Expanding the pie

Years ago, I earned a Master’s degree in a fairly worthless discipline (you can look at my profile and see for yourself). But one framework was taught to us that does stand out in my mind: expanding the pie.

Now, this is actually a term used in negotiations and refers to both parties coalescing to get more than they originally wanted. Maybe this really happens in real life; I have no idea. But I am going to heist the term for my own purposes because, in the service industries, we’re all negotiating everything we do every day, right? Right.

Small business owners who are bootstrapping usually operate on a shoestring budget. They feel like their resources are limited (it is probably more than a feeling), so the idea of plunking down thousands on SEO services and content that might not start gaining traction for 6-12 months does not seem like a worthwhile investment. The ROI is either, in their eyes, too little or too far off.

But what if we flip the script? Small business owners: you cannot afford NOT to invest in SEO optimization and content. Why?

1. 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.

2. 0.63% of Google searchers click on results from the second page.

3. 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search.

4. 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google Search, Google Images, and Google Maps.

5. SEO drives 1,000%+ more traffic than organic social media.

6. 60% of marketers say that inbound (SEO, blog content, etc.) is their highest quality source of leads.

7. SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate.

Thanks, Ahrefs, you guys rock. Small business owners don’t have time to learn these skills and do them on their own, but you do need to allocate for someone who understands them. It is how you will expand the pie.

Ranking ages well

So check this out: the average webpage in the Top 10 search results is 2+ years old.

I’ve seen it myself: I wrote this article at the end of 2021, and it almost immediately started ranking well for the target keywords. Now, at the end of 2023, it still sits at #6 on the first page, pulling in an estimated 176 monthly organic clicks.

Now put yourselves and your small business in Dirt Legal’s shoes: are you in a position where a couple of hundred organic clicks per month don’t matter? Of course, there is a little more nuanced than that.

There are a ton of keywords attached to that article, which does not mean that I put 479 organic keywords into the article (I’ll talk about that more some other time). But “california red sticker” was one of my primary search terms for this article.

There’s not a lot of monthly volume, but my article is getting a big slice of that pie. We know who we’re targeting here, and they are already looking at this type of content. Mainly, we are looking for Californians who might want to find other ways to ride their dirt bikes or who just want to know a little more about the red sticker program. Once they are reading this article, we will help guide them to other resources on the website or to take a look at our services. So, without ever paying a cent for ads, we have a steady stream of around 200 potential customers every month, putting eyeballs on our content and, ultimately, our services.

That is the power of SEO, and why I call it expanding the pie. This goes back to what I said earlier about how small businesses can’t afford NOT to hire content specialists. Dirt Legal made that a priority early on and cranked out nearly 400 articles. The website has built substantial authority because of this. And here’s the crazy thing: even though the official IG account has 51.3k followers, it’s the blog that has reach.

SEO Tips & Resources

I have a couple of things to study today. First up is by Ahrefs and is the core stats for 2023, which will surely be updated next year.

Most of the stats (maybe all) in this newsletter article came from the above-linked article, and a lot of them are mind-blowing. Look, we all spend more than our fair share of time on socials, but that is not where the rubber meets the road. If you are serious about marketing your services, you need to consider buying a domain (they are cheap), and basic web hosting can be had for a few bucks a month. You will never get the kind of reach on social media as you will with your own digital real estate. And yes, I say this to myself as I do not have a website up and running yet.

The next resource was linked off of the above article and is similar but has some different takes on SEO stats. Give them both a read and decide for yourself where you should be allocating your resources. It’s not that social media doesn’t have its place; it’s that social media is not a stand-alone marketing pillar.