Why Should You Focus on ROI Rather than Ranking?

Almost every business owner is obsessed with ranking up in the SERP, forgetting that it’s not the only factor that matters.

Video transcript:

David: I think I told you my success story a couple of weeks ago was finding out the client wasn’t receiving their forms. Right? And once we found out, we had a backup. Thankfully, they could get those, and you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars of leads.

Tricia: Well, getting them, but they weren’t actually getting to them because it was…

David: But this report showed them they were getting leads. They’re just like, where are they? Well, the website was broken. The tracking wasn’t broken, and people were filling out forms. You just weren’t getting responses. And that meant a problem. But this kind of serves the purpose of the weekly report where I see that their leads are still coming in. I just have to assume the client is getting them. But the client doesn’t get that every week. So, this report served them and had them ask, “Well, wait. Where are all these leads you say I’m getting?” Well, we investigate, and holy crap, it’s broken. Even though it’s tracking, it was still broken.

Tim: Their website is hosted by someone else or something like that?

David: It was a security update and the plugin. I think it was aggressive security settings on a host, and then the developer thought they fixed it. Two days later, we’re still not getting any leads. Not even the test leads. And then something happened, and they fixed it, and they got four weeks of leads immediately.

Tricia: Wow.

David: Actually, maybe even more than four weeks. And hopefully, all those people got emails replies. Be with you shortly, you know, three months ago. Okay. But yeah. So, if I could have time for clients to say, Okay, did you get the leads? I have to say, one of the benefits of making sure clients think in terms of leads and ROI is that so many times, there are other systematic problems going on. I’m working so hard to get them leads, but their receptionist doesn’t know what to do when they get a lead. I have one client that, thankfully, due to call tracking, I can listen to phone calls. One of the receptionists cuts off people and doesn’t let them answer, and disqualifies them before they even get a chance to explain.

Tim: Oh, man.

David: And I mean, I can go to the client and say, you got a serious problem here. We’re spending a lot of money, and your receptionist isn’t letting someone speak. That’s their first impression of your company, the receptionist cutting you off, interrupting you, and not letting you talk. Now mind you that they might be right; this may not be a qualified lead. But at least let them have a chance to talk. It’s like, hello? I have another example where someone was listening in and discovered a whole new product line that the client hadn’t thought of that people are asking if they do. And the receptionist was just like, “No, we don’t do that.” When we brought it to the attention of the client, he said, “No, we don’t do that, but we could.” Yeah. And they developed a whole product line. First to market, huge win.

Tricia: Wow.

David: Another client had a service that was on their website, but the receptionist didn’t know about it.

Tim: Oops.

David: And so, they say can you do this for me, and the receptionist says no. So, there’s, you know, all kinds of value from phone call tracking and keeping up with those leads. If the client had been so focused on rank, the ranking would not have helped them in any of those cases

Tricia: They were ranking, but they weren’t getting…

David: Right. They could rank but never get any traffic. Right? But even if you get traffic, even if you get leads, like you’ve missed… So, that’s just the other value. Just keep the conversation here; keep it about ROI. And I tell you, the easiest early win in any SEO campaign is to make sure clients are getting their leads. Within the first month, you can increase almost everybody’s business just by making sure they get their leads. That’s before we even start an SEO campaign, which is great because what you do in the first month for SEO isn’t going to help them for a couple of months anyway.

Tricia: Yeah.

David: Right?

Tim: Yep.

David: So, what you’re starting now, like analytics boring stuff, isn’t it going to increase their SEO traffic. So, if you do things like… Let’s make a clear call to action on your website and make sure it is really easy to contact you by adding a phone number or something like that. Now we’re winning before we even really begin SEO. And they’re catching up three months later, now your SEO kicking in, and now we’re running on all cylinders, and that’s just three or four months in. Now we’re doing great. SEO caught up, their leads are coming in, they’re paying attention to the leads for the first time, and they’re we’re all about making money for them. And they will keep paying you as long as they’re still making money. Why stop? You’re making money. Why stop paying you?

Tricia: Yeah.

Tim: Yep.