In this monthly update, we share our client count relative to our goal, our churn, how many leads we got in May and our general sentiment around leads. Then we share what marketing has and hasn't worked and how marketing differs for service businesses.By Benji Hyam and Devesh Khanal

When you've identified a keyword or topic for a blog post, how do you get the arguments that go in your piece? We interview subject matter experts at Grow and Convert to accomplish this. In this video, we share how we prep for interviews with subject matter experts, who to interview, and how to add differentiation in your articles when writing for …

Devesh and I debate whether we should focus more on how-to content on this channel because it seems to be what gets the most viewership and engagement. We reflect on the series so far, our overall goal of doubling the agency and discuss whether we continue the series as is, or we go down a slightly different path. If you've enjoyed certain episodes…

Your business is starting to grow and now you need more of a process around marketing... so you're thinking of hiring your first marketer. What is the right profile of the marketer you should hire? What should that marketer focus on in the first 90 days? How should they think about what marketing channels to focus on? What's a good budget to start …

In this episode, Devesh starts off by sharing the two goals of the content pieces we write for clients. Then he shares examples explaining the differences between how we write articles vs. how most blog writers write articles. We dissect the differences in how we write blog post introductions, body copy and share why we think it's important to have…

In this episode, we share where we are relative to our doubling the agency goal. Then we talk through what's been working from a marketing perspective and some of the operational challenges that we're anticipating if we keep growing this quickly.By Benji Hyam and Devesh Khanal

In Episode 10, the episode about content strategies for new businesses, we shared that we were planning on doing a disruption story for one of our clients. In this episode, we share who the client is (Mirascope.io), the article and talk through some decisions that were made when writing the story. Then we share a couple of other examples of disrupt…

Can SEO content also be "thought leadership content?" Many people think these two kinds of content are completely different. More specifically, that you can't share thought leadership type ideas inside of SEO content and get articles to rank. We share a different view. We think that SEO and thought leadership ideas do go together. In this video, we…

March was a challenging month for us. We had our first churn of the year- which was not a great way to start the month- however it ended on a positive note. We discuss the churn, some new clients, our lead numbers and then share some ideas for changes we're going to be making to our marketing. Enjoy.…

LinkedIn influencer claims that: "Measuring the ROI of an individual piece of content (like this LinkedIn video, for instance) is not only a huge waste of time, it’s flat out not accurate. When it comes to “ROI”, focus on measuring the ROI of the *channel* instead of each individual piece of content." In this video, we break down why that argument …

In this episode, we discuss whether we should hire an editor to help scale writing operations. Devesh voices his frustration by spending so much time editing pieces -- most of his time in the agency is dedicated to editing and he feels like he doesn't have time to focus elsewhere. We propose the options of hiring an outside agency to help with edit…

In this episode, we share why we took a client with a new business and domain rating of only 0.5 (didn't even know this was possible). Then we share the approach we're taking to grow their business from the ground up with content. As part of the content strategy for this new business, we decided to create a disruption story for them. We talk about …

This week, I welcomed Trish Seidel onto the show. Trish is "marketing's big sister" on LinkedIn, where she shares advice on SEO, content strategy and growth. We discuss: Scaling Springly's content to 100 articles per month Building content strategies & how to build clusters Setting standards for content quality Important processes for scaling Chang…

In this episode, we share our client stats for the month of February. We analyze the leads we've received, we share why we don't work with software development companies as clients and share some ideas on how we'd attack SEO if we were a software development company, and then we spend a lengthy time discussing if we should hire an editor. The main …

Seven months into one of our engagements, the CEO asked us "when will the volume of high-quality leads start to go up?" The typical answer from most marketers is to say "I don't know" or "it depends," but we wanted to provided a more data driven answer. We knew that the client was likely 1-2 months away from seeing a big lift in the volume of leads…

In Episode 7, we bring in a guest. David Klose, one of our content strategists, joins us to talk about his experience updating blog posts. More specifically, we discuss 2 client accounts that had declining results (both ranking and leads) and how there was a need to get rankings back up. David shares the approach he took on two different accounts t…

In Episode 6, we get recommended as an agency from a known entity in the startup space, but the prospect wants a service that we don't really offer. We debate whether we should create a new service offering to take on the new client. Content brand post: https://www.growandconvert.com/content-marketing/content-brand/ Timestamps: 0:00 Episode Preview…

In Episode 5, we recap our first month since starting our challenge. We grew the highest amount in one month since starting our agency. We share our client count, where the mix of revenue is coming from and then analyze the 3 new clients that signed on for February.By Benji Hyam and Devesh Khanal

In Episode 4, one of our strategists is having trouble with an article interview and Devesh needs to jump in and take over the interview to steer it in the right direction. We ask the question, is this a good use of Devesh's time? We haven't really built any processes around interviewing, do we now need to build more training or processes around in…

After doing some analysis on clients that dropped in 2023, we realized that we have an issue with our churn rate. On average, clients stick with us for 12 months, which in other words means: we turn over all of our clients every year. In Episode 3, we talk through various ways to improve our churn rate: From changing pricing, to contract length, to…

We signed a new client on a year long contract, sent them the first article and they weren't happy with it. On top of that, the strategist and writer that was managing the account didn't feel like they were a good fit to keep running the account. In Episode 2, we talk through what we did to resolve the situation. We weighed various options from: 1.…

We're starting a new series where we document our journey trying to double the size of our agency over the next couple of years. This is episode one of the series where we explain why we're ready to scale our business, what our goals are, and why were documenting the journey on Youtube. Then we do a deep dive into our business during 2023, share wh…

This week, I welcome Josh Spilker onto the show. Josh is a seasoned marketer, having been the sole or first content person at ClickUp, Friday, and several other venture-back startups. We discuss: Is Josh worried about AI in SEO and content marketing? How will our world change? Is this the end of Google’s dominance? How has Josh streamlined his cont…

"There's no search volume for what we do"—okay, well do THIS instead. In this case study, Aditya Vempaty (ex-Amplitude, current MoEngage VP of Marketing) shares his story of identifying an underserved segment of a competitive industry and building an SEO-led content strategy to capture it. In this conversation, we discuss: Why you should ignore you…

We're back, baby! In this episode, I jump on to do my first-ever solo podcast. Just me and you. I wanted to dig into a challenge my clients and network face regularly: How to craft your first topic cluster. Your first for a client is so important. I can't stress that enough. It sets the tone and dictates whether SEO and Content will be part of your…

I was so excited to welcome fellow Brit, Zoe Ashbridge, to the community today. We throw tips and questions back and forth, discussing best practices around these four topics: How to write content that targets a specific keyword How to win featured snippets How to win HARO links How to work efficiently with freelancers (from briefs to workflows) In…

OMG. The Scale Package is LIVEEE for pre-order! Grab yours at a discounted price here. Benji Hyam and his team at Grow & Convert build SEO strategies that focus on conversion, not traffic. In this interview, we focus on the case study of Cognitive FX, which is a classic example of how to build a blog full of content that's high-converting, differen…

“60% of all our content ranks on page one.”—Jessica Lam Hill Young In this episode, we learn the three-part framework Jess and her team use to create high-quality content that ranks on Google almost every time. Expect to learn: The three-part framework behind content that ranks on page 1 How to balance self-promotion & helpful content Where to get …

Supporting article (free): How to Refresh Old Content for SEO (and what NOT to do) This week's episode focuses on one of the most powerful tools in the SEO arsenal: content refreshes. Want to impress your clients or boss? Start revisiting your vast library of content. Be warned: hockey stick traffic growth awaits. As you'll hear in the episode, upd…

Our "raison d’etre" is to help marketers scale search traffic without sacrificing quality. This week, expect a ton of tips & ideas for doing just that. I interviewed Erin Balsa, who builds thought leadership-driven content strategies for B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise solutions. She, like me, has a strong aversion to putting out co…

Since launch in 2020, copy.ai has grown to 8M users in the fierce battle for AI content writing tools. But back in 2022, when they began investing in SEO, search volumes for their core keywords (e.g. "AI content generator") were negligible if they existed at all. Over that year, as we are all well aware, there was a rapid wave in demand for AI copy…

We're joined again this week by Jacob from NerdWallet, this week to discuss a VERY important topic: high-converting keywords. We discuss: What types of keyword drive conversions? (It's not just bottom-of-funnel!) How to find high-converting keywords in your niche (Full article contains modifiers to use in your research) Why it's important to craft …

This case study is about an underdog website. A new company, launching into a competitive niche and winning some of those most difficult keywords. Maze broke through on topics like “UX Design” and “UX Design Tools” by focusing on: Thorough, well-crafted content Superior UI/UX designs Scalable link building CRO techniques These are the core tenants …

Jacob Clarke joined the show today from NerdWallet's stupidly successful SEO team. He helps us define topical authority and drill down into how to achieve it to accelerate growth results. In SEO, the concept of topical authority is one that's relatively new in our lexicon. But it's one of THE most powerful tools to have in your belt when building a…

I had an amazing conversation with Ash Read this week on the show. For those of you who know the software company Buffer, Ash was their Editorial Director for 6 years. So, you know, this is going to be an episode where you'll about scaling traffic with quality content systems. Since 2020, Ash has been building a niche blog empire. Starting with Liv…

Learn about E-E-A-T and how to demonstrate it with SEO expert, Olga Zarr. Topics: What is E-E-A-T? Does it matter for everyone? How can I demonstrate it to Google? Key Links: Mentioned SEO brief template Read this in article format. Become a How the F*ck member & unlock 30+ SEO case studies.

Eli Schwartz has advised the who's who of technology companies: Zendesk, Coinbase, Quora, InsightTimer, and many more. During his 7-year tenure at SurveyMonkey, his growth team of 5 was responsible for 2/3 of their annual revenue. In total, over $1bn in organic value (yes, that includes both branded search and content strategy). "By the time I left…

In the final episode with Adam Smith, we look at the keyword research system behind his "beast" SEO case study. Here's the background on the niche site: He bought an aged domain (DR 27) He wrote 4 million words (2,300 blog posts) It's currently at ~40,000 monthly visitors in <6 months We've already heard: How to identify a profitable niche to targe…

More with Adam Smith! This time? The hardest part of niche blogging: Actually choosing a sub-niche you don't regret. This is the best methodology I've seen to find areas of traffic you can win, quickly. Adam tells us how to take a data-led approach to this. The savvy ones of you out there will have already noticed—this methodology (for finding unta…

This week, I caught up with niche website expert, Adam Smith, to learn how to use aged domains to accelerate traffic-building success. Expert to learn: What is an aged domain? What use cases do they have in SEO? How can you evaluate them properly (9-step process) so you don't buy a red flag domain? How to implement them without Google knowing (the …

In this week's SEO case study, we revisit a story we released in December 2022: How Monday.com Scaled its SEO (1,000 articles in 12 months). In part one, we lifted the hood of the content operation that underpinned Monday's very first major investment into SEO. We learned how Monday worked with the content production company, Codeless.io, to make u…

Gaetano developed the strategy that took Aura's SEO traffic to close to ~1 million monthly visitors in 12 months. The blog started with zero content and low domain authority. Now, with only 100-200 pieces of content, Aura holds its own in competition against rivals like McAfee, Norton, and Experian. In this week's SEO case study, we learn how Aura …

Downloadable LEMA framework template: https://www.thefxck.com/lema-framework-template — In SEO, creating quality, experience-driven content has never been more important. It now takes 5 minutes to write a better-than-average article using AI. Which means we have just entered into an age of content commoditization. You need to differentiate your str…

In our latest episode, we interview founder Ian Landsman about how he started the help desk software Helpspot back in the early 2000s and how he's lasted 15+ years against funded big name players like Zendesk, HelpScout, and more. We get into the details about what he did in the early days to launch his company, why he never really had a focus on m…

We're trying something new. Many of our clients have really interesting backgrounds and stories, so we decided to interview them. In this podcast, we interview the Vocal Video team to learn where they got the idea for Vocal Video, learnings from their experience selling their past company TechValidate to SurveyMonkey, how their past experiences inf…

There are many people that don't know how to calculate the ROI of SEO. In particular, they don't understand a key principle of SEO's ROI: it gets better as time passes. Why? Because unlike paid channels where you need to spend more for every extra click you get, in SEO you start accumulating or stacking pages ranking at the top of Google search res…

eCommerce SEO expert, Louis Smith, came on the podcast this week to talk through one of his case studies. He helped this company grow from £80m monthly revenue to ~£100m in 12 months. When he started working with this fashion brand, they'd grown rapidly through paid acquisition channels. SEO hadn't been a focus at all, so they had a ton of technica…

Andy Francos was the Group Head of Organic Performance at Cazoo from day one through to IPO. In this episode, we learn: How Cazoo built a customer-centric organic strategy for the long-term Why Cazoo's non-branded search traffic grew from 6k to 120k a month within 2 weeks The interplay between PR, national TV ad campaigns, high-profile acquisitions…

In the past couple of months, we've had an increasing number of people ask us our thoughts on ChatGPT and how it will affect the world of content marketing and content writing. We've seen people take extremes: People saying they are going to use ChatGPT instead of hiring writers or content marketers going forward. Then the opposite, people saying C…

Bonus: Find the full content operations guide here. This week I’ve got a very special guest Gordana Stretenovic from Workello. Gordana and her team have grown multiple company's search traffic exponentially again and again from 0 to up to a crazy 1.5m visitors per month. At one point, her agency produced 800 blog posts per month for their clients w…