment in SEO continues to grow and at a faster pace than SEM and other channels

With 85% of Search Engine Result Page (SERP) real estate allocated for natural search2, SEO is a very powerful channel that cannot be ignored

BENEFIT TO THE AGENCY

1. Avg. SEO contribution to total site traffic, PM Digital Study2. Comscore

http://www.pmdigital.com/press-events/search-rewind-report/


CHALLENGES

Sounds like a “no-brainer” – right? Wrong! Agency and a lot of SEO talent was in NY

I was in Scottsdale, AZ This significant and new investment

brought-on a lot of pressure to show ROI and prove the model for the agency

Other divisions (ex. SEM) had established client budgets, resources and trust

I inherited a mess of dated deliverables (SEO products) and few resources (one employee and free SEO tools)

These limitations took a lot of planning, trial-and-error, time and patience to persevere


Journey to Success




JOURNEY TO SUCCESS

How PM Digital grew a thriving SEO practice and more importantly, the steps taken to financially sustainability and scalability.

Understanding Strengths & Weaknesses

Initial Success & More

Investment

More Success / Greater

Recognition / Integration /

Further Advancement

Continuum of Development & Improvement


Understanding Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths• Enthusiastic team

• Current staff adapted quickly to new direction• Support from Sr. management

• New product & pricing• Created products based on real client need and competitor

weaknesses• Overhauled several SEO products (tech, optimization, reporting, link

building, etc.) to add greater value• Developed retainer model (very common with client renewals – sign of

client trust)


Initial Success & More Investment



Further Advancement



Understanding Strengths and Weaknesses

Weaknesses• Created all client strategy, new bus pitches• Executed and presented all advanced deliverables• Used free tools and excel for all reporting

• 40 hrs./month minimum on reporting• Silos within the agency

In the Weeds





Further Advancement



INITIAL SUCCESS & MORE INVESTMENT

Hired experienced Biz Dev Support Won new accounts and grew existing accounts

• Thorough client review during pitch and renewal with biz dev Recruited experienced talent, some from out of geo area

• Hired a manager to handle day-to-day activities

• Developed team structure and career path Invested in team training and education programs (SEMPO, team

training[ account management, innovation/knowledge transfer])

• Team’s overall SEO expertise grew

– Promoted strong performers

• Requiring less of my time on client work

Analyst

Strategist

Sr. Strategist

Manager

Director





Further Advancement



INITIAL SUCCESS & MORE INVESTMENT

Invested in SEO analytics/reporting technology (SEO Clarity)

• 400% increase in productivity with reporting/analytics

• Agency partner contributing to product roadmap to fit agency model

– Automated SEO reporting Time is spent on analysis and

insights vs. producing charts

– Client dashboards

– Blended reporting: partner with SEM (secured increase in client SEM spend)

Shared success upstream (sr. mgmt.) Moved to bigger office

• Now in third office space due to constant growth





Further Advancement



INITIAL SUCCESS & MORE INVESTMENTUnderstanding

Strengths & Weaknesses




Further Advancement


SEO’s Contribution to Total Site Performance

Automated SEO KPI Reporting

Automated SEO / SEM Blended

Reporting


MORE SUCCESS / GREATER RECOGNITION / INTEGRATION / FURTHER ADVANCEMENT Won several new accounts and grew/retained existing accounts

• Agency/SEO became competitive with bigger agencies

– Won several RFPs against competitors

Developed New / Advanced SEO Products and Client Strategy

• Local SEO

• Search Behavior Research

– Search Informed Strategies

Taxonomy

Content marketing

– SEO/SEM/Social Collaboration & Action Items

• Cross-Channel Reporting (greater collaboration)

– SEO / SEM (ecommerce and lead-gen)

– SEO / PLA

• SEO as a Multi-Channel Hub

– In-market campaigns influence online behavior (top down)

– Search-Informed Strategy

Growth & Success is recognized throughout the agency



Investment



Further Advancement



MORE SUCCESS / GREATER RECOGNITION / INTEGRATION / FURTHER ADVANCEMENT



Investment



Further Advancement


Blue = thermoballRed = better than nakedSource: Growth in search demand, Google Insights



Continued team investment

Acquired competing agency

• Integrated SEO team and accounts

• Increased staff in NY and AZ

• Continued to promote strong performers (AZ and NY)

Launched Account Management Team

• Reduces communication issues from previous silos

• Enables SEO team to focus on SEO work (fewer hats)

– Team focuses on core competencies

Continued investment with SEO Clarity

• More advanced SEO reporting and client insights

– Term Not Provided

– Share of Voice Rankings

– Forecasting Model

– Industry Performance Benchmarks (retail)

– Data analysis for industry insights

• Advance SEO products and selling capabilities

– Local, Schema



Investment



Further Advancement


http://www.pmdigital.com/press-events/search-rewind-report/





Investment



Further Advancement


1. % of natural search traffic by page one rank (top PMD client trafficked sites, June 2013)


CONTINUUM OF DEVELOPMENT & IMPROVEMENT

Reporting and analytics continue to evolve

• Based on current and future client needs

• Based on perpetual changes in SEO

• Continued efficiencies (increased productivity)

– Site clarity

– Share of Voice

– Integration of 3rd party data (GWT, Majestic, Moz) Requires team to use fewer tools

SEO product offering continues to expand and evolve

• Innovation of current products with regular review (reality check)

• Develop new products, business intelligence and thought leadership





Further Advancement



CONTINUUM OF DEVELOPMENT & IMPROVEMENT

Business model and processes are evangelized throughout the agency

• Measured growth, profitability, workflow

• Established hiring model

• Process is integrated/replicated in other channels

• SEO is now the fastest growing division within PM Digital

• PM Digital is now becoming a SEO employment destination

– Growth path is readily available for strong performers Over 2/3 of SEO team has been promoted in less than three years



More Success / Greater Recognition / Integration / Further

Advancement



KEY TAKEAWAYS

Share successes when they occur Reinvest success early-on to create greater efficiencies for the future:

• Staff

• Technology Recognize and reward team contribution

• Success alone is not sustainable Partner with other channels and make them aware of the benefit to

them (WIIFM)

• Helps reduce silos

• Deepens client relationships

• Access to valuable data Be humble

• There is always something to learn


CASE STUDY

Challenge: A PM Digital Search Behavior Study of non-branded western wear revealed

that the SEM campaign only had coverage for 2% of the terms analyzed in the study

With little SEM support, the SEO performance of these terms was low even though rankings were strong

Client competitors received a lot of traffic from these terms

Solution: New SEM non-brand campaigns and increased spend (yearly budget was

already sealed, but client did approve additional spend)

Results: The increased coverage and spend led to a 25% increase in competitive

SEM clicks in Q4 2012


CASE STUDY

Challenge: Bedding retailer carried multiple brands and had

strong sales and rankings for the brands at the carried While the SEO success was strong, it was limited to

top and bottom levels of the sales funnel Blended SEO/SEM data showed strong SEM traffic

and high consumer search demand, but low conversions for mid-tier searches (sub-category / brand + product type), content did not exist

Solution: PM Digital created sub-category pages at the

Narrowing Stage for three top-selling brands

• Pages went live in early October 2012

Results: SEO orders increase: Q4 YOY: 32% SEO revenue increase: Q4 YOY: 27%

General Interest(bedding)

Investigational(brand + bedding)

Narrowing(brand + product

type (fitted sheet)

Conversion(brand + product name


THANK YOU!

Richard ChavezVice President, SEOPM [email protected]: http://blog.pmdigital.com/ Twitter: @PMDigital @richardachavez

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.pmdigital.com/

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