One Great Anecdote To Explain SEO To Clients

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I got to bed early last night. I knew I needed to be rested to perform my best for the SEO presentation the next day. But as is often the case, when you have something important on your mind, it’s hard to turn it all off and fall asleep.

Driving through the cool autumn morning and sipping on a hot coffee I realized something. I pulled over and got out my phone, googling what’s the difference between a credit union and a bank?

Here’s the result:

I clicked through the “People also ask” tabs and got a few interesting answers.

I’m a big fan of the PAA section. It’s made getting answers about the questions within the question much easier. In other words, most of the time there’s more than one question relevant to what you need to answer in the first place. The user may need many answers to a single question. When they make a Google search, the PAA section is a really handy way to answer questions related to the topic of the original keyword query.

So, why did I search about credit unions and banks? Because I was on my way to a credit union to try to convince them about why they should hire me to do SEO for them.

When our presentation began, I asked them what they know about SEO. Refreshingly, the CEO of the company gave a modest reply saying he didn’t know much. But, that he knew his marketing budget was “leaning too much toward the traditional way of doing things”. He knew he needed to modernize with digital marketing and was interested in what SEO can offer.

I told them about my search. I laughed at myself since, as a 31-year-old, I had never taken the time to know the difference between a bank and a credit union.

But, it’s a great anecdote, right? SEO is all about answering the questions that users are asking related to your company, the services you offer, or even the industry you are in. Every search is an opportunity.

Granted, my search isn’t the type of search that typically ends in opening up a new bank account. I’d say that type of search is further back in the sales cycle. But, it was a great anecdote about how many topics are out there into which this credit union could invest with content and SEO in order to rank.

As my presentation progressed, we went deeper.

The CEO quickly realized how few of his local competitors were ranking for high-value long-tail keywords (specific and long phrases), and how much opportunity this provides to earn lots of new business from SEO and even SEM.

“Google search ‘highest CD rates'” he asked.

“Any local competitors showing?”

“No,” I replied.

Needless to say, that gave him something to think about.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]