Organic SEO vs higher closing % on bought leads

[scagnt83]

For context, Travis is speaking specifically about local SEO which is radically different than national SEO. For Travis, he is trying to rank for terms like "medicare in [state/city]" close to him. For stuff like that, you, just like him, can rank at the top of the local map pack which will almost certainly display above the national search results. All you need to do is follow local seo best practices and focus on getting reviews in Google. Google actually wants to serve users businesses that are local to searcher because that provides a better user experience compared to just showing them national results.

But you have understand that local seo search volume is incredibly low. You're never going to make six figures by relying on local seo. I don't know about local Medicare search volume because I only do life. That said, I highly doubt anyone could make even 30k per year from Medicare sales strictly from local seo traffic. On the life side, you couldn't even make 10k per year from local seo traffic.

For anyone interested in ranking a website on a national level, don't bother. With the way Google works now, it's not an endeavor that you can succeed at in ANY relative period of time.

Plenty of agents make 6 figures from local seo. Yes, local is lower traffic than regional or national. But it can be extremely lucrative because of the relationship building and f2f sales. You usually dont make just 1 sale from a local lead. Thats assuming you are not a 1 trick pony and are cross-selling and evaluating their situation and making suggestions.

Ranking a website on a national level is not impossible at all. Maybe you just dont want competition. But that is a flat out lie. Very broad search terms are certainly difficult to rank well for. But a little ingenuity goes a long way with national rankings.

 

[cmutual]

The problem, intentionally or not, is that you're putting words into my mouth and speaking for me.

There's enough people on this forum that try to sell that their way is the only way. For you to trying to add context to what I'm saying (making up context, on my end) is rude.

This isn't Jeff's private forum. Where everyone calls, goes to Jeff's Mastermind event, and knows everyone else really tight like.

Want to say local SEO may not produce the results you want? Great... Do you.

Want to ask me if I'm only generating via local SEO? Cool.

I don't think your post was directly about me, but it also has no purpose into putting my name in it OR making the assumption I said something that wasn't in my post.

What annoys me, and ultimately provokes a response, is the fact that I was in agreement with two other posters. I didn't mention Local SEO AND you wouldn't have known my local strategy without going on my website. That means you're putting more effort into "making your point" by manufacturing an argument; prefacing your point with one I didn't make.

It's a pretty unclassy move (and that's saying it politely.)

Dude take a chill pill. You’re way overreacting to a simple human error.


You’re responding as if I literally went on here and said something like “Travis said you’re all a bunch of losers and he is better than you”.


I took ownership of my mistake. What more would you have me do? It’s not as if I continued to misrepresent your comments.


When I posted, you were the last one to reply so I did a quick scan of your site. It’s pretty clear you don’t try to rank nationally which is why I assumed your comments were specific to local seo. But again, it was a mistake to assume that your comments were all about local seo.

It clear you took this personally for some reason. I literally only referenced you purely because you were the last reply in the thread at that time. If Ray had been the last to reply, I would have said his name.

This is the last olive branch I’ll extend. If you are still upset after this, that’s on you.


But if you want to move forward amicably, I’m down. Hell I’ll even buy you dinner in Austin (if you’re there).

 

[cmutual]

Only quoted the end of your post to save space..


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I've seen your site (and Boomers and others), and it's nothing extraordinary. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just content. Anyone can create content. Most agents won't even write 10 articles, though.

Just gonna be honest here bro and sorry if this offends you. This post alone shows how incredibly little you know about seo.


My site, boomer, Lincoln heritage, [insert another national seo powerhouse site] are not just collections of content that just any old agent will create.


I deliberately didn’t say they couldn’t create. I said “will create” because learning how to create the right type of content that looks nice, is ordered properly, and is ultimately setup to best satisfy search intent is a skillset that takes a long time to acquire. All the content I created even 2 years ago is shit and I’m genuinely embarrassed by it. All site creators go through this learning curve (assuming they stick with it).


I’ve seen it countless times over the last few years. The average person simply won’t put in the work to learn this skill (in addition to many other things necessary for success at national seo).


You may see a piece on content on a successful site and think “that looks good but it’s nothing special”. You are not seeing the subtle things that make it work (and I’m not going to go into all those here).


What you said would be like watching Floyd Mayweather fight and then saying, “huh that other guy didn’t look too hard to beat”. You just see him masterfully evade opponents with relative ease (his defense is the main reason he is undefeated). What you don’t see are the countless hours of training that has enabled that effortlessness. You don’t know why he does certain things, but he does.


I can show you literally dozens and dozens of sites that have lots of content. Sadly for them, it’s all but worthless because they’ve failed to master this craft. Or what’s worse are those who continue to produce new content and have been doing so for years, but make no effort to improve. They are just spinning their wheels and will never see the results they desire.


As I’ve said repeatedly, I’m no wizard, but I am an expert at what I do. I’ve put in a ton of effort over long periods of time to develop this skill. So has Boomer, ehealthinsurance, Lincoln heritage and all the other big successful (at national seo) sites.


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Based on your posts and the previous ones on the forum, you're basically saying that Google has increased the importance of links, perhaps above all else. And if it's like a pie or 100 percentage points, then a higher percentage of the SEO pie is placed on links.


SEO = Content + Links


Are you saying that someone needs many more links today to rank compared to years ago?

Yes MANY more than it used to.

And your site and others have more link juice because these sites have been around longer and, therefore, have more links (due to time)?

Time does seem to help seo, but time doesn’t do jack for links. It’s INCREDIBLY rare to acquire links organically. Like super freakin rare. 99% of all the links you get are intentional.

And that's why it's harder for a new site to rank and the site owner should re-evaluate trying in the first place?

It’s harder because of the link barrier. It takes a ton of them. Getting a ton of links takes a long time.


The link barrier is why I could careless about telling people how to do what I’ve done. I know that nobody will actually do the necessary work to overcome the link barrier. And if some day someone does, I welcome the challenge


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Regarding your site...


From one SEO analytics tool, your site gets the most traffic from the funeral costs page, then the 12 best insurance companies page, the Colonial Penn page, and a few other pages.


What about new content that you create?

Does the already established link juice help new content rank the same as the old content?

You’re misusing the phrase “link juice”. That phrase refers to the passing of authority from either:

· One website to another site

· One url on your site to url on your site



For example, if The New York Times links to me, they pass their “link juice” on to me (how much is unknown. Only Google knows that). In other words, some of their (NYT) authority is granted to me since they linked to me.


Now, an internal link can pass its link juice to another page on your own site. Most websites have most of their backlinks to their home page and/or some other key pages. A site has what’s called domain authority which is the overall trustworthiness of your site. Each url on a site also has whats called “page authority” which is a separate trust calculation just for that url. The urls on your site that have the most links have a higher page authority than those that do not.


As a site owner, you want to take advantage of your urls that have higher page authority by linking to your other lower page authority pages that you want to boost.


If you look on my homepage, you’ll see this [life insurance on a parents life] on my homepage. That link is there because I want to transfer the link juice from my homepage (since it has higher page authority) to that page so it has a better chance to rank.



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And what are you spending money on for SEO? It's fine if you don't want to answer and feel it's proprietary, but I'm just curious.


- An editor to help with content?

- Publicity to get links? (pay for publicity - articles, interviews, etc. to get links)

- Trying to write articles on other high-SEO sites to get a link back to your site from your bio or throughout the article?

- Outreach or Outbound SEO - Paying someone to contact other websites to link to an article from your site, or site you as an expert, etc.?


There aren't too many white hat strategies to use.

I won’t go into this completely for obvious reasons, but it’s mainly links. It’s expensive to build high quality links in a white hat fashion.

Also, Google can keep changing their algorithm and kill SEO altogether, or at least kill it for most sites. They can put ads on the entire first page if they want or most of the page. They increased the number of ads on the top when they killed the ads sidebar.

You don’t understand how Google’s business model works. Their revenue is via ad sales. They can sell ads because they have a ton of eyeballs. They only have eyeballs because of organic results.

No organic --> No eyeballs --> No revenue --> No business anymore

Users overwhelmingly click on organic results compared to ads. G understands this. And if it were possible to have a page of just ads as a better business model, they would have done it long ago.

So while SEO is nice, only relying on SEO is like only relying on referrals. Nobody is in control of Google and other search engines.

Traffic diversity is best. Use paid marketing and do SEO. Any SEO business is a bonus.

Totally true. I wouldn’t suggest anyone rely solely on SEO.

 

[cmutual]

Plenty of agents make 6 figures from local seo. Yes, local is lower traffic than regional or national. But it can be extremely lucrative because of the relationship building and f2f sales. You usually dont make just 1 sale from a local lead. Thats assuming you are not a 1 trick pony and are cross-selling and evaluating their situation and making suggestions.

I'm not saying you're lying, but I'd have to see this to believe it. I can say definitively that no life insurance agent can make six figures from local seo. Maybe health products, but even then I doubt it.

Ranking a website on a national level is not impossible at all. Maybe you just dont want competition. But that is a flat out lie. Very broad search terms are certainly difficult to rank well for. But a little ingenuity goes a long way with national rankings.

First, I welcome the competition. Other than Lincoln heritage and mega sites like Investopedia and the balance, there is nobody. For years, I’ve very transparent about my success. I’ve told everyone exactly how I did what I did. That doesn’t sound like someone who is afraid of competition.


Also, I never said “impossible”. My stance has been (which I maintain), that ranking an insurance website nationally is incredibly difficult. It’s something that can't be done in any reasonable amount of time (not to mention the cost). Assuming one was actually willing to put in the work, it will take many years and cost multiple six figures. And for clarification, I’m talking about ranking a site that can produce multiple six figures in revenue. Yes someone can rank nationally for a few long tail terms and get a little bit of traffic. I’m talking specifically about getting significant traffic because for significant traffic you need to rank highly for things like “life insurance for seniors” not “life insurance for seniors in Florida who have high blood pressure”.


Lastly, what is your website’s url?

 

[Travis Price]

If Ray had been the last to reply, I would have said his name.

That's not true. Because Ray doesn't focus on Local SEO. I'd take a look back at your comments.

Literally two sentences we're about ranking nationally on your initial comments.

Everything else was shitting on local SEO and how the traffic couldn't make you 30k in Medicare by itself...which again, no one was making that argument... All of those assumptions were made by looking at MY website (by your own admission) or implying that I was championing local SEO only.

Just as a quick aside, I do get a steady stream of leads from GMB. Especially during AEP. However I full on agree that it wouldn't transition into FE well.

However, Medicare is different than life. Medicare people HAVE to make decisions that directly affect them on specific timeframes. Most basics life products, like FE.. don't. There's more of a push needed for life products.

In my tiny community, where small towns are an hour away, I don't make 30k annually solely on GMB and my position, which is why it isn't my only lead source. If I was in Macomb County, I'd call your bet all day long with the same position.

Then, you opted to go on and say"my bad" but then create this wall of text rationalizing that you were only cautioning people about local vs national SEO..

YOU were the person that brought local into the conversation, not me. You're creating an argument that wasn't there to begin with.

Your "my bad" is all that was needed. Anything after that is a "but."

Maybe you've never heard this.. anything before a but is negated after you use it. It means that was really important, your manufactured point, was more important that what I actually said.

"My bad, but you're over-reacting"


I'm going to pass on the olive branch. Simply because this isn't a war to me. It's simply stating I don't want you putting words in my comments making them something they weren't.. Or manufacturing my comment into whatever you did there. You can either do that, or you cant.

Thanks, but no thanks on dinner. Namely because I won't be in Austin.. and the fact that I don't let people buy me dinner, especially in a matter of "burying a hatchet." The person's behavior is what settles that for me.

 

[ZZ8990]

Just gonna be honest here bro and sorry if this offends you. This post alone shows how incredibly little you know about seo.

No offense taken, but you assumed quite a bit. No problem though.

When I said "just content", I should have been more clear. I just didn't want to get into a whole post about SEO.

It goes without saying that obviously the content and entire website has to abide by known SEO standards.

That applies to on-page SEO (correct use of h1, h2, etc. tags, keywords, paragraph flow, readability, keep people on the site, etc.) and site-wide SEO (proper content structure, content "silos", inter-linking between pages, what you mentioned about the higher ranking pages linking to the lower ranking pages, etc.).

Plus add in any SEO strategies a la Neil Patel, etc.

Doing all that is necessary, but the "link juice" (i.e. "trust" or like a vouching) from other websites is really what gives your site the trust that Google wants. Someone could have a perfectly structured website with great content, but without external links it's going to be difficult to rank.

There's nothing magical about SEO. Write good content, follow known standards, and do outreach to get links. Takes time though.

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I disagree with your stance on Google. And I understand their business model.

With most searches, all you see is ads above the fold. You have to scroll for the content.

The ad:content ratio is already like 50/50 for some searches and 40/60ish on most searches. What makes you think they wont increase that little by little over time?

Even if it doesn't get to the point where it's all ads on the first page, if it keeps increasing to like 75/25 (ads:content), it's still going to push down the content. Or what if they just put more ads on top (moved from below). This means less SEO traffic for everyone.

Anyway, my point is that SEO traffic is nice, but you're playing in someone else's playground. Same goes for YouTube views. It could all go away overnight. It's like only relying on referrals. That's a big risk.

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Lastly, the reason I mentioned your top-ranking pages was because even though your site ranks well, much of the traffic is concentrated on only several pages.

That's the same with every site. The traffic is not evenly distributed among all pages.

I wonder what your traffic would be like without the top 20 pages, or even just the top 10. And what the revenue loss would be.

My point is there is some luck involved here, not just with your site, but all sites that rank.

The top pages get most of the traffic and are really holding up the rest of the site (with their authority). The cliche 80/20 rule in effect.

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Anyway, you have a nice site. It would take time to create a content site such as yours. Most agents don't want to though.

 

[cmutual]

Uh I can’t believe we are still on this. I’ll take another stab at this for good will…

That's not true. Because Ray doesn't focus on Local SEO. I'd take a look back at your comments.

Why do you believe me to be lying? I don’t speak in code or have ulterior motives. I mean what I say. And which “comment’s are you referring to?

Literally two sentences we're about ranking nationally on your initial comments.

The goal of my post was to caution against a national seo strategy (for said reasons). I’ve been careful in previous posts to differentiate local from national since they are different. It only took two sentences to explain my stance on national seo. It took more to explain local.

Everything else was shitting on local SEO and how the traffic couldn't make you 30k in Medicare by itself...which again, no one was making that argument... All of those assumptions were made by looking at MY website (by your own admission) or implying that I was championing local SEO only.

Maybe this is the true source of your animosity. The commentary about local seo in general were not a derivative of your site. Literally all my comments about local seo had nothing to do with you whatsoever.


The only mistake I made was assuming that your comment in the thread was about local seo only.


I took ownership of that mistake. I’ll try to do it one last time in another format:


Travis, I’m sorry I assumed your comment was only about local seo.

Then, you opted to go on and say"my bad" but then create this wall of text rationalizing that you were only cautioning people about local vs national SEO..

It was not rationalization. I merely explained to you how it came to be that I referenced you instead of Ray or another poster prior to you.


Notice how this whole time I’ve not defended the mistake of assuming what I did?


You seemed to care a great deal (and were bothered by), me referencing you specifically. That’s why I took the time to explain (not defend/rationalize/excuse my assumption) how I ended up naming you particularly.

YOU were the person that brought local into the conversation, not me. You're creating an argument that wasn't there to begin with.

The point of me posting originally was to disclaim that A) local seo can be done but has much less search volume which likely won’t support a healthy income and B) national seo is not a strategy I’d suggest for said reasons.


You continue to connect these two points to you. They had nothing to do with you. I would have said these exact same things if you had never posted in the thread.

Your "my bad" is all that was needed. Anything after that is a "but."


That’s your opinion. My comments speak for themselves. I owned my mistake and explained how I made it. I’ve never made an excuse for that one mistake I made.


Maybe you've never heard this.. anything before a but is negated after you use it. It means that was really important, your manufactured point, was more important that what I actually said.

That’s your opinion. My comments speak for themselves. I owned my mistake and explained how I made it. I’ve never made an excuse for that one mistake I made.

"My bad, but you're over-reacting"

You are. You’re making inferences that simply are not there. I’ve gone above and beyond to explain everything. If you simply think I’m being dishonest then I guess we’re at a standstill. I do wonder though why you would think I’d be lying.

I'm going to pass on the olive branch. Simply because this isn't a war to me. It's simply stating I don't want you putting words in my comments making them something they weren't.. Or manufacturing my comment into whatever you did there. You can either do that, or you cant.


Thanks, but no thanks on dinner. Namely because I won't be in Austin.. and the fact that I don't let people buy me dinner, especially in a matter of "burying a hatchet." The person's behavior is what settles that for me.

Given the even more clarification and context of my response. Do you still maintain this position?

 

[cmutual]

No offense taken, but you assumed quite a bit. No problem though.


When I said "just content", I should have been more clear. I just didn't want to get into a whole post about SEO.


It goes without saying that obviously the content and entire website has to abide by known SEO standards.


That applies to on-page SEO (correct use of h1, h2, etc. tags, keywords, paragraph flow, readability, keep people on the site, etc.) and site-wide SEO (proper content structure, content "silos", inter-linking between pages, what you mentioned about the higher ranking pages linking to the lower ranking pages, etc.).


Plus add in any SEO strategies a la Neil Patel, etc.

All that stuff you just referenced is a given. My comments about the content creation were about a skillset that goes way above what you just referenced. I could literally talk hours about this in particular. Sorry not going do that here.

No offense taken, but you assumed Doing all that is necessary, but the "link juice" (i.e. "trust" or like a vouching) from other websites is really what gives your site the trust that Google wants. Someone could have a perfectly structured website with great content, but without external links it's going to be difficult to rank.

This is exactly correct.

There's nothing magical about SEO. Write good content, follow known standards, and do outreach to get links. Takes time though.

Yep. Seo is a known art. There is no magic to it. The “outreach” to get links is extremely difficult though. Getting links is the primary reason why everyone stops.

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I disagree with your stance on Google. And I understand their business model.


With most searches, all you see is ads above the fold. You have to scroll for the content.

Keep the important thing the important thing. Remember that saying? Google knows that organic results are the only reason why they have a business. That will never go away.

Ask yourself this. Why do searchers opt for Google compared to bing/yahoo/etc? They all serve ads so that is a static variable.


Answer: The organic results. The vast majority of users opt for the organic results. They love Google the most because their search experience is far better with G compared to any other search engine.

The ad:content ratio is already like 50/50 for some searches and 40/60ish on most searches. What makes you think they wont increase that little by little over time?

The ratio will likely change over time as it has in the past. For quite some time, the page has had roughly 10 organic listings. I suspect that is a derivative of much data. I doubt this will change much. Sure it could, but I doubt they will deviate from this ratio much in the future. One of the main differences between G and other search engines is the ad to organic ratio. Look at yahoo and you’ll see very few organic results per page most of the time.

Even if it doesn't get to the point where it's all ads on the first page, if it keeps increasing to like 75/25 (ads:content), it's still going to push down the content. Or what if they just put more ads on top (moved from below). This means less SEO traffic for everyone.



Anyway, my point is that SEO traffic is nice, but you're playing in someone else's playground. Same goes for YouTube views. It could all go away overnight. It's like only relying on referrals. That's a big risk.

This is all true which is why we are in agreement that having SEO as your only leg is a bad idea.

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Lastly, the reason I mentioned your top-ranking pages was because even though your site ranks well, much of the traffic is concentrated on only several pages.


That's the same with every site. The traffic is not evenly distributed among all pages.


I wonder what your traffic would be like without the top 20 pages, or even just the top 10. And what the revenue loss would be.

For any site to have their top 10 removed would be a colossal hit.

My point is there is some luck involved here, not just with your site, but all sites that rank.


The top pages get most of the traffic and are really holding up the rest of the site (with their authority). The cliche 80/20 rule in effect.


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Anyway, you have a nice site. It would take time to create a content site such as yours. Most agents don't want to though.

Thanks. Understand that its not the content that holds most agents back (although that is still true). It’s the links.

Some people think they can take short cuts by getting links like this. Little do they know, links like that (which are bought) have 0 value.

 

[Travis Price]

Given the even more clarification and context of my response. Do you still maintain this position?

I didn't ask, expect, or want any clarification.

I didn't ask or expect a "my bad." However, had it just been 10 words "my bad. I made an assumption on what you wrote." Then we wouldn't have continued any further.

Frankly told you what I needed in post 1..

However, you want to keep responding with more...which leads me to believe you're trying to hard sell. It reads as a rationalization.


I really could give no F's about your clarification.

All you need to do is not clarify for me, period. Don't make your manufactured argument from me.

Some people don't need all the extra.

Go back to arguing with people that are actually having points against what you're saying.

 

[PhxSunsFan]

but.... the saddest thing about this thread is that I have no idea what seo is... . sad..