Grow and Convert Podcast

In this episode of the Grow and Convert Marketing Show, we discuss our journey creating an AI writing tool designed to mirror the way we produce content.Unlike existing solutions that prioritize speed over quality, our tool first deeply understands your business before generating content.After discovering that 83% of marketers use AI-assisted content despite quality concerns, we identified the fundamental problem: generic AI writing tools produce "Google research papers" that lack a company's unique voice and arguments. Our solution? A tool that analyzes your existing content to create a comprehensive "brand summary" capturing your business's value proposition, features, target customers, and pain points.The highlight of our tool is the "super brief" feature - simply input a keyword and the AI analyzes search intent, SERP patterns, and suggests content formats while providing ways to pitch your business specifically for that keyword.Key Learnings:-Most AI writing tools fail because they don't understand your business's unique positioning and arguments-83% of marketers use AI content despite quality concerns, primarily for time savings-The "brand summary" approach ensures AI truly understands your business before writing-Our tool generates strategic ideas (not just language), reversing the typical -AI writing workflow-AI writing can be high-quality and conversion-focused when it understands your business first-The "super brief" feature analyzes keywords and SERPs to suggest angles and approaches to produce pieces that will rank-Effective AI content requires understanding both what to write and how to write itWe'd love your feedback about the tool and suggestions to make it better. Please leave feedback in the comments.Articles that we reference in the video:Pain Point SEO: https://www.growandconvert.com/seo/pain-point-seo/How Marketers Are Using AI for Writing [Survey]: https://www.growandconvert.com/ai/ai-writing-survey/

In this episode of the Grow and Convert Marketing Show, Devesh and Benji reveal why comparison keywords convert at a shocking 8.43%+ rate - and why most companies are afraid to target them.We break down:- Common objections from leadership teams that are hesitant to target these types of keywords- Three practical approaches to creating comparison content without "trashing" competitors- Examples of competitor and alternatives articles from companies like ClimbHire, Boken, and TapClicksIf you've been avoiding competitor keywords because they feel uncomfortable or unprofessional, this episode will show you how to approach them tastefully while capturing high-intent buyers already searching for alternatives.Follow us at growandconvert.com/newsletter for articles and updates when new videos are released!Helpful articles:SEO conversion rates: https://www.growandconvert.com/conversion-rate-optimization/average-seo-conversion-rate/Competitor comparison pages: https://www.growandconvert.com/seo/competitor-comparison-landing-pages/SERP analysis: https://www.growandconvert.com/seo/how-to-do-serp-analysis/

This one is likely better to be watched on Youtube (so you can see the writing and editing).In this episode of the Grow & Convert Marketing Show, we break down a real blog post about website feedback tools to reveal common content writing mistakes. Watch as we critique the article and transform it from generic to compelling by:- Identifying proper search intent and avoiding the "high school research paper" intro- Showing how to position your true product differentiator instead of using generic claims- Demonstrating how to write for advanced audiences who already understand your category- Explaining why pain points should be concise and relevant to your reader's current stageWhether you're writing bottom-of-funnel content or product comparisons, these principles will help you create more effective content marketing that actually drives conversions.

In this episode of the Grow and Convert Marketing Show, Devesh and Benji break down their proven SERP analysis framework - the process they use for clients to identify high-converting content opportunities.Watch as they analyze real SERP examples for AI writing tools keywords, revealing:How to determine if a keyword is worth targetingThe difference between category and jobs-to-be-done keywords from a SERP perspectiveHow to spot opportunities in mixed-intent SERPsWhen to create one piece vs. multiple pieces for similar keywordsWhy high search volume doesn't always equal high priorityHow to use SERP analysis to rankWhether you're creating content for clients or your own business, this practical walkthrough shows you how to create content that actually ranks and converts.

In this episode, we discuss the power of brand marketing versus our typical focus on bottom-of-funnel content.While Grow and Convert is known for our bottom-of-funnel first approach to  content marketing, we explore how creating a strong brand presence generates "free leads" - those customers who can't pinpoint exactly how they found us, but remember our brand when they need our services.We cover key topics including:When to focus on bottom-of-funnel vs. when to invest in broader brand buildingWhy top-of-funnel SEO content often fails to grow a brandHow different companies create their unique "wow moments" (Dropbox, Peloton, ClearScope)Finding the right marketing approach based on your company's natural strengths and differentiators

In this episode, we break down our proven framework for writing high-converting blog posts that can outrank even the biggest competitors. Through three real-world examples, we show you exactly how to write bottom-of-funnel content that both ranks and converts.You'll learn:How to write ultra-specific content that shows deep industry expertiseWhy most category blog posts fail to convert (and how to fix them)Why we prefer using blog posts to target category keywords over landing pages

We conducted a secret experiment: writing and publishing a Grow & Convert blog post without telling anyone that we used AI to produce it. In this video, we reveal how it went and share honest insights about using AI for content creation.Our content strategist and writer Katelyn Urich walks through her process of using different AI tools (Claude and NotebookLM) to write a full blog post, the unexpected challenges she faced, and why the experience actually made her writing worse. We discuss:-Why traditional AI writing approaches lead to "mirage content", in other words content that looks good, but lacks substance-How we used NotebookLM in an unusual way to maintain our signature brand voice and expertise-The hidden problem with AI writing that becomes apparent only after multiple rounds of editing-Why AI writing tools might save time for some content creators but fall short for high-stakes content-Practical ways to use AI as a writing assistant without compromising qualityWe share both the promising and problematic aspects of AI writing tools, helping you make informed decisions about incorporating them into your content process.

We dive deep into our study examining the correlation between Google rankings and AI search tool recommendations. Join Benji, Devesh, and special guest Katelyn as we analyze data from 16 clients across 415 keywords to understand how Google rankings influence visibility in tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity.Key Findings:70%+ correlation between Google page 1 rankings and AI tool recommendationsHigher Google ranking positions (top 3) showed even stronger correlationDomain Rating shows significant correlation with AI tool visibilityDifferent patterns observed across industry verticals and keyword types

In this episode, we dive deep into how AI is transforming content marketing and SEO in 2025. We explore both the search and content creation aspects of AI, sharing real data from our agency experience and a recent survey of content marketers.Key Topics Covered:[0:00] Introduction and episode overview[1:00] Background on our recent travels and company retreat[2:00] Two main aspects of AI in content marketing: content generation and search[4:00] Changes in search behavior and SEO with AI tools[6:00] Real examples of leads coming from ChatGPT[8:00] How AI tools recommend content differently from Google[11:00] Our analysis of AI tool recommendations vs Google rankings[17:00] Why content still matters for AI visibility[21:00] Changes in content consumption patterns[24:00] The future of content distribution across channels[29:00] AI content writing experiments and survey results[36:00] Challenges with AI-generated content[39:00] Survey insights on AI content adoption

In this video, we dive deep into how to use Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) keywords for your blog content to drive higher conversions. 

Competitor keywords are the highest converting type of keyword in the pain point SEO framework. More on SEO conversion rates here: https://www.growandconvert.com/conversion-rate-optimization/average-seo-conversion-rate/We discuss:- Should you create landing pages vs. blog posts to target competitor keywords- Vs. Keywords and a more advanced strategy of going after vs. keywords- Alternatives Keywords- Writing tips for going after competitor and vs. keywords- and more!Additional reading:Landing page vs. blog posts: https://www.growandconvert.com/conversion-rate-optimization/landing-pages-vs-blog-posts/Pain Point SEO: https://www.growandconvert.com/seo/pain-point-seo/Circuit Case Studyhttps://www.growandconvert.com/content-marketing/scaling-seo-traffic/

n this episode, we do a in-depth dive into what category keywords are and how to use them to drive more blog post conversions. In the reverse marketing funnel diagram that you can find in our blog post on Pain Point SEO, category keywords are some of the highest converting keywords. We explain how to identify which keywords would be best to target and share data on different ways to approach them to increase your conversion rate.SEO conversion rate article

Historically, we only updated blog posts to try to increase ranking positions. However, through that process of updating blog posts, we realized how much the actual writing of pieces matters.Specifically, we've been updating blog posts for two different clients that helped sell and position the product or service better and have seen conversion rate increases between 66%-950% per blog post.We share our thoughts as to why this is and make the case for why more businesses should adopt our approach to blog post writing.Relevant articles:https://www.growandconvert.com/content-marketing/how-often-should-website-content-be-updated/https://www.growandconvert.com/seo/secondary-keywords/

A recent news story from someone that worked at Nike is making its way around Twitter and LinkedIn. The ex-employee claims that the loss of $25B has to do with Nike's focus on performance marketing instead of brand marketing.Marketers are taking to Twitter and LinkedIn to take sides: "See, this is why you should focus on brand marketing" - Brand Marketer"No! Performance marketing still works"- Performance marketerWe share our thoughts on this topic and share when we think each type of marketing makes sense. Hope you enjoy the debate!The linkedin post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nike-epic-saga-value-destruction-massimo-giunco-llplf/?trackingId=4hwmp4UlQNyDwPI%2F%2BSN2kA%3D%3D

Although we've largely moved away from doing episodes about our agency and have focused more on marketing strategy episodes, we made a commitment to sharing our growth journey and struggles as we go.In this episode, we'll share our stats for June and July - both new clients and churn - and we discuss the issues we're facing.Specifically:- How we're almost at capacity and how we're solving this- How hiring is a growth limiter- Why growing quickly isn't advantageous to an agencyand more...

We often get asked by prospects interested in working with us, "how long does it take to start seeing results from SEO and content marketing? It's not an easy question to answer because there are multiple factors that go into it:1. What is the definition of results?2. What is the conversion goal? Trials, demos, MQLs, SQLs, etc.3. How many conversions are you already driving through other channels?And more...In this episode, we share a ton of different data to help answer this question. We share our own client data to show how long it takes to start seeing rankings and conversions. We share how we do expectation setting around rankings, traffic and conversions. Then we answer some common questions around does domain rating play into speed and how does keyword difficulty affect rankings?Articles featured in the episode:Disruption stories: https://www.growandconvert.com/content-marketing/disruption-stories/How long does it take for content marketing to work: https://www.growandconvert.com/content-marketing/how-long-does-it-take-for-content-marketing-to-work/

In this episode, we talk through how a content strategy evolves overtime. We break down content strategy into a 3-tier system to help you understand how the process evolves. How a content strategy evolves:Tier 1: Testing ability and time to rankTier 2: ScalingTier 3: Maintaining/Defending rankingsWe share our thought process around how to test keywords and how to measure success throughout an engagement, or through your work inside of a business.Hope you enjoy this episode!Other helpful articles:More on updating: https://www.growandconvert.com/seo/secondary-keywords/SaaS content strategy: https://www.growandconvert.com/content-marketing/saas-content-strategy/B2B content marketing strategy: https://www.growandconvert.com/content-marketing/b2b-content-marketing-strategy/

In this episode, we debate why most companies shouldn't AB test. AB testing has become super popular over the years... Executives often want you to AB test every little thing to try to maximize the impact of all of your marketing efforts. Devesh explains why for most companies, it doesn't make sense to AB test. We share that reasoning and then we talk about what you should do instead of AB testing to increase conversions. Devesh shares some funny stories from his time running an AB testing agency. Then Devesh shares how to use a conversion rate calculator.We hope you enjoy this episode!

In this monthly update, we share our client count relative to our goal, our churn, how many leads we got in May and our general sentiment around leads. Then we share what marketing has and hasn't worked and how marketing differs for service businesses.

When you've identified a keyword or topic for a blog post, how do you get the arguments that go in your piece? We interview subject matter experts at Grow and Convert to accomplish this. In this video,  we share how we prep for interviews with subject matter experts, who to interview, and how to add differentiation in your articles when writing for SEO bottom of the funnel keywords.

Devesh and I debate whether we should focus more on how-to content on this channel because it seems to be what gets the most viewership and engagement.We reflect on the series so far, our overall goal of doubling the agency and discuss whether we continue the series as is, or we go down a slightly different path.If you've enjoyed certain episodes, please let us know which ones you've loved in the comments. Or, feel free to let us know topics you'd like us to create videos on going forward.

Your business is starting to grow and now you need more of a process around marketing... so you're thinking of hiring your first marketer.What is the right profile of the marketer you should hire?What should that marketer focus on in the first 90 days?How should they think about what marketing channels to focus on?What's a good budget to start with?We answer these questions and more in this episode. We share, from our experience, the mistakes that founders make when hiring their first marketer and how they should think about hiring.We share stories, examples and more. Hope you enjoy this episode.P.S. We're starting to shift the content of this channel to more strategy focus. Let us know if you like this topic in the comments.Video Resources:Positioning: https://www.growandconvert.com/marketing/positioning/Positioning Case Study: https://www.growandconvert.com/marketing/positioning-case-study/Pivoting our service offering from course to agency: https://www.growandconvert.com/marketing/course-launch-agency/

In this episode, Devesh starts off by sharing the two goals of the content pieces we write for clients. Then he shares examples explaining the differences between how we write articles vs. how most blog writers write articles.We dissect the differences in how we write blog post introductions, body copy and share why we think it's important to have subject matter experts make the arguments that go inside of blog posts.This episode should help you learn how to write better copy inside of articles that are targeting SEO keywords.Article examples:Omnichannel reporting example: https://www.tapclicks.com/resources/b...Segment example: https://segment.com/growth-center/omn...Mandala AI Example: https://blog.mandalasystem.com/en/omn...Grow and Convert writing related articles:The detail principle for writing good blog posts: https://www.growandconvert.com/conten...Writing great blog introductions: https://www.growandconvert.com/conten...Pain point copywriting: https://www.growandconvert.com/conten...

In this episode, we share where we are relative to our doubling the agency goal. Then we talk through what's been working from a marketing perspective and some of the operational challenges that we're anticipating if we keep growing this quickly.

In Episode 10, the episode about content strategies for new businesses, we shared that we were planning on doing a disruption story for one of our clients. In this episode, we share who the client is (Mirascope.io), the article and talk through some decisions that were made when writing the story.Then we share a couple of other examples of disruption stories that we've produced for clients. 

Can SEO content also be "thought leadership content?" Many people think these two kinds of content are completely different. More specifically, that you can't share thought leadership type ideas inside of SEO content and get articles to rank.We share a different view. We think that SEO and thought leadership ideas do go together. In this video, we share multiple examples of thought leadership ideas being included inside of SEO focused articles and show how they're able to rank against articles that all share largely the same ideas.We think that Google wants more differentiation in content and will start to reward differentiation more in the SERPS.

March was a challenging month for us. We had our first churn of the year- which was not a great way to start the month- however it ended on a positive note.We discuss the churn, some new clients, our lead numbers and then share some ideas for changes we're going to be making to our marketing.Enjoy.

LinkedIn influencer claims that: "Measuring the ROI of an individual piece of content (like this LinkedIn video, for instance) is not only a huge waste of time, it's flat out not accurate.When it comes to “ROI”, focus on measuring the ROI of the *channel* instead of each individual piece of content."In this video, we break down why that argument is completely flawed. We discuss how having the article level of granularity in conversion data is what led to the creation of Pain Point SEO and how this informs future content pieces that generate ROI.Then we share a new process for tracking conversions using a combination of GA4 and BigQuery.

In this episode, we discuss whether we should hire an editor to help scale writing operations. Devesh voices his frustration by spending so much time editing pieces -- most of his time in the agency is dedicated to editing and he feels like he doesn't have time to focus elsewhere.We propose the options of hiring an outside agency to help with editing, whether we should focus on hiring someone internally, and also discuss other ideas and options. 

In this episode, we share why we took a client with a new business and domain rating of only 0.5 (didn't even know this was possible). Then we share the approach we're taking to grow their business from the ground up with content.As part of the content strategy for this new business, we decided to create a disruption story for them. We talk about what the disruption story framework is, how we came up with the angle and idea for them and then talk through how the team outlined the piece.

In this episode, we share our client stats for the month of February. We analyze the leads we've received, we share why we don't work with software development companies as clients and share some ideas on how we'd attack SEO if we were a software development company, and then we spend a lengthy time discussing if we should hire an editor.The main challenge going forward is that we need to free up Devesh's time as most of it is spent editing new strategists and some of our current strategists. If we scale, we need to get him out of the day to day operations.We talk through the pros and cons of hiring an editor, then finish the video talking through some other big picture challenges for the business.

Seven months into one of our engagements, the CEO asked us "when will the volume of high-quality leads start to go up?" The typical answer from most marketers is to say "I don't know" or "it depends," but we wanted to provided a more data driven answer.We knew that the client was likely 1-2 months away from seeing a big lift in the volume of leads due to where they were already ranking for high-intent keywords. Now, we had the challenge of presenting the argument and data to them.In Episode 8, we share projections that we did to help make the case that we were on the cusp of achieving ROI and share our thoughts and analysis of where the client is at 7 months into the engagement.

In Episode 7, we bring in a guest. David Klose, one of our content strategists, joins us to talk about his experience updating blog posts. More specifically, we discuss 2 client accounts that had declining results (both ranking and leads) and how there was a need to get rankings back up.David shares the approach he took on two different accounts to bring the accounts back from a low in the engagement to new all-time-highs.This episode shares a mix between the thought process that was going on behind the scenes internally as well as more of the tactical approach we took to recover rankings.Hope you enjoy this episode!Here's his article on his approach to reclaim rankings: https://www.growandconvert.com/seo/secondary-keywords/

In Episode 6, we get recommended as an agency from a known entity in the startup space, but the prospect wants a service that we don't really offer. We debate whether we should create a new service offering to take on the new client.Content brand post: https://www.growandconvert.com/content-marketing/content-brand/Timestamps:0:00 Episode Preview0:42 Doubling Agency Intro1:00 Prospect approaches us about a LinkedIn Service4:20 Should we start a new service offering?11:16 Our decision

In Episode 5, we recap our first month since starting our challenge. We grew the highest amount in one month since starting our agency. We share our client count, where the mix of revenue is coming from and then analyze the 3 new clients that signed on for February.

In Episode 4, one of our strategists is having trouble with an article interview and Devesh needs to jump in and take over the interview to steer it in the right direction.We ask the question, is this a good use of Devesh's time? We haven't really built any processes around interviewing, do we now need to build more training or processes around interviewing or is this a one-off issue?We talk through how to resolve this specific issue and then broaden out to talk more broadly about when it's a good time to build processes as you grow.We hope you enjoy this episode.

After doing some analysis on clients that dropped in 2023, we realized that we have an issue with our churn rate. On average, clients stick with us for 12 months, which in other words means: we turn over all of our clients every year. In Episode 3, we talk through various ways to improve our churn rate: From changing pricing, to contract length, to various other ideas. 

We signed a new client on a year long contract, sent them the first article and they weren't happy with it. On top of that, the strategist and writer that was managing the account didn't feel like they were a good fit to keep running the account. In Episode 2, we talk through what we did to resolve the situation. We weighed various options from: 1. Is it worth it to keep the client? 2. Do we need to bring in a new writer/strategist on this account? 3. Does Devesh need to take over writing to get this account in a better spot. We try to answer the question, when does it make sense to get back into the business vs. working on the business?We hope you enjoy it.Articles related to this episode:Content brand 

We're starting a new series where we document our journey trying to double the size of our agency over the next couple of years. This is episode one of the series where we explain why we're ready to scale our business, what our goals are, and why were documenting the journey on Youtube. Then we do a deep dive into our business during 2023, share why clients churned and our plans for 2024.We hope you enjoy it!Read the full article here explaining the launch of the series: https://www.growandconvert.com/doubling-our-agency/public-challenge-doubling-agency/0:00 Episode preview0:32 Intro0:49 Explaining the Doubling our Agency series2:50 Moving from a lifestyle business to a business we're scaling5:00 Why we want to double our agency now9:18 Our team and motivations behind growing11:28 Why share everything on Youtube?14:02 Why expand beyond just doing pain point SEO for ourselves?25:08 Topics we're going to talk about in future videos26:58 Deep dive: Recapping 2023 (from our highest revenue ever to a ~40% revenue drop!)38:21 Going through all of our 2023 one-by-one to determine the causes47:44 Analysis of sources of churn51:03 Our client count ending 202352:24 Looking forward into 2024

In our latest episode, we interview founder Ian Landsman about how he started the help desk software Helpspot back in the early 2000s and how he's lasted 15+ years against funded big name players like Zendesk, HelpScout, and more.We get into the details about what he did in the early days to launch his company, why he never really had a focus on marketing until recently, and we share some of the rankings that we've been able to generate for their business in an extremely competitive category.Sections:0:00 Intro1:13 The founding story of Helpspot5:26 Funny story about software development7:49 Laravel8:48 How Helpspot was funded9:35 Pre-SaaS11:56 How Helpspot launched12:56 Early SEO15:39 Enter the competitors- Zendesk, etc.18:27 Team size20:29 Why Helpspot never invested in marketing25:26 Difference between VC funded and bootstrapped help desk software29:15 Did you ever think about selling your business?31:43 Marketing and positioning35:23 Why invest in SEO40:37 Results from G&C47:10 Attribution of leads to SEO/Content53:52 Helpspot 2023 and beyond

We're trying something new. Many of our clients have really interesting backgrounds and stories, so we decided to interview them. In this podcast, we interview the Vocal Video team to learn where they got the idea for Vocal Video, learnings from their experience selling their past company TechValidate to SurveyMonkey, how their past experiences informed their marketing strategy, why they chose SEO/content marketing as a channel, how they launched their product and more...Please let us know what you think of this format.

There are many people that don't know how to calculate the ROI of SEO. In particular, they don't understand a key principle of SEO's ROI: it gets better as time passes. Why? Because unlike paid channels where you need to spend more for every extra click you get, in SEO you start accumulating or stacking pages ranking at the top of Google search results, while your spend doesn't increase. So as you do SEO for longer, you get more traffic and more leads for the same monthly cost, yielding you better and better ROI.In this podcast, we discuss this in depth, using examples and graphs (if you'd like to see them, find our video on Youtube).We aren't making the argument that SEO is better than other channels, just that you need to think about it differently. With other channels, you may see a fast ROI, but leads get more expensive overtime and you need to continue to invest more into it, and with SEO, it takes longer to get an ROI but costs come down dramatically overtime.SEO works well when you have an existing channel that is driving leads already and you can build this simultaneously over the long term.

In the past couple of months, we've had an increasing number of people ask us our thoughts on ChatGPT and how it will affect the world of content marketing and content writing.We've seen people take extremes: People saying they are going to use ChatGPT instead of hiring writers or content marketers going forward. Then the opposite, people saying ChatGPT has no value in writing or content marketing.In this podcast, we wanted to try to answer the question, "how can ChatGPT be used?" by sharing a number of different blog posts and writing prompts, and sharing our thoughts along the way about where ChatGPT excels, and where it falls short.We hope you enjoy it! A special thank you to Stacey Moore for helping educate us on the topic. Stacey has been using her own AI tool to assist producing content, you can check out her work at staceymoore.comSections:0:00 Why we're doing this episode on ChatGPT5:27 The kind of writing we do at Grow and Convert7:45 ChatGPT example 1: Produce a post on B2B Content Marketing Courses (Hard Example)14:49 Some downsides of example 1 and why it falls short of good writing17:19 Recapping what we've gone over so far19:37 Have Chat GPT produce certain sections of the post on B2B Content Marketing Coursed25:01 Contrasting ChatGPT to our post29:39 ChatGPT Example 2: Daily Standup meetings post34:14 Downsides of example 2: Contrasting it against what we wrote for the same subject37:24 Using ChatGPT for B2C blogging and thoughts on selling to beginners40:01 ChatGPT example 3: B2C - Produce a post on heat pumps43:53 Downsides of example 3: How do you stand out when you're producing the same thing as everyone?47:25 Mistakes people make in hiring content marketers/ writers49:06 How do you figure out search intent?50:38 Chat GPT example 4: Running tips (easiest example)54:59 Example 4 takeaways57:21 Final takeawys on ChatGPT and AI writing

In the latest episode of Grow and Convert Deep Dives, we have an open discussion around a topic that we've been thinking about a lot lately: Should we reposition our business as a SEO agency instead of a content marketing one?We thought it would be interesting to everyone to lay out the arguments, challenges and opportunities that we see in repositioning our business before we go through with it. We're still unsure if we're going to do it, but we'd be curious to what everyone thinks after they give this a listen!Here's our old article on the reasonings for why we positioned ourselves as a content marketing agency and how we thought through that: https://www.growandconvert.com/market...Sections:0:00 Intro - Why we're thinking of repositioning our business2:26 The story of what led up to us thinking about switching from a content agency to SEO agency8:28 Our we hurting our business by branding ourselves a content marketing agency?!11:48 We see an opportunity in repositioning as an SEO agency- the why17:06 How most agencies and clients think about SEO vs. How we do27:22 Recapping our arguments for repositioning our agency so far28:45 Potential challenges from changing our positioning36:35 Our current positioning/messaging and why it may be holding us back39:39 Current thinking around where we'll end up with messaging our service41:43 Difference in positioning between SEO and content agency43:13 Devesh rants!44:53 Increasing the perceived value of a service49:47 Challenges companies have with messaging their business51:52 Reflecting on our past positioning and where we go from here

In this episode of Grow and Convert Deep Dives, we discuss a philosophy we have about managing remote workers (or workers in general): How to manage by outcomes instead of outputs. Oftentimes in our work, we come across other companies that have goals that don't move the needle, don't motivate employees, and cause more harm than good. We think this approach does the opposite.We discuss how we think about goals, creating a great work culture, and how to effectively manage remote workers.0:00 Intro- Managing by outcomes over outputs2:07 Example's in Benji's career of output style management3:58 Fear driven management5:16 Having the right business goals, work backwards6:07 Devil's advocate - How would a business determine outcomes that are important?9:57 Determining outcomes for a role you're not familiar with15:08 Mistakes management make and remote management principles23:17 Grow and Convert's examples outcomes over outputs27:13 Outputs have a sneaky way of finding their way into goals30:49 Goal setting - setting goals that tie to outcomes36:33 Stop breaking large goals into small details38:52 Tying examples back to G&C's business41:36 Using cloud-based remote tools to help manage people

In this episode of Grow and Convert Deep Dives, we share our mistakes that we've made when hiring writers and how we've developed a process to solve it.We go into detail on our process and share things that we've implemented to help us screen writers, test them and train them. We hope you enjoy.Here are the sections:0:00 Intro- How to hire blog writers2:42 Mistakes we made when hiring blog writers6:38 First big learning hiring writers9:14 Problem #1: Mismatches in expectations and communication10:52 Solution #1: Aligning expectations before writing: The questionnaire15:51 Summarizing our mistakes we made early on hiring writers17:16 Our writer hiring process20:59 The test project24:51 Summarizing learnings of test project31:11 A question we added to our writing application33:11 Two filters to help find writing applicants34:01 How many writers make it through the funnel?35:32 What are you looking for in the writing application?38:20 Devesh Rant: Finding good writers is hard39:27 Bottlenecks that arose in our writing process40:32 What is the editor looking for in the writing? And coaching…43:54 Why coaching writers is important44:49 Don't build processes too early46:51 Hiring writers if you're not a writer48:08 The profile of a great writer52:01 Why training writers is important58:58 Summarizing our writer hiring process

In Episode 4 of Grow and Convert Deep Dives, we argue against the prevailing wisdom that landing pages convert better than blog posts. We share conversion rate data from two different clients of ours - both a mid-market/enterprise demo based SaaS company and a B2SMB self service SaaS company- and show how we're getting 2%+ average conversion rates on our blog posts and compare those stats to how their sites convert overall from organic.Then we share data on what we've seen for average blog conversion rates and share what we think a good conversion rate target should be for each individual blog post.Lastly, we share 3 examples of us outranking landing pages with blog posts and debate why we think landing pages are usually better to go after high intent keywords with-- and how we think they may have higher conversion rates (even if the landing page were to rank higher than our blog post). This one gets pretty nerdy into the numbers, hope you enjoy it.Articles mentioned:https://www.growandconvert.com/conver...https://geekbot.com/blog/slack-retros... (example 1)https://scribemedia.com/memoir-ghostw... (example 2)https://www.tapclicks.com/resources/b... (example 3)Interested in working with us? Fill out the form below:https://www.growandconvert.com/conten...Sections of our podcast:0:00 What we're going to talk about in this video and why3:53 Blog vs. Site Conversion Data, Client Deep Dive- Mid-Market/Enterprise Demo Based Sales14:50 Measuring your organic performance relative to the rest of the site19:55 [Graph] G&C blog posts conversion rates vs. all other organic sources 21:53 Blog vs. organic website conversion data client deep dive example 2- B2SMB, Self Serve33:46 Landing Page vs. Blog Post Debate / Example 1 (Geekbot) - Self Serve43:01 Landing Page vs. Blog Posts Debate / Example 2 (Scribe Media) - Service52:39 Landing page vs. blog post debate / Example 3 (Tapclicks) - Demo Based Product

In Episode 3 of Grow and Convert Deep Dives, we took a question from Elliott Davidson, where he asked us: "What are your go to posts you know straight out of the gate will help you start lead generation for a new client engagement? Even better if they have no domain rating (DR) for the purposes of this conversation. i.e. founder story backed in with pain points etc." and answered it using 3 different company examples.In this episode we explained how we would think about forming a blog content strategy in the first few months of a client engagement, specifically what topics we'd go after, what keywords we'd target, and more!Sections of the episode:0:00 Intro4:35 How customer research ties into content strategy10:05 A High-level overview of our content strategy11:28 ParcelMaster content strategy20:07 Quick note about selling in blog posts23:33 Making SEO content interesting26:54 What are disruption stories? And how we use them36:25 Case Study Buddy Content Strategy48:55 Summarizing the first 3 posts we'd produce for Parcel Master 51:33 Devesh's “Rant” 54:03 Summarizing Case Study Buddy's first 3 pieces55:44 Testbox.com content strategy- rapid-fireWebsites we case studied:https://parcelmaster.com/ https://casestudybuddy.com/https://www.testbox.com/Articles we sharedRainforest QA disruption story: https://www.rainforestqa.com/blog/acc...Work with our content marketing agencyhttps://www.growandconvert.com/conten...Take our content marketing coursehttps://www.growandconvert.com/top-co...

In Episode 2 of Grow and Convert Deep Dives, Devesh and Benji discuss why they don't believe a media company content strategy makes sense for most businesses. They argue that this strategy makes sense only for certain types of businesses and that there are things you should prioritize doing prior to adopting a strategy like this. They share examples of "media company" content businesses, explain why the strategy is flawed, and share ideas on what you should do instead.Articles mentioned in this podcast: Geekbot Case Study:https://www.growandconvert.com/conten...Interested in working with Grow and Convert?https://www.growandconvert.com/conten...Interested in taking our course?https://www.growandconvert.com/top-co...

In the first episode of Grow and Convert Deep Dives, our new series, where we go in-depth on marketing and business topics, we discuss: - The backstory behind Pain Point SEO - What Pain Point SEO is (and is not)- Both B2C and B2B examples of how we've applied it to clients or other companies- Common Objections that we hear about our process (and our answers to them)- And how we'd get startedArticles referenced in the video:- Pain Point SEO: https://www.growandconvert.com/conten...- The Cup and Leaf  pain point SEO case study with Nat Eliason: https://www.growandconvert.com/conten...-How to Create a Keyword Strategy for a New, Innovative Product:https://www.growandconvert.com/conten...- How to Do B2B Content Marketing without Domain Expertise (Rainforest Case Study)https://www.growandconvert.com/conten...The course we referenced in the video:https://www.growandconvert.com/top-co...Have us do content marketing for you -- via our agency:https://www.growandconvert.com/conten...Tools we referenced:Clearscope.ioAhrefs.com