The NEW Google Strategy to Double Your Leads (FAST) — Transcript

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1. 0:00For 20 years, step one of SEO was the
2. 0:02same. Open a keyword tool, find volume,
3. 0:04chase it. I don't start there anymore,
4. 0:05and neither do the strongest SEO
5. 0:07programs we run. Here's [music] what's
6. 0:08changed my mind. My team run a SEO
7. 0:11program where the client's most valuable
8. 0:13audience segment, be it entire previous
9. 0:15year of organic leads in 6 months. And
10. 0:18the estimated pipeline behind those
11. 0:19leads went from $1.46 billion last year
12. 0:23to $2.13 [music]
13. 0:24billion in just the first half of this
14. 0:26one. Not by chasing more traffic, by
15. 0:28chasing fewer [music] better people. I'm
16. 0:30Neil Patel, and the head of my SEO team,
17. 0:32Nikki Lam, just built a strategy we call
18. 0:35audience-first SEO. Today, I'm going to
19. 0:37show you exactly how it works.
20. 0:39SEO has been organized backwards.
21. 0:42Think about how paid media works. Every
22. 0:43campaign starts with who you're trying
23. 0:45to reach before the creative, before the
24. 0:47messaging, before anything. Paid teams
25. 0:49buy audiences, not channels. SEO has
26. 0:51worked the opposite way for years. You
27. 0:53organize around topics and keyword
28. 0:55clusters first, then you hope the right
29. 0:57people show up once the content ranks.
30. 0:58And the gap matters more than it ever
31. 1:00[music] did. Search is fragmented across
32. 1:02traditional results, AI answers, and
33. 1:04social. Attention is split then across
34. 1:06all of it. The brands winning right now
35. 1:08are the ones cutting through the
36. 1:10specific audiences that move their
37. 1:12business, not the ones collecting the
38. 1:13most traffic. Here's the problem with
39. 1:15topics. A single topic can serve
40. 1:17audiences with completely different
41. 1:18needs and completely different values to
42. 1:20your business. Take wealth management.
43. 1:21That one topic could serve a
44. 1:23first-generation saver building an
45. 1:25emergency fund, a business owner
46. 1:27preparing to sell their company, or an
47. 1:29ultra-affluent family managing a
48. 1:31multi-generational estate. Content
49. 1:33written to serve all three tends to
50. 1:35serve none of them well. Their questions
51. 1:37don't overlap. Their buying triggers
52. 1:38don't overlap. Their value to the
53. 1:40business definitely doesn't overlap. So,
54. 1:42traffic volume highs are a real problem.
55. 1:44You can be growing traffic every month
56. 1:46while the wrong people show up.
57. 1:47Audience-first SEO flips the starting
58. 1:50point. You define the specific audience
59. 1:52you want first, usually the one most
60. 1:54valuable to the business, not the
61. 1:55largest one. Then, you run keyword
62. 1:57research, content gap analysis, market
63. 1:59sizing, all the same tactics you already
64. 2:01run through that lens. Same tools,
65. 2:03different order. The order [music] is
66. 2:05everything. And I can prove that with
67. 2:07the numbers, because we ran this exact
68. 2:09play for a client. [music] Let me show
69. 2:10you what happened. Here's what
70. 2:12audience-first SEO looks like when it's
71. 2:13working.
72. 2:15My team was working with the financial
73. 2:17services brand in one of the most
74. 2:19crowded search categories there is,
75. 2:20wealth management. Massive total search
76. 2:22volume, everyone's fighting for it. The
77. 2:24obvious play is to chase the biggest
78. 2:26keywords. Here's why we did it. When we
79. 2:28broke down the market by audience
80. 2:30segment instead of by topic, general
81. 2:31wealth management searches had over 2.7
82. 2:34million monthly searches. The highest
83. 2:36net worth and ultra-affluent segment,
84. 2:38about 222,000 searches, 12 times smaller
85. 2:42and worth far more [music] per lead.
86. 2:44Before a single piece of content got
87. 2:46written, the team ranked every segment
88. 2:47by three things: search [music] demand,
89. 2:49ranking difficulty, and long-term
90. 2:51business value. Then, built the keyword
91. 2:53and content strategy around the segments
92. 2:55where all three overlapped. That's the
93. 2:57segmentation work most brands skip. Six
94. 3:00months [music] in, here's what numbers
95. 3:01look like. The ultra-affluent segment,
96. 3:04their client's [music] highest value
97. 3:05audience, had already passed its entire
98. 3:08previous year of organic leads,
99. 3:09>> [music]
100. 3:10>> 113.8%
101. 3:12of the prior year's total in half the
102. 3:14time. The affluent segment was right
103. 3:16behind at nearly 90% of its prior year.
104. 3:19And the estimated pipeline tied to that
105. 3:21lead volume went from $1.46 billion for
106. 3:24all of last year to $2.13 billion
107. 3:27year-to-date, just six months into the
108. 3:29year. Now, here's what really matters.
109. 3:31Total lead volume across the whole
110. 3:32program was sitting around 71% of the
111. 3:35prior year's pace, well behind their
112. 3:37priority segments. That gap [music] is
113. 3:39the point. Audience-first SEO
114. 3:40deliberately trades some volume in the
115. 3:42low-value segments for outsized gains in
116. 3:45the ones that actually pay the bills.
117. 3:46Raw traffic stopped being the
118. 3:48scoreboard. Audience quality became the
119. 3:49scoreboard. And by the way, this is the
120. 3:51kind of program my team at NP Digital
121. 3:53builds and runs for clients every day.
122. 3:55So, if you'd rather have it done for
123. 3:56you, the link's below. [music] At the
124. 3:58same time, if you want to run this
125. 3:59yourself, the process comes down to
126. 4:01three moves. Here they are. Here's how
127. 4:03to apply it. Three moves, same tool you
128. 4:05already have, different order. Move one,
129. 4:07define the audience before you open a
130. 4:09keyword tool. Rank your customer
131. 4:10segments by value to the business, not
132. 4:13by size. Because a segment with the most
133. 4:15search volume is almost never the one
134. 4:17with the most revenue potential. You
135. 4:18just saw that. 2.7 million searches in
136. 4:20the big segment, and the money was in
137. 4:22the one 12 times smaller. Move two,
138. 4:24[music] size the market by segment, not
139. 4:26topic. Instead of one blended number for
140. 4:29your whole category, break it down by
141. 4:30persona. Score each segment on three
142. 4:32things, search demand, [music] ranking
143. 4:34difficulty, and business value. And by
144. 4:36business value, I mean looking at the
145. 4:38average order value, their lifetime
146. 4:39value, or their close rate. Pick your
147. 4:41revenue metric and rank them. Then map
148. 4:43where all three overlap. That map
149. 4:45usually [music] surfaces a small number
150. 4:46of segments where the opportunity is
151. 4:48real, enough volume to matter, low
152. 4:50enough difficulty to win, high enough
153. 4:51value to justify the work. And go deeper
154. 4:53[music] on the segments that clear the
155. 4:55bar. Read how they actually talk.
156. 4:58[music] Reddit threads, customer
157. 4:59interviews, sales call notes. There are
158. 5:01audience intelligence tools that map
159. 5:02[music] your community into segments and
160. 5:04show you exactly who's in it and what
161. 5:06they care about. I use Ubersuggest
162. 5:07[music] for this part, too. It surfaces
163. 5:09the specific questions and language
164. 5:11patterns an audience uses at different
165. 5:13points in their journey. The way people
166. 5:14actually phrase their problems, not the
167. 5:16way you'd [music] phrase them. Move
168. 5:17three, run your content gap analysis
169. 5:20against the audience, not against a
170. 5:21topic list. Look at where you already
171. 5:23rank for your [music] priority segments
172. 5:25specifically, and where you don't. A gap
173. 5:27analysis run this way [music] turns up a
174. 5:29surprising amount of untapped
175. 5:30opportunity sitting several pages deep
176. 5:32in the rankings. It was never won
177. 5:34because it was built for a specific
178. 5:36audience [music] in the first place. Do
179. 5:38those three in that order, and this
180. 5:40stops being a concept. It becomes a
181. 5:42repeatable process you run quarter after
182. 5:44quarter. Every quarter gets easier
183. 5:46because the audience definition from
184. 5:48move one is already [music] locked. Now,
185. 5:49once you know exactly who your audience
186. 5:52is, something else unlocks. You suddenly
187. 5:54[music] know where to show up outside of
188. 5:56search, too.
189. 5:58Once you have this audience map, it
190. 6:00doesn't just fix your SEO. It acts as a
191. 6:02multiplier that fix your PR, too. The
192. 6:04exact same process research tells you
193. 6:06where to get seen. Traditional link
194. 6:08building is organized around domain
195. 6:10authority. Get links from big sites in
196. 6:11your industry. Audience first digital PR
197. 6:14asks a different question. Where does
198. 6:15this specific audience actually go for
199. 6:17information? And are you showing up
200. 6:19there? They all sound familiar. They
201. 6:21produce completely [music] different
202. 6:22outreach list. When the audience
203. 6:24research is done right, you already have
204. 6:26the answer. You know the publications
205. 6:28they read, the communities they're in,
206. 6:30the platforms they check. And this gets
207. 6:32specific. [music] In the same financial
208. 6:33services program, the research showed
209. 6:35exactly which social networks and which
210. 6:37AI tools ultra-affluent business owners
211. 6:40actually use compared to against the
212. 6:41national average. One AI search tool
213. 6:43showed up at nearly [music] four times
214. 6:45the US average for this audience. That's
215. 6:48not a guess about where to show up.
216. 6:49That's a map. [music] That becomes the
217. 6:50actual targeting brief for PR instead of
218. 6:53a generic list of high-authority sites.
219. 6:55And AI insights tools add one more
220. 6:57layer. They show you which content is
221. 6:59already getting cited for the prompts
222. 7:01your audience has actually asked [music]
223. 7:02you. So, you know where AI visibility is
224. 7:04concentrated, too. And it pays off
225. 7:06twice. Coverage on sites your audience
226. 7:08already trusts builds authority signals
227. 7:10that are more durable than links from
228. 7:12[music] broad outreach. And it builds
229. 7:13recognition before they ever search for
230. 7:16you. Someone who saw your brand on a
231. 7:18site they [music] trust arrives at your
232. 7:20content with a head start on credibility
233. 7:22that a stranger doesn't have. One brief,
234. 7:24two channel strategies, same specific
235. 7:26[music] people. Now, if you watch my
236. 7:28other videos, you know I talk about
237. 7:30search everywhere optimization, being
238. 7:32visible [music] on every surface your
239. 7:33customers use. Google AI answers,
240. 7:35social, video, all of it. And I've gone
241. 7:37deep [music] on that in another video.
242. 7:39Here's how these two fit together
243. 7:40because they're not competing ideas.
244. 7:42Audience first SEO answers the question
245. 7:44[music] of that has to come first. Which
246. 7:46surfaces actually matter for your
247. 7:48audience? For brands that can't optimize
248. 7:50everywhere at once, this is the
249. 7:52prioritisation framework. [music] You
250. 7:53concentrate where audience need, search
251. 7:55opportunity, and business value overlap.
252. 7:57Audience [music] first sharpens the who
253. 7:59and the where. Search everywhere expands
254. 8:02the how. And Google just made this
255. 8:03easier to measure. Search Console now
256. 8:05shows you how your social content,
257. 8:06including YouTube, performs on Google.
258. 8:08One more data point connecting the
259. 8:10services. If you run search everywhere
260. 8:11without a clear audience underneath it,
261. 8:13you end up [music] spreading your budget
262. 8:14evenly across every service instead of
263. 8:16weighting the ones your priority
264. 8:18audience [music]
265. 8:19actually uses. Slower, more expensive,
266. 8:21same destination. Here's the truth. The
267. 8:23best SEO programs are already doing some
268. 8:25version of this. The question is whether
269. 8:26your team is doing it on purpose or
270. 8:28backing into it by accident. Naming it
271. 8:30makes it repeatable. Define your
272. 8:32priority audience. Run your market
273. 8:34[music] sizing and your gap analysis
274. 8:36through that lens. And let audience
275. 8:38quality, not raw traffic, tell you
276. 8:39whether it's working. The tools didn't
277. 8:41change. The order did. And the order
278. 8:43[music] is worth billions. I made a full
279. 8:44video on Search Everywhere optimization,
280. 8:46the other half of the strategy. Watch
281. 8:48that one next.