Content is Critical: Low Investment & High ROI | Ep 58 | Trades Secrets Contractor Marketing

Devon Hayes:

Welcome back to another episode of Trades Secrets Contractor Marketing. This podcast today we’re going to talk about content. Content is critical. It’s a critical component to any digital marketing strategy, and it rivals email marketing in terms of ROI.

So with that, let’s get into it.

Amanda Joyce:

Absolutely. Let’s go.

Devon Hayes:

Welcome to Trades Secrets, where we demystify digital marketing to help contractors get the most bang for their marketing bucks.

Amanda Joyce:

This is for you if you’re a contractor looking for actionable marketing insights.

Devon Hayes:

Learn from home services industry experts to elevate your business through simplified marketing strategies.

Amanda Joyce:

Let’s dive into today’s Trades Secret.

Devon Hayes:

Right? And Amanda, so near and dear, you used to manage our content until we grew. We are able to hire a full-time content strategist, Danielle, who just crushes it for us.

But I think a lot of times people don’t understand the role content plays in SEO. So they hire us for SEO, but not realizing we’re like, “Cool. We don’t do SEO without content because of how critical it is to SEO.”

So for a lot of our listeners who are maybe starting to like dip their toe in the digital marketing pond, I just would love to hear from you and your lens, I know it’s been a few years since you had to wear that hat.

But just talking about how nuanced it is, and I mean, there’s a lot of moving pieces, too, but really like what goes into a content strategist? Someone who’s really moving the needle for clients, not just slapping some shit on a website, and especially nowadays with AI, that wasn’t even an option back in your day, like when you were managing it, but what goes into it and just talk, I guess, speak to that, you know?

Amanda Joyce:

Yeah. So when we bring new clients on, there’s always a list of different pages and probably some kind of really just basic pieces of content that we want to write for them. But after that, it’s really time to dig in and really understand what’s happening like on the ground there.

Like to your point that people hire us to do SEO for them. We don’t do what they do every day. And even if we’ve marketed for you name the number of roofers, you name the number of custom builders, every business is different, and the people in their market are looking for something different, have different burning questions. And so it’s really critical that we, as their agency, get that information from them.

So we hold regular content interviews to try to learn what’s happening on the ground, what the pain points they’re solving for, how they position themselves differently, what they use in their talk track to help close the deal and make someone pick them over the next guy.

All this stuff that most of them just think is like normal, everyday boring, whatever, “This is who I am, this is what I do,” we have to get that across the finish line and help communicate that to people when they hit their website, and when they hit their social channels. Like it’s our job to position their unique selling propositions all over the web. And without that continuous collaboration, we can’t do that as well.

So an agency that maybe doesn’t put the time in or doesn’t have the manpower to do it might just churn and burn content, and you might rarely hear from them, you might not even know what they’re writing for you, I would caution to avoid an agency like that. At the end of the day, [inaudible 00:03:34] put yourself. If you’re putting very little into it, you’re going to get very little out of it.

Devon Hayes:

Yeah. I want to pause here and go back. You very casually mentioned, I think, a big differentiator in like a good digital agency versus a bad one.

Anybody can write content for your business. Anybody can say, “Oh, you’re a roofer? Let’s write about asphalt shingles.” “Oh, you’re a landscaper? Let’s talk about pavers.” Anybody can write this.

But you mentioned something very specific and very critical. I didn’t say content writer to an effective content strategy. I just want to harp on this a bit because there’s a big distinction, and especially with the introduction of AI and AI content, right?

You want to learn about their business. You want to learn what moves the needle for them. You said every market is different, every vertical in every market and everybody’s customer is different. And that’s exactly the case. That’s why that feedback from our partners, our clients is critical.

The blogs where we don’t get any input from clients, those ones, they’re fine.

The ones where clients take the time, they really give details during the content interview, they really talk about their unique selling proposition. In the beginning, they have one. Let’s even start there. But those are the pieces of content that move mountains for clients. It’s so huge. You touched on that, but it’s like, “No, no, no, no, no.”

Let’s not gloss over that. That content that you guys write, our process, that process that you have formulated, it’s for a cause, right? For someone who’s listening who’s like, “Why the hell can’t I just use ChatGPT to write a blog on custom additions in Langley, Vancouver, British Columbia? Why not?” talk about like what humans extract and kind of how nuanced that is and the difference.

Amanda Joyce:

So we’ve talked about in other episodes of this, too, like there’s a time and a place for AI, and some people are actually using AI successfully to write content, but it’s what you put into it. So if you’re not giving it much and you’re not telling it what makes you unique as a business owner and you’re just telling it to write something, it’s, literally, going and scraping the web and writing a piece of content that matches every other piece of content out there on the web.

So, A, you’re not going to rank from an SEO perspective, but when someone actually hits your site that’s thinking about hiring you, they’re going to be so unimpressed because they’re just reading the same, for lack of a better word, bullshit that they’re reading on everybody else’s websites. Like there’s nothing that positions you as the expert or helps or speaks their pain points or positions, makes them realize, “Oh my gosh, I found the person that actually understands where I’m coming from and they’re going to solve my problems.” So that’s where it all comes from.

And another thing, we have a client who had us write a whole series of blog topics around EV chargers and explaining different benefits and all that. He, literally, uses links to those in all of his sales emails. He sends out an email and is like, “If you want to know about the rebate program, check this out. If you want to know about how to select whether you’re going to need to upgrade your panel before you ever consider EV,” all that stuff. He has links to all of these pieces of content that we’ve written.

So the whole point is if you help us write the content and give us what we need, it’s useful in your everyday business. It’s going to answer the burning questions that your clients already have. So half of them that used to would’ve called you and asked you these three questions, they’re like, “Oh my God. They answered them on my website before I ever even had to pick up the phone.” Then they’re already way more likely to hire you than they are somebody else who just has the same generic shitty content on their website that they use ChatGPT to write.

Devon Hayes:

Exactly. We’ve gone back, we’ve been able to trace back some of the ROI on these like individual blog posts, and in some of them, it’s crazy, like on the EV charger front.

Now, keep in mind, not all businesses have the same search volume for their services and their queries. So that’s different so keep that in mind. But like EV chargers, it’s been big for the past few years.

In that blog post, we’ve talked about this, how it can bring in, I think that one brings in 80,000 impressions, or not impressions, I’m sorry, clicks through to the website, and it has even more impressions than that, meaning it gets served on Google. That’s what an impression is. It gets served. It was displayed as a link in the search engine results over a hundred thousand times and think like a 12-month period or something like that.

But we can correlate direct leads and conversions from people who are on that blog post that then clicked the Call button or clicked to submit a form right there. So we can track over 50 leads that have come from a blog post.

That is why you do SEO. That is why content is part of any good SEO strategy and good content is part of the best agency’s processes. Because if that content isn’t ranking, then nobody’s going to see it, then nobody’s going to convert. Google’s not going to trust you as an authority, so it’s not going to float your service pages or your homepage or these other pages without good SEO.

So it’s a partnership [inaudible 00:09:02] pieces. They come from the meaningful things that are like learned on the job that the client gave us that detail. So we could say, “Look out for this thing. Look out for X, Y, and Z. Here’s the benefits to having it done right. Here’s the pitfalls if you go with a shitty contractor who, I don’t know, someone who offers solar and just decided that they could do EV chargers one day,” you know? You’d have to vet that out. That’s a terrible example.

But good content from someone who’s experienced, that is what’s going to stand out because AI, it’s not going to have that matched experience.

Amanda Joyce:

Exactly. And when you’re investing in those pieces and you’re investing your time as a business owner, if in the instance of that particular blog you were just citing, we’ve always told them like, “Yeah, on average, that probably costs you 150, maybe 200 bucks of your retainer for us to interview you and write that piece and publish it to your website. And it has paid off in spades for how long?”

He sat down for one content interview, gave us that information, plus spoke to three or four other topics in that same interview, checked out, we wrote it, published it, and it’s still paying off. He’s not going to stop working with us, but if he did, he still owns the content. It’s his forever. So it’s really an investment in your library that you can refer to to potential clients, and it’s an investment in your SEO rankings.

But also to your point, too, earlier about how, like, we can write content all day and it can rank. Even if we could get crappy content to rank, if it sucks, it’s not going to convert. So it does need that added little, even if you’ve got the best SEO and maybe there’s not a lot of competition on your service in your particular market, maybe some subpar content could at least get you ranking, but no one’s going to take action if you’re not really blowing them away with the information that you’re sharing with them to make them be like, “This is my guy or my girl. I could trust them.”

Devon Hayes:

Yeah. And I know some of the pushback that we get from some of like the home services clients, maybe like on the plumbing side of things, when it’s like something pretty general, they’re like, “Nobody’s reading these blogs.”

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But the thing is, is that you are… So there’s the lens of engaging the customer, engaging the people that are reading it and keeping them on site that has an SEO benefit to it as well.

But for the content that you think that nobody’s reading and you’re like, you kind of put it on the shelf, you’re like, whatever, phoning it in, that is kind of part of what makes you an authority in that specific space for that specific service in the eyes of crawlers and large language models, which is AI. So it serves a purpose whether you think anybody’s reading it or not.

Google runs off of the algorithm, which is EEAT, expertise, experience, authority and trustworthiness. Whether humans are reading it, that content should be reinforcing EEAT, right? It should be telling the crawlers and the large language models, “Oh, this guy knows what he’s talking about. Look at this blog. He’s answering all the, like, FAQs about a leak with a kitchen sink.” And actually that might get a lot of views because people are trying to DIY it until they realize they can’t.

But there’s some of those general questions where you’re like, this service, it’s maybe $250 to like get a repair. It’s not high margin, but you become like the go-to guy in your space because you’ve now built up trust that, no matter how it’s searched for it, your brand name, your company name, keep appearing over and over again because you’ve taken the time to answer these questions and build these content or build this content around this whole like topic cluster. That’s how you cast the wider net so that all that content now is trusted by Google.

So it’s up there even if nobody’s clicking on it, but then you name has been seen over and over again. You’ve become a trusted source. You’ve reinforced your authority and your expertise. So now you’re in that Local 3-Pack where the calls do happen and you’re trusted. You’re in the Local 3-Pack because you’ve been proven to be a trustworthy source of information on that topic.

That’s all part of how you get in that 3-pack where they’re at the bottom of the funnel and they’re ready to make a call right away. So not all search queries are created the same. Sometimes we search for something and there’s no Local 3-Pack. That’s fine. Sometimes there is for home services, but sometimes there isn’t. Whose content do you want to be right there? Yours. And even if they don’t convert right there, they’re going to convert further down the road.

So just think of all of this content, whether you think it’s the top, mid or bottom of the funnel or where they’re going to convert, you’re just casting a wider net. And Amanda said it, you own this asset that will pay off for years to come if you’ve set yourself up the right way.

Please don’t be on one of those like $250-a-month websites where somebody else owns it and you pay to rent it, because then you don’t own any of that. Don’t ever do that.

But it’s a lifelong asset. I said at the beginning of the podcast, the ROI on well-written, well-performing content, it rivals that of email, which email is, it’s so cheap, low barrier to entry in the conversions. You might not get a ton of them, but it’s like when you do it’s, I don’t know, like 30X on your ROI. Like it’s crazy.

So yeah, we’re talking about this because internally we’re trying to streamline our process and figure out how to scale with it and kind of how to get our ducks in a row and how we make it manageable for clients because we know. We know we’re annoying. We’re that thorn in your side, like “I got to review that content. I got to review that content.” We know. Help us help you.

Amanda Joyce:

Yeah, exactly. We’re not doing it for our own health. And ideally, you’re working with an agency who’s put the sweat equity in. So what they give you hopefully requires very little of your oversight.

But just review the content. Make sure it really, really reflects who you are as a brand so that you can be proud of it. And you’re not surprised one day when you actually go look at your website and you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t even know it said that.”

And on the same note, participate in the content interviews if you’re asked to give information. I know sometimes it might feel a little frustrating. The thing that cracks me up is on some of our content interviews, people get on there and initially kind of be like, “Why am I even here?”

And by the end of it, they’re just singing like a canary and giving us all kinds of information, and then they’re enjoying it, and they’re like, suddenly they’re like, “Oh, wow. I know my stuff and I’m smart.” And we’re like, “Could you say that again?” And it suddenly breeds seven pieces of content that we didn’t even go into the interview expecting to write, and it’s all based upon your own knowledge and expertise, and that was one hour of time.

Then we go do all the hard work. You just have to read it at the end.

Devon Hayes:

Yeah, and let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about the hard work that goes into it.

I think that one of the hidden, most thankless jobs, it could be our content strategist. I feel so deeply for this person because content can be overwhelming, right? You have to review what we’re writing. You have to make sure it’s accurate. She painstakingly reviews every single piece of content for accuracy, for grammar, for spelling.

If you think about someone doing that for, I don’t know, say four pieces of content a month on average for every client, she reviews and goes through so much content. And that’s before she even sends it to you to review, right? So it is a thankless job, but it is critical, right?

So there’s the coming up with a topic is part of it, holding the content interview. Then on our side of things for our agency, it’s not just like, “Cool, they gave us these topics. Slap it on there, find kind of a keyword, see if it fits.”

No, no, no, no, no. We’ve done a complete gap analysis between our clients, their top three competitors. Then we’ve taken it a step further.

When we think we’ve got a good meaty topic, then we’re like, “All right, well, who’s ranking for this specific topic? If we type it in five different ways, do we still get the same results?” Analyzing that content, what’s in the title? Is it a question? Is it a statement? How soon do they answer it? Are they ranking in the AI overview results? How many ways can we use the variation of a keyword to get the best results on the search engine page I mentioned before? Some queries have the Map Pack, some don’t.

We’re looking at all of this to determine… And that’s all this invisible work that you don’t even know about. That’s the difference between just an AI content and what an SEO does with this content and our team and Danielle at the helm. Big shout-out to her.

So then we finally land on a topic. We finally land on the name of the piece. We finally land on a query. Then we got to assign it to the writer. We got to get an image from you. We have to make sure the writers following our very strict SOP for this entire process. We have to get it from them on time. You got to get images.

Then once we get it, Danielle reviews it, then we have to send it off to you. We got to wait around for your response. Hopefully you’re responsive. Sometimes you’re not. Sometimes you shred the piece, sometimes you don’t.

Then we get it back. Have to either send it to the writer so they don’t make the same mistakes twice if they didn’t meet your voice, or if it’s like, God forbid, some the heavy lifting on your end for some reason, we have to fix that on our end.

Then it’s a matter of is it a page or is it a post? A page meaning a new page on your website about a new service you’re offering? Or is it a blog post where we’re just talking about your all-in-one guide to hail damage in Denver. Then you got to go through and get that on the website. Then you got to add the links, make sure all the titles are tagged the proper way. You got to do the image optimization. Then you have to set a publishing date.

And this whole thing has to then match the business’s current seasonal goals and have the timing right on that. But it also has to match our SEO goals. Do we need a local piece of content? Do we need something that reinforces the primary service? Do we need something that reinforces the brand? Because it’s a new brand and nobody in your area knows what it is and Google doesn’t trust your brand name yet.

All of this has to factor in to what you deem important and good content and meet a timeline. And then do it all over again for the next month, times four, times 40 to 50 clients.

Does that sound like a party to you? Oh, my gosh.

Amanda Joyce:

Yeah. It’s a beast. It’s a beast. You know, if you have an agency that you’re working with that maybe isn’t putting that much thought into it or isn’t asking for your input, I mean, that’s your prerogative.

But I always think about being at a conference a few years ago when we were talking to somebody who was, I think they were based out of Minnesota or whatever, and he was like, “Yeah, I never look at my content. And I just happened to check yesterday, and there’s like three blogs about tile roofing. It’s like, I’ve never, never touched a tile roof.”

And that’s what happens. If you’re not paying attention and you’re not giving them the input and it’s just a churn-and-burn content factory SEO, they’re going to look [inaudible 00:20:16] their search volume on tile roofs. Never mind the fact that 90% of that search volume is in the Southwest and none of it’s maybe in your market.

So maybe you don’t even do metal roofs, and maybe they didn’t… We have clients where like one year they do them, the next year, they don’t want to touch them, we suddenly have to like change stuff.

But if you’re not having those ongoing conversations, you could turn around and be like, “I just paid for three months of SEO content and none of it’s relevant to my business.” Like that’s why it’s worth your time. Just the little bit of your just knowledge and expertise in your field sprinkled on top of a well-oiled content SEO machine can create stuff that truly moves the needle.

Because at the end of the day, the only reason you’re investing in marketing or anything is because you want more leads.

So that’s what it’s for. It really is for more than just popping up in the search results. It’s for pulling people to your website and making them take action.

Devon Hayes:

Yep, yep. It benefits you. It benefits you. I mean, it makes us look better.

The blogs that we have that perform the best are when we have that time with the client, and we have their unique experience and insights on those blogs. Yes, we’ve got clients that are like, “Guys, go with the gap analysis content. Fill it in. Omaha just got [inaudible 00:21:36]-“

Amanda Joyce:

We’re drowning, yeah.

Devon Hayes:

… by hale. Like I cannot get to this.”

That’s fine. We know what you need. We know what’s missing, but what sucks is we won’t have like your unique perspective on some of it.

So yeah, yeah, we can do that, and we can optimize it and, shit, I can even make it rank, SEO-wise. But it’s not going to perform as well as some of those other ones where it’s got that nuanced insight from the experts versus what we were able to research and come up with on our own.

So it’s doable, but we prefer to look like superstars with like a little bit of your time because ranking those… We pulled some stats on some of this, too, because we were like, it has a point. And then using AI, we’re like, can you calculate the ROI for us on this? But it was talking about like, gosh, some of these, we have the top performing blogs. We had to analyze a hundred of them, but let’s see here.

The top performing blogs, they bring in anywhere between 75 to 90% of the organic blog traffic in itself. So when you have a really, really, really good blog and that thing is ranking and getting clicked on like crazy, it brings in traffic. And once they get to your site, then they’re clicking around looking at more content. They stay there, they get familiar with the brand, and then eventually convert.

Some of you guys go high level or HubSpot that help you really like follow that customer journey and see where they convert. But I mean, that’s crazy.

And then tying like ROI, it depends on the average value of a lead for a lot of these. But I mean a solar lead that’s like 15,000 plus, and if you get one conversion from a piece of content on that, like that’s awesome.

Amanda Joyce:

It was worth the content interview and reviewing the piece.

Devon Hayes:

Yeah. Like one top blog, you can attribute 20 to 80 leads per year, and then depending on what your leads are worth, it’s 100 to 500,000 a year from one blog post. I mean, it’s crazy.

It depends obviously on the lead or the service itself. Sorry for any plumbers who are thinking of like a leaky faucet, but hey, those tankless hot water heaters, get enough of those bad boys in there.

Amanda Joyce:

Yeah, or the lifetime value of that person. I hired one plumber 20 years ago, and I, literally, have never considered hiring another one since. So like you pull them in on that one leaky faucet, and before you know it, you’re redoing their entire house.

Devon Hayes:

That’s true. That’s true.

So anyways, I think, yeah, we’ve harped on this. It’s just put the time in. Put the time in.

If you have an agency and they’re writing content and they’re begging you for topics, number one, that’s a sign of a good agency. They’re trying to get some original content up there.

Number two, just think of it. This is an asset. This is going to be your asset that there’s so many invisible hours of work that you don’t see going into this thing. So we just want you help us help you. Make this a digital asset that your sales team can use. Make it something you’re proud of and can point people to.

Because LLMs and Google, they all know the difference. They can all tell. That’s what ranks and that’s showing up in the AI overview summaries is the good content, the content that had those 100,000 clicks-through to a website.

That’s what’s in the AI overview summary now that clicks-through the site are dropping, but conversions have gone up for this client, the one that I’m thinking of in particular where that blog was bringing in like 80,000 impressions a quarter, and it dropped however many clicks through to the site. It was like, I don’t know, maybe 10% of that.

But with the AI, they just kill it in the AI summary overview on Google. And so people are getting the answer right there on Google. They don’t have to click through the site now, but it’s helpful. It’s helping them float their Local 3-pack positioning. So all good things, but…

Amanda Joyce:

So much value in it. And if you have an agency that’s writing content for you and they’re not reaching out much, reach out to them and ask them if you can weigh in a little bit. Even if they’re not asking for it, I’m sure they will happily take your direction on it.

And on that same note, if you’ve got a group of sales guys that are looking at you like, “Where are my leads,” they could help with some of this. What questions are you getting in the field? What pushback are you running into that that we can write content around, that you could give an interview to our SEO agency about, about how you address that pushback in the field?

They could probably write you an entire series of blog content and then the sales guys could use in their sales process and eventually could start driving leads through your site directly.

But it really is about filling the pipeline, and the pipeline’s only going to be as good as the content is that’s feeding it.

Devon Hayes:

Yes. Yeah, I think we’ve nailed this point home. I don’t know, is that an expression? It is now.

But truly, trying to explain like the importance of good content, I guess, and how, if you’re investing in SEO, it’s a critical component, and we just wanted to give it space to really explain why, why it matters, how it moves the needle for you, and why you should really pay attention and give it some time from your schedule. It’s crazy what a good piece of content that’s highly optimized by an SEO expert, la, la, la, it can do for you.

Amanda Joyce:

Absolutely. So if there’s an email in your inbox right now from your marketing company, when you get back to the office, check it.

Devon Hayes:

And also give them a hug. Because if they’re trying to get original content from you, that’s a sign of a good agency. If they don’t just have a whole bunch of topics on deck that they’re like, “Oh, let me just write about installing a fire pit,” and don’t even ask you about how you install a fire pit like, boo.

But yeah, it’s a sign of a good agency. They care. They care if they’re asking you. Can you tell we’ve had some internal talks about our content process this week?

Amanda Joyce:

Just a few.

So anyway, let us know what your thoughts are, comment below if we missed anything. But yeah, we hope this helps kind of guide your content ship and your SEO ship a little bit and that you found this useful.

Devon Hayes:

Shout out, Danielle.

Amanda Joyce:

That was today’s Trades Secret. Thanks for listening.

Devon Hayes:

Did you find this helpful? We’re just getting started.

Amanda Joyce:

Subscribe, and don’t miss our next review.

Devon Hayes:

Until next time.