Long-form content boosts SEO?, The return of SEO A/B testing, $7.6B revenue from the eclipse, & more

Neil, do you think long-form content still matters for SEO?

I do, but what I— I'm going to give 2 disclaimers with it. One is, it depends on the keyword. Like if your keyword was how to tie a tie, long-form content doesn't matter because for those kind of queries, people don't want long-form. The user intent would show that people just want a video or animated GIFs that just quickly show you how to tie a tie. But for a lot of queries, long-form still matters from the data we're seeing. The second caveat is, Creating content, whether short-form or long-form, that's not continually updated doesn't do as well. But if you look at Wikipedia, it's a great example of long-form content that crushes it and they continually get the pages updated.

So check this out. This tweet over here is from David G. Quaid. And he says, for people who still believe that Google needs long-form content, especially when it's in the SEO Starter Guide as a myth, we took a single PDF on this site and turned it into 60 stubs pages with their own URL. paragraph each. So like, to your point, it's just like a really— it addresses the query very quickly. Some just 10 words. So you can call this thin content. This went on to double traffic outside of the blog, but more importantly, to double traffic on the solution/point pages that made sales. 18 months later, Rapid7 acquired this company for $335 million. Isn't that interesting?

That is, but I also think it goes back to the queries. If you're answering a lot of questions and answers, yes, short and to the point. But if someone's doing a research paper and they want to learn more about Abraham Lincoln, a quick, you know, 100 words or 200 words isn't going to get you ranking.

Yeah, it depends. I mean, the search engines have gotten smarter, right? They understand the intent behind your keywords.

Yeah, it's just like the tie example I gave. Dude, you know, I don't wear a tie often. I don't know when the last time you wore a tie is, but when I had to wear a tie, I typically have to Google how to tie a tie. Yeah, same here.

Same here.

And it used to be on Google ages ago that I would see an article with images and everything, but it would have tons of text. I'm like, I don't care for this. Now when I Google it, because I had to wear a tie recently, For a gala.

A video?

It was a video and the page also had animated GIFs step by step. And that was great. That's what I want. And I think it goes back to intent because they're really good at measuring who's clicking the back button and scrolling down and when they're not happy. It goes down to user experience. User experience not being the design of the website, but the design of the content and how it's consumed.

Can't you just have your wife tie it for you?

She doesn't know how to tie a tie.

Well, some do. All right, real quick, I need to tell you about the group that Neil and I created called the Agency Owners Association. And this is a group that's similar to entrepreneurial organizations such as YPO or EO. By the way, Neil and I are both in YPO, but we thought it'd be really cool if we're able to create a group that's dedicated to agency owners to helping them scale. So you can be at 6 figures, 7 figures, 8 figures. We have different groups for different levels. All you have to do is go to marketingschool.io/agency. Again, that's marketingschool.io/agency and you can go there to apply. And I will tell you right now what we're doing. is there's an online community. We do calls every now and then. There's stuff that we share in there that we don't share publicly. And you can, at least the online community, you can cancel at any time. So you can go there to learn more about it. And that being said, back to the video. Dude, this one's interesting. Speaking of SEO, is SEO A/B testing back? So this tweet was from Go Fish Chris. And he said SEO A/B testing, 10 case studies of SEO experiments that produce a Plus 10% in organic traffic.

So I never thought SEO A/B testing was gone or dead.

Yeah, me neither. But nobody really talks about it, especially with a 10% increase in organic traffic. So this is a great post from SearchPilot. So SearchPilot, by the way, I don't know if you remember, but Distilled, they sold to Brainlabs, and then they spun out SearchPilot to be its own entity. So SearchPilot is continuing down the A/B test, SEO A/B testing Yeah. And so this is a great post from SearchPilot that aggregates some of the most successful SEO posts that they've highlighted over the years. The SearchPilot platform allows you to A/B test the SEO impact of changes at scale. So they have a lot of data around successful and unsuccessful experiments. Some highlights include adding dynamic pricing to title tags, 10% lift in organic traffic. Interesting. Replacing templated content with unique content, 14% improvement in traffic. Highlighting freshness in title tags. And by the way, we'll make this an image in the video. Highlighting freshness in title tags, 11% organic traffic. So the difference with that, and that would be, um, the control was freelance copywriters for hire, June 2022, versus freelance copywriters for hire updated daily. And then shortening title tags, 11% increase in organic traffic. Bringing content out of tabs, 14% increase in organic traffic. This one, number 6, removing product carousels from category pages, 29% lift in traffic.

Oh wow, that's pretty big. That's pretty big.

So the carousel, just so everyone knows, is like when it scrolls, the products scroll, right? Which I find really freaking annoying.

I do too. I hate that.

Yeah.

What's funny, dude, is so many people just publish this data. I don't get why businesses just don't look at the data being published online that others are sharing and be like, hey team, check some of these out. If any of them are relevant, go and experiment.

Well, so I guarantee you have the same problem that I have, but I was listening to a podcast with Dharmesh Shah It's Dharmesh Shah, right?

Yeah, HubSpot.

So, he did a great podcast with Lenny. So, the podcast is called Lenny's Podcast. I don't even know, I can't pronounce Lenny's last name, Rachitsky. But Dharmesh has this system. So, you know how when you see an article like this, there's really good stats and you send it to maybe your lieutenants, for example. And the problem is when you send it to them, they have no idea what you want from that article. I don't know about you, sometimes I just send an article. Sometimes it might just be like FYI. Sometimes it might be, hey, I took a look at this. I recommend that you really look at it. Sometimes like, hey, I did a lot of research here. Please God, do something about this. And then the highest level is like, I am pleading with you from all my might, prioritize this. But most of the time, I don't do a good job of telling people what I want from a lot of the articles that I share. I don't know about you.

I do. So, my format is I actually don't just send a URL. You know, I, I've read whatever I'm sending the team and I let them know what I want from it. So like, for example, the Distilled— they're not Distilled now, what is it called?

Search Pilot.

Search Pilot. So the Search Pilot stats, let's say I had that, I'll go dig it up after and I will go share it with my team and I say, check out these stats, see if any of these experiments are relevant for us and our clients and test them out. And I won't tell them what to prioritize or not prioritize. My team knows from me because we have weekly standups to prioritize prioritize the stuff that they think will have the biggest results based on either data they have or other people have shared or what you see in the articles or what's hard to implement versus what's easy to implement, right? It all affects the priority levels. And then they go and they go and implement. And on our weekly calls, they talk about some of the experiments they run, whether it's from articles I sent or things that they've learned or from, you know, an event that they may have attended or something that someone internally shared with them. And they report on, Here's what we tested this week, here's what we learned, here's what didn't work and why we think it didn't work, because sometimes you don't really have the answer on why it didn't work. And when it does work, hey, it worked, here's what we're going to do next to either iterate on it or roll it out to more sites or more sections and double-check to see if it actually provides a lift in traffic and conversions. And if it does, then you just roll it out everywhere after the second time.

So what I'm hearing is, Excuse me. You are sending the links out, there's an expectation with it, or there's an ask with the link. And then every week you have an experimentation meeting where they talk about the experiments that they're trying, and some of your tests may or may not be in there, or some of your recommendations may or may not be.

More so when I send a link or anything like that, I summarize what I'm— what I saw in the article or what I'm expecting from them.

Got it. So my model is actually very similar to Dharmesh's, and I rolled my model out like a couple months ago, but it, again, it's more like FYI. No need to respond to me. And then it's like, highly recommended. And then sometimes if it's like, if I'm pleading, I have to sometimes I might have to like double emphasize it, I might have to repeat it like twice. So that's how I do it.

I used to do just sending links years and years ago.

Nothing happens.

Nothing happens.

Yeah.

But when you, when you send a link, and you summarize what you're expecting and what you learned, people know you took the time to read it, and they go and act upon it, especially when they know you have weekly follow-up calls with them and the team.

Oh, you're on those Weekly call, the follow-ups?

Yeah. Oh, it's a marketing call every week with all the marketing people on the team.

Yeah.

And we go over some of the experiments, what worked, what didn't. So I'll ask them on the call, hey, I sent those links and I summarized it. What'd you guys think of it? It doesn't mean that they've implemented it because I'm not going to tell them what to prioritize because they may have some better stuff in the works. But I'll ask them, what do they think about it? They know not to email me back because they know I have Too many emails coming in. But on our calls, they'll tell me what they think. And it looks bad to your boss if someone— your boss asks you a question for something you sent them and you don't even respond or you say like, hey, I didn't read it. I never— I ignored it. Like, that just sounds bad. It very rarely ever happens.

Did you send this link to your team?

The SearchPilots one?

Yeah.

I don't have it yet.

It's in the document. You have to find it here.

Okay.

Okay.

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

But yes. It's interesting stuff. So we never thought A/B testing was dead. In fact, I had a SaaS focused on SEO A/B testing, but I decided to focus on agency instead. Alright, so I wanted to take a second to tell you about Leveling Up Founders. This is an event/mastermind for people doing 7, 8, 9 figures. These are founders that are doing that amount. And we've been doing this event for a couple years now. We've had amazing speakers. But more than anything, it's about the people. What I mean by that is like-minded people want to hang out with like-minded people, and this is the best spot to connect with people of a certain caliber. And we vet every single person that comes through. So if people are— even though they make a lot of money, but their character, we don't really align with that, we're not necessarily going to let them in. We did this event in Beverly Hills, and it's happening in the beginning of August. All you have to do to learn more about it is just go to levelingup.com/founders. Again, it's levelingup.com/founders. If you want to hang out with amazing people, Neil, my podcast co-host, is going to be there. I'm going to be there. People like Syed Balkhi, he will be there as well. And again, it's going to be a great time. levelingup.com/founders to learn more, and we'll see you inside.

Dude, on a random note, did you see the eclipse?

No, did you?

No, I didn't go to travel, but Disney streamed it live.

Okay.

On the Disney+ app.

Uh-huh.

All right, I didn't check that out either.

Yeah.

I saw Elon's tweet of it with the X in the front.

You know, did you have people take the day off for the eclipse?

I don't know. I, I didn't— I don't— maybe someone did.

I did. It was a very big deal.

Yeah, I, I didn't check with the team if anyone took day off or not. Yeah, but check this out. Okay, so according to the Perryman Group estimates, that the impact could have been more than several billion dollars between direct tourism spend of roughly $1.6 billion and knock-on consumption as much as $6 billion. So in total, the eclipse could have generated $7.6 billion in extra business revenue.

How though? Like, where is that?

How's that break down? $1.6 billion in travel. So hotels, flights.

Oh, because people were flying to like Houston to watch the— yeah, yeah, yeah.

Delvo, who works for me. Yes, I know one person who at least took some time off. He went to go see the eclipse. He'd been posting about it on Instagram. Look at all these pictures.

Yeah, people have all these pictures. It's like it's the most amazing experience ever. Which I guess we missed because the next one's in 1944, which I— oh, sorry, 2044.

I'm probably gonna miss that one too. It's not that it's— it's not— of course it is cool. It's just for me, it's like, that's not my cup of tea.

I saw a meme where there's like a private guy, like a private equity jacket. It's like, I can either watch the eclipse or I can lock in 3 more M&A deals.

But he's probably not gonna lock in 3 more deals because it takes him like 6 months just to close a deal. Who knows?

Or he could source 3 more.

Yeah, but just dude, there was so much hype and marketing around that eclipse. Dude, airline companies were making a killing, hotel companies, local restaurants were making a killing.

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

No, TrendJack. Think about what's trending and how you can combine your marketing with what's trending.

Oh yeah, I saw someone put up their products like someone was right like against the sky as if it's like a— yeah. So yeah, trendjacking. It's like when Oreo was on top of the Super Bowl blackout when the lights went out, when, um, I think the Ravens were playing the Niners, and they did, uh, we're always like something like, we're always on, or something like that. Um, and they trendjacked it. Do you remember that?

No, I didn't see that one. But did you see, uh, was it Hurricane Sandy that hit New York years ago?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And power was out, but Goldman Sachs had their lights on?

Oh yeah.

Right? That's amazing. It's, it's not really PR, but it started going viral. But like, the lights never turn off at Goldman Sachs.

Which is good if you're a client.

Yes. But it also shows the power of the company and the organization.

Yeah.

And it doesn't really matter because it's just one building. Their servers are in the cloud.

They're so rich that they have generators.

Yeah.

Usually in New York, you don't need generators.

Yeah. We're so rich. We can keep a 100-story building still powered. Even if Mother Nature tries to knock down other buildings, we're good.

You, you had one here. This was interesting because we have a mutual friend that actually spends on putting sports sponsorships basically. So you put here, is it worth having your company logo on a sports jersey?

Dude, so I got hit up by the San Antonio Spurs, the NBA team. And they said, hey, do you want your NP Digital logo on the San Antonio Spurs? I haven't checked. I don't watch The San Antonio Spurs. I only watch the Lakers and I don't track basketball every single game, but I know the rough standings. San Antonio is not like, oh, we're the best team or anything like that, right?

I mean, but they do have like the next LeBron James basically.

Sure. But you know, I don't think they're gonna win the championships.

Not in the next 3 years.

Yeah. So when you think about that, $12 million per year to just have your name on—

$36 million. I don't know what you're going to get from that.

I don't think I'm going to get much of a return. Yeah, I don't even— if I had to bet on it, because we've worked with companies that have sponsored professional sports teams, leagues, etc., and we've seen logos on jerseys, stadium naming rights, etc., and we've done brand recall studies for them. Dude, most of the time, if you had to guess, How much revenue do you think it generates versus what they spend from the brand recall studies?

5%?

It's somewhere closer to 2 to 3%. I'm close.

Yeah, you're close.

Yeah, it's, you know, you gave such a low number. It really is terrible. And that's extra revenue added. That's not, that's not profit. A great example of this is Crypto.com Arena.

$700 million.

Yes. What do you think they got from it? Almost nothing.

Probably less than that. Probably less than 2%.

Dude, no one talks about Crypto.com. No.

Like, I still think it's the Staples Center. I still call it the Staples Center. Yeah. It's just like I still call Twitter— I still call X Twitter.

And by the way, when it was the Staples Center, did that ever make you go to Staples more often?

No. No. Yeah.

I can't—

no. That's why Staples is bankrupt, I think.

No, they're not bankrupt. The company's doing well.

Are they really? Search the stock.

There's no— I don't think Staples is bankrupt. I'm like 99% sure. I could be wrong, but I'll definitely—

I'm sure some PE firms snatched them up if they like were about to go bankrupt. But anyway, while Neil finds that, we do have mutual friends that invest in sports teams. Um, could be like the Pac-12, for example, or, um, like the Minnesota Timberwolves as an example, right? Or could be like, uh, the Phoenix Suns. Like, those are all examples. But when we talk to our mutual friends, when we ask about the results from these patches, it seems like it's pretty negligible. And I think our key takeaway here is if you are looking to invest in marketing and grow direct response-wise, probably can look elsewhere. Probably a better bet you can make elsewhere.

Yeah, on a side note, I went back to the Staples thing. It's owned by private equity.

Oh, see?

But it's still doing well. What I mean well is like, I don't have their financials. The last number, uh, that they reported in revenue was $14 billion.

Yeah, well, what was the profit?

I have no idea. It's private, so they're not releasing it.

A lot of them have shut down.

A lot of the stores. I think they're cutting the fat on what's not working.

They're probably just doing online.

Yeah, yeah, because here's a TikTok video from January 5th. Staples is closing stores quick. But it isn't why you think. So I'm assuming that means they're doing something else and it's not because of bankruptcy.

Yeah. Well, like I said, private equity probably saved them. So we're going to end it. Go to marketingschool.io/agency if you want to grow your agency faster. That's the community that Neil and I have. We're like, community is everything. We think it's the next funnel, the next way of growing your audience through community. Check it out. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe. It helps us grow. Let us know what you continue to think. about these long-form episodes. And we'll see you— we'll see you in the next episode.

Bye.