They may start out the same as a personal relationship: love at first sight (you see their website online), flirting stage (they sweet talk you to try to get your business), and then the honeymoon phase (they shower you with attention)…but after that, sometimes things start to fall off and services may go downhill. Do you know the signs of this?

By the end of this post, you should have a clearer perspective on the signs of a bad agency-client relationship, as well as gain a better understanding of what to expect from an agency in the future. Read on to learn more!

When to Break Up With Your Agency: Here Are The Red Flags You Just Can’t Ignore

 1. The Agency You Have Now Isn’t Transparent

Sometimes, an agency may cash your check month after month, but you have no clear understanding of what they’re actually doing behind the scenes. A lack of transparency often shows up as confusing reports, unclear metrics, or vague updates on project progress. It’s not just frustrating—it’s a major red flag.

You should know exactly what you’re getting for your investment each month. There should be clear expectations on both sides, including detailed insights into KPIs, deliverables, pricing structures, workflow processes, and timelines.

Another thing to keep an eye out for is that a non-transparent agency will probably make everything sound like sunshine and daisies all the time. This is not true. True transparency means sharing the successes but also providing honest feedback on what ISN’T working and why…plus taking accountability when and where failures happen.

From there, the agency should walk you through its marketing strategy to improve and clearly outline the steps forward.

2. There is No Communication

There’s a big difference between a lack of transparency and a total communication breakdown. If scheduling meetings feels like pulling teeth, you can’t get your account manager on a phone call, or you’re waiting days for email responses, it’s a sign of poor relationship management.

Your agency should initiate regular check-ins, keep lines of communication open, and proactively share updates on project progress, wins, and areas that need improvement. Overall, they should make you feel confident that your marketing strategy is moving in the right direction without you having to constantly keep tabs on them. An agency should make YOUR life easier, after all.

3. There Are Consistent Performance Issues

Note the word “consistent.” Every agency will have a bad day. Those things should be forgiven, especially if, most of the time, they’re accurate, working hard for you, and producing results.

But if the agency consistently does not approach projects with a clear strategy, doesn’t understand the digital space at all, blames everyone but themselves, or rarely meets deadlines or budgets, the working relationship isn’t healthy.

4. They Are Not Pushing the Boundaries

A forward-thinking agency should always be looking for innovative solutions, from integrating automation tools into your marketing strategy to exploring new trends like AI or fresh approaches to social media.

If your agency isn’t bringing new ideas to the table or challenging your business to grow, they may be holding you back from achieving your business goals and staying competitive in your industry.

5. You’ve Outgrown Each Other

Sometimes, a once-healthy agency relationship goes downhill over time simply as you grow apart.

Maybe the agency has outgrown you and can’t give you the attention that they used to. Or maybe your business has outgrown the agency, and you need an upgrade!

It’s okay to grow apart and move on, but it’s still a good idea to maintain a good business relationship because maybe you’ll still be able to help each other in the future.

What a Successful Client-Agency Relationship Looks Like:

1. The Agency Is An EXTENSION of the Business

One of the greatest advantages of partnering with a digital marketing agency instead of building an in-house “jack of all trades, master of none” team is that an agency lives and breathes marketing. Their team members specialize in SEO, PPC, content strategy, and more. This expertise fills in the gaps of your internal team, ensuring that you are not stretched thin trying to cover all marketing bases.

However, a good agency does more than just fill in the gaps—it acts as a true extension of the client’s business. Through a thoughtful new client onboarding process, the agency takes the time to understand the client’s expectations, business model, and target audience. This deeper understanding allows the agency to seamlessly integrate with internal teams as if they work right alongside you.

2. They Build Trust

Trust isn’t built overnight—it’s earned through transparency between the two parties. This means that an agency team must meet client needs, set realistic expectations upfront, and keep stakeholders informed in real time so that they always know where their marketing strategy stands and what to expect next.

A trustworthy agency doesn’t just aim for short-term wins; it focuses on retention and building a long-term relationship of mutual respect. That means celebrating successes but also having the respect for your partner to let them know where things are failing and taking accountability. Trust is built through good times… and bad—and how an agency reacts to remedying the bad.

3. They Have the Client’s Best Interests at Heart

A strong agency partnership is built on the understanding that a client’s success is their success. The best agencies see themselves as true partners, not just service providers. They take a personal stake in achieving the client’s goals, knowing that delivering exceptional results strengthens not only their client’s brand but also their own reputation as a trusted agency partner.

An ideal agency actively seeks client feedback and approval to refine strategies and improve outcomes. This approach reinforces the agency’s role as a collaborative partner invested in the long-term success of both teams.

4. Their Solutions Are Versatile

One of the most important factors of an agency is its versatility. Effective agency work requires the ability to adapt to ever-changing market conditions and integrate a variety of approaches. Since marketing doesn’t work in a vacuum, a versatile agency combines different disciplines—such as SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing—to build dynamic marketing campaigns that drive real results.

A strong agency leverages its diverse skills to address complex challenges. This versatility is what makes an agency as invaluable as the multi-tool every dad carries on their belt—reliable, adaptable, and ready for any situation.

5. They Push You

Finally, this is perhaps the most important sign of a good client-agency relationship: your agency shouldn’t just follow your lead—they should push you to be better (and vice versa). By offering fresh ideas, challenging your current marketing strategy, and introducing new technologies like AI, the agency you choose can ensure your business stays ahead of the curve.

Overall, an ideal agency understands your business goals, and they don’t just meet them; they constantly strive to exceed them.

The Bottom Line

While the red flags of a bad agency partnership can hold your business back, the traits of a strong client-agency relationship can propel you forward—driving growth, sparking innovation, and offering peace of mind.

At Digital Strike, we pride ourselves on embodying all the values of a strong agency partner. Our team is dedicated to being a true extension of your business, delivering versatile and forward-thinking solutions, and maintaining clear communication every step of the way. When you partner with us, your success is our success.

Ready to build a lasting partnership with an agency that truly cares about your business? Contact Digital Strike today to take your marketing strategy to the next level—together!

If you’re a website owner, web developer, or SEO manager, keeping up with these updates can be daunting enough; actually making the necessary changes to comply with what Google wants is a whole different story.

Let’s talk about the latest of these changes, Core Web Vitals, Google’s newest set of standards for how pages of a site provide the best possible user experience (and now Google came up with an official update called Google Helpful Content Update).

What Are Page Experience Factors?

In addition to relevancy (what the content is about) and authority (what other sites “say” about the content), Google uses performance metrics known as page experience factors to adjust search rankings. The four current factors (and how they affect your site’s rankings) are:

• Mobile friendliness
• Safe browsing
• HTTPS
• No intrusive interstitials

Mobile Friendly

The upcoming Google update will place greater emphasis on the mobile friendliness of your site than it did before.

Safe Browsing

Nobody likes malware. Google knows this, which is why the new algorithm includes a subsignal for safe browsing experiences.

HTTPS

HTTP is an essential protocol for any webpage; HTTPS is a more secure alternative to HTTP as it uses an encryption network. HTTPS pages will receive more favorable scores than HTTP versions.

No Intrusive Interstitials

Nothing tanks user experience — and Google rankings — quite like intrusive interstitials. These are typically defined as nothing more than simple popups, although they can still be incredibly annoying to your site’s visitors.

If you want to optimize your site and keep your user experience clean, you need to eliminate these distractions from your pages’ content.

Google is adding a fifth factor, Core Web Vitals (CWV), to their performance metrics. The update will be complete in August 2021. The four current factors are essentially pass or fail. Either your site is mobile-friendly or it is not. It has a security certificate or it does not.

Core Web Vitals are different.

What Are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals comprise three main metric types.

Those metrics are as follows:

• Load times (LCP)
• Interactivity (FID)
• Visual stability (CLS)

Simply put, Google wants each page of your site to provide the best possible experience for your visitors, and it will use these three primary metric types to determine how well (or how poorly) your site does so. It can rate them individually or as a group.

Google determines how effectively your site executes each metric by assessing a score based on a sliding scale. A Core Web Vitals report will show URL performance in terms of status (poor, needs improvement, or good.)

The higher a site’s Core Web Vitals scores, the better the site usability and the more optimally it will perform in Google’s search results.

Note that Core Web Vitals are not replacing any pre-existing ranking factors or ranking signals.

As you’ve heard for years now, site content is a huge priority and will continue to be viewed as such; this update is merely a way to encourage website owners to present that content in a more efficient and reliable manner.

Now that we know a bit about what Core Web Vitals are, let’s break each one down.

What Are the Three Core Web Vitals Metrics?

Google defines the three Core Web Vitals metric types as the following:

• Largest contentful paint (LCP)
• Cumulative layout shift (CLS)
• First input delay (FID)/Interaction to next paint (INP)

If those terms read like a foreign language, don’t worry. We’ll clear things up for you.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

This Core Web Vital is all about how long it takes for visitors to see the main content laid out properly on your site. Google recommends keeping your page load times at 2.5 seconds or less. Longer load times will result in poorer Core Web Vitals scores and thus affect your page’s ability to rank well in search results.

Complicated layouts, large image files, bloated source code, an overabundance of plugins, and the like can all negatively affect the loading time of your pages.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

While the other Web Vitals are concerned with speed, this one is focused on the visual stability of the webpage itself. In other words, Google doesn’t want the layout of your page shifting much as it loads, as these changes can confuse visitors and lead to problems like accidental clicks.

First Input Delay (FID) – Retired

How quickly visitors can see your page isn’t the only Core Web Vital concerned with speed. Google cares about how quickly your page becomes interactive, too. This Web Vital score is based on responsiveness, specifically how quickly visitors can interact with your site, such as using links or filling out forms.

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) – New

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) has replaced First Input Delay (FID) as of March 12, 2024. This more comprehensive metric type accounts for the time sites take to process and display all user interactions, not just the initial ones.

When Does Google Plan To Roll Out The Core Web Vitals Update?

The tech giant announced that the implementation will start in mid-June 2021 and will be completed around the end of August 2021. Google said the reason for this timeframe was to give website owners more time to make necessary changes.

Updates for Core Web Vitals continue well to today, with new changes like INP replacing FID occurring in March 2024.

Do I Need To Make Changes To My Site To Be Ready For The Update?

Your site won’t automatically be penalized as soon as the updates roll out, but taking steps now to ensure your site is all buttoned up will eliminate any of the guesswork.

The easiest way to see if your site needs to be optimized is by checking your Core Web Vitals score from within your Google Search Console account.

If you do not have a GSC account, you can get started here.

Once logged into your account, you will see a tab labeled Experience along the left-hand side of the screen (see image above). This section contains a report on page experience, and this is where you’ll find your Core Web Vitals data.

Your site’s URLs will be split into three buckets:

• Poor: Requires serious changes (red)
• Needs improvement: Requires minor tweaks (yellow)
• Good: You’re good to go (green)

As you make changes to your site to address any issues, you can refer back to your GSC account to monitor improvements in your Core Web Vitals scores.

Additionally, there are several trusted Google Chrome extensions you can use outside of Google Search Console to get a quick and accurate snapshot of your site’s Core Web Vitals scores.

These can all be found in the Google Chrome store, but our favorite is Lighthouse. You can download it here.

Simply load any page of your site and click on the Lighthouse icon to the right of the Chrome URL bar to generate a Core Web Vitals report that reflects the same metrics and thresholds you would see within your GSC account.

Within seconds, you’ll receive valuable feedback about where your page is performing well and where improvements are needed, as shown in the image below.

What Can I Do To Improve My Site’s Performance?

Not pleased with your report? Not a problem. If you have a WordPress site, we recommend the following:

• Use high-quality hosting like Kinsta, which can improve site performance and security.
• Install and configure the WordPress Rocket plugin, which can help reduce load time.
• Selectively turn off scripts and styles by using PerfMatters, an easy-to-use plugin that can help increase site speed.
• Compress images with the Short Pixel plugin, which improves load time.
• Set up an Automatic Platform Optimization account with CloudFlare Pro, which automatically optimized several key performance metrics for your site.

This one-time process resolves the vast majority of performance issues on the vast majority of WordPress sites.

Final Thoughts

According to a recent study conducted by SearchMetrics, of the more than 2 million URLs evaluated for passing Core Web Vitals scores, only 4% made the grade.

This means your competition is likely not paying attention to this important Google update, so the time to differentiate yourself is now. But the clock is ticking, so don’t delay. Make sure your site is giving its visitors the user experience they deserve.

While Google Search Console is one of the most widely used tools for site and search optimization, it isn’t always the easiest to understand and use. Same goes for Chrome extensions, which are good at providing surface-level data but are not designed to provide real-life solutions.

That’s where we come in.

Our team of experts can help you navigate your Google Core Web Vitals data and work with you to improve the functionality of your site.

If you’re ready to boost your site’s Core Web Vitals, contact Digital Strike today so we can assist you in creating the best possible user experience for your visitors.

They provide TV, internet, and phone services to customers across the country, primarily in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia.

In 2015, we started our engagement with Client A as a partner of another agency and have provided search engine optimization services since then.

We were tasked with building domain authority and increasing traffic to the website, but in the process of doing this, we also became a digital marketing partner for the client by providing outside insights into their overall digital marketing efforts, including paid search campaigns.

The following is a case study in how a little investigative work into the data of a paid search campaign can uncover some very helpful findings to get things turned back around.

The Problem

Every month, we report against the Return on Ad Spend for organic search traffic, branded paid search traffic, unbranded paid search traffic, and any additional paid channels that were being run as part of an experiment for new opportunities.

Return on Ad Spend Findings

Within our reporting on Return on Ad Spend, we were able to establish trends in Client A’s paid search performance and inconsistencies in the alignment between the SEO and PPC agencies.

Client A had changed paid search agencies in May and there were major increases in ad spend that lead to a negative ROI.

Our Investigation Process

Client A was already aware of a few issues regarding new geographic targeting implemented by the agency currently managing the Google AdWords campaigns, but through our investigation we were able to establish additional insights into exact causes that contributed to this negative return.

To note a caveat, we weren’t actually allowed to go into the Google AdWords account directly. As a result, all data that we were able to adequately evaluate came directly from Client A’s Google Analytics account.

From this data, we found the following:

• ~17% year-over-year (YoY) increase in paid search visits to Client A’s BuyFlow Storefront (a visitor’s initial step to completing a sale)
• This ~17% increase, however, was offset by a ~11% decrease in paid search sessions to the second step of the process
• Alarmingly, there was ~105% increase in paid search visits to their “Not Serviceable” page — a clear indication of the aforementioned geographical targeting issue

Ultimately, what was happening was, paid search visitors were starting the conversion process but then leaving the site when they found that they didn’t live in one of Client A’s service areas.

State Targeting

Looking deeper into this ~105% YoY increase, we found that the most significant increases occurred in Texas (118%), California (331%), and Missouri (192%).

Compared to overall traffic, there was an increase in NoService sessions in Texas of 102%, California of 188%, and Missouri of 180%.

While these three states are areas in which Client A provides telecommunication services, its paid search campaigns in Google AdWords were also targeting areas in which they did not provide services.

City Targeting

The three cities that produced the highest increase of “NotServiceable” sessions were Dallas (80%), Houston (135%), San Antonio (198%), and Los Angeles (302%).

This data allowed us the opportunity to report on what we were seeing beyond the state-level and offer up suggestions on where we could clean up specific cities/zip codes within Client A’s service areas.

Cleaning up this data at both the state and city levels could help improve the quality of site traffic from paid search, increase Quality Scores, and thus provide an opportunity at improved conversion rates and enhanced lead generation efforts.

Keyword Targeting

Finally, we took a look at the PPC campaigns’ keywords, specifically trying to identify any discrepancies that may have existed YoY to contribute to the decrease in Return on Ad Spend.

Upon starting our keyword investigation, we noticed there were some terms added to the campaigns, and set to a broad match modified match type, that were noticeably absent from the Google Analytics data from the previous year.

An example of one of these keywords is the term “Internet.”

After this keyword was added to the PPC campaigns using Google AdWords’ more restrictive match types — exact and phrase, in addition to broad match modified — it generated an overall spend of $122,467 and a cost-per-click of $6.47 — both of which were higher than when the less-restrictive broad match was being used exclusively ($11, 988 in ad spend; avg. CPC of $1.54).

However, once the more restrictive match types were applied, the number of overall conversions (275) and Return on Ad Spend ($23,325) both increased significantly compared to that generated by the broad match — 149 and $11,988, respectively.

Additionally, we found that some ad spend was being wasted on keywords that suggested a need for completely unrelated services, such as the term “uHaul.” While these irrelevant terms didn’t generate a ton of waste — roughly ~$8,000 and a return of 10 confirmations or $850 ($85 value for confirmations) — this evidence suggested there was definitely an opportunity to pause some keywords to funnel more spend towards more successful keywords.

Overall, there was a significant increase in average CPCs due to a change in match types from broad — which typically produces cheaper clicks but at the risk of less control over who sees the paid ads. The additions of the broad match modified, phrase, and exact match types drove the average CPCs up by 46 cents on branded terms and by $6.15 on unbranded terms.

Our Solution

Too many cities and states were being served ads that could not provide cable and Internet services at those locations.

We could tell this was happening based on the increase in Not Serviceable page sessions. We recommended a closer look into the targeting by state and city.

When looking at the limited keyword data, we recommended they turn on a few of the campaigns that were being managed by the previous agency.

The goal behind this recommendation was to not only turn back on the top performing past campaigns but hopefully stabilize the loss in Return on Ad Spend and decreas the number of Not Serviceable page sessions.

But sometimes the compatibility just isn’t there. 

This might be a little odd coming from your friendly neighborhood digital marketing agency, but the hope is that by the end of this post, you’ll have a clearer perspective on your current agency relationship and have a better understanding of what to expect from one in the future.

Here are a few signs that your agency relationship is unhealthy: 

1. The agency you have now isn’t transparent

Just like when your significant other is shifty about why they’re coming home from work late, sometimes an agency doesn’t tell you exactly what they’re doing.

Or maybe they’re promising things they can’t really deliver just to get you in the door.

They’re taking advantage of your lack of marketing knowledge and promising you the moon when the best they can give you is disappointment.

But the whole reason you hired them was so that they’d make your life easier and your business more successful. 

They’re just making your life harder and keeping you from achieving the goals you’ve set for your business.

It’s time to find an agency that will be transparent and that you can trust.

2. Your business has changed or the agency has

Sometimes a healthy agency relationship turns sour over time as you grow apart.

Maybe your business has outgrown them or the agency has outgrown you and can’t give you the attention that they used to. 

It’s okay to grow apart and then move on. Maintain a good relationship with them, because maybe they’ll still be able to help in the future.

3. The agency has consistent performance issues

Note the word “consistent.” Every agency will have a bad day, make errors, and that may disappoint you.

Those things should be forgiven, especially if most of the time, they’re accurate, working hard for you, and producing results.

But if the agency is consistently not approaching projects with a clear strategy, doesn’t understand the digital space at all, or they rarely meet deadlines or budgets, the relationship isn’t a healthy one.

What a Healthy Agency Relationship Looks Like:

If you have a healthy relationship with your digital marketing agency, you probably know it already. 

You’re happy to work with them and they’re making your life easier. Before working with them, digital marketing was stressful to think about and your online conversions weren’t growing.

But then you found the digital marketing agency of your dreams.

Here are some of the things an agency should do to facilitate a healthy relationship:

1. They have your best interests at heart

Not every agency will care about your company. They won’t take the time to really get to know it and understand it the way you do.

Find a digital marketing agency that will put in the time and effort. It’ll be better for you in the long run because you know that your company is in good hands.

You’ll be able to focus on aspects of your business that are more important to you. 

2. They fill in the gaps of your internal team

The best thing about hiring a digital marketing agency rather than building your in-house team is that an agency lives and breathes marketing. 

They love SEO, PPC, and content strategy. Maybe they have an in-house designer and developer who will revamp your website. 

3. Their solutions are versatile and creative

One of the most crucial deciding factors can be the agency’s versatility. Marketing doesn’t work in a vacuum. Your marketing campaigns will thrive through different combinations of disciplines and capabilities.

Digital Strike couldn’t do everything it does without its PPC and SEO specialists or our in-house creative team. We couldn’t be successful if we were just account managers.

Our diverse skills and perspectives make us as versatile as the multi-tool every dad carries on their belt. 

The Bottom Line

It might be a little odd to talk about the health of a professional relationship as if it’s a personal one. 

But if you’re a small business trying to grow, then a relationship with your digital marketing agency is a mix of personal and professional for you.

If you enter a relationship with a new agency, give it time to ramp up. The onboarding process can take time and then it takes even more time for their hard work to have an effect.

At Digital Strike, we can help you find the right solutions for your business. Contact us for a free consultation. 

You might be wondering:

“Why am I not ranking first in Google for [INSERT KEYWORD]?”

It’s not a bad question—it shows you value your business’ position in search engine results pages (SERPs) and understand that organic—or unpaid—search traffic can give you a continual stream of targeted traffic, qualified leads and, eventually, paying clients.

But if you, too, are asking this question, you’re focusing on the wrong measure of SEO success.

Don’t worry. I’m not avoiding your question—I’ll answer it in this post.

But before I do, allow me to reframe your problem with another question:

“What is the real goal of your SEO efforts: increasing your Google ranking, or creating a continual stream of qualified leads?”

Here’s the thing: your keyword rankings for a variety of terms should increase with any comprehensive SEO strategy.

But that’s not the goal. And it shouldn’t be your focus.

While we are monitoring how you are ranking across of hundreds—even thousands—of keywords, we don’t measure the success of your campaign by SERP rankings.

And why would we? You want to attract qualified leads, not win a blue ribbon for ranking first for a specific keyword. It’s the trend of rankings across industry-related keywords that will drive business, not ranking for any one keyword.

Here’s how we measure success:

• An increase in tracked engagements (calls and form submissions directed from your site)
• Number of qualified leads month by month (those who’re a good fit for your business, and interested in your product or service)
• The overall trend in rankings for various keyword themes—groups of keywords surrounding your business’ key service areas, products or markets

“But wait—I thought SEO was all about keyword rankings”

Okay sure, increased rankings in Google are correlated to an increase in targeted traffic and qualified leads—that’s the very idea that search engine optimization is built upon.

But SEO is not about winning a specific keyword. See, 3.5 billion Google searches are made. Every. Single Day.

And about 16 to 20 percent of those searches have never been made before. Especially as searchers become more comfortable asking Google complex questions, optimizing for specific keywords isn’t enough.

The best way to rank for these new, never-been-searched-before keywords is to have a strategy focused on building helpful content surrounding all facets of your business, and optimizing for every possible question a potential client might have from awareness to conversion.

By creating shareable content and increasing the number of sites linking to you, you will increase your Domain Authority and, eventually, increase your SERP rankings for industry-relevant searches—even searches that have never been asked before.

Yes, you still need to have a robust keyword-targeted SEO strategy. But now more than ever, you need to be more focused on addressing questions, improving user experience and creating a robust collection of web pages, blogs and backlinks in order to compete for the ongoing stream of new, long-tail search queries.

That’s why we—though we thoroughly monitor your SERP rankings over time for hundreds of keywords—focus most of our time on “keyword themes” rather than individual keywords.

Back to your question: “How do I rank first in Google for [INSERT KEYWORD]”?

I know what you’re thinking:

“This is great and all, but I still need to rank #1 for [INSERT KEYWORD]! How do I do that?!??”

Okay, let me actually answer your original question. One caveat before we begin: the answer is not simple.

Let’s say you desperately want to know how to rank #1 in Google for the keyword “locksmith STL.”

There are at least five other variations of that same keyword. Locksmith St. Louis. St. Louis locksmith. Locksmith in St. Louis. Even locksmiths STL.

Though these keywords all seem the same, you will get a slightly different SERP for each one. You might appear for “St. Louis locksmith” but not “Locksmith STL.”

To drive this point home, let’s compare the SERPs for two Google searches: “locksmith STL” and “locksmiths STL.”

The ads are different. The local pack is different. And the organic results are different. 

You might be ranking for every single variant of “St. Louis + Locksmith” except “locksmith STL.”

See, if you focus only on one keyword, you’re missing the big picture.

And this example only shows generic location-based searches.

What about when someone searches, “How to get broken key out of ignition”? Or when they search “How to fix a door lock that is jammed?” Or when they just want to know the “cost of rekeying a lock”?

You could lose your mind trying to optimize for every single variant of every single keyword. Even for the best SEO companies, optimizing for every possible search query is impossible.

Remember: Nearly 630 million Google searches are made every single day that have never been searched before.

Shift your focus from specific keywords to “keyword themes”

At Digital Strike, we do tons of keyword research for each of our clients.

We’ll create a detailed spreadsheet of every possible keyword phrase someone might use when talking about your products or services, from the awareness phase (when someone is looking for a solution to a problem), all the way to down to the purchasing decision or conversion.

In any given SEO campaign, we are optimizing for hundreds of keywords for every market you serve, service you provide or product you sell.

Usually, each of these keywords can be distilled down to several “themes,” or broad areas of focus that we’re optimizing for.

Let’s tie the locksmith example back in:

You provide both residential and commercial locksmith services. The end goal of your SEO campaign is to leverage targeted search traffic, turning searchers into paying customers.

Once we understand your business and know your goals, we’ll do some keyword research.

We might find there are three main “keyword themes” surrounding the keywords in your business: residential, commercial and emergency services.

There are a variety of keywords that fall under these keyword themes:

1. RESIDENTIAL
   Example keywords: residential locksmith, front door lock replacement, how to rekey a deadbolt, door lock repair service
2. COMMERCIAL
   Example keywords: commercial locksmith, electric strike installation, filing cabinet key replacement, digital safe lock change out
3. EMERGENCY
   Example keywords: emergency locksmith, how to get a broken key out of ignition, locked out of house, commercial lockout

Of course, there are dozens of other keywords we could list under each theme. But essentially, these themes describe facets—service areas, products, or markets—of your business you’d like to grow.

We’ll develop a long-term content and link building strategy that encompasses many different ways to search about each theme. In the end, this will help increase your SERP rankings and, in the end, drive business for each of your service areas.

Bottom line is this:

Ranking for one keyword won’t drive results. Building a robust collection of web pages, blogs and backlinks surrounding the various services you provide and markets you serve will.

The success of your SEO campaign is measured by bottom line results, not keyword-by-keyword rankings.

“Why am I not ranking #1 in the local pack? We optimized our Google Business Profile listing.”

This is a question we get a lot. Business owners come to us wondering why their phone isn’t ringing off the hook after optimizing their local listings.

Allow us to explain:

Yes, You Need To Optimize Your Local Listing

Your local listing management strategy needs to include having completely up-to-date information.

Think of your local listing like a spot in the local yellow pages. These traditional directories organized companies by industry, then services, then alphabetically.

Google made this model more efficient over the years. Instead of sorting listings in alphabetical order, they serve the business that is most likely to be able to satisfy a searcher’s needs.

One of the principal ways Google determines that search ranking is by checking and cross-checking key business information to ensure you’re legitimate. It takes your NAP data (address, phone number, and business name) and ensures it is consistent across other online listings, including Bing, Yahoo, and local directories.

If your NAP data is the same across all these data aggregators (and the more then better), then your business is seen as legitimate. remember, legitimate businesses are more likely to solve a searcher’s needs, so Google is more likely to show them at higher levels.

But Your Online Listing Management Is Just One Factor

Citation building and local listing management is just the beginning of local SEO. It gets you into the game, but it doesn’t guarantee to win any business.

Simply ­­having consistent citations in Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yelp used to separate you from your competitors, but now the competition has woken up and smelled the search engine optimization coffee.

Unless your business exists in a non-competitive location and vertical, there is so much more you need to do if you want to drive traffic and generate leads from your local listing.

Managing your local listings and citations is a good foundation for your local strategy. But it will not set you apart from the competition, and will not help you generate business.

Link Authority & User-Experience

Google and other search engines take your business’s overall online presence into account when deciding to reward the best search rankings.

When we say your overall online presence, we mean the authority you have generated from other websites, such as local blogs linking to your site. Your online presence can also include your listings across multiple directories as well as the satisfaction a user gets when they visit your website.

Here are some questions to get you started:

• Are other popular websites linking to your website? 
• Does your site also include in-depth service pages that address customer FAQs? 
• How about regularly published blog posts that demonstrate thought-leadership in your industry? 
• Do you make it easy for your visitors to understand your business model and how it will make their lives easier?

If you’re shaking your head to these questions, you can start to see why simply optimizing for Google My Business isn’t enough to land you on spot number one.

Sure you might have a superior product to your competitors, but if they are doing a better job sharing their message across a broader and easy to digest online presence, they’ll be rewarded the online traffic (and thus the revenue).

A Coffee Shop Example

When someone runs a local search for “Coffee Near Me” in Google maps, they don’t want a list of run-in-the-mill coffee shops, they want the best coffee shop near them.

Search engines will likely give the highest rank to the business who demonstrates that they are the best shop near the searcher. So first of all, your NAP data must check out across multiple directories and review sites. You also need to be clearly defined as a “Coffee Shop” or that coffee is one of your core specialties.

Now that you’ve gotten this far, you’re probably competing with about 10 other shops who have done the same, so search engines take it one step further by crawling your website, analyzing its authority and content marketing.

The most effective tactic for local ranking by far is local link building.

If every food magazine and lifestyle blogger around town is linking to your site in a post talking about how your coffee is the best in town, Google will get the hint.

And when a searcher in your city asks Google where the “best coffee shop in town” is, Google is more likely to serve up directions to your shop right there in the local pack.

Beyond link authority, web crawlers might look at if you describe your location on your website, making it easier for searchers to understand the area you are in and the things that set you apart. They may even look for a gallery page and how many pictures you have coffee.

In addition to having a website with lots of information about coffee coffee coffee, Google recognizes that the best coffee places also have smiling baristas and serve dishes that complement coffee, such as breakfast sandwiches. With that in mind, having content around topics related to coffee is important, too.

They’ll even crawl your social media pages to ensure you’re active on there.

Also, do you offer free wi-fi? If so, it better be known to your searchers and search engines alike.

Expert Local Listings Management

As you can see, ranking at the top of a local search is about much more than local listing management. Suddenly you need to optimize a laundry list of things to stay competitive. 

Technical website management, along with a comprehensive content marketing, link building and review management strategy is the competitive difference-makers that will help you stand out from your competition.

The recipe for local SEO success is complicated. Partnering with a digital marketing agency that goes beyond a simple Yext update is almost a given in today’s landscape. 

At Digital Strike, we take your entire online presence into account to get you to the top of search queries that matter the most for your business. We work with large and small businesses across the country to maximize local results. 

If you need digital marketing services to make your online presence more robust, give us a call today.  

Photo credit: https://www.masslivemedia.com/