The Business of Digital Podcast

This episode will dig into some tests, some resources and some ideas on what you can do to improve your own CTR in Google and Bing.

All businesses want more traffic. You work your tail off to make Page 1 and then more time to get into Top 3 and maybe even #1. But the traffic never comes? Maybe you have a horribly low CTR but solid conversions?

This episode will dig into some tests, some resources and some ideas on what you can do to improve your own CTR in Google and Bing.

Improving CTR Resources

And the a deeper dive by Aleyda can be found at her recent article that talks about this exact topic - improving CTR. As we talk about in the episode, notice the first step in the flow chart? Is the page relevant?

Before you even worry about your CTR, take a look at your page and make sure they are relevant.

Not SEO but we have seen people test emojis in Title Tags and some interesting data non the less. SEJ did a big test of their emails for a month, Emojis in Email Subject Lines: Do They Affect Open Rates? [DATA] and reported on their findings - some good, some bad but all somewhat interesting.

At Moz there is also the recent article and test Title Tags SEO: When to Include Your Brand and/or Boilerplate which is another test and angle around improving your CTR.

Professional vs. Increasing CTR

Whatever you do or test, how will things impact your brand? Will using ALL CAPS or emojis make your brand look bad, childish, amatuer or will it have no effect?

No matter what you test, note the Moz study in all the things they watched. How do the changes you make impact rankings, clicks, impressions and even conversions. Do you get more clicks but not more conversions. Is that good traffic? Or what if you get less clicks but more conversions? What is your goal?

Follow the Pack but Know When to Hang a Left

If you were to target "canva alternatives" and notice that everyone has a list that includes a number - think what you can do to be slightly different.

They list numbers - can you have more or less?Instead of a list of ALL, what are the 3 best?What can you do differently?Is the query even relevant to you? Is the page ranking relevant?Test everything.Add brand. Remove brand. Try different call outs. Remove call outs.

Full Transcript

Matt Siltala: [00:00:00] Welcome to another exciting episode of the business of digital podcast, featuring your host, Matt  and Dave roar. Are you guys excited to have you join us on another one of these exciting podcast episodes? We've got Dave over there. How's it going? Dave? Dave

Dave Rohrer: [00:00:18] is here.

Matt Siltala: [00:00:18] All right. So

Dave Rohrer: [00:00:20] present and accounted for

Matt Siltala: [00:00:24] gotcha.

Well, let's just jump into it. So today, I don't know if this came from a tweet that you saw or an article that you read, but the title that we're going with right now, guys is ways to test and improve your organic CTR. And so, maybe Dave just kind of set us up and, and, what made you think of this one?

And we'll go from there. Well, it

Dave Rohrer: [00:00:47] come from, a test I did with a client last November, December, and then I'm working with a client right now where we just did something in recent weeks. And we're already seeing, bumps and jumps and [00:01:00] traffic and impressions and clicks and rankings, but it's working on and improving your CTR from Google and being, and, you know, you'll.

You'll see tons of doomsday predictions and yes, we are seeing less clicks from organic traffic and even less organic opportunities. Yeah. okay. At least from a typical blue link, you know, you can have images and videos and you can, we can argue that separately, but we're just talking about, you know, your normal page, trying to get traffic from, you know, that number two, you are number one or number eight, listing on Google and being, how do I get more people to click, even if I'm a little bit further down.

Or number one, even how do I keep getting that high amount of traffic? And it came from that. But then I also saw, a lady did som

Listen for tools and tricks on ways to reuse audio content. We cover video, podcast, and really anything that has audio that you can reuse for social media easily.

In short as the guys have said in numerous Pubcon and other presentations:

You Need to Market Your Content Marketing!- Dave & Mat so very often

Matt kicks things off and gives you a ton of places to repurpose an infographic for example:

Instagram PostInstagram StoryInstagram ReelYouTubeFacebook PostTweet it OutLinkedInand more but there are so many ways and places to reuse that one piece of content on every social and publishing channel you have.

Create and Use Templates

There is nothing wrong with using a template and actually we think it is for the best. You know it will work on a platform, you can quickly make new ones and you get a consistent branded look that you control.

What is not to like? If you are scared of just using the same one every day or week take a look at our Instagram account. We have a few templates that change for guest vs no guest but also a few variances as we mix in different templates and designs to try and keep things fresh while trying to make them easy to produce. Here is a quick sample which happens to show 3 different templates:

Audiogram Tools for Podcasters and More

Here are some of the examples and tools the guys listed out during the show. And even if you dont have a podcast or audio show, you can simply record yourself talking into your phone or recorder and add it to any of these apps to make some different content.

Marketing O'Clock Podcast "likely" uses Headliner App to make some great Instagram posts and stories.Another is Wavve App which makes audio shareable.Also Audioburst has some similar tools.Then there is Audiogram which makes audio grams!Of course you can always use CanvaDave also mentioned he was looking at Crello.Lastly is a new player that is in Beta you may have seen in recent weeks on our Instagram feed. PodStory is new and quite simple/easy to use.

You can also look at just creating a YouTube channel (here is what we do for ours if you aren't aware) for your audio files (podcast or other!).

Do you give presentations internally or externally? Do you record it? Splice some of the audio and again add it to any of the apps above and even if you don't have video (or like it) you can again reuse the content in a different way.

Video Content Ideas

Scared to create content or not sure what to do?

Read reviews from Google or Yelp and use one of the apps above to add visuals.Use photos and reviews to create something beyond a normal post.Use b-roll or Zoom type setup and create content from it.Do Q&A with a chef, executive or other employees to give you audio and leverage the apps to mix it into something beyond just a one time content.Create articles from your audio or video file. Check out our transcription service review episode for help picking one but this is another way to reuse that interview.

Real Life Reusing Content Example

So two years or so ago Dave created a Podcast presentation for Pubcon. Matt took it and spun it and redid it from the top to bottom for another conference. Then a year later Dave and Matt did a longer presentation that was updated and expanded upon.

Matt also used the presentation as an outline which became Podcasting Beginners Guide: How and Why You Should Start Podcasting at SEMRush.

Over the past 3 years we have done a number of episodes on podcast related topics which actually helped create that initial presentation. So we created separate pieces of content and then combined them with new to create something new only to break it apart again!

The circle of content life!

We will let that last bit sink in as we thank you and let you dig into the full transcript below (again, reusing our own audio file to create more content).

Full Transcript

Matt Siltala: [00:00:00] Welcome to another exciting episode of the business of digital podcast, featuring your host, Matt  and Dave roar. Hey, you guys excited to have you join us on another one of these podcast episodes. Ho

Dig in as we walk you through how to try and balance scheduling for users while testing your social, blog, video or podcast content schedules.

There are patterns that most people fall into in life but also with posting content and social posts. In the past we did dig into the notion that Best Practices Are Not Always Best Practices for you and your business. You do need to test things and then keep testing them.

Our Posting Schedule Tests

We started at posting on MondayWe moved to WednesdayWe tried SaturdayWe currently post new episodes Sunday

If you are a YouTuber or Podcaster - you should test a schedule and stick to it. People will come to expect new content on day X at time Y and your ability to retain that viewer or listener will be higher than if you randomly post content to your channels.

Special Podcast Series Schedule

In recent years we have started doing big series that have 4-5 episodes that are also much longer than our normal shows. The amount of content in a short time is the complete opposite of what we usually do and we have seen normal listenership for that content when we thought it would be huge.

Again it comes to schedule and what makes sense and for our special series we are still testing!

What is Your Industry?

Think about what you read, test it but also think about your industry and business. If you are a restaurant that has dinner specials, perhaps posting daily at a certain time is what you need to do. What time? No idea but you really need to test that.

Mat gives an example of a Food Truck and how he has been trained to check at 11AM daily to see if they are going to be near him. That business has a posting schedule that he expects and likely many others.

Are You Marketing Your Content Marketing?

The last item that should be thought about when it comes to your schedule is... how much budget and time do you have to promote your content?

If you post new content daily are you promoting it each day? You spend all that time to create something but don't spend any to promote it you might want to rethink your balance.

Post multiple times to TwitterShare on LinkedIn and Facebook and other networksInclude it in your weekly newsletterPromote it... just do it in as many ways as you can.

Again - always be testing. Test time, date, visuals, messaging, networks, and anything and everything else.

Full Transcript

Matt Siltala: [00:00:00] Welcome to another exciting episode of the business of digital podcast, featuring your host, Matt  and Dave roar guys. Thanks for joining us as always. And, uh, I know that we have the aim over there. So here's this virtual wave today. How's it going, bud? Cough.

Dave Rohrer: [00:00:19] As soon as I hit record, I started coughing.

Matt Siltala: [00:00:21] She knew that I was going to do that too.

So today what we're going to do is we're going to just jump right into it and, uh, This, this one's interesting chatting about it as we do, uh, before we record. But, um, there's different patterns in social media, the media posting that people, you know, even with what we do with our podcasting, but like there's different patterns that we jump into and things that we test and do, and don't do.

And, and I think it's interesting cause you know, you, you were starting to get into like some of the stuff that we've done and maybe I'll just hand it over to you and let you do that. And then get us started.

Dave Rohrer: [00:00:57] Well, I think we've talked something about this and [00:01:00] we've talked about the whole idea of best practice.

Isn't always best practice. Like, read it, look at it, but test it yourself. And that's what this comes down to is when are you supposed to post it's like, well, so, and so did a test of. Whatever number of accounts and whatever number of posts. And they decided that, yeah, you should always post at 9:00 AM on a Saturday or something.

Um, and then there's tools out there that will look at your data. Um, and it will also then tell you when you're supposed to be post. But the funny thing about that is, is if you've always be

Dig into to our almost 20 comparisons and reviews of what the best AI transcription service is for podcasters and others that need transcription services.

Well we can't answer that for you (exactly) but we can review and compare them using Episode 166 as the common sound file. The goal was to answer (or try too anyways) the often asked question - what service should I use to transcribe my podcasts?

There are however many caveats which we cover during the episode, such as:

How many speakers do you have?Do you have accents?Do you need a vocabulary built in?What is your budget?How long are your episodes?How often do you record/publish?What is your required turn around time?Do you want to do any editing?Do you care if it is perfect?And many more!

So just keep in mind that the tests below are based on a single 17 minute file with 2 speakers. Your mileage may vary with each service depending on how you answer any of the above questions. Or what I am trying to say is - use this episode and our transcription service research to help you validate or shorten your final list.

Transcription by Human vs. Transcription by AI

So which is better? Human transcription is likely going to be more accurate today but also much more expensive. Based on the services we looked at AI can run from $.40 to $5 or so to transcribe a 20 minute audio file. The services that have humans transcribe ranged from $20 to $30 for the same file. While we didn't compare AI vs. Human for this test from what Dave has seen, human transcriptions are much closer to 99.99% correct mark than the AI options are - for now.

So in the end your options are:

Be cheap and use AI.Go for accuracy and use a human service.Be cheap and use AI but spend time editing it after the fact.

With that said we mostly looked at AI services but did include some often mentioned and popular human transcription service options too in the review section.

Transcription Service Scores

Regarding the scores, here is some quick background on each column.

Ease of Use - Is it easy to setup and use? Is it fast? Does it work?Features - Does it have integrations (Zoom, Zapier, etc.)? Does it have export options? Can I get in there and edit if needed?Speaker Handling - Does the service label speakers? Seems simple but many failed.Transcription - I looked at 4 different clips and compared to what was really said and to the other services. If major issues were noticed they lost .5 or 1 point per.

Transcription Service Reviews

The reviews were done by Dave over the period of 1-2 weeks in August/September of 2020. All pricing, features and such are based on what was available on the sites, apps and such at that time.

Descript (Score: 7.75)

Free Option - 3 hours of transcription (one time)$12 a month gets you 10 hours of monthly transcription

Descript is a bit different as it is an APP that you have to download. Also to be fair it is what we currently use for our transcripts so note that I am more familiar with the program than a newb. Once you download and get setup the Descript App is pretty easy to use. I simply create a new Composition in my usual folder, move the file in and let it go to work. I set assign speakers and once it is done it lets you assign the various voices to a person and then updates everything. The result is usually 100% match on speakers, even if 3 or 4 people it seems to work. Only once in some 100 or so episodes have I had issues with the speaker assignment. The output is clean and simple and overall I do love the app and price. That said it will be interesting to compare the quality of the output to others finally.

Otter AI (Score: 7.00)

Free Option - 600 minutes a month (max 40 minute file)$8.33 a month gets you 6000 minutes a month (max 4 hour file)

Otter has a simple signup with the usual email verification. Out of the gate you can upload 3 files and get 600 minutes even if you don't sign up for a plan. At the free level the integrations are limited but if you upgrade Zoom and Dropbox become available - no Zapier however. There is also a Manage Vocabulary - only 5 words with f

Kevin Indig joins to talk about ways to achieve greater SEO success by getting the resources and budget that are needed to compete.

A special thanks to Kevin Indig, VP of Content for hopping on the show on such short notice but we thought the topic and tweet were both very interesting.

Kevin got some great responses so check them out as there is a great list of reasons, ideas and discussion.

If you like podcasts and want another one to check out, Tech Bound is Kevin's own podcast.

Do You Make a Strong Business Case?

Kevin's first response to his own question is that SEOs traditionally have been bad at making business cases for the budget and resources. We often talk not in dollars and sales but other metrics (if any) instead.

What is the impact of your project? While we can't guarantee results, an attempt should be made to "speak dollar" and present a real business case backed by the impact to the bottom line.

Test, document and start small. Look for small wins to convince executives and higher ups to give you more budget and resources. You don't have to have exact and super complex formulas to predict impact but do the work and use what data you have to try and give a best estimate for what that impact will do to sales and leads.

I’d add are included in that thread but I think the most important consideration is whether or not the SEO team has (and has earned) a seat at the table; and has fostered a positive relationship with the CTO/dev team leads.- Michelle Robbins

In-House SEO is a Skill

Build on small wins to get more resources and budget. Start by asking for 30 minutes of development resources and then show the uplift. Move to more hours and bigger projects. The goal is to stack win after win and show over and over that SEO projects can move the needle and drive a great ROI.

When you do these tests make sure your data is as connected to the money (i.e. leads, sales, revenue!) as you can.

I would say … because of lack of influence. The in house SEOs who have a harder time getting buy in. Is because they’re not 1) high enough in the organization so easier to overlook 2) The SEO work is not integrated with the product/marketing areas which is critical- Aleyda Solis

Adjust Your Story's Angle for the Audience

If you are pitching your boss, the CEO, the owner of the company, CMO, CTO, CFO, VP of Development, CRO, or whatever person/role - speak to that audience.

Adjust your slides, pitch, metrics and story all for whom you are speaking too. Each department and role will have different metrics and goals that they care about and to win them over it will take different points from each other.

How to Master the Art of Inhouse SEO

To dig deeper check out Kevin's own recent article on this topic check out his blog and learn about the following problems and solutions.

Problem 1: Not enough resourcesProblem 2: Technical SEO lives in Marketing instead of ProductProblem 3: SEOs can’t show the value of SEO

Full Transcript

Matt Siltala: [00:00:00] Welcome to another exciting episode of the business of digital podcast, featuring your host, Matt silt and Dave roar. Hey guys, excited to have everybody on another one of these business of digital podcast episodes. And today we have a special guest with us, Dave. Uh, we have Kevin indig with G2 and so welcome, Kevin.

I appreciate you joining us today.

Kevin Indig: [00:00:25] It's a pleasure to be on. Thanks for having me.

Matt Siltala: [00:00:27] And I know that we've got Dave over there. How's it going, bud?

Dave Rohrer: [00:00:29] I am here. Ready to ramble.

Matt Siltala: [00:00:31] All right. So let's get ready to ramble. Okay. We don't want to get sued for that. So scratch that just all right. So, um, what we'll do, uh, Kevin, because I just gave you that quick intro that you're with G2, but you are the vice president of content and SEO.

And so if there's anything else that you think that, uh, our listeners would like to hear about you, like, feel free to just give a little intro about yourself. And then I know that Dave will jump in and caus