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	<title>blog home Archives - Marketing Fix blog</title>
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		<title>1st Month as a New CMO – Where to Get Started? MeetFrank Case Study</title>
		<link>https://karolakarlson.com/ro/new-cmo-meetfrank-case-study/</link>
		
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		<pubdate>Thu, 23 Jan 2020 19:56:48 +0000</pubdate>
				<category><![CDATA[blog home]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook ads]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Growth]]></category>
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		<guid ispermalink="false">https://karolakarlson.com/?p=4972</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>How does it feel to join a company as their CMO? Where to get started? How to prioritize your work?</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro/new-cmo-meetfrank-case-study/">1st Month as a New CMO – Where to Get Started? MeetFrank Case Study</a> appeared first on <a href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro">Marketing Fix blog</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Back in 2020, I joined the recruitment app MeetFrank as their part-time CMO.</strong></p>



<p>I’d worked with them before, but coming in after a year, it all looked like a <strong>big mess to start untangling.</strong></p>



<p>There were some ongoing marketing partnership deals, ad campaigns that had developed over the years, different brand messages used across marketing channels…</p>



<p>Basically, A LOT to grasp, review, fix or build up. 🔥</p>



<p>I mean… That’s how it always feels when joining a team with ongoing processes. And this is fine.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null.png" alt="" style="width:523px;height:254px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Regular &#8220;starting to work with a new brand&#8221; situation</em></p>



<p>However, after 3-4 weeks of an intense period of meetings and documenting the new strategy, things finally seem to be falling in place: we’ve got the fully new Facebook ads strategy live and running, we’re publishing blog articles (again), and the B2B leads’ number is shooting up.</p>



<p>I figured it would be interesting to write about <strong>how joining a new company as a CMO looks from the inside</strong> and what are the first things to work on.</p>



<p>How does it feel? Where to get started? What to prioritize? What mistakes to avoid?</p>



<p>I hope this will be helpful for all the new (and not new) marketing team leads out there.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="week-1-understanding-the-big-picture-meeting-the-team">Week 1: Understanding the big picture + meeting the team</h2>



<p><strong>The first thing I ALWAYS do when taking on a new client or joining a new company is to meet the team and understand how they see things.</strong></p>



<p>I started by meeting with both the management team + all marketing team members to ask them a list of questions.</p>



<p>You just can’t review/create a marketing strategy without knowing the company’s high-level goals.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-1.png" alt="" style="width:496px;height:278px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>The top-down planning goes like this – <a href="https://arcticstartup.com/lean-marketing-brings-growth-and-customer-understanding/">Image source</a></em></p>



<p><strong>Some of the things I asked the management team:</strong></p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>What are the <strong>top-level KPIs</strong> you want to reach in the next 3, 6, 12 months? Why?</li>



<li>What’s in the<strong> product plans</strong> for the next 3, 6, 12 months? Why?</li>



<li>What’s currently the <strong>biggest revenue-driver</strong>? Where’s the <strong>bottleneck</strong>? Why?</li>



<li>What do you think <strong>the marketing team can help</strong> the most with? Why?</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Asking “Why” as a follow-up to each question helps to better understand the logic behind.</strong></p>



<p>E.g. by asking “Why do you want to grow the GMV over expanding the marketplace” I can either understand that the company needs to grow their revenue to land the next investment round, or we discover that revenue doesn’t matter and we need to 10x the size of the marketplace.</p>



<p>Also, it’s surprising how many CEOs can’t answer the question about the company’s high-level KPIs and long-term plans. Not the case with MeetFrank. Anyhow, I really recommend asking the above questions even before accepting a marketing job in a company.</p>



<p>So basically, instead of jumping to the projects right away, start by understanding the mission, objectives, KPIs, etc.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" width="1600" height="1074" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Clarity_pyramid_consolidated_r1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-5001" style="width:598px;height:401px" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Clarity_pyramid_consolidated_r1.png 1600w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Clarity_pyramid_consolidated_r1-768x516.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Clarity_pyramid_consolidated_r1-1536x1031.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Mission ➟ strategy ➟ objectives ➟➟➟ Projects <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Image source (opens in a new tab)" href="https://wavelength.asana.com/pyramid-clarity-strategic-alignment/" target="_blank">Image source</a></em></p>



<p><strong>By being aware of the top-level KPIs and objectives, I’d be able to come up with the best marketing strategy to help achieve those.</strong></p>



<p>Knowing the management team’s vision, I took a step closer to the action and met up with each marketing team member individually.</p>



<p><strong>Some of the things I asked each of the marketing team members:</strong></p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Who’s in the Marketing team </strong>and what are their <strong>owned projects</strong>?</li>



<li>What are the Marketing team’s <strong>KPIs </strong>and <strong>OKRs</strong>?</li>



<li>How do you <strong>document</strong> things? How do you <strong>track MoM results</strong>? What charts and tracking tools do they check?</li>



<li>Where are the B2C and B2B users coming from right now?</li>



<li>What<strong> user acquisition tactics </strong>have you tested before?</li>



<li><strong>Who’s the typical user?</strong> What value do they get from using the product?</li>



<li>Who’s the typical B2B client? What value do they get from using the product?</li>



<li>What are the biggest <strong>challenges</strong> and <strong>blockers</strong>?</li>



<li>Where could I help the most?</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>My personal goal for these meetings was to understand what’s working, whether the team understands what they’re doing, and how are the inter-team relationships.</strong></p>



<p>I also wanted to understand how marketing results are tracked and measured, what are some of the things that were tried but didn’t work, and much much more.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-2.png" alt="" style="width:520px;height:274px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>MeetFrank recently did a CVI rebranding</em></p>



<p>In addition to meeting the team, I also did research on my own, reviewing the website, social media accounts, and ad accounts. 🕵️‍♀️</p>



<p><strong>Most importantly, I user tested the product, both on B2C and B2B side. You can’t do marketing for a product that you haven’t tried out yourself.</strong></p>



<p>As a result, I had many notebook pages’ worth of notes and felt even more overflown with information and ideas what to work on next.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" width="600" height="597" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/squirrel-gif.gif" alt="" class="wp-image-4990" style="width:436px;height:433px" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/squirrel-gif.gif 600w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/squirrel-gif-125x125.gif 125w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Me telling Kaarel, the CEO, about all the ideas</em></p>



<p>At least I felt closer to untangling the mess in my head.</p>



<p>After 10 meetings, I had more or less the information I needed to start outlining the macro-level marketing strategy. In the case of MeetFrank, it felt easier to build the strategy from scratch than to adjust the existing one.</p>



<p>Above all, it meant creating a ton of new spreadsheets and guides. 🐿️ 🤓</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="week-2-creating-tons-of-reports-documents">Week 2: Creating tons of reports &amp; documents</h2>



<p>People have different styles of leadership.</p>



<p>I personally love to have a clear structure with spreadsheets and guidelines in place, so that everyone has a quick overview of their priorities, tasks, and results. It just makes me feel more on top of things and less messy. #tidy</p>



<p><strong>Here are some of the spreadsheets and documents we created</strong>:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Marketing team <strong>masterplan</strong> with<strong> KPI tracking</strong></li>



<li>Marketing team Q1 2020 <strong>roadmap</strong></li>



<li><strong>Content marketing planning</strong> sheet</li>



<li><strong>Social media planning</strong> sheet</li>



<li><strong>Online ads strategy</strong> + creatives</li>
</ul>



<p>On top of that, I wrote some Confluence guides on more specific topics, e.g. how our Facebook ad campaigns should be set up or what types of social media posts we publish.</p>



<p>Basically, I just wanted to get <strong>things moving fast</strong>, have everyone know their responsibilities + priorities, and create an overview for other teams. The latter is important to keep the entire company aware of what you’re working on and also share the timeline for projects, so they can also better plan their work.</p>



<p>Want to know how the spreadsheets look like? 😉😉 Here’s a sneak peek:</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="marketing-team-roadmap"><strong>Marketing team roadmap</strong></h3>



<p><strong>The goals of this document:</strong></p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Outline the <strong>projects that the marketing team is working on</strong></li>



<li>Give a<strong> timeline for each project </strong>+ show how it’s progressing</li>



<li>Have a weekly/monthly tracking for all <strong>marketing-related metrics and KPIs</strong></li>
</ul>



<p>Here’s how the roadmap part looks like:</p>



<p>Surely, the columns and first rows are completely different for each company.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-3.png" alt="" style="width:510px;height:262px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>The roadmap shows what’s planned + what’s done</em></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="marketing-team-kpi-tracking">Marketing team KPI tracking</h3>



<p>To have a quick overview of whether our work is bringing any results at all, we created a <strong>KPI sheet with all relevant metrics</strong>.</p>



<p>Here’s a snapshot of the KPI tracking sheet. It includes close to 200 rows of metrics and formulas.</p>



<p>Currently, as we’re still figuring out our marketing strategy, we monitor the results on a weekly basis to see if there’s an uplift in results thanks to marketing activities we did the past week. Later on, we’ll likely switch to monthly reporting.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-4.png" alt="" style="width:486px;height:357px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>The sheet has more than 200 rows with different KPIs</em></p>



<p>Big thanks to MeetFrank’s performance marketer Olena for helping to fill in this monster sheet. 🙏</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="content-planning-sheets">Content planning sheets</h3>



<p>To help team members working on social media and content marketing to get up to full speed, we also set up new planning sheets for those two areas.</p>



<p>Here’s the social media plan we’re currently using.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-5.png" alt="" style="width:490px;height:288px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>The format is too scrappy for long-term but worked for a quick kick-off</em></p>



<p>The social media plan is not yet complete, and we’ll likely restructure it + add performance tracking metrics for each post (to understand what works best).</p>



<p>We review the social media + blog content plans on a weekly basis and inform the Design team of all the needed creatives.</p>



<p><strong>Want to learn more about marketing strategy? </strong>See the list of <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="best books on marketing (opens in a new tab)" href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro/marketing-books/" target="_blank">best books on marketing</a> to dust up your skills.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="online-ads-strategy">Online ads strategy</h3>



<p>To get the new Facebook ad campaigns live, I took a bit of a shortcut through the brainstorming and planning process.</p>



<p>So we created Confluence <strong>guides with ad creatives and campaign setup specs t</strong>ogether with MeetFrank’s performance marketer Olena.</p>



<p>That’s how the Confluence guide looks like for each campaign:</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-6.png" alt="" style="width:502px;height:382px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>We have clear setup rules for all global ad campaign types</em></p>



<p>Instead of spending (wasting?) a few weeks of time at team meetings, discussing the best ad strategy, I just outlined the one to get started with. The goal was to get ads live fast. And later on, we can optimize and A/B test all we want. We know most of the best practices anyway, so why not implement them right away. 💁</p>



<p>Once all the documents were ready, we reviewed them together with the team, confirmed with the management team, and set to work: hands-on and fast-fast-fast.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" width="300" height="300" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/giphy.gif" alt="" class="wp-image-4991" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/giphy.gif 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/giphy-125x125.gif 125w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>MeetFrank marketing team’s spirit animal – <a href="https://giphy.com/">Image source </a></em></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="week-3-launching-the-new-strategy-and-checking-results">Week 3: Launching the new strategy and checking results</h3>



<p>As we built the entire marketing strategy more or less from zero, we also needed tons of new ad copies and visuals.</p>



<p><strong>We wanted to get the ads live fast</strong>, but the designer working on ads was on vacation. 🙃</p>



<p>So I created the first designs on my own and then asked another in-house designer to review and improve them. We probably saved around 2 weeks in time.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1970" height="1166" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/meetfrank-facebook-ads.png" alt="" class="wp-image-4992" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/meetfrank-facebook-ads.png 1970w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/meetfrank-facebook-ads-768x455.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/meetfrank-facebook-ads-1536x909.png 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1970px) 100vw, 1970px" /></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Ad creatives are a constant work in progress</em></p>



<p>Our performance marketer Olena set up all the new acquisition, remarketing, and engagement ad campaigns in around one week while our designer Mo worked on all of the new designs.</p>



<p>After that, we could start waiting for the results to come in, optimize the campaigns, and keep working on new ideas to test.</p>



<p>I’m not going to touch upon creating the Facebook ads strategy for too long, as more can be read in some other articles:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro/copywriting-for-facebook-and-social-media/">Copywriting hacks and tips for Facebook ads and social media posts</a></li>



<li><a aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://lineardesign.com/blog/b2b-facebook-ads/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">B2B Facebook ads: building a marketing funnel + best practices</a></li>
</ul>



<p>We kept looking at the results in the Facebook Ads Manager, our KPI sheets, and also asked the other teams if they see a positive trend.</p>



<p><strong>The initial picture is looking good, but there is SO much more to do. 🔥</strong></p>



<p>Now that we’ve got the basics covered, we can dive in to analyze each marketing activity’s results and ROI + double down on things we see driving the highest growth.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="key-takeaways">Key takeaways</h2>



<p>By now, the first <a href="https://meetfrank.com/blog/meetfrank-insights/tech-jobs-in-europe-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">blog article</a> is out after a month-long pause, we’ve launched a few social media giveaways, and all acquisition, remarketing, and engagement ad campaigns are up and running. 🤜💥🤛 to the team.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-8.png" alt="" style="width:381px;height:385px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Our marketing intern Yelyzaveta is testing new post types on MeetFrank’s Instagram page</em></p>



<p>Looking back at the first month working with MeetFrank again, I collected a few learnings that might also be helpful for other marketers.</p>



<p>So here they are.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="1-make-the-company-s-business-strategy-crystal-clear-to-yourself"><strong>1. Make the company’s business strategy crystal clear to yourself</strong></h3>



<p><strong>Do not even start to create a marketing strategy before you don’t fully understand what are the company’s 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month goals and high-level KPIs.</strong></p>



<p>It took me multiple meetings with Kaarel (CEO) to fully grasp what we want to achieve and how the marketing team can best contribute to that goal.</p>



<p>Yes, it took some time, but at least everything we now do is supporting the broad-level company growth. Which is why the marketing teams are for.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="2-prioritize-your-time-delegate">2. Prioritize your time + delegate</h3>



<p>Joining as a part-time, not full-time CMO created an urgent need to make the most use of my time. On the other hand, I’m quite impatient and want to roll things out asap. #cognitivedissonance</p>



<p>And then there were all the other teams, coming to the marketing team with their ideas and requests… Which is not a bad thing in itself, but can easily derail from the top priorities.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-9.png" alt="" style="width:370px;height:370px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>We actually get along very nicely with the sales team ❤️</em></p>



<p>How to handle the load of ideas and requests as a new CMO? Should you try to tackle the small things first and then focus on the big picture? – Definitely not.</p>



<p><strong>It is easy to get caught up in small daily tasks </strong>and in 2 months’ time look back and understand you <strong>didn’t get to the high-ROI activities.</strong></p>



<p><strong>As a team lead, you’re hired to work on things nobody else in the team can.</strong></p>



<p>So I did my best to set my focus on developing the strategy rather than helping with daily tasks.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-10.png" alt="" style="width:386px;height:352px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Looks familiar? – <a href="https://www.smartcompany.com.au/business-advice/make-de-prioritising-a-priority/">Image source</a></em></p>



<p><strong>Here’s the approach I used to prioritize my time, more or less:</strong></p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Make a <strong>list of the 100+ things</strong> you’d like to do / that people are asking you to do in the first month</li>



<li>Prioritize the tasks based on the <strong>potential ROI, urgency,</strong> and their “<strong>delegateability</strong>”</li>



<li>Choose <strong>5 most impactful things</strong> and plan to finalize these on the 1st month</li>



<li>Choose <strong>10 next most impactful things</strong> and plan to finalize these on the 2nd month</li>



<li><strong>Avoid being a blocker for your team: </strong>if you can’t give them input fast enough for a task, delegate the full responsibility to them</li>
</ul>



<p>Here are some of the things I wanted to work on, but postponed as they were low ROI (compared to writing documentation and guidelines + creating an online ad strategy): reviewing email and push notification copy, writing social media posts’ copy, writing blog articles. They’re still important, but can be handled by someone else and later.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="3-keep-everyone-informed-about-the-progress"><strong>3. Keep everyone informed about the progress</strong></h3>



<p>Even if you can’t do everything that all teams expect you to, <strong>show them the progress</strong>. ⏳</p>



<p>On top of keeping the marketing team roadmap updated, I like to post weekly updates on the entire team’s progress for the entire company to read.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-11.png" alt="" style="width:423px;height:353px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Keep the entire company informed</em></p>



<p>The CEO knows we’re moving things forward.</p>



<p>The other teams know we probably have higher priorities than some tasks they asked help with.</p>



<p>Everyone knows what’s been done and what will happen next.</p>



<p>Perfect.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="4-roll-out-the-mvp-then-start-optimizing"><strong>4. Roll out the MVP, then start optimizing</strong></h3>



<p>I am not 100% sure whether this is always the best approach.</p>



<p>But at least that’s how I personally like to work: <strong>Get the first campaigns out fast and leave the optimization for later stages.</strong></p>



<p>We managed to create 20+ different new ad creatives and launch 10+ Facebook ad campaigns in less than 2 weeks. Now, we can focus on focus on testing new creatives, targeting, and optimization methods.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-12.png" alt="" style="width:330px;height:581px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>One of the new ads we created</em></p>



<p>I don’t see a big point of working on a strategy and running brainstorming meetings for 1-2 weeks, then launching a campaign, and still having a high chance of it not succeeding.</p>



<p>It’s much better to test things fast, fail/win fast, and then pivot or scale the marketing activities.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="5-find-a-good-balance-between-micro-management-and-getting-things-moving-fast"><strong>5. Find a good balance between micro-management and getting things moving fast</strong></h3>



<p>When joining a new team, I do my best to give everyone my <strong>immediate trust</strong> and assume they know what they’re doing.</p>



<p>At the very beginning to get things running fast + share my past experience with the team, I write more specific guidelines (like how much to spend on social media boosts, whom to target, how to write blog/ads copy, etc. to get things to top-quality faster.) In the long run, I really like the idea that my team could also get everything done without me.</p>



<p><strong>It’s always better to explain the macro-level plans, the right logic of thinking, and share the best practices than to say to people “here’s exactly what to do.”</strong> Even if I don’t 100% agree with the output all the time, it’s better to have an independently working team.</p>



<p>As a new CMO, you’re allowed to change the rules of how things should be done quite a bit. But remember that you also need to earn the team’s respect by sharing guidance that’s relevant + then also acting by it yourself.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="6-bonus-tip-get-social-credit-by-bringing-plants-to-the-office"><strong>6. Bonus tip: Get social credit by bringing plants to the office</strong></h3>



<p>If you’re the creative CMO type, one thing you can do that affects the entire team’s work results is to make the office look nicer. Yes, it’s quite low-ROI to just make the office feel better to work at. But then again… Is it?</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/null-scaled.jpeg" alt="" style="width:376px;height:500px"/></figure>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><em>It feels so much better 🌿🐒🌿</em></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="what-s-next">What’s next?</h2>



<p>O.M.G. there is still so much to do.</p>



<p>Currently, the highest priority is to measure results, roll out the next test projects in our global marketing strategy and scale up the acquisition on both sides of the marketplace.</p>



<p>We’re also hiring a full-stack marketer to work on our blog content, email marketing funnel, and many other projects. <a href="http://bit.ly/meetfrank-app">Download the MeetFrank app</a> to see the job offer and apply.</p><p>The post <a href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro/new-cmo-meetfrank-case-study/">1st Month as a New CMO – Where to Get Started? MeetFrank Case Study</a> appeared first on <a href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro">Marketing Fix blog</a>.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>From 1.6k to 31k Monthly Blog Visitors in 20 Months – How We Did It</title>
		<link>https://karolakarlson.com/ro/growing-organic-blog-traffic/</link>
					<comments>https://karolakarlson.com/ro/growing-organic-blog-traffic/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Karola Karlson]]></dc:creator>
		<pubdate>Wed, 12 Apr 2017 09:27:57 +0000</pubdate>
				<category><![CDATA[blog home]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Content]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Golden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Growth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In-depth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<guid ispermalink="false">https://karolakarlson.com/?p=578</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>You’ve likely seen these kinds of “traffic growth” articles before. However, this one’s going to be different.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro/growing-organic-blog-traffic/">From 1.6k to 31k Monthly Blog Visitors in 20 Months – How We Did It</a> appeared first on <a href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro">Marketing Fix blog</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>You’ve likely seen these kinds of “traffic growth” articles before. However, this one’s going to be different. Here’s why:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>It’s about <em>real</em> growth, not “a 400% growth without any mention of the initial traffic numbers”</strong> (growing 400% from 100 website visitors to 500 visitors is no big deal. Growing from 1.6k to 30k+ is a real deal).</li>
<li><strong>All the tactics mentioned here <em>really</em> work.</strong> They’ve been tried and tested, not copied from other blogs.</li>
<li><strong>It’s also an honest account of what <em>didn’t</em> work.</strong> It’s not just shiny victories that paved our way to 30k+ monthly blog visits.</li>
</ul>
<p>In September 2015, <a href="http://www.scoro.com/blog/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">our startup&#8217;s blog</a> had the total of 1,615 organic visits from Google. By March 2017, this number had grown to 31,375 visits.</p>
<p>A quick calculation shows that in the past 12 months, our organic blog traffic increased by 1,843%. This has also translated into a significant growth in the number of leads and sales.</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_594" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-594" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-594" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/blog-organic-traffic.png" alt="blog organic traffic growth" width="750" height="131"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-594" class="wp-caption-text">Our blog&#8217;s 20-month growth curve</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>However, the fastest growth has happened in the past 11 months while we grew our traffic from 6k/month to 31k/month.</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_595" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-595" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-595" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/organic-traffic-chart.png" alt="organic traffic growth chart" width="750" height="421" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/organic-traffic-chart.png 1400w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/organic-traffic-chart-300x168.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/organic-traffic-chart-768x431.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/organic-traffic-chart-1024x574.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-595" class="wp-caption-text">A chart from Moz’s organic traffic report</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>To be honest, this good-looking growth curve did not always result from a solid SEO strategy. Rather, it was a series of a-ha moments and sudden revelations that guided the process.</p>
<p><strong>We got an abrupt idea, applied it to our website, and kept our fingers crossed to see whether our (often crazy) ideas work. Sometimes, they did.</strong></p>
<p>And that’s how we grew from 1,6k organic blog visits to 30k+ visits.</p>
<p>You know how some people say there are no golden nuggets and it’s only the long-term strategy that leads to goals… That’s not entirely true – the best results appear when a strong long-term plan gets mixed with bold ideas.</p>
<p>This article’s about the hacks and growth tactics we used to build our website traffic. The best part is that they can be easily applied to your marketing strategy as well.</p>
<p><strong>IMPORTANT NOTE:</strong> I’d also like to give credit to our brilliant colleague <a href="https://twitter.com/Merilyy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Merily</a> who’s been rocking our SEO, content, and CRO.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s another article you might like:&nbsp;<a href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro/guest-blogging/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">After Guest Blogging 50+ Articles to Top Blogs, Here’s What I’ve Learned</a></p>
<h2>How we got started:</h2>
<p>When I joined Scoro, I was eager to get started with content marketing right away.</p>
<p>Up to this point, the SaaS startup had been buying generic 800-word articles from an agency. Nobody wanted to read them, and it showed in the blog’s readership numbers.</p>
<h4>Key takeaway #1: <strong>Don’t outsource your content marketing to an agency as they can’t see your SEO results nor do they plan for your long-term growth. (At least the agencies I’ve seen in action)</strong></h4>
<p>What you should do instead, is to establish a solid content strategy and a growth plan with two main goals:</p>
<ul>
<li>Building brand awareness and acquiring fans</li>
<li>Publishing content that will bring you traffic in the long run</li>
</ul>
<p>Rather than publishing three short articles per week, we aimed to publish one really good article once a week. This tactic’s also been explained by Rand Fishkin in his <a href="https://moz.com/blog/how-to-create-10x-content-whiteboard-friday" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Whiteboard Friday episode</a> on 10x content.</p>
<h4>Key takeaway #2: Don’t publish for the sake of publishing – focus on quality, not quantity. (I bet you’re tired of hearing this, but it’s 100% true)</h4>
<p>Our initial content marketing strategy was simple. It included a topic, headline, keywords, and a publishing date. We’re using a similar approach to this day.</p>
<h2>Building a growth-focused content marketing strategy</h2>
<p>At the beginning, our content marketing strategy was like a vacant parking lot – there were so many potential keywords and opportunities waiting to be employed.</p>
<p>Not to waste a single opportunity, every article we published had to show a huge organic traffic potential.</p>
<p>According to research by Ahrefs, the average Top10 ranking page is 2+ years old. It takes nearly three years to land the #1 spot.</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_580" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-580" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-580" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/age-of-page-days-copy.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="502" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/age-of-page-days-copy.jpg 900w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/age-of-page-days-copy-300x201.jpg 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/age-of-page-days-copy-768x515.jpg 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/age-of-page-days-copy-360x240.jpg 360w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-580" class="wp-caption-text">It takes 900 days to rank on #1 place – <a href="https://ahrefs.com/blog/how-long-does-it-take-to-rank/">Image source</a></figcaption></figure></p>
<p>The fact that it may take 2+ years to have your blog articles rank on Google means that you need to focus on the long-term strategy and build “content bundles” with articles complementing each other.</p>
<h4>#Key takeaway 3: Plan and create content with long-term gains in mind. It may take up to two years for an article to start ranking in the TOP10 on SERPs.</h4>
<p>Actually, I can assure you that some articles only take a month or two to start ranking high on SERPs. But it doesn’t change the fact that the focus should be placed on the long-term growth.</p>
<p>Instead of brainstorming fun headlines, we defined the five main topics to center our content around. I like to call those overarching topics the “content bundles”.</p>
<h2>Creating content bundles as an SEO strategy</h2>
<p>When analyzing our past three months’ website traffic, we noticed that 75% of the organic traffic resulted from two types of articles – software lists and KPI-related content.</p>
<p><strong>I’ve never been a big believer in the <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229813" target="_blank" rel="noopener">80/20 rule</a>, but it sure seems to apply to our blog strategy. Most of our organic traffic comes from two content bundles that we’ve been expanding since 2015.</strong></p>
<p>Just to be clear, here’s how I like to define content bundles:</p>
<ul>
<li>A series of articles around one key topic</li>
<li>Each article focuses on a different (yet related) keyword</li>
</ul>
<p>By interlinking the articles inside a content bundle, you’re able to create a keyword bubble. And for what I’ve seen, Google loves these kinds of bubbles around a specific topic. After some time, Google will begin to perceive your blog as an expert resource in the given field, assigning your articles a higher rank in SERPs.</p>
<h4>Key takeaway #4: Create content bundles – a series of articles centered around one key topic.</h4>
<p>For example, we’ve been working on the content bundle focusing on the keyword “KPI dashboard” for over 15 months. It’s a sweet keyword – the exact match has over 1k monthly searches in the US alone.</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_588" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-588" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-588" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-dashboard.png" alt="moz keyword rankings" width="750" height="209" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-dashboard.png 1400w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-dashboard-300x84.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-dashboard-768x214.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-dashboard-1024x285.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-588" class="wp-caption-text">We use Moz for SEO tracking</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>The other pages ranking for this keyword have a considerably higher domain authority. However, we’re now ranking as the #4 result in SERPs in the US.</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_589" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-589" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-589" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-dashboard-in-serps.png" alt="kpi dashboard in serps" width="750" height="414" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-dashboard-in-serps.png 2094w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-dashboard-in-serps-300x166.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-dashboard-in-serps-768x424.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-dashboard-in-serps-1024x565.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-589" class="wp-caption-text">Ranking as the TOP4 result</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>Slowly but surely developing the content bundles has certainly been one of our highest-ROI tactics. The best part is that it’s easily applicable even to sites with a low domain authority – to blogs just starting out.</p>
<p>https://www.mindtitan.com/?utm_source=aggregate&#038;utm_medium=paid-ads</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_941" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-941" style="width: 645px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.mindtitan.com/?utm_source=aggregate&amp;utm_medium=paid-ads"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-941" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/mindtitan-chatbots-1024x187.png" alt="ai agency" width="645" height="118" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/mindtitan-chatbots-1024x187.png 1024w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/mindtitan-chatbots-300x55.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/mindtitan-chatbots-768x140.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/mindtitan-chatbots.png 1400w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 645px) 100vw, 645px" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-941" class="wp-caption-text">This is a sponsored post from a brand I believe in.</figcaption></figure></p>
<h2>The secret SEO tactics that bring skyrocketing results</h2>
<p>Alright, it’s time for the best part of the article – the no-BS tactics that helped to grow our organic blog traffic at a fast pace.</p>
<p>As you might have guessed, it all starts with keyword research and identifying the best opportunities.</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_602" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-602" style="width: 356px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-602" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/giphy.gif" alt="you win gif" width="356" height="200"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-602" class="wp-caption-text">Here&#8217;s how it all ends – <a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/cartoonhangover-animated-artists-on-tumblr-illustration-ToMjGpyO2OVfPLpoxu8">Image source</a></figcaption></figure></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>?SEO hack 1: Learn to do SEO research the right way</h3>
<p>Instead of simply checking the Google Keyword Tool to see the monthly search volume of specific keywords, you can take your research to a higher level. I’ve also written about this method in-depth <a href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro/how-to-do-better-keyword-research/">here</a>.</p>
<h4>Step 1: Google your keywords</h4>
<p>After you’ve discovered some keywords with a great monthly search volume, head to Google and, well, google. (You can use a tool like <a href="https://isearchfrom.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ISearchFrom</a> to see the results in specific countries)</p>
<p>Let’s say you want to create a list of Top SEO Blogs.</p>
<p>A quick Google search will reveal a list of results:</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_585" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-585" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-585" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-search-results.png" alt="Google your keywords" width="750" height="372" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-search-results.png 1740w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-search-results-300x149.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-search-results-768x381.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-search-results-1024x508.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-585" class="wp-caption-text">Always google your keywords</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>While it’s a good general overview of your competition, there’s a simple way to learn a lot more.</p>
<h4><strong>Key takeaway #5: Don’t limit your SEO research to the Google Keyword Tool. Dig deeper.</strong></h4>
<p>My personal favourite tool for competitive SEO research in the Moz SEO Toolbar.</p>
<h4>Step 2: Use the Moz SEO Toolbar for advanced research</h4>
<p>Use the Moz SEO Toolbar to get more insight about the articles in search results. Most of the features are free, simply add the extension to your web browser.</p>
<p>The SEO Toolbar will show you the Domain Authority and Page Authority of each website on the search engine results page.</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_592" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-592" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-592" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/moz-toolbar-results.png" alt="moz toolbar results" width="750" height="370" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/moz-toolbar-results.png 1400w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/moz-toolbar-results-300x148.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/moz-toolbar-results-768x379.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/moz-toolbar-results-1024x506.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-592" class="wp-caption-text">Moz toolbar, you&#8217;re a blessing</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>What you want to do is to look for pages with a low domain authority that have managed to get listed among the high-DA pages. This means they’ve published such good content that Google thinks it’s necessary to refer to their site.</p>
<p>For example, an article from a site with the DA of 29 could appear between other pages with a DA of 80+.</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_590" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-590" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-590" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/low-page-authority.png" alt="low page authority pages" width="750" height="271" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/low-page-authority.png 1586w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/low-page-authority-300x109.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/low-page-authority-768x278.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/low-page-authority-1024x371.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-590" class="wp-caption-text">Compare the DA metrics</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>The guys over at the low-DA site must have done something right. Analyze what differentiates their content from all other results.</p>
<p>Often, you’ll find that those low-DA pages have 10x more comprehensive content or have an exact keyword match. That’s what you’ll want to copy when creating content to rank for the same keyword.</p>
<h4>Key takeaway #6: Find content marketing and SEO opportunities by discovering low domain authority sites that rank among pages with a high domain authority.</h4>
<p>Once you&#8217;ve discovered that another low-DA site is able to rank in the TOP10 SERP results for a particular keyword, so can you.</p>
<h3>?SEO hack 2: Spend more time interlinking</h3>
<p>Remember when we talked about the content bundles in the first half of this article?</p>
<p><strong>Adding links in&nbsp;between your blog articles helps to strengthen your keyword bubbles and make them visible to Google (and get your new articles ranking more quickly).</strong></p>
<p>While most websites make an effort to add links to older articles inside the newer content, we took it one step further. After we had published a new article on a given topic, we went and edited older articles around the same subject, and added links to the new article.</p>
<p>For example, when we published this article on KPI Reporting in February 2017…</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_587" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-587" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-587" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-article.png" alt="kpi article" width="750" height="435" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-article.png 1400w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-article-300x174.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-article-768x445.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kpi-article-1024x593.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-587" class="wp-caption-text">This article&#8217;s part of our KPI content bundle</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>We went ahead and linked to it in a KPI-related article published one year before.</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_586" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-586" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-586" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/interlinking-seo-hack.png" alt="interlinking seo hack" width="760" height="356" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/interlinking-seo-hack.png 1642w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/interlinking-seo-hack-300x141.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/interlinking-seo-hack-768x360.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/interlinking-seo-hack-1024x480.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-586" class="wp-caption-text">We either use in-text anchors or add a suggestion</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>As a result, the new article picked up more quickly and appeared in the TOP20 SERPs two weeks after publishing.</p>
<h4>Key takeaway #7: Interlink all the articles around a related topic to create keyword bubbles and improve your search rankings.</h4>
<p>By interlinking our blog articles, we steadily built a network of links, supporting each individual keyword and helping our articles rank higher on Google SERPs.</p>
<p>https://www.mindtitan.com/?utm_source=aggregate&#038;utm_medium=paid-ads</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_941" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-941" style="width: 645px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.mindtitan.com/?utm_source=aggregate&amp;utm_medium=paid-ads"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-941" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/mindtitan-chatbots-1024x187.png" alt="ai agency" width="645" height="118" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/mindtitan-chatbots-1024x187.png 1024w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/mindtitan-chatbots-300x55.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/mindtitan-chatbots-768x140.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/mindtitan-chatbots.png 1400w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 645px) 100vw, 645px" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-941" class="wp-caption-text">This is a sponsored post from a brand I believe in.</figcaption></figure></p>
<h3>?SEO hack 3: A/B test new headlines and meta descriptions</h3>
<p>The two SEO tactics mentioned previously helped us to grow our blog’s organic traffic by over 1,500%.</p>
<p>However, it’s this third trick that gets credit for the latest improvements in our SERP rankings. It’s about rewriting and A/B testing your article’s headlines and meta descriptions.</p>
<p>Hearing about this SEO hack was definitely one of the few a-ha moments on our journey to 30k+ monthly organic (blog) traffic.</p>
<h3>Key takeaway #8: Rewrite and A/B test your article’s headlines and meta descriptions.</h3>
<p>Here’s how it works&#8230;</p>
<h4>Step 1</h4>
<p><strong>Select an article that’s ranking in the TOP20 search results and is optimized for a high search volume keyword.</strong></p>
<p>I like to use Moz’s keyword ranking reports for that.</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_591" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-591" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-591" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/moz-rankings-report.png" alt="moz rankings report" width="750" height="174" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/moz-rankings-report.png 1400w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/moz-rankings-report-300x70.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/moz-rankings-report-768x178.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/moz-rankings-report-1024x238.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-591" class="wp-caption-text">Sry, can&#8217;t show you all our superstar keywords</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>The keyword “What is a kpi” has a considerable search volume, and the current ranking #15 shows that it has a potential to move up the ranks.</p>
<h4><strong>Step 2</strong></h4>
<p><strong>Google the keyword to see what other articles rank next to yours.</strong></p>
<p>In this phase, you’re going to sherlock on your competition, looking for their article’s headlines and meta descriptions.</p>
<p>We like to approach this stage by asking: What would make our article differentiate from the crowd and make people click?</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_583" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-583" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-583" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-research.png" alt="google SEO research" width="750" height="317" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-research.png 1400w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-research-300x127.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-research-768x325.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-research-1024x433.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-583" class="wp-caption-text">How could we make our headline shine out?</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>In this case, all the headlines seem pretty generic and boring. What if we could rewrite the headline to make it more noteworthy (and clickable)?</p>
<h4>Key takeaway #9: Rewrite your headlines to increase the CTR on search result pages, and thereby raise your SERP rankings.</h4>
<p>We usually rewrite both the primary and SEO headline – if we come up with a better solution, we also want to have it in our blog.</p>
<p><strong>The key tactics we use to write powerful headlines:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Create a curiosity gap so that people will click on the headline.</li>
<li>Include your main keyword in the headline to be highlighted in search results.</li>
<li>Create comprehensive lists with odd numbers.</li>
<li>Make your headlines actionable by using action verbs such as “Learn”, “Get”, etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>Google <a href="https://moz.com/blog/does-organic-ctr-impact-seo-rankings-new-data" target="_blank" rel="noopener">evaluates search results</a> based on their click-through rates. It makes a lot of sense to put effort into increasing your top article’s CTRs.</p>
<p>Higher SERP click-through rates = higher rankings</p>
<h4>Step 3</h4>
<p><strong>Use the <a href="http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=google+search+console" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Search Console</a> to A/B test and measure results</strong></p>
<p>A marketing tactic is useless without proper measurement.</p>
<p><strong>What if you rewrite your blog headlines, but instead of increasing, your CTR actually drops?</strong></p>
<p>We’ve seen both success and failure with this SEO hack. It’s a good thing we measured the results and were able to restore some changed headlines and meta descriptions to their original state.</p>
<p>By using the Google Search Console, you can easily track your keywords’ and article’s click-through rates on Google.</p>
<p>To get a report that looks like this&#8230;</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_593" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-593" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-593" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/serp-ctrs.png" alt="serp ctrs in google search console" width="750" height="192" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/serp-ctrs.png 1630w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/serp-ctrs-300x77.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/serp-ctrs-768x197.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/serp-ctrs-1024x263.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-593" class="wp-caption-text">You can compare SERP CTRs from multiple periods</figcaption></figure></p>
<p><strong>Follow these steps:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Log in to Google Search Console</li>
<li>Select “Search Traffic”, the “Search Analytics”</li>
<li>Tick the box in front of CTR</li>
<li>Change the columns from Queries to Pages</li>
<li>Select the dates you’d like to compare</li>
</ol>
<p><figure id="attachment_584" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-584" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-584" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-search-console-results.png" alt="google search console results" width="750" height="345" srcset="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-search-console-results.png 1400w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-search-console-results-300x138.png 300w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-search-console-results-768x353.png 768w, https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/google-search-console-results-1024x471.png 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-584" class="wp-caption-text">Change the chart&#8217;s settings accordingly</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>Using these reports has been of tremendous help in optimizing and A/B testing our article’s meta descriptions and headlines.</p>
<h4><strong>Key takeaway #10: Measure your marketing experiments’ results to see what actually works.</strong></h4>
<p>And now, it&#8217;s time for the sweetest part of the article – the fuckups.</p>
<h2>You can’t always win – our biggest failures</h2>
<p>I promised to also share our failures. While some of them being embarrassing to think of, we can at least say: We tried.</p>
<p>In retrospect, many of these failures make us feel like this…</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_582" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-582" style="width: 500px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-582" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/funny.gif" alt="funny gif" width="500" height="246"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-582" class="wp-caption-text">That&#8217;s us at a marketing meeting – <a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/celebs-comedy-jessica-alba-tJ9hWojpuYnRK">Image source</a></figcaption></figure></p>
<p>But there are also the mistakes that make us feel more like&#8230;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><figure id="attachment_581" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-581" style="width: 370px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-581" src="https://karolakarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/embarrassed.gif" alt="" width="370" height="159"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-581" class="wp-caption-text">How could I be <i>that </i>stupid? – <a href="http://mrwgifs.com/hermione-granger-shake-my-head-gif/">Image source</a></figcaption></figure></p>
<p>It’s up to you to guess which failures make us feel in certain ways. (I&#8217;ve boldened my favourite ones)</p>
<ul>
<li>We tried Outbrain for content promotion, but it never delivered the anticipated results.</li>
<li>We forgot to add UTM codes and REF codes behind our paid promotions’ links.</li>
<li>We sometimes created content that stole our landing pages’ place on SERPs. We fixed this by adding CTAs inside blog articles.</li>
<li><strong>We created a <a href="https://www.scoro.com/blog/christmas-infographic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Christmas infographic</a> on productivity that we published 20 days too late.</strong></li>
<li>We tried some crazy headline and meta description changes that significantly decreased the CTRs to our articles. Luckily, the rankings recovered in a few weeks.</li>
<li><strong>Once, I mistakenly thought Outbrain’s budget signifies the total campaign budget.</strong> It was the daily budget. You might have guessed why I don’t like Outbrain&#8230;</li>
<li>We waited for too long to update our blog layout and redesign the article page.</li>
<li>We didn’t do enough outreach and collaborate with other industry blogs.</li>
<li>For the first 8 months, we focused on vanity metrics such as social shares, instead of website traffic and lead conversions.</li>
<li><strong>We spent 30+ hours on an eBook campaign that returned only 4 leads.</strong></li>
</ul>
<h4>For us, guest blogging didn’t work. At all.</h4>
<p>While everyone’s praising guest blogging as a brilliant SEO tactic, I’m going to play the devil&#8217;s advocate&nbsp;here.</p>
<p><strong>We did lots of guest posting on other sites, like <a href="https://adespresso.com/academy/blog/test-100-facebook-ads-one-month-what-we-learned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>, <a href="http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/03/promote-blog-content-facebook/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>, and <a href="https://klientboost.com/ppc/facebook-ad-tips/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. However, considering the time and resources spent, this is not a high-ROI way to grow your blog traffic.</strong></p>
<p>I would recommend that you do PR, but forget about guest posting – focus on publishing excellent content in your own blog instead.</p>
<h2>Over to you</h2>
<p>As you can see, nothing too serious went wrong. We were able to happily test away all our new ideas.</p>
<p>If you intend to grow your organic blog traffic, know that there is no instant way to win (Ahrefs’ case study perfectly illustrates it). Use what you’ve learned in this article to accelerate your journey to tens of thousands monthly blog visitors.</p>
<p>I hope this helps and would love to hear the hacks that have helps you to grow your website traffic. Let’s have a discussion in the comments.&nbsp;&nbsp;???</p><p>The post <a href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro/growing-organic-blog-traffic/">From 1.6k to 31k Monthly Blog Visitors in 20 Months – How We Did It</a> appeared first on <a href="https://karolakarlson.com/ro">Marketing Fix blog</a>.</p>
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