Podcast With Bill Gaule

Master B2B SEO: Flipping the Funnel for Success with Bill Gaule

Show Notes

Discover the secrets to mastering B2B SEO and learn how to "flip the funnel" to drive more organic traffic and achieve a #1 ranking! In this episode of the Agency Insider Show, Navneet Kaushal sits down with SEO expert Bill Gaule, cofounder of SERPsculpt, to share actionable strategies designed for success in 2025. Whether you’re aiming to rank your website number 1 or looking for the ultimate step-by-step guide to improving your search engine rankings, this video covers everything you need.

Explore powerful SEO strategies for 2025, including bottom-of-funnel content creation, optimizing for high commercial intent, and balancing brand voice with SEO-friendly practices. Bill also reveals how to use tools like Ahrefs, Keywords Everywhere, and AI for effective content marketing, plus insider tips on improving conversions with high-impact CTAs. Perfect for beginners and advanced marketers alike, this practical guide will help you stay ahead of the competition and turn your website into an organic traffic magnet.

Ready to elevate your SEO game? Watch now to unlock proven tactics and start driving more traffic today. Don’t forget to subscribe for more expert insights and share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s make 2025 your year of SEO success!

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction

01:52 - Effective Content Marketing Strategies

03:11 - Creating Original Content that Ranks Well

05:58 - Balancing SEO and Brand Voice

07:42 - Core Principles in Content Marketing

12:00 - Client Success Story in Content Marketing

13:05 - Content Velocity in Marketing

14:46 - Importance of Strategy in SEO

16:52 - Writing for Search Engines and Audiences

18:15 - Essential Tools for Content Strategy

25:07 - Copywriting Techniques for SEO

28:04 - Importance of Linking in SEO

29:30 - Crafting Effective Meta Descriptions

30:41 - AI's Impact on SEO Copywriting

34:17 - Creating High-Converting Content

37:33 - Content for Buyer’s Journey Stages

40:54 - Improving Conversions with Content Optimization

42:10 - Strategies for New vs Old Websites

44:34 - Belief in Content Repurposing

47:35 - Rapid Fire Round

48:14 - Advice for B2B Content Marketers

49:10 - Outro

Transcript

Introduction

0:00 welcome to the agency Insider show I'm your host navnit Kell and today we have an exciting episode lined up for you we

0:07 are joined by Bill Gul the SEO director and co-founder of s s sculpt a B2B SEO

0:13 and content marketing agency bill is an expert in content marketing strategy and

0:18 SEO copyrighting and we are thrilled to have him share his insights with us today

0:25 [Applause] [Music]

0:35 well welcome to the agency Insider show thanks for having me n it's a pleasure to be here before we dive into the main

0:43 topic could you give our listeners a brief introduction about yourself and your journey in the digital marketing

0:48 world yeah sure so I guess well probably all started about 10 years ago I studi

0:56 Marketing in college or university depending on where you're from and got a couple of internships post post

1:02 education and then ended up working in a startup um that was marketing as a as a

1:10 job title but really it was more product development did a little bit of everything and then from there after

1:16 taking a little bit of time out teaching English I went and got a job in an agency and really from that point that

1:23 was purely SEO focused and it's really the last six years or so I've been

1:29 largely focused on SEO and then earlier this year um myself and my business partner got together to form Ser sculpt

1:36 as as you mentioned so okay that's that's the high level the quick version okay that's fascinating of

1:43 course you your experience in B2B Su and content marketing is truly impressive so

1:49 let's jump into our first segment related to content marketing strategies now you are known for your expertise in

Effective Content Marketing Strategies

1:55 content marketing so can you share some of the most effective content marketing strategies you have implemented for B2B

2:02 companies sure I mean from our point of view we we would focus primarily on on

2:08 SEO and as a strategy for for B2B companies our main strategy really is

2:14 the concept of flipping the marketing funnel so you have your top middle bottom of funnel a lot of a lot of

2:22 conventional or historic approaches would have been to start at the top of the funnel which would have higher search volumes right we would focus more

2:31 at the bottom of the funnel which is Al be it lower search volumes generally speaking but higher intent higher

2:37 commercial intent so we would basically create topics go after those topics

2:43 those keywords that are very much business intent High commercial intent and go from there and then work way up

2:48 the funnel it's not a perfect science it's not that we would only do bottom of funnel before we would ever touch

2:54 anything further up the funnel but 80% of the time that's where we would start and yeah so as as a high level that

3:01 would be the the winning strategy in going after the the available opportunities that are there so yeah

3:06 that that's basically it okay now uh so how do you approach creating original

Creating Original Content that Ranks Well

3:13 content that ranks well in search engine so do you have any specific methodology which you can

3:19 share yeah so I guess it's it's a combination

3:26 of well probably before I even could answer that the one of the first things that we would do would be have an ICP

3:33 call with the clients so basically focusing on your client's uh ideal customer profile and from there we can

3:41 understand who who that that person is what they what they look like what what are their pain points where are they in

3:47 their their buying Journey Etc right from that point of view then we can we

3:53 can create much better content because when you understand them you can write accordingly you know it's like um

4:02 how would I put it yeah when when you can understand your your customer or your potential customers in a deeper way

4:08 the content is naturally going to resonate a lot better whereas if your

4:15 understanding is more surface level a bit more superficial the content generally it tends to be a little bit

4:21 more vague a little bit more General even the language itself so I I would say just by going deep on the research

4:27 to begin with that's going to set you up for for much better success beyond that there would

4:33 obviously we would use specialist writers and there would be a lot of back and forth with the the client using

4:40 their data whatever data we can get our hands on and and just I suppose then on more of a tactical point of view if

4:46 we're going after whatever the keyword might be looking at the search results

4:52 really analyzing what's ranking why is it ranking has has the search

4:57 intent is it really being is it being truly Hit Upon in the search results

5:03 right now is Google missing something and how can we make this better for our

5:08 ICP not just better than what's currently ranking but actually better for the I for the ICP and I

5:16 guess often what we because the typical approach is you see a bunch of pages racking in Google search results and the

5:24 automatic reaction would be to tr create more create more of the same make it

5:30 better sometimes you need to take a step back and look at is this actually what

5:35 the reader what the Searcher really wants and is it really hitting search intent but you got in order to do that

5:41 you have to I suppose take a take a step back so um yeah that's that's the

5:48 general the general process it would be using the data that you have unique insights and particularly the ICP

5:55 research okay and how do you balance the need for SEO friendly content while with

Balancing SEO and Brand Voice

6:02 maintaining a unique brand voice is there any specific because based on the ICP so how do you do

6:09 that sorry can you repeat the question so how do we balance the ICP how do you balance the need for SEO friend content

6:16 with maintaining a unique brand voice I don't think it's well I don't

6:22 think it's been too much of an issue in that for us we would create templates

6:30 okay or create an outline for our writers of what we believe is the type of page that will rank within SEO so

6:37 it's checking the boxes algorithmically but also crucially from as we mentioned from the search intent point of view is

6:44 this going to resonate with the user but to balance that then with is that on brand in the very early stages we would

6:51 always work alongside typically is the founder or but it could be the CMO

6:57 whoever it might be someone that really knows the brand inside out and inevitably that first month of

7:06 publishing there's a lot of there's a bit of back and forth in terms of the language Etc but I think

7:13 that's it's it's yeah it's a bit of a learning process I guess for for the writers and for ourselves and just

7:18 getting to know the brand but the truth being probably it's it gets better as time goes on like the second month is

7:23 quicker than the first and so on um so the balance is we always try to create

7:29 great quality but maintaining SEO in mind while having input from people within the organization so it's not a

7:37 perfect sence but there's probably a few different factors going on to to try to achieve that okay now content marketing

Core Principles in Content Marketing

7:44 obviously has evolved rapidly over the years from your perspective what are the core principes businesses often miss

7:50 when starting out with content marketing the core things that they will

7:55 miss when starting out with content marketing

8:01 I would say it's yeah it's it's often the bottom of funnel keywords um often whether it's by Design

8:08 or coincidence a lot of content that I see B2B companies doing particularly if

8:14 they're if they're just starting out maybe they have 10 blog posts 20 blog posts the majority tend to be maybe

8:22 they've gone after that high volume keyword that maybe what is definition that very top of one on post or maybe

8:30 it's an opinion piece like a thought leadership piece but very very rarely I see new B2B companies go after bottom of

8:38 fun content like for example a competitor Alternatives or a competitor versus competitor or

8:45 even a product list post maybe the best what is is a little bit more common but

8:50 I think understandably there's probably a natural and natural hesitation to want to go after something like that where

8:57 you would cover your competitors because the natural reaction is why would I cover my competitors on my blog post why would I talk about them to which I would

9:04 say they're going to people are going to be searching your competitive Alternatives regardless with or without

9:09 you you you might as well use that opportunity to get in front of the right eyeballs at the right time in their

9:15 buying journey and albe you don't have to necessarily put it on your blog or front and center in your website you

9:20 could have a separate subfolder if you prefer but yeah I I I would say that's probably

9:26 it it's just it's not going not going after the obvious shortterm opportunities that are going to deliver

9:33 results um in a shorter time frame so that probably comes from a lack of

9:38 strategy but that's that's probably the obvious one I would say so when when when somebody should create this bottom

9:44 of the foral content does it make sense to do because for example competitor a versus B does it also make sense to run

9:51 a little bit of Google ads on it or what is your take on L yeah well I I would be

9:57 personally I'm in favor of a company using Google ads for the bottom of the funnel yeah

10:04 yeah for the bottom of funnel yeah I mean typically it's going to be bottom funnel but I guess I'm I'm not a PPC

10:10 expert but if depending on how it's set up over say if you leave that run for the over the

10:16 course of a month inevitably Google ads is going to uh pick up more more and

10:23 more keywords more and more Search terms that you wouldn't have thought about otherwise so yeah going after the bottom

10:30 keywords whether it be a competitor comparison or Alternatives or whatever

10:35 we deem or the client would deem as an obvious keyword to rank for that makes that would make a lot of sense but I

10:41 think you can then later on you can create content so for example if you've

10:48 identified that this keyword or a series of keywords is now driving conversions

10:54 within Google ads that's that's pretty good data to have to say to create content organic

11:01 content targeting these keywords for for me personally when I see a client when I start working with a client and if they

11:07 have Google ads that's uh something I always enjoy because it's it's a great starting point and it's a great data

11:12 source to have right so when you are doing that so are you a fan of topical

11:20 clusters not really well topical clusters in the con in the conventional

11:25 sense not so much not that I'm against it it's just my standard approach would be as I said

11:33 would be kind of Flipping The Funnel starting bottom working the way up um The Wider question being if this topic

11:40 is relevant to the customer in their customer journey is that going to help them along the way and is it going to

11:47 help position our client our product our service in front of them so if that

11:53 happens to be related yes but I wouldn't I haven't personally really followed that in in that deeper sense okay now

Client Success Story in Content Marketing

12:00 could you share an example of a client or a project where the right content marketing strategy made a significant

12:07 impact you don't need to really name the client but just for our audience yeah

12:12 yeah yeah sure so I guess for recent clients we worked within the B2B SAS

12:18 space we more or less after three well as of the time of speaking now would be

12:23 four months in I guess but we basically 3x

12:29 uh trials from the blog y y so the first month was just research strategy and

12:35 then the second month we went to publishing and and so on right but by the end of the third month the

12:40 trials from the blog directly from the blog post had gone up and it was basically 3x which albe it that was that

12:49 was after two months of publishing and to put like a number on it that was around 36,000 lifetime value of extra just from

12:57 the blog um so the Hope being obviously you know that will grow and compound over time

13:03 but yeah that would be an example of something we've done recently okay so so when you publish these type of content

Content Velocity in Marketing

13:09 do you have keep any in mind for example a Content velocity or how many pieces of

13:14 content you will publish every month do you have any methodology for that or any science as we say behind

13:21 it well our standard methodology up to now has been about 10 articles we found

13:27 that to be The Sweet Spot in terms of keeping it sustainable manageable

13:33 maintaining quality for ourselves for our writers while still delivering results

13:39 but naturally I suppose that is a question then of scale like if we could hypothetically double that then yes

13:45 course I suppose for ourselves we were very conscious not to be overstretched and lose quality

13:52 because while I understand the the importance of quantity quality has in my

13:58 view would have to be maintained um but in relation to the research and I'm not going to be able to quote the specifics

14:05 there was a study I did or not I that I saw earlier this year that in the B2B

14:11 space it was something like eight to

14:17 15 articles per month was around The Sweet Spot whereas if you did like three

14:23 to four or five it basically got exponentially higher but I think after about 15 it began to drop off a bit um

14:32 and I would love to be able to tell you I remember the name of the study I'll see if I can find it you but that was

14:37 more more or less it obviously look I mean a lot can change course of the year but that that that's our approach okay

14:45 now you often emphasize the importance of starting with strategy in SE engagements could you break that down

Importance of Strategy in SEO

14:50 for us yeah so as in like at the beginning of a working relationship with a client

14:56 right yes so the Str like for me strategy is the the

15:04 fundamental the fundamental thing to develop it's like before getting in a car you would

15:10 have ideally an idea of where you want to go the destination so I guess the strategy is like the road map to get to

15:16 where you want to go and for us month one when we're working with the clients the first 30 days more or less is

15:22 dedicated to strategy and and as I mentioned one of the first things we would do is have an

15:27 ICP call within that we would go very deep on really just understanding the customer

15:33 and potential customers what what their pain points are what resonates with them where they are at but also then looking

15:40 at the client's products their competitors Etc so it's it's really just

15:46 as best we can for ourselves but then also in order to pass that information on to our writers we would really really

15:51 go deep and also extracting any potential insights from the the client

15:57 themselves because often a business business owner well should anyway hope have the the most knowledge about their

16:03 their client but sometimes there can be a Dan Kennedy would put it like an ingrained assumption that you know

16:10 everything about the business owner and that's true to a point but sometimes there might be you're so deep in the

16:16 weeds that there might be things you're overlooking and the third party can help extract those those insights yeah I mean

16:22 put turning back to to your question it's really the ICP call from there and from once we have established that of

16:29 who the ICP is what they look like that will help us to go after certain topics

16:34 and once we know what the topics are and we can we can go into the more conventional keyword research methods

16:40 using tools like ah keywords everywhere Etc and then I would cluster the keywords um I can go into more detail on

16:47 that but that's kind of that that that's that's the core of it to begin with right so now when it comes to

Writing for Search Engines and Audiences

16:53 copyrighting in SEO what's your advice for writing content that speaks to both search engin

17:01 audience I think it's not I don't think it's one or the other I think you can

17:06 you can do both so in my experience um and again it's probably a little bit

17:11 cliche but I always try to write for the user first and foremost and I think as you're as long as you're

17:18 Loosely still applying the SEO best practices you can have success in both

17:23 in terms of resonating with the user and algorithmically um for me the first place to start with would be the SEO

17:30 titles and unless there's well to be honest it's probably something I would need to even test

17:36 further in terms of doing something really out there but I've I've tested like putting different

17:43 numbers in using parenthesis using emojis and a lot of the time as long as there's a bit of tweaking and testing

17:50 those will often appear in SEO titles now you have to be careful with the the pixel length or the character length

17:55 often you can get that into the SEO title and it'll be more something that would resonate more with the user but

18:01 also still appear um so yeah that's it's I would just say it's it's testing I

18:07 think I've probably gone a little bit off course with your your question there but um if that if that makes sense yeah

18:14 that makes sense actually now are there any specific tools or methodologies you swear by for Effective content strategy

Essential Tools for Content Strategy

18:21 or copyrighting um yeah there's probably a handful that I would use myself um

18:29 I I'm a fan of ahr that's probably my goto SEO tool just

18:35 for a bit of everything but keyword research at the start um I also but I

18:40 combine it with uh keywords everywhere just to get a different source of source of data um in terms of redeveloping the

18:49 strategy I I use keywords insights and that's really for clustering the

18:56 keywords so once I have all the list of potential keywords that I could go after

19:02 using adhs looking at the competitors the client's competitors what else yeah analyzing PPC data anyway when I have

19:09 all of those keywords at the end I would put them all into a two like keywords insights and that basically clusters all

19:15 the keywords into a primary keyword and secondary keywords I generally would set

19:21 it myself to if two sets of search results have four similar results or more that would be considered one topic

19:28 and from there once that's done that would give me a very very good

19:33 indication of the the keyword and the secondary keywords per topic and

19:39 therefore likely per page that I that I need to create and beyond that I also yeah I

19:46 would also use keywords insights for analyzing the search results and developing the outline for set topic um

19:53 I have used topic phrase in the past they're good tools as well but at the moment I'm using key insights and do you

20:00 use anything like Surfer Su not at the moment I'm using keyword

20:05 insights to really Analyze This The Sur uh I have used Surfer though in the past it's it's a good tool although I have

20:12 heard good things about it recently so I'm curious to to try it again but yeah keywords insights is probably I'd say in

20:18 terms of pure SEO ahr keywords insights and keywords everywhere are the three

20:24 main go-to tools that I would use you also mentioned that you have a

20:29 primary and a secondary keyword so are there any set number of primary and secondary keywords you go

20:35 after no it it depends I mean like so generally I have one primary keyword per

20:42 page and the secondary keywords are keywords that in the eyes of Google

20:48 anyway are likely the same search intent so let's say for example I'm creating

20:56 the primary keyword is test accounting software and then the secondary keywords

21:01 might be best accounting tools best accounting software is 2025 etc etc

21:08 right sometimes there can be a little bit of ambiguity because say accounting tools versus accounting software should

21:15 that be the same should that be the same article or should that be two different articles right how I determine that is

21:23 using the keywords insights clustering methodology because if if the results

21:29 for accounting tools and accounting best accounting software if they have four or

21:34 more results in similar like so if the search results are basically the same that's a very very very strong

21:40 indication that it should be one topic whereas if they one result in common it's likely a different set of topics so

21:48 that's I could potentially have one primary keyword and a 100 secondary keywords depending okay if that makes

21:55 sense yeah that makes sense I of course uh clustering and of course comparing the Ser is one of the best method I

22:01 would say right sure so so just to give an idea so there is no cap for how many

22:07 keywords you go with one piece of content or is there a cap for

22:13 that a gap for so when you when you say Gap as in in what not Gap cap oh a cap a

22:19 cap sorry and is there a cap for am of keywords well I guess if the question is

22:26 am I looking to let's say say for example there's 100 secondary keywords if the if the question is am I looking

22:32 to try and place all of those keywords within Yeah so basically let's say if there is an article do you have like

22:38 will you go after five secondary keywords or will you stop at 10 or 20 or there is no

22:45 limit it depends if so I'll have my primary keyword right in the in your

22:51 title H1 Etc and that that's going to be a core part but then I'm looking at the secondary keywords and

22:57 it's it's going to depend to what extent those secondary keywords differ from the

23:04 main primary keyword so let's just say go back to our accounting software example so let's say hypothetically

23:10 we've best accounting software and then some of the primary or the secondary keywords are best accounting softwares

23:17 best accounting software 2025 best top accounting softwares um the ultimate top

23:24 accounting software they're all variations fundamentally of the same thing but

23:29 identify keywords that are like best accounting software for small business best accounting software for growing

23:37 business and if for some reason I we think that is needs to be on the one

23:43 article then I'll make a point to really include that I'll also look at the people also ask data I'll have a look in

23:49 quora Reddit look at the other search results look at that data to see is this what the search intent is because if

23:56 sometimes you can have a keyword and there can be like mixed search intent it

24:02 seems that the obvious thing is this one keyword but when you actually dig a bit deeper there could be there could be

24:09 that keyword could mean different things to different people and yet and and that's where the Judgment call comes in

24:15 because sometimes you can have the clustering data might say this needs to work but if you really dig deeper you

24:21 think I know that's what the clustering data says but I'm looking at this here and there is no dedicated article for

24:28 best accounting software for Mid to medium mid to large size account

24:34 softwares or whatever it might be um so it's a little bit of a judgment call on that so I don't have I'm not I'm not

24:41 overly rigid in terms of the number of keywords but I try to cover the topic as best I can while also being strategic of

24:48 keyword placement yeah in your in your classic places too like in your H1s your headings your all all tags and also in

24:56 supplemental content maybe at the bottom fqs is a great place to SEO the content without necessarily

25:03 sacrificing the ux and the quality at the start right now let's dive a little bit into copyrighting how do you blend

Copywriting Techniques for SEO

25:10 effective copyrighting techniques with SE your best practices

25:17 um I think for me good copyrighting SEO is good copywriting at least on on the

25:22 content side so it's it's almost it's like two sides of the one kind and maybe there this is a question of semantics

25:29 because SEO can be we often think SEO is which is understandable search engine optimization to rank in search engines

25:36 appear in search but I would contend the role of an SEO probably goes even a step

25:42 further than that it's to actually help draw business results from yes we wanted we wanted the

25:49 sear to click on the page but what they're going to do from there also would fall under the remit of the work

25:56 we do now that's that's just me personally but I think copywriting would

26:02 be or is uh an essential part of it so how do you blend

26:07 it I think as I as I mentioned earlier like say the SEO title as the classic place so using different different

26:14 methodologies to really get that SEO title to to pop so you want to have say your primary keyword in the SEO title

26:21 that would be the best practice from an SEO point of view but you also want to make that SEO title um attractive to

26:28 click to really pop in search results so one of the best ways to do that maybe have the year in the title use

26:34 parenthesis there's a cop famous copyright Gary Halper he said parenthesis it's like IE relief for the user so if you see those search results

26:42 and there's no parenthesis often that can really catch attention likewise an emoji can be thrown in there sometimes

26:48 too and really highlighting a benefit or yeah just just the the main reason to

26:54 click within within the titles um you know often it could be let's say your title is or your keyword

27:02 is best accounting software you can have best accounting software inut in

27:08 parenthesis and I don't know Works fast 2025 Emoji or some something like that

27:14 that's just off the top of my head um and then it just it just follows on from that into the content making sure the

27:21 intro really aligns with the title and maybe this is slightly more of a

27:26 formatting point but I would really be conscious of avoiding blocks of text um

27:33 have shorter sentences shorter paragraphs I mean you can mix up a bit but using bullet Bolding occasional

27:39 words and definitely sprinkling in ctas in your content not just at the the end

27:45 of the content because um particularly if it's long form content there's a good chance that the majority of your users

27:52 may not even get to the bottom of the page so getting to the point very very quickly are answering search intent but

28:00 doing that in an effective way in terms of your writing so let's talk a little bit about

Importance of Linking in SEO

28:05 linking so do you have any methodology which you follow let's say you're writing a long form content so okay I'm

28:11 going to give two internal links three external Authority link something like do that do you have a methodology which

28:16 you follow yes so generally I link from so

28:21 yes I I would engage in inter linking naturally but I would link from relevant content topics to

28:28 another so um what whatever the topic might be

28:34 okay in terms of specific numbers I generally per page in terms of

28:40 internal links I probably wouldn't go more than four five internal links um

28:47 it's not I mean again it depends but that's as a ballpark that's prob that's generally what I for um and yeah if

28:54 there's if there's relevant external links and relevant content or particularly if it's if it's um

29:01 authoritative within that space I would link to them as well uh in terms of anchor text I frost the side I always

29:08 try to to vary it as best I can so I would definitely include the primary

29:14 keywords of the page you're trying to rank your text but again i' go look at the secondary keywords mix it up a bit

29:21 so yeah I generally go for a diversification within anchor text not just exact match but the primary keyword

29:27 is is is definitely going to be in there as well okay okay now can you also share

Crafting Effective Meta Descriptions

29:34 some tips on writing compelling mattera descriptions and title tag that not only ranks well but also encourage

29:42 clicks yeah well I mean as I was saying for the the title tags I would for the

29:47 title tags I would try and include numbers try and include parentheses try and include emojis include the primary

29:53 keyword and some sort of benefits or

29:59 maybe it could be a power word a descriptive word something that's really going to catch the attention of of the

30:05 user so you know if you had like best project management software then in parenthesis cut time in half or reduce

30:12 or quicker speed or or something like that that can really Pop um meta

30:17 descriptions yes just to be honest I I actually spend little time on met descriptions I should spend a bit more

30:24 but typically I often get a

30:29 a a a bit of content from the introduction and repurpose it because if the introduction itself should be to the

30:36 points and very concise so often you'll extract The Meta description from there okay now how has AI impacted SEO

AI's Impact on SEO Copywriting

30:46 copyrighting and how do you see this evolving into in the near future uh it's a good question I I think

30:55 it's it's definitely affected it in so far as speed like it's definitely you can

31:01 create content now a lot quicker and you can definitely use it a lot more for

31:08 ideation personally as of this moment in time I would stop short of saying that you can Outsource your effective content

31:16 marketing effective SEO content to AI um as I mentioned we we still use

31:22 specialist writers but in like we're not you know we're not stupid either obviously AI is there we have to be able

31:28 to leverage that and use that as a tool as best we can um but for the moment as

31:34 far as I can tell it would be more it would be more on the ideation side and

31:39 yeah re maybe rewriting some certain Concepts depending depending on on the

31:44 the content obviously but right it's yeah it's more of a tool I think for

31:50 writers I I I still I still I still do a lot of

31:56 um the core writing myself on well say for example on social media on LinkedIn I don't really use AI but I definitely

32:03 use it in terms of ideation um but I know our writers they they yeah they're aware of

32:09 it but they I as far as I'm concerned I guess it's as long as it's quality at the end of the day and right I think at

32:17 the moment that's in my view you still need a a good human writer to to do that

32:24 so is there any favorite uh AI model or software or llm you like to use yeah

32:31 it's probably at the moment I'd say CLA that's one I'm enjoying use CLA for writing right I agree with that yeah

32:39 yeah no it's very very good um no I still use chbt from time to time um

32:44 particularly maybe some of the gpts like the scraper GPT right it's again as I

32:50 said it's good for ideation like often a typical thing I would do is like maybe take if I'm doing an optimization for a

32:57 blog post I'll get the AI say the scrape Burge uh GPT to analyze the URL and ask

33:04 I'll ask for something like give me three to five customer questions that have that would go well in this article

33:10 that have not been answered already so something like that would be a good use case okay now have you tested a use case

33:19 where content created with the help of AI ranked well yeah I mean I I haven't done it in

33:28 in their current agency but in the past we have used AI in I mean even going

33:34 back two maybe three years ago before CH gbt I I remember testing with Jasper

33:40 using Ai and yeah it's still it's still ranking to this day um albe in that specific

33:46 case I did use um I did use my brain essentially I

33:52 wasn't just outsourc only to AI but yeah no I mean there's lots of there's been

33:57 other use cases where I've seen AI rank I haven't done it directly myself but I've seen it just rank just off that

34:03 alone but does it drive business results that's another question right it ranked

34:09 it ranked yes it ranked yeah for sure you can definitely rank with AI but is it business results that's that's that's

34:16 the question mark okay for our final segment let's focus on improving conversions with content build what are

Creating High-Converting Content

34:22 some key elements of high converting content so I would

34:29 say key elements of high conversion content is well the very first step is

34:35 making sure that it's actually in a stage of the users's

34:41 awareness level that they would be looking to convert so I bottom of funnel content so you could have a really

34:48 really perfect CTA on the top of funnel piece of content but if the user is just

34:54 not mentally ready to buy if they're not looking to why it's likely not going to make a difference so you have to make

35:01 sure that the CTA you create the call to action is aligned with their search

35:07 intent where they are in the marketing funnel what their stage of awareness is so I would say that's that's the first

35:13 thing being aligned with with what that is and determining what a conversion is because on the top of one piece of

35:21 content a a piece of success might actually be subscribing to a Channel or

35:26 downloading your email or reading another blog post that might be high converting in that case whereas on the

35:31 bottom of funnel it it's probably like a demo or a trial or a sign off so making

35:37 sure that you have the right CTA for the right stage of the users's awareness um

35:43 the next thing I would say would be having multiple ctas so I would say to

35:48 your listeners trying something something like Ms Clarity installing that letting that data run for at least

35:55 say a month it's basically keep mapping recording tool you can see how the users are interacting with your website where

36:02 they're spending time what they're looking at and I've noticed myself that on longer form content more more often

36:09 than not 90% of users are not actually scrolling all the way down to the bottom so therefore if you go for the

36:15 conventional approach of having only one call to action and it's at the bottom of the page odds are your users aren't even

36:21 seeing it so for that I would say have multiple ctas in different places and you could

36:28 start right up at the top have one at the bottom and also maybe a sticky like a sticky CTA that remains present as you

36:35 scroll it very well um and yeah just making the the CTA visual uh as well so in terms of

36:43 then the copy I'd yeah it would again being aligned with what the search intent is so rather

36:50 than have a generic call to action piece of copy like sign up now or get started having

36:58 something like scale your automation agency with us today or

37:04 what whatever it might be specific to the copy and where they are in their

37:09 their customer Journey as I said but also in terms of the the topic itself and potentially you could even go one

37:14 step further in addressing any objections like it's free or no credit card is

37:21 needed or whatever it might be so I think if you can apply some of those tips and kind of think about it that

37:27 that sense that would go go a long way okay now

Content for Buyer’s Journey Stages

37:33 uh of course those are uh valuable points now how do you approach creating content for different stages of the

37:40 buyer journey to improve overall conversion

37:45 rates uh how do I create different state how do I create different types of content for different stages of how do

37:51 you approach creating content from different stage of the buyer journey to improve overall conversion rates

37:58 yeah so I think you got to look at this look at it holistically so as I mentioned if you're creating content

38:05 that's bottom of funnel know what the kpi is know what success looks like for that so in bdb

38:13 SAS typically that would be demo sign up a trial it's something commercial INT in

38:21 in its value whereas if it's top of one

38:26 content quite likely that is not going to work or work

38:32 as well because the user is not looking for that at that point in time they

38:40 they're in more of a a research phase they're in an awareness state of mind so

38:47 maybe subscribing to your YouTube channel subscribing to your podcast downloading an email uh newsletter or to

38:54 your lead maget that that's likely a better C or CTA and kpi for Success

39:00 so depending on where the business is if they're if they're start if they're just

39:05 starting off I would go more towards bottom of funnel if they' already have a lot of content and already a lot of

39:11 bottom of funnel content created then sure you can go further up to funnel also I think the other key

39:17 consideration in that conversation is where where their wider marketing is so

39:24 let's say you have so you're focusing on but you'd also like to um double down on

39:31 LinkedIn or double down your social media efforts a blog post and from SEO

39:37 is a great source of ideation for for further LinkedIn posts we'll say work a

39:42 blog post can work as a great content workfor in that sense however if that's something you want to focus on only

39:48 creating bottom of funnel content is probably not the best type of content for repurposing for social media that is

39:54 because you're probably not going to talk about your competitors on a LinkedIn post whereas a top of fun piece

40:01 of content is generally better for uh

40:06 repurposing Distributing across social across your newsletter Etc likewise thought leadership is fantastic for that

40:12 also which you can embed into your your content probably I would say it tends to be a bit better a bit more compatible

40:20 the further up the fun you go so in some I think it depends on the organization where they're at what they're focusing

40:26 on just outside of SEO like if they have an eye on repurposing and they want to use their blog as an asset for

40:34 repurposing outside of SEO then that's going to play into it but in general

40:39 it's knowing what the kpis are per per pieces of content and as I said the top

40:44 of funnel and the bottom of funnel success is going to be different depending on the the type of content and

40:50 where the user is okay now can you share an example of how you have significantly improved

Improving Conversions with Content Optimization

40:57 conversions for a client through content optimization yes so probably a very very

41:04 simple thing would be well I guess it's it's led to rankings as well but just a

41:09 two-minute job that I did recently was updating the title and updating the

41:14 publication date it was in position three it jumped to position one and it was a bottom of funnel piece it was

41:20 already fairly well written that led to an increase in rankings but led to an increase in conversions more or

41:27 doubled now it was starting at a lower point it was only getting a handful of Trials per month but the fact that it was position one was was enough just to

41:36 got got more attention in there um other things that have I would say a small

41:42 move that can have an outside return is just including more call to actions and in particular maybe like the sticky the

41:49 sticky call to action or sticky CT that's constantly present so um I don't

41:55 have specific stat statistics ICS off hand for that but I know just anecdotally that when you have more ctas

42:01 in the content but not in an intrusive or annoying way that definitely has helped with with conversion

42:08 rates okay now do you have any specific different strategies when it comes to doing content for these type of content

Strategies for New vs Old Websites

42:15 for sites which are new and sites which are fairly old in terms of let's say ba

42:21 or authority or history yes so

42:27 yeah so I mean you could argue if SEO is even the right approach to begin with if

42:33 a site has if it's literally just starting off as in if that should be the the channel to focus on maybe Google ads

42:39 might be a better play at that moment in time so there's a lot of there's a lot of variables there and you know down to

42:46 their budget to their product Market the content part does it do you have a different set of approach when the

42:52 business is starting out versus the older website yeah so yes to answer your question

42:59 potentially I would if if it's a new website typically that means they're going to have lower

43:04 Authority in terms of backlinks so I'm probably not going to go after the more

43:10 competitive keywords I'm going to be even more conscientious of the type of keywords that I choose

43:17 and what's likely to rank in terms of selecting a keyword I often there I

43:22 basically have three criteria one is is it going to bring conversions or whatever that conversion look like looks

43:29 like the second one is is there some level of search volume and then the third is is this is it rankable can we

43:36 actually rank for this considering where we're at and depending on the authority of the site I'm going to maybe weigh one

43:44 factor more than another often if it's a brand brand new site or at least if they have low

43:50 Authority I'm going I'm I'm going into those spaces where

43:57 I feel a keyword might be easier to rank for and maybe I'm not as I said I'm not going after the Super competitive

44:03 keyword but to be honest if it is something like B2B or B2B SAS they probably will need to engage in

44:10 link building because you know it's uh it'll be a bit of an uphill battle so you can have success without link

44:17 building but it's it's it's going to be limited because you're going to have you're

44:23 you're kind of almost trying to do your SEO with maybe one of your hands tied so you can get places but you'll get f a

44:29 lot further with an authoritative site than than not okay okay now do you

Belief in Content Repurposing

44:35 believe in content repurposing how does it contribute to better engagement and ultimately

44:41 convergence the content repurposing um yeah no fundamentally I do believe in content repurposing so a a blog post for

44:49 me is like a podcast it's it's a great it's a great content Workhorse so you

44:54 have a piece of content that you've taken the time to the energy and the research the time to create you can use

45:02 that way Beyond just SEO ranking in search so one blog post particularly as

45:08 I said if it's like further up the funnel that's potentially five LinkedIn posts or 10 tweets so not that it's a

45:17 direct copy and paste albe it occasionally it can be but more often than not it's a great source of adiation

45:22 for those 10 10 social posts um so again depending on the organization

45:30 where they're at that that can be a great place to start with for for your

45:35 social media efforts um but also in terms of repurposing it can also it can also be

45:42 used as as a sales and even a retention asset so I know for example cloudways

45:47 they at least when I get their email newsletter they often and other and other companies be fair they often re

45:53 recite or refer to their their blog post and and repurpose some of their blog posts within their emails and I know

46:01 just even as a sales asset like if you're go getting on a call with a potential client I know we've done this

46:06 ourselves as an agency we took a couple of visuals from our blog posts that we

46:11 have on our own site and reused this on a sales deck um okay so it's not just

46:17 for social media but can also be more uh yeah as a sales asset to um I forget

46:24 what the second part of that question was it was uh the second part was how does it contribute to better engagement

46:30 and ultimately conversion does it help in conversions

46:36 repurposing yes but probably not in but more indirectly in that like I guess again if you're just taking the a step

46:43 out and thinking holistically about it so like if you're think social media is a great way to build awareness it's a

46:49 great way to build your brand if someone has come come through the the sales cycle and now they're at a

46:56 point where I'm going to potentially buy but I'm not sure whether I'll buy from

47:01 this person or this person if you have a brand Authority if you're well known in

47:07 the space if they've seen your content at different points in time on social media on Google on your newsletter on a

47:14 podcast 25 different times over the last six months they're likely going to go

47:19 and Converse with you so I would say building your brand in

47:24 the in the bigger picture helps with everything from verions from SEO to Google ads to everything because gives

47:30 you more exposure so right brand recall that what would we say right exactly

Rapid Fire Round

47:36 exactly okay now let's go into some rapid fire questions I have just five questions to ask so just answer what

47:43 comes first in your mind okay are you ready I will try what is your favorite SEO tool a TR okay uh best book on

47:52 content marketing the copyrights handbook booby okay uh a hobby you enjoy outside

47:59 work learning languages okay which all languages you know Italian and Spanish okay that's

48:07 good all right bill with that we come to our end of our podcast this has been incredibly informative discussions and

48:13 before we wrap up what's one piece of advice you would like to share with our listeners about creating effective B2B

Advice for B2B Content Marketers

48:21 content I guess I would say just take the time to to research um over in on

48:27 researching at the start because if you can develop that strategy and that fundamental awareness of your target

48:32 audience you'll set yourself up for a lot more success in the long term okay

48:38 and thank you so much bill for sharing your expertise with us today where can our listeners find out more about about

48:43 you and S sculpt uh yes so you can check me out on LinkedIn um B go yeah website is yeah

48:51 Sur sculpt.com so yeah either of those two places you can find out more okay

48:57 and that brings us to the end of today's episode of the agency Insider show I like to thank Our Guest bill for his

49:03 valuable insights into content marketing strategy SEO copyrighting and of course conversion optimization to our listeners

Outro

49:10 thank you for tuning in if you enjoyed this episode please don't forget to subscribe and leave a review until next

49:16 time this is NAIT Kel signing off