The Power of Social Proof in The Search Economy 

Brett shares why he thinks social proof is the most important piece of the puzzle for your website in The Search Economy 

You’ve done it. 

You’ve landed on page 1 of Google for the keywords that you’re targeting. You’ve hired an amazing agency to help you out with your SEO and it all seems to be working. You just started this new project and by all indications it seems like you’re on the right track. Your traffic numbers are going up. You’re going all-in on SEO because you believe more eyeballs will eventually lead to more sales, right? 

You decide to take off your rose colored glasses for a minute and start digging into conversion data. The more that you dig in the more you start to identify a big problem. The number of visitors continues to increase, but the bounce rate also continues to rise. The bounce rate dilemma isn’t a unique problem. It’s something most marketers or owners face when they’re implementing SEO strategies on their website for the first time. There’s many ways to dig into conversion issues and you can run a myriad of tests to solve your problem. Great websites demand attention. This is the reason why we need someone in-house or an agency to manage our website to always make sure that we’re not leaving money on the table. I’ve worked with teams to run tests to help solve for the conversion issue. I’ve tried to do it myself, too. In my experience I’ve learned that sometimes it’s the easiest stuff missing that can be the most impactful. 

One of the greatest lessons that I’ve ever received around SEO and website performance came after going through a pretty significant website overhaul with the help of an agency. I viewed my role in the process as the quarterback. I tried to make sure everyone was aligned on goals and what we needed to accomplish to complete the project in a manner that would make a difference. The market for the product that I was promoting was super niche. It was one of those communities where it seemed like everyone knew each other. This was probably the most important piece of information that I wish I had considered at the start of the project. 

The website project took 2 solid months. The new website looked great, keywords were optimized, and we were starting to see more eyeballs. We produced more of the right content and our ranking quickly shot to the top of page 1 of Google. The vanity metrics were great, but they weren’t winning me any points in the leadership team meetings. My boss wanted to know why the traffic wasn’t converting and leading to revenue. I kept telling him it was early and I’d expect better results soon. In reality I had no idea and wasn’t confident that the ship would get turned around until I had a moment that I’ll never forget. 

I was on a customer call and the customer said, “Hey Brett, the new site looks great, but it would be nice to see some people’s faces on it. Have you thought about using it to highlight your customers?”. It was one of those moments that seemed so obvious, but I was completely obvious to at the time. We were selling a product to a niche community where everyone knew each other. I was missing the opportunity to inject our new site with social proof to help validate our story. I got off the customer call and then instantly started sending emails to our best customers. I told them what we were doing and asked for their headshot and a quote. Everyone responded back immediately and were all excited to be a part of the new story that we were taking to market. 

It took us a week to get our customer’s faces on the site and the results started moving in the right direction. The bounce rate decreased and conversions went up. It was a lesson to me that social proof can be a powerful trust building tool. The next time I went into that leadership team meeting I had results to share and a group of happy customers that were open to more marketing opportunities. 

Sometimes the transformation can take place with a conversation and a single email. It was validation that the answer is always somewhere with your customers. You just need to ask. 

The Content We Dropped This Week

In the eighth episode of 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 podcast we discuss how individual brands can thrive in 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲.

David talks with Eric Hinman who is an endurance athlete who has built a business around his personal brand. Eric shares the business concepts that he's created and the role of content in the process. He talks about the journey that his audiences go on to interact with his brands in 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲.

Please follow and subscribe to 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 wherever you consume fine audio and video content.

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Quick Tip for The Search Economy

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 is about understanding the top Google ranking factors that impact how you can start showing up to answer your next customer’s questions. SEMrush’s ‘24 Ranking Factors shares the top 4 factors we should be considering like: 

1. Quality Content: Your next customer is on content overload. In a world where people are flooding the internet with AI generated content Google will always prioritize the best content that answers the query the searcher made.

2. Backlinks:  Google looks for signals from other websites who mention your brand to determine your relevance in your industry. In order to compete you need a volume of backlinks, but the backlinks also need to be quality from trusted sources

3. User Experience: Google prioritizes sites that load quickly, are mobile friendly, and easy to navigate. 

4. User Signal: Google wants to see people searching for you by name. Direct and branded traffic search, time on site, and bounce rates are the signals needed.

Pneuma considers Google’s ranking factors to develop the SCORE methodology we use with our customers. If you’re looking for a team that will help give you a jump start into 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 give Pneuma a shout for a free traffic audit!

What They’re Saying About Search

Conversion is the theme for today’s newsletter. I thought it would be appropriate to share this incredible post from Masooma Memon that hit my feed today. Her commentary on what we should be focused on is closely tied to the story I shared in the front end of the newsletter. I always love it when smart people help validate points that I’m trying to make! 

If you’re looking for a team that will help give you a jump start into 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 give Pneuma a shout for a free traffic audit!

Content That Supports The Search Economy

I stumbled across this episode on the Conversion Tracking Playbook from Brad Redding and found it extremely helpful for some of the things that I’m working on right now. If you’re trying to refine your conversion strategy this episode outlines some great tactical ideas you can start testing. 

You can listen to the conversation here. 

I appreciate you being here for 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 newsletter. If you’re looking to learn more about how your company can get found by your next customer then give the Pneuma team a shout.