17,000,000 Organics/Year with Ryan BeMiller @ Shopping Signals

When we think about ecommerce and fat graphs, Ryan BeMiller is the first name that comes to mind. 

Although Ryan’s official title is Director of Web and Digital Marketing, most people in the industry view him as an ecommerce marketing leader, and rightfully so. 

Throughout his career, Ryan has lent his expertise to ecommerce businesses of all shapes and sizes and he’s responsible for one of the fattest graphs we’ve ever seen—growing one brand’s organic traffic to a whopping 17 million organics per month, in just 3 years!

And the craziest part is, he pulled an out-of-this-world SEO campaign like this with only two writers! 

In this Fat Graph AMA, Ryan BeMiller shares his invaluable SEO insights, talks about his approach to SEO, hiring writers, developing quality content, and explains what it takes to reach the top and stay there. 

What Most SEOs Are Missing

Q: The only way our agency is able to create a lot of value is through publishing a lot of content. How did you create such an amazing outcome with *only* two writers?

A: I’ve actually never been focused on creating high volumes of content, and didn’t even realize the true value of that strategy until I stumbled upon Nick’s content. So, let me first say that I do see the value of a high volume strategy as well, it’s just not been my approach… yet.

But how we did it with just two writers comes down to a few key points. This is specific to the company for which we generated 17M in traffic…

• Capitalizing on brand equity: They were an established brand. As in a major, known brand consumer brand. Not like Kellogg’s or Samsung big, but still, a leading brand in their space. So we capitalized on that brand name and went hard at any and all branded keywords, creating content around those. Most of that content was product focused. Optimized product and category pages; in-depth FAQs & Knowledge Base content; and strategic product features. With domain authority and an established brand, you’re going to naturally outrank others who might try to rank for your brand related terms… so we made sure we ranked for everything with the brand name in it.
• Partnerships: This particular space has lots of opportunity for press coverage, unique collaborations with related pro’s, etc. So we established a consistent strategy to reach out to influencers and complementary brands and form content partnerships with them. This included things like press releases of course, but also product spotlights and feature articles in industry magazines and websites, event collaborations, and influencer mentions. One of the most effective tactics here was to do contests with these partners. That’s the incentive (to offer cool products and/or cash to their audience) they need to participate, and it naturally draws interest and traffic to a piece of content.
• Creating our own blog content. They didn’t even have a blog when I started working with them. We started a blog and this is where our 2 writers spent the majority of their time. (because most of the product related content mentioned earlier was written by the product managers and customer support team) The 2 writers would publish 2 to 4 posts per month, total. We would focus mostly on inspirational content… so think not “how to do xyz…” but rather, “top xyz looks for the winter season…” We would target high opportunity keywords and write the content around them. The main SEO focus was on the basic on-page optimizations… Title, H1, internal linking, use of related keywords, etc.

A company like this, which already has domain authority and brand equity can grow it’s organic pretty significantly over time with relatively lower volumes of content.

Q: If you’re were to start fresh with a brand new site, what would be the things you would focus on to start seeing some SEO traction?

A: My core focus for a new site would be as follows:

1. Make sure it is technically sound and structurally optimized… what better time to get things right than before you have content to deal with! So regarding tech, make sure it passes the standard SEO tech audit things like good site speed, few to no errors, etc. And regarding structure, make sure the site hierarchy is logical for the end user first, and SEO friendly where possible. Make sure it looks and performs great on all device sizes. Make it as simple as can be, both in terms of aesthetics and UI.
2. Figure out where I can get some immediate ‘wins’ in terms of ranking and traffic. Things like creating content for very low volume, but highly niche-relevant keywords. Perhaps even using the KGR strategy for a few key pieces of content, just to get the ball rolling and some near immediate Google traffic. And create some highly shareable content, like a roundup post for example… and message everyone mentioned in the post so they’ll hopefully promote it in their circles.
3. Strategize 2 to 5, very high value, in-depth pieces of content, and a timeline for when they’ll be published/promoted. These would of course be keyword optimized and oriented around buyer intent.

Should You Prioritize Technical SEO, Content, or Backlinks?

Q: When you do technical SEO, at what stage does it come into play? Between technical SEO, content, and backlinks, what gets prioritized first & why?

A: Let’s assume it’s a new project. I’m going to prioritize an audit first, and identify any issues or opportunities. Any major technical issues will be addressed first.

Any nice to have technical improvements will be on hold for rainy day activities. 

Any opportunities for easy to implement existing content optimization will come next, after the major tech issues are resolved. Next up is harder to implement existing content optimization.

Then on to creating new content, where we optimize as we go of course.

Q: Is content your main driver for SEO success? What other levers are you attending to (technical, backlinks, schema, etc)?

A: Yes, content is the main driver. The rest comes into play, but only when I deem it’s necessary.

Like, not every project I’ve worked on would truly benefit from implementing a schema. But situations arise that obviously call for it, so we implement one.

Or, if a site gets green lights on it’s performance metrics, I’m not likely to spend much time making sure it’s uber-perfect.

Or, if a site is newer, without much authority, I’m more likely to include link building than I am if the site is a larger, established brand that naturally generates links and branded searches.

Q: How much attribution do you give to backlinks in this campaign?

A: The website definitely benefits from backlinks, but there was never any formal “link outreach” plan implemented. Not that I don’t use those at times. But for an established brand like this, and with our other promotional tactics, a specific link outreach plan isn’t really needed. All of the partnerships mentioned above definitely contribute to backlinks. As does the fact that every time we mention anyone else in our content, we “promote” our content to them, letting them know it’s out there. Of course, that tends to generate some links.

Q: What’s your take on optimising your website targets pages/entire web for core web vitals?

A: It matters, but it’s not everything. Get each to a passing level, then focus back on content.

Q: How do you prioritise pages to focus on for link building?

A: I don’t always do link building, but when I do, I focus on assessing the value of a given page (how close it is to the purchase, or acquisition phase of the funnel), then determine the keyword opportunities associated with the page. The higher both of those are, the more I want links to that page.

Q: Besides getting organic links do you still do link building? If yes, what works the best so far?

A: Yes, on occasion. I prefer manual outreach, whether done personally or (more commonly) outsourced. And I want 100% legit links. Prefer not to pay for links either.

Why You Should Adjust Your Approach to SEO According to Varying Traffic Levels

Q: How does SEO change at varying traffic levels (100k/month, 500k/month, 1m/month) in terms of reporting, strategy, optimizations, etc.?

A: Lower traffic volumes: it’s harder to rank for broad keywords, but easier to find longer tail keywords you can rank for. We’re generally reporting more on content and rank performance than on conversions and sales.

Higher traffic volumes: it becomes somewhat easier to rank for broad keywords, yet less valuable to find and rank for longer tail keywords. We focus more on reporting conversions and sales, and tracking against competitors to gauge market share and key rank improvement opportunities.

Can You Achieve Incredible SEO Results on a Budget?

Q: What tips do you have for content agencies that work with lower budgets and local businesses for generating lots of content, or producing impressive traffic gains?

A: Lower budgets is where I play mostly these days. I recommend spending as much time promoting content as you do creating it. This is where I’ve always seen the best traffic gains. If a small business can only afford a couple pieces of content per month, that’s okay. They just need to make sure that content is really good, then spend an equal amount of time promoting it to their network. See above for specific tactics.

Q: If you have $10K to grow a site and the goal is to flip it for $100K, what will be your strategy?

A: So many variables to wrestle with here. I can’t really answer this without a lot more detail. But in general I would focus first and foremost on product and offer. Before any traffic generation I’d want to make sure that business has an amazing offer and can deliver on its promises. Once that’s squared away (not that this is an easy thing to do), I’d focus on an organic traffic strategy similar to what I’ve described in previous comments and probably mix in some paid as well.

Q: What is your take on the cost of SEO? Could you give some numbers around the cost?

A: To be honest, I just don’t know. I don’t really quantify things in this way. It’s usually more a matter of what’s the company’s budget and their resource bandwidth – and we maximize our efforts within those constraints.

What will the outcome be? Depends on too many factors. The best growth estimate I can give is to expect at least a 30% lift in revenue from a mature and successful organic traffic strategy.

Q: What are your KPIs for reporting results back to brand stakeholders? What metrics do you measure and report?

A: There are a bunch of different KPIs you need to monitor:

• Number of moves onto the first page.
• Number of moves into #1, #2, & #3 spots
• Organic Visits and Views
• Total number of pages ranked in top 10, with breakdowns for #1, #2 & #3 spots
• Pages per session
• Conversions
• For ecom: Organic – Add to carts and purchases
• For other: Organic – Form fills, lead magnet downloads, webinar registrations
• There are others of course, but these are some of the biggies

Content Promotion: Getting as Many Eyeballs on Your Content as Possible

Creating relevant, valuable, engaging content is just one part of the equation. To get your content in front of the widest possible audience, you need to promote it as well. Here’s how Ryan tackles content promotion.

Q: When you say “If you mention anyone else in the content we promote our content to them,” what exactly do you mean? What does the process look like?

A: Use what you have. If you can FB or LinkedIn Message them, do that. If you have their email, do that. If nothing else, tweet or comment @ at them. And also be a real human with them. Let them know you like their stuff, and be specific. Be appreciative and humble, Etc.

Q: What are all the promotional things that you do to amplify your content?

A: Outreach as described in previous answers. Posting on social. Occasionally running FB ads to some content.

SEO and Writers: Hiring the Right People as the First Step to Achieving Incredible Results

Q: What’s your process for finding, testing, and hiring writers? What kind of comp/rates do you provide?

A: For a billion dollar company, we would typically go with a salaried FTE, in the 40K-50K/yr range, US. For my smaller client projects it varies. Generally somewhere in the $250 to $500 per post range. But for very high quality, well researched, long form content, it’s not uncommon to be over $2K for a single post.

Q: Where do you source writing candidates?

A: Almost entirely from the US. Not that I have anything against sourcing from elsewhere, it’s just kind of where I’ve ended up.

Q: Do you have a testing step?

A: For freelance writers, yes. I give them a paid test article. For salaried, no. They go through a formal interview process and provide proof of published writings that we can review.

Q: What are your metrics for candidates? Those with good portfolios submit good tests, get hired, and stay for at least 6 months?

A:Yeah, that sounds like a good process! I guess I’m a bit fluid on this one… I kind of go by feel and don’t have a formal stance on it.

Q: When looking for team members, what is the most important question you ask during an interview?

A: Put them in the hot seat by making them reflect on a real world scenario in which they had to do X to achieve Y. X and Y depend on the business. But everyone should be able to come up with something that relates.

Even newbies with little to no real-world work experience should be able to recall a time in their lives that in some way relates to your question. This shows an ability to think on your feet, to apply what you do know, whatever that may be, to a random scenario, and an eagerness to answer a question genuinely rather than bow out and say you don’t have such a scenario to relate to the question. And for experienced candidates, this is their time to show you how they problem-solve.

Q: What are the most important qualities you look for in writers? Impressive that you did all of this with 2!

A: The qualities I look for in a writer are:

1. Passion
2. Communication abilities
3. Niche-relevant experience
4. A solid portfolio

Q: Which roles do you have in your team (in- house and outsourced)?

A: For that big project, I was an employee, we had a director, seo specialist, and two writers. 

For my client projects, I have myself, one or more outsourced writers, and an outsourced PM when needed.

Q: What are the content writing guidelines you give to writers to get the quality content from them?

A: Here are the general guidelines I share with my writers:

1. I let them know that I will expect it to be literally better than the top three ranking pages for that target.
2. We assess the type of content that’s likely to rank best. In some cases it might be an ultimate guide, in others it might be a product comparison.
3. We focus more on the content being complete and engaging, vs having a certain number of words, headings or keyword placements.
4. It needs to be very easy to digest. Small paragraphs… even one sentence per paragraph is fine. Lots of white space. Good use of headings, contents, and graphics to keep things organized, and eyeballs moving down the page.
5. It needs to match the tone/voice of the site/business/person.

Quality Over Everything: Quality Content as the Only Viable Strategy 

Q: What do you mean by quality over EVERYTHING?

A: To me, quality content is more important than everything else. One great article over 5 normal SEO articles; One great article over an okay article that’s extremely well SEO optimized. Why?

It’s partly just what works with my sensibilities. It’s what “feels right” to me. And, it’s partly the image I want to portray and the outcomes I want to achieve. I want my content to do much more than rank in Google. 

I want my content to truly impact the reader. I want it to actually answer every question they have about a particular topic. To demonstrate my client’s absolute expertise in their niche. To be obviously better than the next best options out there. Because not only does that content rank extremely well… more importantly, it positions the business as a trusted authority in their space. 

The mere fact that the content is so good automatically raises their status in the customers’ minds. It makes them more likely to buy. More likely to read more. More likely to perform branded searches in the future.

Q: How do you juggle content quality and quantity/velocity especially with only two writers at your disposal?

A: I focus on writing the best content possible, as consistently as possible. With only two writers, we were only able to produce 2 to 4 content pieces per month, but we established a monthly plan and content calendar to make sure we stuck to those numbers.

Q: How do you ensure your bounce rates are low for your content?

A: Above all else, make it really good. Secondarily, make it really easy to read, skim and digest. Include visuals.

Discovering What Content Works Best for Different Brands

Q: How do you develop your content strategy for a brand? In other words, how do you know what content will provide the best results for a particular client?

A: It generally starts with keyword research and competitive analysis. I want to know what the ideal customers are already searching for and what the top competitors are already ranking for. This helps to generate a large list of keywords.

From there, keywords are prioritized based on a mix of traffic volume, ranking potential, and value to the business.

At the same time, I’m also trying to understand if there is any other content that could drive traffic and sales, even if it isn’t necessarily related to SEO keywords. Most businesses can benefit greatly from one or two very in-depth content pieces that sort of help to define who they are as a business. 

It could be a piece that goes into great detail about how you solve your customer’s biggest pain point. Or a piece that breaks down a very detailed and complex process. Or, a study piece that breaks down a key topic in your niche, with detailed statistics and graphs to back it up. 

This kind of content is very promotable, regardless of SEO, and can go a long way to establishing your authority in a niche.

Q: What is your content publishing velocity across these wildly varying projects?

A: Great question. Terrible answer to follow… It depends.

It depends what they can afford. How willing they are to provide the expertise we need. How much we can produce with the resources at our disposal.

I never know how to answer this question without knowing more specifics like the above.

Developing a Foolproof Content/SEO Strategy

Q: Does your content strategy vary by vertical? Or do you have a standard approach that works across industries or project types?

A: It’s somewhat standard.

I do most of my work with ecommerce sites. They do have some unique challenges like product category and detail pages, and product navigation/filtering. But once you get past those, it’s still all about content.

They tend to think it’s going to be really hard to create content for their online stores, and they just want to focus on optimizing their product page content. But when it comes to content, the strategies are fairly universal.

Q: How do you find new content for websites with tons of existing content?

A: In some cases, I take a “one page to rule them all” approach and actually consolidate multiple pages into a single, all-encompassing page. This doesn’t work in all cases though. I believe there’s some good content in this very group that covers this. But when it works, it can be a very effective way to dominate a certain topic area, without having to create more content.

But sometimes you do need new content ideas and it seems like you’ve written something for every keyword on your list. One of the things I like to do is research how customers are talking about our niche/products in other communities. Reddit, Quora, Amazon product/book reviews.

This gives you great insight into the way people actually talk about your thing, and real questions they ask about your thing. That tends to generate lots of ideas outside of the typical keyword research findings.

Q: You mentioned that the bulk of this was by starting a blog. Did you do anything in particular (beyond basic categories) around producing the content and organizing it in clusters to gain topical authority?

A: Yes, I do always take a content pillar sort of approach, and did so in this case as well. So we had high volume, broad terms as our content pillars, and created content around those. Those pillars are more about how we organize our content for topical authority, and less about what content we create.

Q: How do you coordinate/organize content for a huge ecommerce website?

A: Meetings, content calendars, production plans, and content templates, for starters.

Q: What are some ecommerce content strategies you try to sell the clients on, that go beyond product page content? I’m assuming blogging, but how do you tie it together?

A: I lead with the realities of traffic, product research patterns etc… facts like: you literally cannot buy all traffic. some traffic is only organic…those users would never buy from a Facebook ad. And that number is something like 40% of buyers. That a huge percentage of all product research starts with a Google search.

I then explain some of the big benefits of organic traffic… it’s evergreen in nature, often has high buyer intent, and that you can taylor it to exactly what ideal customers are already searching for.

I then go on to explain how there is no better way to stand out from the competition, position yourself as an authority/leader/expert in the niche, build trust and even get customers to evangelize you… most of which you can’t achieve with paid traffic alone.

Then I explain that we can generate tons of content ideas for any niche and any store, whether it has one product or 10K.

And finally, show them how the numbers compound over time, into consistent, predictable growth.

Q: For an ecommerce site, how do you use content to rank for competitive terms yet at the same time prevent keyword cannibalization between category, product, and other content?

A: Generally, my product category pages are going to be targeting a more broad keyword than the detail pages under it. 

For your example… If the product category page is ranking for “interactive dog toys”, the product detail pages under it are probably much more specific, like interactive frisbee for dogs, or remote controlled rawhide for dogs. I’m going to create content around those keywords for the product pages, and more broad content for the category page.

If I have a blog post about “8 interactive dog toys…”, I’m likely to link to a couple different product pages AND the category page from that blog post. I honestly don’t worry much about cannibalization.

In practice, I don’t tend to create a lot of content specific to products other than product comparisons or lists. I focus a lot on ancillary or related content. 

So for a dog toy store, I might create a post like: How to get your dog to return the ball every time during fetch. This is a bit higher funnel of course, but drives much more traffic than a product specific post might.

Q: While doing keyword research and picking a topic to write content on, how do you know what’s a winner or worth going after? Any metrics KPIs you look into here?

A: Honestly it sometimes comes down to gut feel…

You want it to be niche relevant; a keyword with decent traffic and low competition; high buyer intent; etc, etc… but things don’t always line up that way. 

You often just have to understand the market, the competition and how people think and speak about your topics.

Q: What is a “core pillar page” in your strategy? You’ve used that term, and I think I understand it conceptually, but could you give an example?

A: Sure. These core pillar pages would be our main themes for the site. The handful of broad topics (broad keywords with high search volume) that are most important to our niche, and which we would organize, or cluster supporting content around. 

For the pet store, let’s say it sells dog toys, cat toys, and reptile tanks. Those are all very broad terms that we’d like to eventually rank for, and they directly relate to our niche, so those would make great pillar pages.

Are There Any Differences Between Shopify and WordPress for Ecommerce Websites 

Q: Do you find that Shopify ecommerce sites need to be treated differently from, say for contrast, WordPress ecommerce sites or other types of platforms?

A: I think ultimately, content wins, and therefore you can be hugely successful regardless of platform. And that’s what I’ve always told clients and community members.

That said, there are certainly pros and cons of each platform.

Shopify is limited in terms of customization, site structure, and blog functionality. To me, that translates into lesser ability to do things like add a particular schema for certain blog posts, or organize your blog into content pillars with a URL format that you actually want, and lesser ability to format the look and feel of content on the page the way you’d like.

With WooCommerce, all of that is much more doable.

But again, if you focus on creating great content that your audience wants, you’ll be okay.

What Hitting 17,000,000 Organics/Month Meant for Ryan BeMiller

Q: How does 17 million organics/month impact your consulting sales motion? Do you still have to “prove” yourself to clients?

A: Honestly, it has very little impact. I don’t talk about this publicly because this was when I was an employee for the company. 

I don’t feel comfortable promoting it as a case study for that reason. But I do obviously talk about it, and will show it to a prospect I’m already communicating with. Let’s say it helps for closing more than prospecting.

And in truth, I’m focusing less and less on consulting as I’m building up a community to help ecom businesses do this for themselves.

Q: Any plans to do 100,000,000 organics/year?

A: Well yeah, duh! Isn’t that what everybody wants? I’m no longer involved with that project, but I have no doubt they’ll keep pushing toward that number!

What Tools Does Ryan Rely On?

Q: Which tools do you use for analysis? Did you know Google Sheets has a 5 million cell limit?

A: If I see anything with 5million cells of data, I may puke in my mouth. For our 17 million organics/month project, we used Conductor, Adobe Analytics, and some Excel.

A Few Interesting Facts About Ryan BeMiller

Q: If you were not doing marketing, what would you be doing?

A: I’d be a rapper. Or, more realistically, since I can’t rap, I’d be an entrepreneur of some sort, whether that be a private practice attorney or a car dealership owner… or a real estate investor.

Q: What are you reading right now? Interested in both fiction and non-fiction.

A:

Fiction: Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol

Non-fiction: I just finished $100M OFFERS by Alex Hormozi – Highly recommend

Q: Which SEOs do you admire and look up to?

A: Nick Jordan, in addition to you…

• Ryan Stewart
• Brian Dean
• Chris Von Wilpert – More of a content marketer than an SEO, but whatevs

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