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How to Outsource SEO Link Building Without Compromising on Quality

High quality backlinks the most important ranking factor if you asked me. Quality backlinks are also the hardest to procure. Even SEO professionals have mentioned that link building is the hardest task in the SEO process. To second this, Ahrefs studied 14 billion web pages and they revealed that 96.55% get no organic traffic from Google. They found out that one of the top reasons for this being the absence of backlinks. You can understand why many SEO agencies themselves use white labelled outsourced link building solutions when serving clients. Nonetheless, Fiverr is here to save the day... or is it?

There are clear benefits to outsourcing. It frees up your in house SEO or digital marketing team to look at SEO as a holistic activity, such as focusing on content, conversions from SEO efforts etc. Secondly, outsourcing your link building can be more cost effective than hiring full time SEO specialists.

The True Cost of a Link

The cost of a done for you high-quality backlink is estimated to range from $150 to $300. This is due to the extensive effort involved in link building. Typically, most outsourced link-building agencies provide either guest post placements or link insertions as part of their link-building services. Here's an example of a "white hat" link building agency's price chart:

That is a whooping $160 USD for ONE link. Yes, good SEO isn't cheap. You'll need SEO tools for research, outreach tools, virtual assistants to project manage. Then, you need to manage outreach, track replies, and negotiate. Secondly, your team must audit the quality of the websites. On top of that, you’ll need a content writer to craft the guest article for the site where the link will be placed. Not to mention, a significant portion of sites—50% or more—request some form of payment for publishing on their website.

Poor Quality Outsourcing - Sub Par Providers

Butttttt Marcus, isn’t Fiverr promising to get me to a domain rating of 80 for only $10 per link?! How can these link brokers charge up to $300 per link?! Yes, there IS a difference in quality when outsourcing. Be warned: engaging subpar providers can lead to penalties or harm your brand’s reputation. One search on Fiverr, and you’ll be inundated with promises to skyrocket your domain authority to a million for just a few dollars.

Spammy Fiverr link-building services often promise hundreds or even thousands of backlinks at unbelievably low prices. Here's an example where you can get hundreds of do follow back links for only two hundred Singapore dollars. That's $2 per high quality do follow back links! These offers are typically "too good to be true." In their deliverables, they may rely on “black-hat” SEO tactics, such as automated link generation, backlinks from private blog networks (PBNs), or links from irrelevant, low-quality websites. Such link-building strategies can tarnish your brand's reputation by associating it with untrustworthy sites or even result in penalties from search engines! This is why I took link building into my own hands and developed a well-oiled system to manage it. Supported by a team of trained virtual assistants, SEO tools and a few simple ChatGPT-powered AI workflows.

Criteria for Selecting a Quality Link Building Service

You’ll want to know the quality of links pointing to your website. Imagine if there are hundreds of pornographic links pointing to your website. Is that trust worthy in search engines eyes? Now, to be specific, our Singaporean led SEO agency looks at a couple of key metrics when it comes to building links. Every link building decision is manually audited by a team. Yes, they are nonetheless assisted by a couple of cool A.I. workflows. Link Relevancy A high-quality service should prioritize securing backlinks from sites closely related to your niche. For example, if you’re a fitness brand, links from health, wellness, or sports-related websites carry more weight than random, irrelevant sites. Relevant links signal to search engines that your website provides authoritative content in your industry. Our team uses Majestic SEO to determine link relevancy. Majestic SEO provides you with topical trust flow. Quality of Organic Traffic The quality of organic traffic one of the key factors a link building agency should account for when assessing link-building opportunities. Tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush can help analyze a website’s organic traffic by showing you the keywords it ranks for and the estimated traffic it generates.

When evaluating a potential backlink source, look for keywords that are related to your niche or industry. They don't have to be 100% niche related. You can highly consider parallel niches too. For example, if a small business service site links to my SEO agency site. That's 100% fine too. Quantity of Organic Traffic There are different opinions on this, however, it's a consensus amongst the SEO community that sites with at least 300 - 1000 organic traffic show that they are trusted by search engines. Hence, a credible link-building service will prioritise links from such sites, as this indicates the potential for real visitors to click through to your site, improving both SEO and referral traffic. Domain Authority/ Rating (DA/DR) In my experience, high domain authority or rating is one of the most overused pitches. There are countless high-domain-rating sites out there that struggle to rank for any meaningful keywords. Domain rating can even be "manipulated" by sending low-quality links to inflate the score. This issue became even more apparent after the helpful content update, as many high-DR sites saw their traffic plummet due to thin or poor-quality content. From our perspective, domain authority or domain rating isn’t a critical direct ranking factor. Our link-building team uses it cautiously and sparingly when assessing a website’s overall strength and credibility.

How to Budget for an Outsourced Solution?

A good link-building campaign is typically executed over a 6 to 12-month period. Hence, it’s important to start with the end in mind: how many links are needed to outrank your competitors? Begin by calculating your link gap—the difference between the number of high-quality backlinks your competitors have and those your site currently holds. Use SEMrush to analyze the backlink profiles of your top-ranking competitors in your niche. I’ve written in detail on how to calculate an accurate backlink gap. Once you identify the gap, work backward to estimate the number of links required to close it. This includes calculating the cost per link, which typically ranges from $150–$300 for a high-quality, done-for-you link.

Transparency and Documentation

Ever paid one of those agencies and felt like nothing was actually being done? When choosing an outsourced link-building solution, always request that they show you the anchor texts and backlinks from the websites. Transparency and documentation are key pillars of a reliable outsourced link-building service.

Conclusion

To sum it up, link building is undeniably one of the most challenging yet crucial aspects of SEO. High-quality backlinks IS the needle mover. While outsourcing link-building efforts can save time and free up operational bandwidth, it is essential to not cheap out on this. Investing in reputable providers that provides transparency and relevancy ensures you’re building a penalty free foundation for your website. Read the full article

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Coaching Niche - SEO Case Study - MarcusNeo.Com

I learned about SEO through my first business, a Singaporean dating advice site that I later wanted to take international. This is in the coaching niche. Service professionals and providers in Singapore can take away key lessons from this case study. In hindsight, it taught me lessons that go beyond SEO—it showed me that traffic isn't as important as product-market fit. However, for this SEO case study, I'll mainly focus on how I achieved SEO organic growth locally, then on an international scale.

Targeted Keywords for MarcusNeo.Com

I obsessed over the keywords "dating coach" and "dating coach Singapore" in Singapore's local search results. Eventually, I achieved page one, rank one for those keywords. The SEO traffic led to interviews on national TV and a couple of articles written for Channel News Asia. However, these keywords only added up to 20-30 searches a month. (inspite of this, I generated more than 100k of revenue in this business). In hindsight, it was quite a feat.

Using the Ahrefs free keyword generator tool I focused on a lot of dubious local SEO methods up till the pandemic came and the local market dried up. I then had the idea of making it into an international blog using SEO. Once the local market dried up,

MarcusNeo.Com Link Building Track Records

I understood the importance of link building and hired a link building agency on Upwork that specialized in the Skyscraper method. Yes, links were coming in, but they weren’t very targeted. If I remembered correctly, I paid around 2.5k USD for two - three months of link building efforts. Yes, and $500 for a setup fee.

That’s around 10 links per month for September 2019 and October 2019, totalling 20 links. However, the links came from sites that weren’t very niche-relevant. I decided to stop working with the agency after a couple of months, as there was no noticeable improvement. In hindsight, my site might have just been in the sandbox phase.

Our Own Internal Link Building Efforts

I then took it upon myself to learn link building and studied more from SEO experts and thought leaders. I signed up for online SEO courses and started managing everything myself, from research to outreach. I hired virtual assistants on Upwork to help, and focused on building links from sites that were more relevant to my niche. For example, if my site was about dating advice, I aimed for links from dating, relationship, or men’s self-improvement websites. From December 2019 to June 2020, I focused on building links aggressively. Traffic skyrocketed, and in early 2022, the site even crashed from the surge in visitors.

Tabulation of Link Building

As of writing this article, I have lost most of my tracking data. However, I have done my best to recover what I could and managed to retrieve these records. Month Links Built January 2021 2 February 2021 2 March 2021 7 May 2021 1 June 2021 7 July 2021 4 Total 23 These are all high-quality links were built by my link-building team, and each one has been manually vetted.

Traffic Growth on Google Analytics

The site generated up to 20k readers a month (and more). On Google Analytics, it showed that the site only started gaining traffic in July 2020. This meant that SEO takes more than six months to "kick in".

Our link-building efforts began as early as September 2019, but the site only started gaining significant traffic in July 2020. This is only after solid 6 to 9 months of consistent work. On the content's end, I also streamlined blog articles, combining them and making articles more solid. I also targeted lower-competition, long-tail keywords for each article. These combined strategies played a key role in driving a steady increase in traffic.

Conclusion

In conclusion, my SEO process has been one of trial, error, and persistence. Starting with a niche local site and transitioning to an international blog taught me that success in SEO is hugely reliant on high quality link building.   Read the full article

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Enterprise SEO: Strategies for Corporate Success

It can be said that all SEO is a form of enterprise SEO. However, working with a small medium business’s site can also be said to be different as compared to working on a medium to big size corporation’s site. There are also different opportunities for “enterprise level SEO”. Not to mention different working dynamics. For small to sized businesses, SEO strategies is heavily focused on local SEO like ranking highly on the local maps pack. However, enterprise SEO caters to larger companies with larger websites and multiple departments, lead to unique challenges and opportunities.

Firstly, let us look at how enterprise SEO differs from SEO for small medium sized businesses

Branded Content and Keywords

Enterprise websites, especially those with well-known brand names, often receive a substantial portion of their traffic from branded searches. This is because larger companies usually invest in offline media buys or other offline brand marketing activities. For context, as a Singaporean, I’ll use FWD Singapore Insurance as an example. I’m a fan of their SEO efforts and their approach as a brand that sells insurance directly online. They are also a multinational corporation that can be considered "enterprise-level." Let's dive in. For branded searches related to FWD Insurance, consumers may search directly for terms like “FWD critical illness insurance” or “FWD travel insurance.”

Firstly, branded traffic is valuable, and enterprise SEO efforts should account for these branded keyword queries. However, solely relying on branded keywords is limiting. Enterprise-level sites may struggle to rank for unbranded terms, as these are generally more competitive. In this case, ideally, FWD would want to rank for terms like “travel insurance” or “critical illness insurance” for local searches. To address this, enterprise businesses can create a balanced content strategy that targets both branded and non-branded terms. Branded content can showcase the company’s unique offerings, while non-branded content can be optimized for popular, high-traffic keywords related to industry-specific topics.

Opportunity for Programmatic Content for SaaS and E Commerce

One unique aspect of enterprise SEO is the opportunity for programmatic content. Enterprise sites that are SaaS or have a bigger E Commerce presence often have thousands of product pages, service descriptions, or geographic pages, making manual content creation unmanageable. On the flip side, there’s a huge opportunity for programmatic content. Programmatic content allows enterprises to scale by automating the creation of optimized pages based on templates.  - Scalability: Programmatic content can generate large volumes of optimized pages quickly, ideal for companies with vast inventories or products. - Long-tail targeting: By using specific, localized keywords, programmatic content can improve visibility for niche searches without heavy manual input. Example:  A major e-commerce site like Lazada or Shopee Singapore can benefit from programmatic SEO. Manually creating a unique page for every product and its variations would be unmanageable. However, programmatic SEO solves this by using templates that automatically generate countless product pages, each optimized with targeted keywords, metadata, and descriptions. This approach extends the site’s reach across locally specific search terms without overwhelming resources.

Schema Markup

Nonetheless, enterprise SEO also offers opportunities to implement structured data at scale, helping search engines better understand the vast amount of content on an enterprise site. This can enable rich results, which are particularly beneficial for larger eCommerce sites, sites with multiple locations, or those with extensive content databases.

Schema markup can highlight key data such as product details, reviews, and FAQs, which enhances search visibility and click-through rates. Types of Schema for Enterprises SEO:  - Product Schema: For sites with a wide range of products, adding schema markup for individual products can make them "pop" in search results: star ratings or price ranges. - FAQ Schema: This markup is helpful for sites with extensive informational content, as it allows businesses to capture more SERP space with question and answer formats. - Local Business Schema: For enterprises with multiple locations, local schema helps users find the nearest locations.

Enterprise Tracking Needs and Reporting for SEO

Larger enterprises usually have the budget for more extensive digital analytics and SEO tracking. In my enterprise days, our team used tools like Google Analytics 360, which provides deeper insights. Nonetheless, I believe that Google Analytics 4 is powerful enough for most enterprise-level SEO reporting needs. Enterprise-level reporting requirements range from monitoring organic traffic and keyword rankings to gaining insights into user behavior across pages, regions, and channels. Google Analytics 4 has the capability to create custom dashboards that monitor key metrics specific to enterprise needs, such as sales, traffic by region, or content type. You can also set up conversion goals for various objectives, such as product sales, subscriptions, or lead captures.

Team Buy-In

SEO at the enterprise level is also unique in the sense that it may require coordinated effort from multiple departments. SEO specialists often work closely with IT, marketing, and content teams to ensure alignment and execution. - Shared Resources and Regular Collaboration Our Singaporean led SEO experts also play a consultative role in enterprise SEO, collaborating with different departments and seeking opportunities to leverage existing resources. Our team understands that enterprise-level SEO isn’t limited to traditional SEO tactics alone. SEO often overlaps with broader marketing efforts, ranging from pay per click marketing to offline media buys. The last thing we want is for SEO to disrupt other marketing initiatives. Yes, regular SEO meetings and cross-department collaborations are essential for effective enterprise-level SEO! To name some examples... - Aligning on KPIs Make sure each department understands and agrees on the key performance indicators (KPIs) for SEO success. This shared understanding will help everyone work toward the same goals. - Brand Alignment Marketing ensures that content matches the brand’s message and reaches the right audience segments. - Content Development Working with content marketers helps create SEO content that’s both engaging and optimized for target keywords, whether they’re branded or unbranded. - Campaign Synergy Marketing teams can use SEO insights in paid campaigns (vice versa) and making sure SEO and PPC efforts work together.

Enterprise Level Scale of Link Building

Link building is challenging for any SEO team—it’s the hardest part of SEO. However, it can be argued that link building at the enterprise level requires even more attention. In industries like insurance or banking, keywords usually have high difficulty scores, making it especially tough to rank.

You’re competing with other large companies that have substantial SEO budgets. Hence, a scalable link-building strategy with customised outreach at scale is essential. Here are some ideas! Scalable Link Building Strategies for Enterpises - Guest Posting at Scale: This is our preferred link-building method. It involves reaching out to reputable sites for guest blogging opportunities. - Partner Outreach: Through outreach to business partners, you can build a network of mutually beneficial links. When your partners link back to your content or reference your services, these backlinks carry weight with search engines, especially if the partner’s site is reputable. For example, an insurance company could reach out to its affiliate partners’ websites for links. - Collaborations and Sponsorships: Partnering with industry influencers or partner organisations can generate authoritative backlinks.

Enterprise SEO Project Delivery

I understand that enterprise-level stakeholders have different concerns from small business owners. Therefore, our Singaporean-led SEO agency prides itself on a "ninja-like" project management and delivery mindset. Our agency breaks down tasks into phases, including technical audits, content strategy, and link building. Our approach centers on clear tracking, timely communication, and an end-to-end delivery framework that ensures transparency. For example, by using simple yet effective project management tools like Google Sheets, we make every task fully transparent.

Sneak peak of our project management mindset! Each SEO sprint and phase—from keyword research to content creation and link acquisition—is carefully planned, allowing both our agency and our client’s team to maintain transparency and accountability throughout the process. During the technical audit phase, for instance, each identified issue is prioritized based on its impact, ensuring that resources are directed toward high-value areas. This project delivery model has consistently helped us achieve SEO success, whether scaling for enterprise clients or delivering high-impact results for SMEs.

Technical SEO and Page Bloat

A high volume of pages is common for enterprise websites. For example, a large eCommerce site like Shopee, which frequently publishes new product listings, faces technical SEO challenges such as duplicate content. Enterprise sites may have multiple pages with identical text for similar products or categories. This can result in duplicate descriptions or titles across various category pages that list similar items. This buildup contributes to page bloat—when low-value pages, like outdated product listings, expired promotions, company announces that are no longer relevant or accidentally indexed pages. They accumulate over time. At the enterprise level, where multiple departments and vendors contribute content, the marketing team may not always notice page bloat. However, page bloat can impact SEO performance by consuming valuable crawl budget, making it a unique SEO challenge for enterprise sites.

Conclusion

Enterprise level SEO IS still SEO... However, it requires a slightly different approach than traditional SEO due to the scale, resources and coordination required. In my experience, managing stakeholders is just as important as the technical aspects of SEO. Therefore, communication, delivery, and transparency are key. Our agency doesn’t want to be yet another SEO agency that charges a costly retainer with no results. This is why we document and stay transparent with all our deliverables. From branded and programmatic content creation to scalable link-building strategies, enterprise SEO can improve your company’s search engine rankings and capture valuable organic traffic if done right. Read the full article

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How Many Backlinks Needed To Rank On Page One? + Case Study

Our SEO competitors are big agencies with a headcount of around 50 staff or more… I am a one-man founder taking them on from the bedroom of my HDB in Singapore! How can I outperform these huge Singaporean SEO agencies when it comes to beating them in search engine results? It is normal to feel intimidated by your competitors. You input their domain into SEMRush or Ahrefs, and you see they've accumulated tens of thousands of backlinks. Outperforming them in search engine results can seem like an impossible task. Here is a case study. I put in one of my top competitors into SEMRush. At first glance, it seems like my competitor has 71,100 backlinks. To beat them, that must mean I got to build 71,100 backlinks in 6 months? That amounts to more than 10,000 backlinks per month.

The truth is, your competitor does NOT have 71,000 backlinks. Let me explain how to get the real number. Not all backlinks are created equal. Generally, you can ignore backlinks built through black or grey hat strategies. These include backlinks placed in the footer of other websites, on forums, or in blog comments. There are also backlink service providers on Fiverr that offer spammy backlinks.

How to Budget for SEO Backlinks Even Before Starting on SEO

According to an Ahrefs study, the average backlink costs $83. Note that this is before factoring in your content costs if you’re providing a guest post in exchange for a backlink. By examining your backlink gap with top competitors, you can project what it might actually cost for your site to rank in the top search results on Google. If my competitor has 71,000 backlinks, does that mean I need to pay $83 x 71,000 = $5.8 million to outperform them in search engine results? Fortunately, no. This is because not all backlinks are created equal. Here's an example of spammy backlinks from my competitor. I’m sure Google devalues these backlinks, yet they are still counted by most backlink analysis software!

Using Majestic SEO Filter Relevant Sites

Depending on your SEO philosophy, you can narrow down the backlink gap based on certain criteria. At our SEO agency, I typically prioritize relevancy first, followed by organic traffic, and then domain rating or authority. I believe that domain rating and authority are vanity metrics. While they are factors, they should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Key Issue: Relevancy

First, I use Majestic SEO to filter for relevancy with the source domain’s trust flow. Sometimes the filter can be a bit buggy; if so, you can download the entire Excel sheet and filter manually. I use the following filters: - It is a Live Link - It is Do Follow - It is a Text Link - It is Non Sponsored - It is In Content - Language is in English Make sure you are analyzing the Root Domain, and not the URL!

Looking for Relevancy Using Source Domain Topical Trust Flow

I use MajesticSEO software because it's the only SEO backlink analysis out there that breaks down relevancy to a numerical form. To understand it in depth, you can read more about it here. I filter the results by examining backlinks from sites with a source domain topical trust flow rating of 10 and above, ensuring they are directly or niche-related. For example, web design and online marketing are niche-related. Similarly, small business services and online marketing are related. However, construction and web design are barely related. You’ll likely be surprised at the number of irrelevant backlinks your competitor has. Next, download your filtered competitor backlinks with the initial filters and refine them further using source domain topical trust flow. Majestic SEO assigns multiple topical trust flow categories to each website, meaning one website can have several categories. For example: - Small business - Small business services - Construction I take the top three highest-scoring categories, check if their scores are above 10, and ensure they are niche-related. This exercise should reduce the number of backlinks your competitors truly have. Next, I’ll further filter the remaining results using traffic indicators.

Using SEMRush to Filter Organic Traffic

I then use SEMRush to filter by organic traffic, considering sites with fewer than 300 organic visits to be lower-quality. You can adjust these numerical filters based on your SEO hypothesis. Sometimes, I'm okay with blogs that generate at least 100 organic visits if they have high-quality content or exceptional relevancy (source domain trust flow above 20). Take the filtered results from the previous step in Excel and upload them into SEMRush’s bulk analysis. You can do this with Ahrefs as well. With SEMRush’s bulk analysis, you can pull the traffic data for these sites and match them side-by-side in an Excel sheet. Now, you might ask, what about domain authority or domain rating? Personally, I don’t focus on domain rating or authority, as I consider them vanity metrics. I prioritize traffic and relevancy, as many high domain authority or domain rating sites don’t generate any relevant traffic—or any traffic at all!

Final Filter: Excel Formulas to Filter Out Low Quality Backlinks

I’d like to remove sites that I consider spammy and low-quality backlinks, such as forum comments, blog comments, and directories. You can also hire a virtual assistant to manually identify scraper sites and backlink farms. Yes, that'll be extra cost and time. There are some things that can only be done manually. For now, I'll use an excel formula to flag some of these low-quality sites. =IF( OR( ISNUMBER(SEARCH(".xyz", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH(".info", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH(".tk", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH(".top", A1)), LEN(A1) > 20, SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(MID(A1, ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A1))), 1)*1)) > 3, LEN(A1) - LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1, "-", "")) > 2, ISNUMBER(SEARCH("forum", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("directory", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("thread", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("directories", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("listing", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("discuss", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("discussion", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("board", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("list", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("classifieds", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("bulletin", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("faq", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("announcement", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("archive", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("community", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Q&A", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("support", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("help", A1)) ), "Flag", "Keep" The great thing is that you can do most of the filtering manually in an excel sheet. You do it once, then train a virtual assistant to handle it, so you don’t have to do the mind-numbing work.

Your Final Backlink Gap

The entire filtering process can be done manually in an Excel sheet. In the end, my competitor's backlink count drops from thousands to just 129.

Calculate Link Velocity Required

From here, things are straightforward. In this case, my competitor has 129 real backlinks, which theoretically means I need to build 22 backlinks per month for six months to catch up. The cost of it will be 129 x $83 divided by 6 = $1785 per month. Note that this amount covers only link-building costs, excluding content, outreach team, data research required to put everything together. Yes, good SEO isn't cheap.

Conclusion

In our experience, link building is one of, if not the top ranking factors for reaching page one. However, it is important to note that this link gap analysis process is not a be-all, end-all solution. Original, helpful content that fulfil the users query is another crucial factor. Other important technical SEO considerations such as interlinking, silo structure, topical authority, and basic on-page SEO. The costs estimated in this article also do not include content writing expenses for guest posts or content on your own website. You got to calculate your total projected costs for link building to include these other costs. Nonetheless, calculating your backlink gap provides a useful estimate of what it might take to rank on page one of Google. Read the full article

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Link Building Case Studies + Data for Two Singapore Sites

96.55% of web pages on the internet do not get any traffic from Google. One of the commonalities among these sites is the lack of backlinks. In short, backlinks are like votes from other websites that signal to Google's algorithm that your site is trusted and reputable. I started learning about SEO in an attempt to generate leads for my first business—a dating advice business in Singapore. I attended a couple of SEO courses taught by Singaporean SEO experts, and I found that neither of them focused much on outbound link building. This is because link building is complex, difficult, and really... a pain in the butt. In an article done by Ahrefs, it was stated that 74% of SEO link builders are willing to pay for links, and most site owners are going to charge a fee for a link. That is despite Google's official guidelines, which state that you must never exchange money for links. There are other link building costs, such as: - Hiring a VA for prospecting - Hiring an outreach manager to coordinate link building - Hiring content writers for guest article creation These costs add up, and link building expenses can reach thousands of dollars per month. Either way, I realized that link building is the true needle mover, as opposed to stuffing keywords or trying to optimize each keyword for the perfect keyword density. The SEO courses I attended back then focused on these outdated methods.

MarcusNeo.Com Link Building Case Study

I understood the importance of link building and hired a link building agency on Upwork that specialized in the Skyscraper method. Yes, links were coming in, but they weren’t very targeted. I had links coming from sites that weren’t very niche relevant. I decided not to continue after a couple of months as there wasn’t any improvement. However, in hindsight, my site might have just been in the sandbox phase.

I then took it upon myself to learn link building and studied more about SEO from internationally based SEO experts. I enrolled in Authority Hacker's online course and started doing everything inhouse, from research to outreach. I hired a team of virtual assistants on Upwork and began building links from sites I thought were more niche-relevant. This means that if I were a dating advice site, I should be getting links from dating, relationship, or men's self-improvement websites. I put on blinders and built links aggressively from December 2019 to June 2020. Lo and behold, the site exploded in traffic. I even experienced a server crash in early 2022.

On our Google Analytics end, it showed that the site only started gaining traffic in July 2020. This could mean that SEO takes an entire six months to "kick in." As observed below, our initial link building efforts began as early as September 2019. The site only started gaining traffic in July 2020. That’s a solid 6 to 9 months of link building! Nonetheless, I was attempting to rank on global search engine results for MarcusNeo.com. I also consolidated our content and targeted lower-competition, long-tail keywords. These different factors contributed to the steady increase in traffic. Alright, let’s now move on to our own Singapore-based digital marketing agency. This time around, I am trying to rank on Singapore’s local search engine results. Yes, the competition here is tough—arguably the hardest! I’m going up against industry giants such as First Page Digital and OOM. These are large, enterprise-level agencies that have been market incumbents for more than half a decade!

ThreeLittlePigs.Pro Link Building Case Study

ThreeLittlePigs.Pro was registered on Monday, 5th of July 2021. I started link building in September 2021 using the same strategies I learned from my first site. The goal is to bring an outreach-based link building methodology to Singaporean shores. In my experience, SEO is perceived by many small and medium business owners as a black box. With Google’s Helpful Content Update, understanding and growing through SEO can be complex and messy. Link building Efforts in 2021 and 2022: Month Number of Backlinks September 2021 4 October 2021 1 December 2021 8 January 2022 1 February 2022 2 March 2022 2 Total 18 Link building Efforts in 2023: Life got in the way. So nil. Link building Efforts in 2024: I exited the corporate world in Singapore and decided to restart my SEO journey, building a Singaporean led SEO agency. So much has changed in just a couple of years. I learned about using AI in content creation and implementing AI in my prospecting and link vetting processes. Google also implemented the Helpful Content Update, which affected many small and independent publishers, My research into local publishers shows that they were not spared! However, in my opinion, Google still isn’t able to distinguish between genuinely helpful content and what isn’t. In the SEO industry, there are exact match domains that rank on the first page despite having poor backlinks and content. Then there’s the issue of parasite SEO, where publishers abuse a site’s high authority to rank for their targeted keywords. Recently, Forbes received a manual penalty for site reputation abuse. Evidently, site authority still plays a huge role algorithmically. The best way to increase your site authority is by building high-quality backlinks! Link building ThreeLittlePigs.Pro data I started link building again from June 2024: Month Number of Backlinks June 2024 2 July 2024 6 August 2024 8 September 2024 6 October  To be Confirmed! November 2024  To be Confirmed! Total Year to Date  To be Confirmed! Of course, the data here doesn’t show the domain authority of each domain we received links from. It also doesn’t reveal the degree of relevance of the sites. However, I use Majestic’s SEO tool to quantify relevance. I look at each domain’s Topical Trust Flow and only acquire links from sites that pass a certain threshold. They need to be either in my industry or in a closely related niche. This also helps standardize the link vetting process for my SEO team to follow. Link building Results in 2024: Our site ranked on pages 3 to 5 within 4 months of link building efforts by Google. We were beyond page 100 before that! I also want to point out that our domain is ThreeLittlePig.Pro, not ThreeLittlePigs.sg, which might have given us an extra localized ranking signal boost. The goal is to demonstrate ranking for brands and not to abuse loopholes in Google’s current algorithm that may prioritize exact match domains. Examples of exact match domains: - bestcreditcards.sg (for the keyword “best credit cards Singapore”) - plumbersingapore.sg (for the keyword “plumber Singapore”) - webdesignservices.sg (for the keyword “web design services”) Yes, we don’t want to be leveraging “loopholes” in Google’s algorithm. The majority of businesses out there are not named after exact match domains! Less than half a year in, our agency even got our first ever SEO lead!

Link Building and Google's Helpful Content Update in 2024

An article published by Moz argued that Google has "cranked up" the authority weightage on "branded terms" in their Helpful Content Update. They argued that update isn’t solely about content quality but rather about the ratio of brand search volume to link signals. This also means that doing SEO (and link building) in isolation and not having your brand mentioned in other areas of the internet may negatively affect your "brand" ranking signals. I am currently putting this to the test on my own site, as I am not building other channels for client acquisition. This means that SEO can be more effective when done in conjunction with other channels, such as search engine marketing or Meta advertising. If your brand name is out there through paid channels, it translates to higher brand search volume. Organically, if your company has a YouTube channel, an active Instagram page, or other forms of social media, it increases brand searches as well. I am not a fan of building multiple channels at once. However, this has implications for businesses looking to implement SEO. I’d say that using only SEO to grow your business from zero is no longer viable. You’ll need a “blended search” methodology that incorporates both SEO and paid social media marketing. I will update this article as we continue our link-building efforts throughout 2024. Read the full article

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Singapore SEO Case Studies - Ranking Sites from my HDB Room

I shall discuss two SEO case studies that are from the ground up. I started both sites from zero, in my Singapore HDB bedroom with zero page authority and domain authority. The first site was built on passion, in the dating advice niche, and I eventually got it to around 20k global readers and sold it off. The second site is ThreeLittlePigs.Pro, this site! Nonetheless, I am attempting to rank for digital marketing related keywords in Singapore. These case studies are different because the former focused on global search engine results and the second one is localised to Singapore. The goal is to also demonstrate competency by ranking our own website on the first page on Google for industry related keywords. It is also to test out certain factors that small medium business owners in Singapore aren't that aware of: such as being in the sandbox period for new websites. The SEO agency business in Singapore is dominated with incumbents dominating the top search results. Top digital marketing agencies such as First Page Digital and OOM and long time dominators of Singapore's search engine results. However, that does not mean that you can easily help other clients rank. Or that any agency should over promise results. That's because the difficulty in every niche is different. In fact, I know a friend who hires an India based SEO consultant who charges $150 a month. He is ranked on page one, rank one on Google for an industry with zero SEO competition.

Singapore SEO Case Study 1: MarcusNeo.Com (Sold to BeyondAges.Com)

I started a dating advice business blog for Singaporean men as my first business. That’s how I got involved in SEO. I wanted to rank on page one on the search results and get clients. SEO was also how I generated my first business.

The money keyword “dating coaching Singapore” also only had 20 searches a month.  Nonetheless, it put me on a sprint to learn more about SEO. I attended two Singaporean local SEO programs. Even though I would disagree with their methods of ranking today, I did manage to rank “dating coach Singapore’ to the top of Google.Com.Sg search engine results. The niche isn’t that competitive and I was able to do it through a combination of internal linking and a couple of backlinks from local publishers. However, I quickly realised I didn’t have enough clients from SEO alone and pivoted to Facebook advertising. One and a half years after advertising on Facebook, I got hit by multiple bans from Meta. I tried all sorts of tactics such as changing credit cards and making multiple accounts. The bans only got worse. Yes, I believe Meta tracks your account on a computer ID level.  Looking for a replacement traffic source, that’s where I turned to global SEO. The idea was to monetize my content globally. That was where I learned about Skyscraper SEO, guest post link building and other more advanced methods of link building. Initially, I hired an SEO expert link builder to build links to my Skyscraper articles. However, I felt that the links were lacking in relevance and decided to take link building in my own hands.

I learned outreach based link building and low behold, the benefits kicked in after six months of link building, hitting 20000 readers globally in around 8-12 months.

The process took some manual work initially. However I built the link building system system to: Ensure the links coming in were from legitimate websites, with traffic and not link farms Ensure the links were coming from websites with relevance Here are our link building results: High number of backlinks but poor organic traffic? Even though my website had majority traffic from US and UK audidences. I couldn’t convert the traffic from US and the UK. That is where I learned about the concept of product market fit. The site's domain was my name and I wrote content under my own name. Long story short: trying to sell dating advice to Western countries written in an Asian/ Singaporean context wasn’t possible. I had a lack of experience living in Western cultures and a lack of case studies.  An American company eventually approached me to buy the site and I agreed.

Singapore SEO Case Study 2: ThreeLittlePigs.Pro

I purchased the site on X date. I did a little bit of link building but life got in the way and I stopped entirely. If you looked at the data, I opine that Google gives fresh sites a boost as opposed to inactive sites. The site was registered and purchased in 2021. I did initial link building from September 2021 to March 2022. I built around 19 backlinks to ThreeLittlePigs.Pro. They did give me some traffic boost initially during April's 2023 when I started link building!  However, life got in the way and I left the site inactive for a couple of years. I only restarted activity in June 2024. I guess you aren't really in Google's good books if you are inactive for years. 

As of writing, September 30th 2024. I started link building for 4 months. I built around 22 links within 4 months and published around 20 articles. The links are manually vetted, of relevance and come from high quality sites. I built around 22 backlinks from 22 different referring domains since June 2024 to October 2024. Our site finally got recognised by Google and started ranking on the first 3-5 pages on Google. Here are our link building results:

I shall update this article as I continue link building into the 5th, 6th month onwards for our Singaporean based digital marketing agency.

Studying The Competition in Singapore SEO Industry

Trying to rank on page one in the SEO and digital marketing industry is one of the hardest niches to get into. I am competing against big digital marketing agencies that have at least 30 men head counts. Secondly, they are supposedly SEO experts themselves right? However, I am testing out a hypothesis as only a handful of digital marketing agencies on page 1 are using high quality outreach based links. This data can be researched by using Ahrefs, Semrush and looking at your competitions's backlink profile. You can roughly reverse engineer the competition. For example, if your competitors ranking on page one have 100 high quality backlinks pointing to their site, then your gap is to build around 17 high quality links per month for the next 6 months as a new entrant. Nonetheless, our site went from not being found on the SERPs to being somewhat stagnant on page 3 to 5 for targeted keywords. I suspect it is Google's sandbox where they prevent new or inactive sites from ranking on the first page of the search results too quickly.  I am still sticking to the game plan of continuing to build high quality backlinks through months 5 and six. Note, aside from link building, I also published high quality blog articles SEO, digital marketing in an attempt to achieve “topical authority”.

Conclusion

I am mindful that Google's helpful content algorithm update in 2023 affected many small, independent publishers. Traditional SEO search results are quickly losing their spark/ focus in the SEO industry. They are deemed unstable and unreliable by many SEO experts. On the contrary, the maps pack and local SEO have been gaining relevance in the last couple of years. I myself am hugely reliant on the search results on Google maps, looking for places to eat nearby etc.  Yes, I recommend ranking on the local maps pack (outranking traditional SEO results) and acquiring customers that way. Local SEO and ranking via the maps pack is an SEO aspect I intend to dive deeply into in the coming year. For established small businesses with satisfied hundreds of customers, it's a way more efficient method of acquiring customers as opposed to trying to rank on traditional SEO results. Lastly, SEO is a marathon. It can take up to 8 - 12 months in some niches. Yet, a friend is ranking on Google's first page and page one because his industry isn't competitive. I suggest business owners to figure out their paid traffic funnels before investing into SEO, whether be it SEM or social media advertising. Read the full article

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A/B Testing: What is It and Why You'll Want to Skip It

“Let’s do an A/B test”. This is a common buzzphrase thrown around during my agency and enterprise days as a digital marketer. Today, A/B testing is a popular concept used for decision-making amongst marketers, product teams and web developers.  However, as much as it is celebrated, there are compelling reasons to NOT A/B test. Now, before that, let’s look at what’s an A/B test, why do people do it and the benefits.

What is A/B Testing?

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a method where you compare two versions of a web page, email, ad or an app feature to see which performs better.  You present version “A” to one group and version “B” to another, tracking how each performs on a specific metric such as click-through rates or conversions. The idea is simple: change just one element like a headline, call-to-action button, or product image and see which version gets more favourable results.

The Benefits of A/B Testing

The benefit behind the A/B test is relying on data driven decisions to improve business outcomes. Instead of relying on intuition or guesswork, A/B tests provide quantifiable data. Small changes like tweaking a headline or changing the layout of your landing page can lead to improvements in conversion rates​. Theoretically, if you manage to double your conversion rate from 1.5% to 3%, your sales is going to double. Holding all other variables constant. I use “casual A/B tests” mostly on an ad level. If I am running a video ad on Meta's advertising platform and it’s not getting the desired click through rate. I’ll switch up the headlines (as a “hook”) and look at the data for a couple of days. It is also common consensus amongst the digital marketing community to also test headlines on landing pages. Here are five common areas where A/B tests are applied: - Website Design: Testing layouts, call-to-action buttons, or navigation changes to improve user engagement and conversion - Email Marketing: Comparing subject lines, email content, or sending times to increase open rates and clicks - Advertising: Testing ad copy, images, or targeting to improve click-through rates and ROIs - App Features: Testing different app functionalities to enhance user experience or retention. - E-Commerce: Testing product descriptions, pricing strategies, or checkout flows to boost sales.

Free Tools for A/B Testing

A/B tests have to reach “statistical significance”. Statistical significance in an A/B test means that the results aren’t just due to random chance.  It tells you if the difference between version A and version B is real and not just a coincidence. If a test result is "statistically significant," it means you're confident that the changes you made (like a new headline or button colour) caused the difference in user behavior.  Usually, this confidence is set at 95%, meaning there’s only a 5% chance that the result happened by luck.For your A/B test to stand mathematically, I recommend using the AB Test Significance Calculator by SurveyMonkey​.

The Math Fun Behind A/B Tests

Now, here’s why I say that most marketers don’t truly understand A/B tests. When testing small changes in conversion rates, the number of visitors needed grows drastically as the conversion rate decreases: 50% to 55%: Needs 1,567 people per group. 20% to 22%: Needs 6,347 people per group. 10% to 11%: Needs 14,313 people. 5% to 5.5%: Needs 30,244 people. 1% to 1.1%: Needs 157,697 people. For a 0.1% to 0.11% increase, you’d need over 1.5 million unique landing page visitors.  You can interestingly observe that as the base rate gets smaller, you need exponentially bigger sample size to get reliable results. Source: https://www.evanmiller.org/the-low-base-rate-problem.html Let’s further math it into practical terms. Let’s assume you are paying $2 per click from Meta ads to driven traffic to a landing page converting at 5%.  You’ll then need at least $60,488 ($2 multiplied by 30,244) in advertising budget to confidently say that your test is statistically significant if your conversion rate increases to 5.5%. That’s ALSO assuming each click drives a unique landing page view on your landing page.

When and Why You Should A/B Test

Look, I can confidently say that if you are fixated on A/B testing button colours, you're missing the bigger picture.  If your marketing strategy focuses on tweaking minor design elements instead of addressing core customer pain points, product-market fit or building trust with your audience.  You have a business problem, not a “split testing” problem. Marketing success is built on understanding your customers: their motivations, needs, and barriers to purchase. Even though A/B tests are a buzzword thrown around marketing discussions. In reality it requires a good amount of time (and traffic) to gather enough data for statistically significant results.  This isn’t plausible for smaller websites with low traffic or a lower paid media budget. They can also often produce incremental improvements, which might not justify the time and resources invested.

How about… A/A Testing?

There's a blogger that ran A/A tests just to demonstrate the ridiculousness of running A/B tests. A/A testing is an experiment where two identical versions are tested against each other. Ideally, the results should be the same. However, if it’s different, it indicates sampling errors or flaws in your A/B testing setup. This helps point out natural variation that can occur when split testing, showing how often you might get false positives in A/B testing. The more interesting part is that it can occur just due to random chance, especially with small sample sizes. This goes to show that just because a test hits a significance threshold (often 95%) doesn’t mean the results are always valid. 

Small Sample Sizes Lead to Misleading Data

When you run tests on a small set of users, you are more likely to get skewed results. If you don’t have enough traffic, the variations between two groups may seem significant when they could merely just statistical noise.  In Kadavy's case, his A/A test showed a 300% increase in conversions even though he made no changes. Hence demonstrating how unreliable small sample tests can be. For the most part, small businesses often do not have the traffic necessary for statistically valid A/B tests.  Simple question to ask yourself: Do you have enough traffic to make the test valid? You can use a sample size calculator to check. In my experience, you are a hundred percent better off relying on qualitative data like customer feedback than investing heavily on split testing.

Minor Gains are Often an Excuse of Vision

In corporate speak, you may sound smart in marketing discussions for proposing A/B tests. However, A/B tests are often a poor excuse for a lack of vision. Yes, a website that looks like it’s designed in the early 2000s isn’t going to need A/B testing. It needs a revamp. If your customer acquisition funnel has poor images, is barely congruence to your Facebook advertising visuals… does it need an A/B test? Or does it need a revamp? 

Bro, do you even A/B test? As mentioned, A/B tests detract from long-term vision and bolder business decisions.  Secondly, if you overly emphasize data, metrics, you can lose sight of creative ideas and larger brand messaging.  Peter Thiel, a well known tech entrepreneur criticizes incrementalism, which is just making small improvements to existing ideas. He believes that entrepreneurs need bold visions, not constant second-guessing through endless tests.  Eric Ries, known for the Lean Startup concept, also warns against turning A/B testing into a strict routine. He argues that over-relying on tests can hurt creativity and agility.  They both mentioned that testing can't replace the big-picture thinking needed for true innovation.

100 Million Dollars in Revenue without a Single A/B Test

Ahrefs, an SEO tools company that grew to $100 million in annual revenue. They achieved this growth without a single A/B test​. They even did it without using traditionally data driven strategies or tools like Google Analytics, conversion tracking and retargeting. They offered no discounts, discontinued their affiliate programs and didn’t bid on competitor's keywords. Tim Soulo, their chief marketing officer, attribute their success to focusing on product development, constant re-iterates based on gut, qualitative feedback. Source: https://blog.getlatka.com/ahrefs-lessons-to-grow-revenue/https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/aa-testing/?utm_content=bufferb7ac0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

My Own Experience with A/B Tests (Or a Lack Of)

I was an employee for a digital marketing agency serving small medium enterprises in Singapore. I also managed millions of dollars in paid advertising spend on an enterprise level. I always rejected A/B tests both internally and proposals from vendors. If I wasn't in the position to make the call, I didn't pay much attention to A/B tests. In short, I never bothered.  I also grew my first business, a dating advice blog for men targeted at the Singaporean market to more than 100k in sales without a single serious A/B test.  If I had a hunch that the headline copy of a three minute video ad on Meta platform was causing a drop in click through rates, I’ll duplicate it on an ad level in the ad dashboard, run it side by side with the original for a couple of days, and then look at the results. That is the CLOSEST I did to a proper A/B test.

Multivariate Testing: Can you Test Multiple Things at a Go Then?

Now, can you testing multiple changes (variables) simultaneously? Multivariate testing allows you to test multiple elements simultaneously. For instance, if you’re testing headlines and images, a multivariate test could assess how various combinations perform​. The downside?  Multivariate tests require significantly more traffic to achieve meaningful results, as you need a larger sample size to ensure that your findings are statistically significant. You're back to the same constraint: a lack of traffic (and budget to purchase that type of traffic). Then again, I’ll assure you that most marketing issues aren’t in single or multi variable tests. They are in your advertising creatives, customer research, messaging and lack of a product market fit.

Conclusion

All in all, should you conduct A/B tests? Yes, A/B tests can be helpful if it is implemented on high-traffic sites or customer acquisition funnels with bigger budgets. If you are spending hundreds of thousands on paid media buying per day, then A/B tests can be a good consideration. Here's the bottomline: if you are obsessing over testing button colours... then you’re probably missing the point.  In our opinion, marketing success is built on understanding your customers and addressing their pain points. Yes, Ahrefs grew to $100M in revenue without a single A/B test, no Google Analytics, no conversion tracking, just focusing on product development, listening to customers, good content marketing and reiterations. Read the full article

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Google’s Sandbox: What Is It and Get Unstuck + Case Study

Finding it difficult or rank a new or in active site despite your best SEO efforts? Google’s Sandbox is a term that’s been floating around the SEO community since 2004. The Google Sandbox is an unofficial concept suggesting that new websites go through a "probation period" during which their ability to rank in Google’s search results is temporarily suppressed regardless of your SEO efforts. The Google Sandbox can be applied to both new and in-active websites.

Google’s Official Statement on the Sandbox

Google’s search relations team lead, John Mueller has denied the existence of a specific sandbox filter 25:38 in the recording during a Google webmaster hangout. However he acknowledges that their algorithms may need time to understand where new websites fit in relation to the rest of the web.  John Mueller also explained that new websites may find it challenging to rank initially because they have fewer signals, such as backlinks.

Our Own Website’s Data in "Google’s Sandbox"

Now, let’s use our own online marketing agency’s website Threelittlepigs.pro as a case study. Our agency is trying to rank for competitive keywords in Singapore’s digital marketing space such as: “SEO agency Singapore” “SEO services Singapore” “SEO consultant Singapore” “SEO expert Singapore” “Digital marketing agency Singapore” “Lead generation Singapore” Let's see how I fared since registering the domain. Our Domain Age Our check was on 29th August 2024. Threelittlepigs.pro was registered on: Monday 5th of July 2021. It's 3 years, 1 months and 24 days or 1151 days old. Our Site's Inactivity The site was registered on 5th July 2021 and was generally inactive until September 2021. I started to build some backlinks using the Skyscraper method and did some guest posts during towards the end of 2021. However life got in the way and I left it inactive till June 2024. Yes I know, I ain't a perfect SEO... neither is anyone. Our Link Building and Content Efforts I started building links, around 5-10 backlinks a month from June 2024, and started posting content targeted some long tailed local SEO keywords. Here's a screen shot of our posting frequency: Our blog's content is mostly humanly edited from A.I. outlines. Yes, it is my opinion that A.I. can't completely replace human writers just yet. However, A.I. is great at brainstorming outlines, and expanding on sections of content that you may run out of creative juice for. Here's our backlinks growth and organic positions data: Our site started being "noticed" by Google, and we got into many of the top 100 rankings on local search engine results. Social Signals Our site isn't really big on social media engagement, and SEO is still a pretty nerdy and niche topic in Singapore Hence forth, there's not much likes or follows on our social media. It is arguable that social signals may be one of the factors that can help you "escape the sandbox". To help with that that, you can run a paid social media engagement campaign on Meta ads. Or you can choose to leave it. I didn't run any engagement ads. The Results Our agency got our first SEO generated lead within two months of starting to publish content and link building. (Read: No, I'm not going to start shouting on social media that you can rank page one in two months) One of our targeted pages is also ranked on the 4th to 5th page of local SERPs. However, despite continuing to build high quality links and publish content onwards in August 2024 (the 3rd month), there has been no movement on the search results. That may... be alluded to the Google's Sandbox.

Tips to Get Out of the Sandbox

- Content Quality High-quality and unique content is the bare minimum these days for ranking in the SERPs. This is in light of Google’s helpful content updates in recent years. They’ve taken a tougher stance on people’s first, high quality content. - High Quality Backlinks Yes, getting high quality backlinks. This signals to Google that your site is trustworthy. Google’s API leak confirms it, alongside other technical SEO and UX factors. Rand Fishkin from Moz even suggested that relying solely on acquiring lower-quality links, such as those from SEO-specific directories, article submission sites, reciprocal links, dofollow blog comments, and forum signature links, could potentially extend your time in the "sandbox."  - Technical SEO and UX Make sure your site is technically optimized for speed, mobile-friendliness and has a clear URL structure. The implement on-page SEO practices like using headings tags, alt texts, and internal links. Ensure that your site is easy to navigate and provides a great user experience, menus, contact us pages, etc. You can also use Google Search Console to identify potential indexing issues.

Time for SEO to Work

The SEO community generally agrees on average that it takes 4 to 6 months for noticeable improvements in a website's ranking and traffic.  This may correlate to the notion of a “Google sandbox”. To second this, Ahrefs conducted a study on over 2 million keywords. They found that only 5.7% of newly published pages make it to the top 10 results on Google in one year.

Conclusion

My view is that whilst Google Sandbox remains an unofficial concept, the hypothesis can be viewed as informally valid as many new/ inactive sites experience a delay in ranking.  Whether it is due to Google’s caution with new content or simply a lack of authority signals, the best approach is to focus on people's first content, quality backlinks and good user experience. You increase your chances of breaking free from any "sandbox effect" and achieving higher visibility in search results. Read the full article

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How to do Lead Generation with AI - ChatGPT Examples

Today, you can use A.I. to help you generate leads for your local business. I am a huge user of ChatGPT, and use it in my day to day operations for my business. You can use ChatGPT to craft personalised emails for your products to outreach emails and brainstorming buyer personas. If you are a marketer (or really, any business owner), you’re juggling multiple tasks, from operations to customer service and to content creation. It is time-consuming. ChatGPT and A.I. can streamline your marketing processes, leaving you to focus on higher impact activities.

How to Use AI For Lead Generation

ChatGPT is perfect for creating content that helps you attract potential customers and leads Whether you’re writing emails, social media posts, or landing pages. It is a pretty good tool for creating copy for first drafts. Step-by-Step Prompts to Use ChatGPT for Lead Generation Set the Stage:  “Craft an email outline to our newsletter, introducing our new travel insurance plan. Start by addressing a common concern Singaporeans face when traveling, such as unexpected medical emergencies or trip cancellations. Then, present our travel insurance as the perfect solution, highlighting how it provides comprehensive coverage and peace of mind.” The Audience and Tone:  "Make the email more personalized by mentioning how our products can solve a common problem Singaporeans might face, such as reducing waste in a small urban environment." Crafting Landing Page and Blog Article Outlines I am not a fan of using ChatGPT for word for word direct response copywriting. Currently, it still lacks depth. However, ChatGPT is great for creating outlines, whether be it for a landing page, blog article or a podcast. Prompt: "Create a landing page outline for a webinar about the benefits about SEO the benefits of link building. Include sections like an introduction, benefits, testimonials, and a call to action. I’ll upload three key articles on our brand and SEO, please learn from it and take into consideration whilst building the outline" Personalizing Email Outreach and Email Sequences Today, I use GPT to create email sequences for SEO link building outreach. You can use the same concept for other types of outreach. Yes, including lead generation. Set the stage: "You are to write a 3 day automated follow-up email sequence for our outreach program regarding X product or Y pitch. In the first email, mention a few key benefits of X brand/ Y product and how it can help them with their specific challenges. I’ll upload a transcript the product/ brand and please deep dive into that for the outreach emails" Set a friendly tone: "Keep the message friendly and non-salesy, focusing on building a relationship first." Social Media Posts to Distribute Content You can always transcribe your Youtube video, blog post and then upload it to GPT. Here’s the prompt: “You are to promote my blog post or Youtube content on social media. Generate 5 variations of headlines and body for each social media post to promote our new blog posts. Each post should be engaging, include a call to action, and be tailored for Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn."

Identity and Brainstorm Buyer Profiles

Customer research is a keystone to effective digital marketing. If you run out of ideas, you can always feed ChatGPT with your business's existing data, get it to sort the data, and help you brainstorm. Step 1: Prepare Your Customer Data Before you start, gather key customer data points, such as: Demographics (age, gender, location) Behavioural data, purchase history (frequency of purchase, types of products/services) Interests and preferences Pain points, Fears Desires, fears Objections to purchase No buy surveys/ Common feedback Compile the data into an excel or PDF and upload it to GPT. Step 2: Start with General Buyer Profiles Example Prompt: "Based on the following customer data, help me create general buyer profiles: ." Example: "Based on our customer data, most of our customers are aged 25-40, live in Singapore, and frequently purchase travel insurance for trips to Southeast Asia. Help me create a general buyer profile for these customers." Example: "Identify key segments among customers who buy travel insurance frequently. Consider factors like age, destination preferences, and frequency of travel." Step 3: Brainstorm Deepen Each Profile Prompt: "For each identified segment, provide more detailed buyer profiles. Include details like their travel habits, specific needs from travel insurance, and common pain points." Example: "For frequent travelers aged 30-40 who visit Southeast Asia, create a detailed buyer profile. Include their travel habits, what they look for in travel insurance, and any concerns they typically have." Step 4: Identify Potential New Segments Prompt: "Given the existing data, brainstorm potential new customer segments we might target. Consider any underserved demographics or new trends in travel that could influence our strategy." Example: "Brainstorm potential new customer segments we could target, such as digital nomads or retirees who are starting to travel more. How could our travel insurance appeal to these groups?" The key here is to be conversational with ChatGPT, and not rely on modelled prompts. The more data you feed ChatGPT, the better your output will be.

How to Use AI for Chatbot for Lead Follow Ups

Today, you can build a customer service chatbot using A.I. and/ or ChatGPT for a fraction of the cost. The pros? Your chatbot is available round-the-clock, provide personalised conversations, and can qualify your leads. They can manage multiple chats at once, making it easier from a cost standpoint. Secondly, you can automate industry trained follow-up messages, keeping potential customers engaged and moving them through the sales process. Step 1: Choose a Platform Use a platform like Voiceflow to build your AI chatbot. Voiceflow is user-friendly and popular with companies like Amazon and BMW. Step 2: Upload Knowledge Base Secondly, gather and upload relevant documents in PDFs or text files that contain the industry information your chatbot will use to answer questions. Step 3: Design the Chatbot Flow Greet the User: Set up the chatbot to greet users and capture their queries. AI Response: Use AI to generate answers based on the uploaded knowledge base. Step 4: Test the Chatbot Run tests to ensure the chatbot is responding correctly to various queries. Step 5: Deploy the Chatbot Publish the chatbot and embed it on your website using a simple code snippet.

Other Worthy A.I. Tools I Use for Lead Generation

Our digital marketing agency uses Canva and Descript regularly for lead generation activities. They come with A.I. features that can assist in creating content. - Canva Canva is an easy-to-use graphic design tool that helps you create cool visuals for things like marketing, social media, and presentations. Features like the AI image generator and Magic Resize allow users to produce custom images and designs tailored to specific audiences and platforms, improving the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. They have an A.I. image and video generator as well. - Descript Descript is an AI-powered tool. It makes video and audio editing fast and simple, helping marketers quickly produce quality content. I use Descript to quickly edit Youtube videos/ podcasts. It’s extremely helpful for content creation, which helps with overall lead generation. Text-Based Editing: Edit videos and audio just by changing the text, so it’s easy to cut and move things around. Overdub Feature: Create new audio by typing, using a clone of the speaker’s voice. Regenerate Features: Helps fix issues like mismatched tones, dull dialogue, or background noise without needing to re-record

Conclusion

Today, you can hire one or two AI-trained marketers (or hint: an agency like ours); they can double or triple your lead generation efforts with AI. However, do note that AI currently cannot 100% replace human input. This article is still written and edited by a human, even though I did use many of the same ChatGPT prompts I provided in this article. Read the full article

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Lead Generation vs. Demand Generation: For Powerful ROI?

For small medium businesses to enterprise level marketing, there are generally two main marketing strategies: lead generation and demand generation. They might sound similar, however, serve different purposes and work well together. Lead Generation is turning online traffic, whether paid or organic and converting them into leads. These are leads your sales team can call, follow up with directly. Demand Generation is about creating awareness and interest in your product or service. It is about getting people to notice you, create buzz, excitement and focused on more on top of funnel activities.

Section 1: Understanding Lead Generation

Lead generation focuses on immediate lead capture and conversion, primarily on bottom-of-the-funnel activities where potential customers are ready to make a purchasing decision. These are individuals or businesses that have shown direct interest in your product or service and can be turned into paying customers. Key Strategies - SEO and PPC Advertising: Increase visibility and attract targeted traffic through search engine optimization and pay-per-click ads. - Paid Social Media Campaigns: Utilize lead capture forms on platforms like Facebook. Benefits - Measurable ROI: You are able to tracking marketing spend turned into leads, turned into customers.

Section 2: Understanding Demand Generation

Demand generation, on the other hand, is more focused on building interest and awareness for your brand. It reaches a broader audience and aims to create excitement around your product. It involves a mix of marketing activities designed to garner attention and interest. It focuses on awareness, nurturing prospects from the top of the funnel. It involves guiding potential customers through a buying journey. The goal is to also foster trust and loyalty among your audience, turning one-time buyers into lifelong customers. Common Demand Generation Strategies Used - Influencer Marketing: Partner with influencers to reach new audiences, create excitement and build trust. - Social Media Advertising: Use paid ads on social platforms to engage with your audience and keep your brand visible. - Offline Events: Host in-person events to create buzz around your brand - Seminars and Webinars: Educate and engage your audience with both online and in-person events. - Content Marketing: Create valuable content like eBooks and blog posts. - Email Campaigns: Send targeted emails to keep your brand top-of-mind. Benefits - Builds a Database: Creates a list of potential customers for future marketing efforts.

Key Differences Between Lead Generation and Demand Generation

Metrics and Measurement: - Lead Generation: Focuses on conversion rates, cost per lead, and lead quality. - Demand Generation: Focuses on brand awareness, website traffic, customer feedback and audience engagement. Stages of the Sales Funnel: - Lead Generation: Works at the bottom of the funnel, turning interest into sales. - Demand Generation: Operates at the top of the funnel, creating interest and drawing in potential customers. Here's an example of a sales funnel:

Factors to Consider: Lead Gen or Demand Gen?

I assume most businesses's primary goal is to drive immediate sales. Therefore lead generation is the go to strategy. However, if you're launching a new product or service that lacks product market fit then you should not only rely on direct lead generation. For audiences unfamiliar to your new product, demand generation strategies can be used to raise interest. Choosing lead generation or demand generation depends on constraints such as budget and team capacity. Resource Constraints - Marketing Budget: Lead generation might give quicker returns by focusing on ready-to-buy prospects. - Team Capacity: Demand generation often needs a larger investment in content creation and advertising. - Marketing Tools: The marketing tools you have available. Tools like CRM systems and automated marketing platforms can help lead and demand generation strategies go together.

Key Decision Factor: Product-Market Fit

If your product has achieved product market fit then lead generation strategies are the go to. However, if it is still finding its place in the market, or if you're launching a new product, then leaning to demand generation can be helpful. Yes, demand generation activities can help you understand your market's needs and adapting your product offerings accordingly. Strategies for Establishing Product-Market Fit - Customer Feedback Loops - Talk with your customers to learn about their needs and how your product can help them. Use this feedback to improve your product and make sure it matches what the market wants. Keep improving your product based on feedback and market changes. - Competitive Analysis - Look at your competitors to see what makes them successful. Find any gaps in their products that your product can fill, and use this to stand out in the market.

How Lead Generation and Demand Generation Work Together

Many may think that demand generation and lead generation should be done separately, but combining these strategies can lead to killing two birds with one stone. How to Combine Demand and Lead Generation You can integrate demand and lead generation to create a customer journey from awareness all the way to purchase. - Demand Generative Content Marketing Start by creating buzz through creating top of funnel SEO optimised content, Youtube content, online webinars and/or offline events. The form of content here should both educate and entertain. - Use Branded Social Media Advertising Use social media ads to create excitement about your products. Make sure your ads show what makes your product unique and why people should be interested. Include a customer journey in the advertising process that makes it easy for users to sign up or ask for more information. Best Practices for Combining Strategies - Align Marketing and Sales Teams Ensure your marketing and sales teams work together. Sales teams can provide marketing teams with direct customer feedback allow. This cooperation quickly helps turn potential customers into actual buyers. -  Continuous Nurturing Engage your lead database using a mix of demand and lead generation tactics. You can send content and personalized messages to nurture your audience. Use email marketing, send them offers such as discounts and direct call-to-actions to purchase from you.

Example: Fitness App Launch Campaign

Let's use an example. You are launching a fitness app and the goal is to increase brand awareness and get people to sign up for a new fitness app. Campaign Overview - Platform: Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube - Target Audience: Health-conscious people aged 31-49 who are interested in fitness and wellness. Branded Demand Generation - Content: The story and content in the ads should show a middle aged individual reaching their fitness goal whilst using the app’s custom features like personalised workouts and tracking capabilities. The message should be motivational, encouraging users in the target audience to start their own fitness journey. - Call-to-Action (CTA): Encourage users to "Start Your Free Trial Today" sending the user to an app download page that captures their name and email. On the page, it should stress that the free trial is only available for a limited time. - Objective: The goal is to build awareness of the brand (demand generation) and turn interested viewers into active leads by offering immediate value with a free trial. - Follow-Up Nurturing: When users sign up for the free trial, send them personalised emails or push notifications with tips on how to use the app, success stories, and content to encourage them to continue using the app and become paid subscribers.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The marketing mix between lead generation and demand generation should be guided by your audience's awareness levels, your team's resources and the product-market fit of your services. For products with established market fit, lead generation can effectively drive conversions and sales. However, if your product has not achieved product-market fit, then you need to focus more on demand generation to build awareness and gather the insights necessary to tailor your offers to market needs. Here is our recommended roadmap: Focus on lead generation to drive conversions and sales from existing interest. Then, simultaneously, use demand generation strategies to create customer feedback loops to get insights and product-market fit. Read the full article

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Lead Generation for Financial Advisors Without Cold Calls

I generated more than six figures in my first dating advice consulting business for men, which relied on high-quality lead generation, appointments, and in-person sales. I also worked for one of the biggest digital insurers in the region, selling millions in premiums per month during my enterprise days. The consulting business is similar to the financial advisory business. Today, there are multiple marketing agencies providing lead generation to financial advisors and insurance agents in Singapore. They take different approaches from selling the product directly, to branding the agent... to Tiktok videos... etc. However, here is how I'll do if I was in in the shoes of a financial advisor.

Niching Down in Your Market

Firstly, I'll ignore most of the total market and narrow down to a specific segment. You'll want to carve out a market segment that has both the ability and willingness to pay. This ensures that you’re not just generating any leads, but those who are most likely to convert into profitable clients. For example, products like retirement or savings plans are high-margin products and offer high commissions for financial advisors. There is going to be a certain client profile that is seeking out such products. Once, an insurance agent acquaintance of mine told me he doesn't want to sell to anyone below 40 years old because investors below that age are more hands-on and wouldn’t require a financial advisor. That is a form of honing in on a niche market. This also makes sense from an economic perspective, helping you recoup and make a profit on advertising spend. Yes, these products may be similar across insurance companies. However, it is how you deliver your message and consult clients that'll set you apart. - Economics of Lead Generation Let’s say you make $1,000 profit per sale of a retirement plan, and it costs you $30 to get one webinar sign-up. If the net conversion rate on live webinars is 5%, you’ll need 100 sign ups to convert 5 leads, hence resulting in $5,000 in revenue. The key idea here is to get the economics of your business right from the get go. Hence, you’ve got to refine this process until your live webinars convert at the right rate before scaling.

The Pitfalls of Quick Lead Capture

One common mistake is running an ad and immediately trying to capture contact information. There are many Facebook marketing agencies that do this. They run simple lead form ads and all the user has to do is to fill in their information, and the user become a lead.

This may generate a large number of leads, but the quality of those leads are often low. The reason? The resistance to becoming a lead is minimal, which means many people may sign up without any real intent to follow through. High quality lead generation exists on a continuum. On one end of the spectrum, highly qualified leads are those who have consumed your content and are genuinely interested in your services. On the other end, you have low-quality leads—those who may have signed up out of curiosity or by accident. The goal is to increase the quality of your leads by creating a process that naturally filters out those who are less likely to convert. This is commonly known as a sales funnel in the online marketing industry.

Live Webinars, Is it a Dinosaur Method Today?

Instead of trying to capture leads immediately, consider a more structured approach: run an ad that leads to a live webinar, and then encourage attendees to book a call. You can't automated a webinar until you're sure that the live version converts. Here’s why you got to go LIVE: - Live Webinars Provide Valuable Feedback Hosting a live webinar allows you to interact with potential clients in real-time, gathering feedback that can help you refine your marketing message. This interaction is crucial because it ensures that your content resonates with your audience. You can ask questions, get them to fill in survey forms, and most of all, it allows you to tweak your messaging from the first to second one, so on and forth. - Test Before Automating Many people rush to automate webinars before perfecting their live presentations. However, if your live webinar doesn’t convert, automation won’t save you. It simply makes sens right? There fore, you got to focus on honing your live webinars first, ensuring that your conversion rates are where they need to be before automating the process.

Refinement Is Key: Listen to Customers

The different mechanisms of your lead generation process can then be continually refined based on customer feedback and data. After each webinar, you can gather feedback from attendees, what resonated with them, what didn’t—and use this data to improve your approach. - Send out SMS and ask for feedback - Listen to them on free consults - Send out emails and survey forms This ongoing refinement can significantly boost your conversion rates. For instance, if you initially convert at 4%, but through refinement, you double that to 8%, you’ve just drastically increased your profitability. I can't stress this enough but successful campaigns, whether in e-commerce or lead generation both rely on constant feedback from customers. Hence forth, by listening to their needs and refining your messaging accordingly, you can adjust both the message and the offer of your products.

Scaling Your Business

Once you’ve refined your front end lead generation process and have consistent conversion rates, scaling becomes a matter of increasing inputs such as ad spend and impressions. This can't be achieved if you're losing money if your conversion rates at poor or negligible. Lastly, the big profits come from lifetime value (LTV) of a customer without additional advertising costs. The lifetime value of a customer represents the total revenue you can expect from a single customer over the entire duration of your relationship with them. - Repeat purchases, upsells, down sells and side sells - Referrals Therefore, your email list and sms data base becomes an asset. Your email list is a direct line of communication with your customers and potential clients, allowing you to nurture relationships, build trust, and maintain engagement over time. You can send them content pieces, such as informative blog posts or exclusive video content. You can look for a graphic explanation of the system here:

Conclusion

Everyone is a lead in the financial advisory business. However, it is the quality leads that matter. The key is to build a process that naturally filters out the noise. Our choice is a live webinar. It can seem daunting to go live, but live webinars  allow you to interact directly with potential clients, tweak your approach on the fly, and get a ROI positive conversion rate  before going on to automate it. Then build up an asset base such as an email list and continually to value add to your audience through content pieces. Read the full article

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How to Do Lead Generation for Real Estate (No Door Knocks)

Yes, real estate in Singapore is lucrative. Selling a resale condo can earn over $30,000 in commission before splitting with a buyer’s agent. The Singaporean real estate market is highly saturated, with numerous agents competing for the same pool of potential real estate transactors.

One of the biggest challenges agents face is generating high qualified leads that trust them: standing out in a crowded market. You can't be selling just properties anymore, you got to develop a strong personal brand and unique selling propositions (USP) about YOU!

Here are Broad Strategies to Differentiate Yourself

Niche Down and Specialise Specialise in a particular type of property or market segment, such as luxury condos, first time upgraders or first-time homebuyers. This focus allows you become an authority in that area​. Heart doctors get paid more than general practitioners. Specialists get paid more than general practitioners. You can't sell everything to everyone. Build a Personal Brand It is no longer enough to showcase properties. You got to sell YOU! Your personal brand that reflects your values, expertise, and personality.  Case Studies Testimonials Use client testimonials and case studies to build trust. Use case studies to demonstrate your successes and how you've helped clients reach their real estate goals. Include these case studies, testimonials and stories in online presentations to show how you helped clients succeed in real estate. They can be helping a married couple to upgrade from HDB to a condominium. Or helping a high net worth client optimize their real estate portfolio, helping them plan for their children... etc.

Pros and Cons of Traditional and Outbound Marketing

I receive flyers every other day at my HDB estate for real estate. There is also the occasional agent going about door knocking. Flyers and door knocking are under the category of traditional marketing.  Flyers and Physical Mail Pros: Tangible Impact:  Flyers and physical mail may create a lasting impression and is more likely to be remembered than digital ads​. Targeted Reach: Focusing on specific neighbourhoods or demographics, you can ensure that your message reaches the right audience​. For example, HDB estates that have recently hit their minimum occupancy period. Cons: Costly: High quality flyers and postage can be expensive. Lower Engagement Rates: Many recipients may ignore or discard physical mail without reading it​.

Door Knocking Pros: Direct Contact: Provides an opportunity to speak directly with potential clients and address their questions or concerns​. Immediate Feedback: This allows agents to gauge interest and adjust their pitch in real-time​. Cons: - Time-Consuming: These methods require a significant time investment and may not always show immediate results​ - Intrusive: Some prospects may view cold calling and door knocking as invasive, which can lead to negative interactions​. - Not Scalable: Let's be serious, how many HDB neighbourhoods can you knock at one go? How Much Can You Stand Out as a Thought Leader, Expert and Authority through These Methods? However, the problem with door knocking and flyers is that they are both un-persuasive. They don't position you as an authority or a brand. The majority of flyers I receive are bland and are ignored. Yes, they may be nicely designed. However, they mostly aren't written in a manner that gets me to know, like and trust the agent on the flyers. Secondly, if everyone in the real estate industry is doing the same thing, sending the same type of flyers... are you really that different? Since we’re a digital marketing agency and of course we are biased. I highly recommend building an online marketing system for real estate lead generation for agents.

Three Biggest Benefits of Online Marketing Systems 

Systems are Scalable: Inputs and Outputs, easily scalable to a seven figure million dollar system Pre qualify leads -> people who don’t attend your online webinars or book a call with you aren’t really qualified The data captured is re-marketable through SMS and email marketing By posting and distributing high quality content posted online, you can differentiate yourself as an authority in the industry The ability to easily differentiate, stand out through visuals -> images, videography

How to Build an Online Marketing Clients Getting System for Real Estate

Yes, online webinars are inherently difficult to execute and perform. There is a lot of setup and technical expertise required that goes into online webinars. Yet, it can be a major differentiator in the market. That is because it is inherently difficult to do. Highly Relevant Topics Live webinars and online presentations allows you to focus on topics that address common questions or challenges faced by buyers and sellers in your market​. Efficiency One stone to kill multiple birds? Yes, online marketing, preparing and conducting a webinar can reach hundreds of potential clients at once, making it a more time-effective method than door-to-door visits. Position Yourself as an Expert Invite industry experts or guest speakers to join your webinars. This not only enhances the quality of your presentations but also associates your brand with recognized figures in the industry, boosting your authority. Engage and Educate Use webinars as a tool to educate your audience about the real estate process, from buying and selling to investing. Educated clients are going to trust your advice and perceive you a go-to expert in the field. Targeted Marketing Only interested participants are going to sign up to attend. This is a pre-qualifier. Online webinars also allow for more accurate audience targeting through registration forms that collect data on attendees’ preferences and problems faced. This enables real estate agents to customize their webinars to the audience’s specific needs. Highlight Success Stories Through webinars, you can showcase your testimonials and success stories from satisfied clients to build trust and credibility​.

The system is not complicated: Ad -> Landing Page -> Live webinar -> Book a Call -> Use email or sms to follow up. Then simply repeat and optimise this through feedback.

Re Marketing Through Email Marketing and SMS Follow Ups

Email marketing and SMS follow ups through data capture on landing pages can help you nurture leads effectively over time: Promote Your High Quality Content: You can create automated emails or broadcast  valuable information that adds value to your audience. Track Engagement: Use analytics to monitor open rates, click-through rates, and conversions to refine your campaigns. If you are not comfortable with webinars, then you can consider lead magnets. Lead magnets are valuable resources offered in exchange for contact information, helping you grow your email or sms database. You can develop guides, checklists, or e-books that provide value to potential clients, such as a homebuyer's guide or selling tips​. Then promote them in opt in pages on your online platforms and drive paid traffic to it.

Best Traffic Channels for Lead Generation for Real Estate

Our digital marketing team has generated millions of revenue for clients from both Youtube and Meta platforms. Let’s not complicate traffic channels and focus on these two for real estate lead generation. Meta (Facebook and Instagram) Advertising Behavioural and Demographic Targeting Meta's targeting based on behaviours like recent website visits, interaction with related real estate content is unbeatable. Their targeting includes life events such as engagements or moving, which are powerful indicators of a need to buy or sell property. Needless to say, Meta’s accuracy in advertising is uncannily scary. Re-Marketing Tools  Meta’s ability to retarget users enables you to re-engage with users who have shown interest but have not yet taken action, keeping your real estate brand top-of-mind and increasing the likelihood of a high qualified lead. YouTube Advertising Youtube platforms is a great competitor to Meta’s, in terms of high engagement for video like content and here’s why: Virtual Tours and Listings Video content such as virtual tours and detailed listings can capture the beauty and value of properties much better than photos alone, providing a 'real-life' experience. Educational Content  You can create high quality video content that educates potential buyers on investment opportunities, market trends, establishing your authority in the real estate field. Cost Efficiency YouTube offers a cost-per-view pricing model, where you only pay when viewers watch the ad for at least 30 seconds, ensuring budget spend on interested users. Youtube ads are still much cheaper than Meta advertising today. 

Conclusion

In Singapore's competitive real estate market, standing out as an agent is essential. Traditional methods like flyers and door knocking are no longer enough. Online marketing systems is a game-changer for agents looking to differentiate themselves. They allow for agents to engage directly with potential clients, showcasing expertise and building trust. Moreover, online marketing offer scalability and efficiency, reaching a wider audience in less time and with fewer resources than traditional methods. Combined with powerful paid advertising platforms like Meta and YouTube, you can use targeted advertising to fill up an entire room of qualified leads awaiting you to present your real estate story today. Read the full article

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E-Commerce SEO: Guide to 10x Online for Singapore Business

E-commerce in Singapore is booming. It is also highly competitive between platforms such as Shopee, Carousell, Lazada and many other small to medium businesses vying for digital real estate on search engines, making E Commerce SEO an invaluable part of their online operations. This is especially true for small to medium enterprises using E Commerce as a main channel of sales. SEO traffic is invaluable. SEO drives organic traffic, boosts online visibility and sales. Unlike pay per click advertising, SEO offers long-term benefits, ensuring continuous traffic growth and cost-effective marketing.

What is E-Commerce SEO?

E-commerce SEO involves optimizing an online store to improve its visibility in search engine results. The end goal is to increase sales, conversions and revenue online. It includes keyword research, on-page and off-page SEO, and technical SEO, focusing on product pages, category pages, and site architecture. - Keyword Research: Identifying commercial search terms that potential customers use. - Content Marketing: Mapping keywords to SEO optimized content/ pages. Ensuring content is helpful and beneficial. Secondly, answering keyword and user queries. - On-Page SEO: Optimizing product pages, meta descriptions, and internal linking. - Off-Page SEO: Managing an outreach team and building backlinks. - Technical SEO: Enhancing user experience on product pages: site speed, mobile-friendliness, and crawlability. I can't go in-depth into all sections on all pointers in one article. However, this article shall delve into actionable steps you can take today for your online store.

Singapore's E-Commerce Market Statistics

Singapore’s E-commerce Market is is expected to continue its upward trajectory with increasing internet penetration and smartphone adoption.  - Market Growth The E-Commerce market in Singapore was valued at approximately USD 16.38 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow to USD 23.52 billion by 2027, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.4%​ (GlobeNewswire)​. This growth is fuelled by a advanced digital infrastructure, a tech-savvy population and high disposable incomes. - Mobile Usage Singapore boasts one of the highest smartphone penetration rates in the world, estimated at around 88%​. Singaporean consumers are highly engaged with mobile technology, spending an average of 45 hours per week online. This extensive mobile usage supports a thriving mobile commerce sector, which generated $4 billion in revenue in 2021 and is projected to grow to $11 billion by 2025​. Source: Commission Factory Blog. - Consumer Preferences In addition to high mobile penetration, Singaporean consumers show a strong preference for purchasing electronics and fashion items online. This is complemented by a growing trend of live streaming on e-commerce platforms like Tiktok where users can engage in real-time online shopping experiences​. E commerce is a multi billion dollar market and growing. You should NOT ignore it!

Here is Why You You Care about E-Commerce SEO as a Business Owner

Our team made comparisons between SEM and SEO. Yes, pay per click advertising itself can give you enormous results. However, E Commerce SEO is definitely an invaluable long term investment for your business. Here's why: - Long-term Traffic Growth: SEO ensures continuous traffic growth, essential for building a sustainable e-commerce business. - Cost-effective Marketing: SEO reduces dependency on paid ads, giving you diversification of traffic. Imagine dominating the top of organic and paid traffic. Organic traffic can also reduce the financial reliance on pay per click advertising in the long run. - Building Brand Credibility: Top ranked sites on Google are perceived as more credible.  - Competitive Advantage: Highly relevant organic traffic gives you an advantage to outperform competitors. SEO allows you to capture more market share.

How to Improve Your Product Pages for E-Commerce SEO

- Keyword Research Identify relevant keywords, including long-tail and commercial intent keywords. Tools like SEMrush can help analyze competitor keywords, giving you insights into which terms are driving traffic to similar sites. Here I analyze the Singapore's bird nest by popping to top search result of "bird nest Singapore" into SEMrush.

Clearly, there is clearly search volume from local Singapore search engine on bird nests. - Use Title Modifiers Enhance CTR with modifiers like "Best," "Cheapest," and "Top-rated." These modifiers can make your titles more compelling and clickable, which can improve your search engine rankings. - Using Social Proof Insert customer reviews, ratings, and testimonials in your landing page. Social proof helps build trust and credibility with potential customers, making them more likely to make a purchase. You can reach out the social media influencers and get them to endorse your product.

User Experience/Interface Use high-quality images. If you're selling products online, high quality visuals are non negotiable. Your page's user purchasing experience, general flow, spacing, UI/UX, payment systems must signal trust to the consumer. They are after all, transacting online. SEO tip: SEO optimize your images with descriptive alt text. - Implement Schema Markup Use schema markup for products pages. Search results can enhanced with rich snippets. These snippets can include star ratings, product prices, and availability, making your listings more attractive.

Common Content SEO Problems for E-Commerce Sites

- Duplicate Content Using content audit tools too suss out duplicate content. Then use canonical tags and noindex tags to handle duplicates. Canonical tags help you specify the preferred version of a page, while noindex tags prevent search engines from indexing duplicate pages. - Too Manage Pages/ Thin Content Manage crawl budget by consolidating pages. Large e-commerce sites can have thousands of pages, which can overwhelm search engine crawlers. Consolidating similar pages can help ensure that all your important content gets indexed. Secondly, thin content offers little value to users, takes up your crawl budget and doesn't help your search engine rankings. Make sure all your pages have substantial, informative content that meets the needs of the keyword query.

Helpful, Non Fluff Content Marketing for E Commerce SEO

Helpful, unique, rich content on your product pages is going to help in ranking that product page against other competitors in the SERPs. There are many fluffy copywriters in the market. That is why content briefs are important. Here are some guidelines that our team follows when hiring.  Ensure your product pages are packed with value and insights that actually help the reader. - Clear Product Descriptions Use primary and secondary keywords naturally within the text. Make sure your descriptions are informative, highlighting both benefits and features of your products. - Detailed Insights and Reader Impact Offer important details that directly affects the reader. For instance, don’t just describe a product’s features, explain how these features benefit teh reader. Help them make informed decisions and persuade them of the product's value. - Expert Opinions/ Evidence Based Information Includes insights from industry experts. Leverage expert's extensive knowledge to provide the reader with authoritative opinions. - Clarification on Complex Topics Some times, products may be highly technical. Your content has to break down intricate topics into understandable segments. The goal is to demystify the technical jargon and provide clear, concise explanations that average reader can grasp. - Practical Instructions Provide expert instructions that show you exactly how to use the product features. You can include step-by-step guides through infographics or text in your product pages.

Technical E-Commerce SEO Strategies

Here are simple technical considerations you can pass to your team today to implement. - Flat Site Architecture Ensure easy navigation with minimized clicks to important pages. A flat site architecture means that users can reach any page on your site within a few clicks, which improves usability and helps search engines crawl your site more efficiently.

- Short, Keyword-Rich URL Structure Use descriptive URLs. Short, descriptive URLs that include your target keywords can improve your search engine rankings and make it easier for users to understand what your pages are about. - Internal Links Link strategically to high-priority pages to enhance crawlability. Internal links help search engines discover new content on your site and distribute page authority more effectively. - User-friendly Design Ensure a user friendly intuitive design. In simple terms, this means get your basics right: menus, no broken links, easy navigation bars, breadcrumbs. Easily accessiblility in general! User-friendly designs keeps visitors on your site longer and reduces bounce rates. I mean Google did leak that bounce rates and time spent are ranking signals. ;) Mobile Responsive Design/ Friendly Navigation Singaporeans LOVE using their phones. Hence forth, ensure your site is user friendly on all mobile devices. Ensure that mobile users are able to easily navigate your site. This involves designing menus and navigation bars that are easy to use on smaller screens, ensuring that users can find what they need quickly and easily. These days, almost every other theme is mobile responsive. However, it's never late to re-check. Mobile responsive designs automatically adjusts the layout of your site to fit the screen size of the device being used, providing a seamless user experience. - Site Speed Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help you test and offer suggestions to improve site speed. Slow-loading sites frustrate users and negatively impact both user experience in SEO. Use tools like Google Lighthouse to identify speed issues. Get your web developer to implement technical SEO audits: image optimization and browser caching.

How to Build Backlinks for E Commerce SEO

On page optimisations, helpful content and a smooth user experience is only 20% of inputs that drive results. Ultimately, backlinks are the needle mover for SEO. High-quality backlinks from reputable sites signal to search engines that your site is authoritative and trustworthy. Yes, and not all links are made equal. Hiring out a bunch of random SEOs on freelancer sites that promise you blog commenting/ forum backlinks aren't going to work anymore.

Example of blog comment backlinks Here are some link building strategies you can implement today. Publish High-Quality Content and Promote It using the Skyscraper This is commonly known as the skyscraper outreach strategy. - Skyscraper Research for Topics Use tools like SEMrush to identify topics relevant to your industry. You can get creative. They can be related niches such as "super foods" is to "bird nest". To increase the success of the skyscraper technique. One must ensure that the search results for these topics contain many referring domains. This means that the articles are heavily "in demand" and linked to! Increasing your likelihood of landing backlinks! The essence is to look for top search results with lost of potential backlinks so that you can do a skyscraper outreach to outreach, and promote your content. Here's an example:

Then pop top results into SEMrush and look at the number or referring domains. The higher the referring domains, the better. I'd say gather as many referring domains that you can outreach as possible and do an outreach campaign!

  - Create Skyscraper Content The skyscraper idea here is to create blog articles that are equally if not better than top Google search results: this can range from reviews, guides, and how-to articles. For skyscraper guides, you can including infographic (use tools like Canva to design professional-looking visuals) and step by step guides. - Promote Content Share that "Skyscraper" post on social media and relevant forums. Outreach to bloggers, publishers, influencers and pitch them for a backlink! HARO (Help a Reporter Out) - Sign Up for HARO: Create an account on HARO, also now known as Connectively and start pitching! Provide insightful and prompt responses to journalist queries related to your industry. Partner Links - List Potential Partners: Identify suppliers, distributors, and other business partners who have websites. - Request Backlinks: Since you're already in a commercial relationship, you can approach them with request to add a backlink to your site. - Offer Reciprocal Links: Highlight mutual benefits of SEO, propose adding their links to your site in exchange. Thus creating a win-win situation. Resource Pages - Search for Resource Pages: Use search queries like "best online shops in Singapore" to find relevant resource pages. - Craft Outreach Emails: Use an outreach software like Mailshake. Craft personalised emails to the editors and pitch to them why your site would be a valuable addition to their resource page. Creative PR Campaigns - Identify Unique Angles: Find unique selling points of your business that can attract media attention, such as innovative products or community initiatives. - Craft and Pitch Press Releases: Craft compelling press releases and pitch your story to local newspapers, TV channels, online publishers and online news portals. Guest Posting for Backlinks - Scrape Competitor Backlinks: Use Majestic SEO to identify your competitors backlinks. - Use Google Search Operators: Look for qualified prospects by search on Google: "Keyword + Write for Us". - Filter and Reach Out to Pitch!: Filter out your contact list using metrics such as domain authority and traffic. Then reach out to contact the site owners, pitch them a guest article, and earn backlinks! Our Singaporean led team of SEO experts are kick butt at reaching out for guest post backlinks. That is because it is the most scalable, and it can be systemized. However it requires a lot of coordination from content creation to prospecting. Nonetheless, this is the link building system that our agency team uses.

The Pros and Cons of Hiring an Agency for E Commerce SEO

E Commerce SEO isn't simple. It involves many moving parts. There are many factors that can determine success from user experience to search engine traffic. Hiring out an SEO agency that can offer comprehensive services like SEO audits, keyword research, technical SEO fixes, content strategy, and link-building campaigns can be helpful if you lack resources to build an in house team just yet. Inhouse Agency Cost The need to hire full time staff Cost effective Control Higher control Medium control Expertise It depends of your staff is trained High expertise Communication Easy and direct Less control Results It depends of your staff is trained High expertise lead to higher probability outcomes Time Takes time to integrate and train Team of experts ready to help you

Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) for E-Commerce Solutions

If you're a Singaporean business owner. Then you may be in luck. The Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) is a government initiative in Singapore designed to support businesses in adopting IT solutions and equipment to enhance business processes. The PSG offers up to 80% funding support, making it easier for Singaporean businesses to implement e-commerce solutions. Eligibility Criteria: - Your business has to be registered and operating in Singapore. - Annual Sales Turnover: Not more than S$100 million or employment size not exceeding 200 workers. - Local Shareholding: At least 30% local shareholding. The Application Process: Businesses can apply for the PSG through the Business Grants Portal and select pre-approved IT solutions and vendors to assist in their e-commerce journey.

Conclusion

There are huge opportunities for E Commerce SEO in the Singapore market. Evidently, there are many moving parts and SEO-ing an E Commerce site isn't the simplest of tasks. Nonetheless, for small and medium enterprises that are forward looking, making an investment into E Commerce SEO can be long term competitive business moat. Read the full article

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Lead Generation with Facebook Ads - 10 Immutable Laws

Our team has generated millions of dollars in revenue from Meta’s Facebook platform and here are the ten immutable laws. In my opinion, most marketers use Facebook's platform wrongly to generate leads. Leading unqualified leads and wasted advertising spend. Users are on social media feeds are there to be entertained. They aren't looking to be sold to. In our experience in performing lead generation agency services helping small businesses generate leads for services such as tuition and gym memberships etc. It's important to craft ads that entertain, story tell and give value as opposed to pushing for an immediate sale. Secondly, more advanced marketing campaigns involve using Facebook as a lead generation method for emails capture using lead magnets. Lead magnets can be short, actionable, goal oriented and easy to implement. They can be as simple as a short PDF with actionable steps. This is to nurture these email subscribers into pay customers through email marketing. Nonetheless, here are ten immutable guidelines for successful Facebook lead generation.

1) Setting Clear Objectives: Using Conversions Objective Function

Facebook ad campaign goals can range from brand awareness, traffic, lead generation to conversions. If you aren't getting qualified leads on "conversions" objective. You aren't going to get any luck on "traffic" and "awareness". I promise you. In our experience, using mainly conversions objectives is going to deliver the highest return on investment.

2) Focus on the Customer Journey

For the most part, Facebook advertising lead generation services by our agency usually don't involve selling directly on Facebook. Henceforth, the customer journey doesn't end when someone clicks on your ad. It's important to understand how to guide them through the next steps. Understanding Your Customer Speeds, and Retarget Them Your prospects are going to be Cheetahs (Fast Movers), Hares (Medium Movers), and Tortoises (Slow Movers). There are prospects with different readiness to buy. Tailor your strategies to cater to each segment, focusing on early profitability and long-term gains. Therefore, you need to create retargeting campaigns for audiences that did not convert initially. How to Drive Users to Appropriate Lead Magnets It's also important to understand lead capture through different lead magnets on landing pages. Lead magnets should be valuable and relevant to your audience. Lead magnets can be actionable and easy to implement: such as a downloadable PDF. However, lead magnets can range from PDFs, to free online courses and to online webinars. It depends on the complexity of your campaign and ticket price of your product/ service. Have a Structured Follow-Up and Retargeting Strategy  Once a lead is captured, having a structured follow-up and retargeting strategy is essential. This includes email sequences, SMS reminders and retargeting ads that keep your offer top of mind.

3) The 3 C's: Click, Capture, Convert Framework

I stole this analogy from Nicholas Kusmich (yes credit where it's due). Lead generation on Facebook platform itself is hugely limited. Hence forth, by clicking, capturing and then converting, it lends us a framework on how to think about lead generation on Facebook. The Click: Creating Ads That Capture Attention and Encourage Clicks The purpose of the ad is the get the CLICK. There fore, good advertising involves creating ads that stand out in Instagram and Facebook’s newsfeed. Use bright colours, clear images and direct response styled copywriting to capture attention and drive clicks. Capture: Using Lead Magnets on Landing Pages to Capture User Information The landing page's purpose is to capture the lead. You go for direct leads (free trials etc) or lead magnets (PDFs, eBooks, webinars etc) Lead magnets should be compelling and valuable, encouraging users to share their information.  Convert: Following Up with Email Sequences and Retargeting Ads to Convert Leads into Customers Once you have captured a lead's information. You can follow up with relevant email sequences and retargeting ads designed to convert leads into paying customers. This "conversions" is usually achieved on a sales call, an online webinar event on in person appointment.

4) Develop Contextually Congruent Landing Pages

Since selling on Facebook directly is unwarranted. Then ensure that Facebook's ad traffic is directed to contextually congruent landing pages that's tailored to your offer as opposed to other general pages of your website. Ensure consistency between ads, landing pages in design and message. This builds trust, brand and gives users to contextual congruence. 

6) Get Your Pixels, Audience and Technicals Right

Use Meta's audience targeting tools to reach your ideal customers. I am not going to address the technicalities, however, there's multitude of tutorials online to run you through the technical setups. Ensure that you got these audiences setup in the ad manager! Here are the main audiences to note: Detailed Demographic Targeting: Use detailed demographic information to define your audience. I usually go broader as my pixel gets more seasoned. Once audience is built, you can layer on: Custom Audiences: Target users who have already interacted with your brand. Lookalike Audiences: Used to reach new users similar to your existing customers. Setting up conversion tracking to measure ad spend performance is a no brainer. This isn’t something to miss. Technicals, analytics, tracking and pixels installed properly is going to help in analysing data and retargeting.

7) Customer-Centric Language and Proposition

Our team stresses upon customer research as a main pillar of digital marketing campaigns. Speak directly to your customer's needs and desires. Use language that resonates with them and addresses their pain points. For example: "Struggling to get noticed online? Our SEO services will put your business in front of the right audience." Show clear and specific value propositions from your Facebook ad to customer journey. Strong value propositions clearly explains what benefits your product or service provides and how it solves your customer’s problems. - Benefits Over Features In your messaging, be specific and direct.Focus on the benefits rather than just listing features. For example, instead of saying: "Our software has a user-friendly interface," say "Save time and reduce frustration with our intuitive software that requires no training." - Quantifiable Results Use concrete numbers and results to illustrate the value of your offering. For example: "Increase your website traffic by 30% in 30 days with our SEO strategies." This provides a clear expectation and outcome, making your proposition more compelling.

8) Craft Compelling Ad Creatives on Facebook

Create visually appealing ads using bright colours, clear images, faces and relatable content. Ensure videos are captioned: helping with silent autoplay. Craft ad copy that grabs attention, offer clear value and includes a strong call to action. Use the Hemingway editor to make your copywriting simple, concise to avoid overwhelming the reader.

Time to put on your Hemingway writing hat for holy grail of Facebook leads. Here are some strategies for great ad copy and visuals. - Headlines Craft compelling headlines that grabs attention and sparks curiosity. Example: "Discover the Secret to Doubling Your Sales in 60 Days." - Body Text Use simple, persuasive language that speaks directly to your audience’s needs. Keep it short and to the point. Example: "Struggling to convert leads into customers? Our guide will teach you how to turn prospects into loyal clients." - Visuals Use high-quality images or videos that match your message. Include bright colors, clear images and eye catching visuals.  - Emotional Appeal Connect with your audience’s emotions through stories. Take out your camera, shoot yourself using your product, and script out a persuasive story. SHOW! Not "tell". Show how your product/ service can help their lives..

9) Use of Classic Marketing Principles

Understanding traditional direct response marketing strategies, accompanied with human psychology is key to successful advertising. Tapping into these psychological triggers helps you create ads that resonate and prompt action. However do ensure that you are compliant with Meta ad policies. Scarcity and Urgency Customers acts may act only when they think an offer is limited or time-sensitive. Use phrases like "Limited Time Offer" or "Only a Few Spots Left" to create urgency. Countdown timers on landing pages can be added visually to show time limits. Social Proof and Authority Show testimonials, reviews, and case studies in your ads to build trust. Use endorsements from industry experts, show your certifications, or highlight any awards you've received. Commitment and Consistency Once people commit to something small, they're more likely to commit to something bigger. Start with a low-barrier offer like a free trial and then to a paid session. Reciprocity There's the human psychological principle of reciprocity. If you give something valuable for free, people feel they should give something back. This can include free in person trials, product tasters... to time limited software trials.

10) Make an Irresistible Offers

Craft offers that are "too good to refuse". The good ol' Godfather offer.

Time-Sensitive Discounts You can offer discounts that are only available for a limited time. This creates a sense of urgency and encourages immediate action. For example. a flash sale 40% discount on all products for a restricted period of time. Stacked Bonuses Enhance your offer by including additional bonuses that add significant value. These can be complementary products, exclusive content, or extra services at no additional cost. For example: "Sign up for our SEO audit and get an entirely free technical SEO audit, keyword research report and a month of content planning." Risk Reversal Guarantee Remove the perceived risk for your customers by offering strong guarantees. This could be a money-back guarantee, a free trial period, or a no-obligation consultation. You may allow potential customers to experience your product or service without any financial commitment. This builds trust and lets them see the value firsthand. Such guarantees build trust and make it easier for potential customers to commit. Example: "Try our free trial gym membership for 7 days, risk-free." Example: "If you don’t see a 30% increase in your website traffic in 30 days, we’ll give you a full refund." Money-Back Guarantees Offer a full refund if the customer is not satisfied within a certain period. This reassures customers that they have nothing to lose by trying your product. Example: "Our team is confident you’ll love our service, we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee." Compelling Reason Why Humans require a reason for a "deal too good to be true". Hence forth, simply explain why you are offering this deal and why now is the best time for customers to act. This could be due to a special event or a new product launch. Make sure your reason is believable and relatable. For instance, "I am offering this exclusive deal as a part of our anniversary celebration, as our way of saying thank you for your support."

13) Measurement and Optimization

Lastly, remember to measure KPIs to gauge the effectiveness of your campaign. Metrics like click through rates, cost per conversion, cost per lead and average order value can help you with decision making to better your campaigns. Note: I only advocate A/B testing only after overall messaging based on customer research is performed. Only then, A/B testing different elements, such as images, copy, and headlines can incrementally move the needle. Finally, it is your responsibility as an advertiser to stay informed about Facebook’s latest ad features, policies. So as keep you from being banned, and on the right side of compliance on Meta platforms. Read the full article

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Can Digital Marketing Replace Traditional Marketing? Yes and No

Can digital marketing replace traditional marketing? It depends. If you are a business owner, understanding both digital and traditional marketing is crucial for crafting effective marketing strategies. In the recent years, digital marketing has surged in popularity. However, contrary to popular belief, traditional marketing still holds significant value.  I am biased as I run a digital marketing agency based out of Singapore. However, there are instances where traditional marketing can outperform digital marketing. This is especially so as many businesses are going online. Consumers may be looking for something tangible.

The Different Types of Digital Marketing

Lets look at the most common modes of digital marketing used today. They are namely used for E Commerce and lead generation by enterprises big and small.  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves optimizing your website to rank higher on search engines like Google. Tactics include on-page SEO, building backlinks, and technical SEO (improving website infrastructure).  Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising PPC advertising on platforms like Google Ads and social media allows businesses to pay for each click on their ads. Key metrics include CPC, CTR, and conversion rate. Pay per click definitely has their time and place, dependent on the different stages of your business: our team did a comparison between SEO and SEM. Social Media Marketing: Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are essential for engaging with audiences. Strategies include content creation, engagement, and paid advertising. Content Marketing: Content marketing can range from creating long form written content such as blogs, videos on social media platforms, and infographics to enhance brand authority and audience engagement.  Email Marketing: Email marketing include newsletters, promotional emails, and transactional emails. Metrics like open rates and click-through rates are used to measure success. Studies demonstrate that email marketing has one of the highest return on investment out of all digital marketing strategies. Influencer Marketing: Influencer marketing leverages platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, using partnerships and sponsored content. 

The Different Types of Traditional Marketing

Let's go "old school". Here are common forms of traditional marketing. (read: cost breakdown between some of these channels of traditional marketing in Singapore.) Print Advertising: Newspapers, magazines, and flyers. The newspaper and magazine businesses are often ruled out as a declining business industry. However, print advertising cannot be ruled out entirely. They offer tangibility and are highly targeted to a local audience. Broadcast Advertising: Television and radio can target specific audience demographics during prime-time slots.  Outdoor Advertising: Outdoor advertising involves billboards and transit ads, providing high visibility and constant exposure.  Direct Mail Marketing: Direct mail marketing includes postcards, catalogs, and brochures, offering personalization and tangibility.  Telemarketing: Telemarketing involves strategies like cold calling and lead generation, allowing direct contact and immediate feedback. Cold calling is often used in the financial advisory industry.

Advantages of Traditional Marketing Over Digital Marketing

Reach and Accessibility  Traditional marketing offers localised reach with a physical presence, whereas digital marketing provides global reach through an online presence. Your a local TV ad may reach a specific a local audience, while a Facebook advertisement campaign can target audiences worldwide. Entering an unknown market through direct digital channels can be more cost effective. This is especially so for businesses looking to enter oversea markets. Overall Cost and Budget Traditional marketing often involves higher costs due to production and distribution. In contrast, digital marketing offers cost-effective options like SEO and social media. Our research into costs of print ads reveals that digital ads can be significantly more budget-friendly. Engagement and Interaction  Traditional marketing typically features one-way communication, while digital marketing enables two-way interaction through comments and shares. For instance, Tiktok and Instagram lives are popular methods of engaging audiences in real-time. Unlike a TV commercial which only broadcasts information. Analytics and Measurement  Traditional marketing offers limited tracking through surveys and coupon codes, whereas digital marketing provides comprehensive analytics via tools like Google Analytics. This allows businesses to refine their strategies based on real-time data. Cost-Effectiveness for a Small Budget You're a small medium business owner starting out? Yes, then digital marketing offers affordable and scalable options, making it suitable for small businesses.  Traditional marketing often requires a higher initial investment. However do note, SEO isn't exactly cheap or free. There's still a minimal investment required. Importance of Data-Driven Decisions  The clear PROs of digital marketing is in it's real-time tracking that provides valuable audience insights. This data helps businesses make informed decisions. You're able to cut campaigns or increase spend accordingly. Google Analytics and ad management platforms can be helpful tools for measuring key metrics like bounce rate, conversion rate, and ROI. 

The Advantages of Traditional Marketing

I am not going to be biased: traditional marketing still can hold significant advantages for businesses.  Here are some key benefits: Tangibility and Physical Presence Traditional marketing materials such as brochures, flyers, and business cards have a physical presence that can be kept and referenced over time. Unlike digital ads, which disappear when the screen is switched off, print ads remain in physical form. Tangibility can enhance the brand's credibility and leave a longer lasting impression. Broad Reach with Local Audiences Traditional marketing methods like billboards, radio, and print ads are highly effective for reaching local audiences. This broad, untargeted reach can attract customers who might not be as active online. Established Trust and Familiarity Traditional media channels like TV and newspapers are often viewed as more trustworthy by older demographics. These mediums have been around for a long time and have established a level of credibility. High Impact and Visibility Large-scale traditional marketing campaigns, such as TV commercials during prime time or full-page ads in major newspapers, can have a high impact due to their wide visibility. Effective for Older Demographics Traditional marketing is effective for reaching demographics that may not be as engaged with digital platforms. Older adults, in particular, tend to trust and respond more to traditional forms of advertising like TV, radio, and print media.

Can Traditional Marketing Outperform Digital Marketing?

Yes, there are instances where traditional marketing can outperform digital marketing. I am a fan of both direct mail and email marketing. Surprise surprise here: direct mail can outperform email marketing.  Here are there reasons why: Personalisation and Engagement: Direct mail feels more personal and tangible, often achieving higher open rates (up to 90%) compared to email. Retention and Visibility: Physical mail can be kept and viewed multiple times, increasing retention and visibility. Response Rates and ROI: Studies show direct mail campaigns can generate purchases five times larger than email campaigns, and combining both can result in purchases six times larger than email alone.

Some Direct Mailing Strategy Statistics

Imagine receiving a piece of direct mail that feels personal and tangible—70% of people will engage with a brand online after such an experience. In 2023, catalogs and magazines emerged as the top direct mail tools for keeping existing customers engaged. Studies show direct mail often brings in a better ROI than other marketing channels. With open rates of 80-90%, direct mail vastly outperforms email, which sees only 20-30%. Nearly 88% of Gen Z loves a blend of physical and digital marketing. Direct mail campaigns can drive purchases five times larger than email campaigns alone. Combining email with direct mail can boost purchases six times more than just email. 

Can You Use Multiple Channels?

There is nothing to say that you can’t use both channels to build both brand and sales. - Reaching Wider Audiences: Each channel has its unique audience. Using a combination of channels allows for a broader audience of different age groups. This increases exposure can lead to higher brand visibility and attract potential customers who may not have been reached through a single channel. - Developing Consistent Brand Guidelines and Themes Using an integrated marketing strategy with consistent messaging across platforms can build stronger brand identity. Yes, developing consistent brand guidelines for a cross-platform content strategy is crucial. Successful implementation of consistent brand themes, cohesive messaging has been shown to significantly boost brand recognition and loyalty. Through combining digital and traditional marketing efforts, businesses can achieve comprehensive coverage and reinforce their messages effectively. - Cross-Promote Channels There is nothing to say you can't cross promote channels. Instead of creating another online webinar or give away. You can promote gifts through direct mail your current base customers. Not forgetting  promoting offline events through digital channels.

Conclusion

Our company is a digital marketing agency. Yes we may be biased to say that digital marketing offer numerous advantages over traditional marketing, particularly in terms of cost, reach, and analytics. However, the research shows that traditional marketing still holds value, especially so for older demographics, local targeting and tangibility. In our experience, understanding the customer, crafting out messages that resonate are still the first principles of creating successful marketing campaigns, online or offline, digital or traditional. Lastly, as a business strategy, you may only have enough budget and resources for one channel. Hence forth, I highly recommend that digital marketing takes priority due to its cost effectiveness. Focus is key in crafting winning marketing campaigns. Read the full article

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Search Engine Optimization vs Search Engine Marketing - Pros vs Cons

You may be confused by two terms, "search engine optimization" (SEO) and "search engine marketing" (SEM) that are often used in the digital marketing industry. They sound the same, but aren't, and are different strategies that has a time and place for your business.  Let’s explore the differences, the pros and cons of each, and how business owners can effectively use both to maximize their online leads and sales.

Introduction to SEM: Immediate Results

SEM, short form for Search Engine Marketing, primarily involves paid advertisements on search engines like Google.  The most common form of SEM is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, where you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. This strategy provides immediate results, offering quick visibility and an influx of traffic and leads to your site. Immediate Results with SEM  When you pay for an SEM campaign, you are essentially paying for the top spots on search engine results pages (SERPs). This guarantees that your website appears prominently when potential customers search for keywords related to your business. The benefits are almost instantaneous. Once your campaign is live, you can start seeing increased traffic and potential leads, sales and conversions. Examples of Search Engine Results of SEM in Comparison to SEO For example, a local Singaporean aircon servicing business can use (SEM) Google Ads to target keywords like "air con servicing Singapore" or "aircon repair Singapore." Within hours of launching the campaign, the aircon servicing service can see a spike in website visits, leads and enquiries.

SEM results too come with a "sponsored" wording above their results.

Introduction to SEO: What is SEO

(SEO), short form for Search Engine Optimization is a search based digital marketing strategy focused on improving your website’s organic ranking on search engines such as Google and Bing. Unlike SEM, SEO does not involve paying for ad placements. Instead, it relies on optimizing technical aspects of your website, creating high-quality content and link building. Key SEO Practices that are Different to SEM - Content Development Around Relevant Keywords  Unlike SEM campaigns requires more keyword research, grouping and short form copywriting based, key practices in SEO include optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, and headers with target keywords. It also involves curating SEO friendly content around keywords that attract potential customers to your business. Such as creating informative blog posts based on longer tail keywords in the form of engaging product descriptions, and comprehensive guides can help attract organic traffic. Content development is much heavier in SEO. That is because only by understanding what your audience is searching for, you can create valuable content that meets the user query on search engines. Hence leading to ranking well on organic search results.

SEO or PPC: What to Focus On First?

There are simple ways to think about SEO and PPC. If you're a business owner, then leads and customers are the lifeline if your business. Hence forth, SEM can be seen as an immediate solution to your business needs. There is also no reason why you can't scale a business just solely on one channel: SEM. In my enterprise days, our online sales of over a million a month was 80% to 90% reliant on paid channels. Either way, here are the pros and cons of SEO and PPC. SEO: A Long-Term Investment Pros: SEO is cost-effective in the long run. High search engine rankings builds credibility and trust with your potential customers Provides sustainable traffic over time Creates an invaluable asset for your company Cons: Takes time, money and effort to see results It requires continuous effort and updates PPC: Immediate Visibility Pros: Instant visibility and traffic. Highly measurable and controllable Targeted advertising based on specific keywords The ability to test offers FAST! Cons: Can be expensive, especially in competitive industries Traffic stops once you stop paying for ads The similarities between both is they are involve understand user query. In simpler terms, this is keyword research commonly known amongst many search marketers. They both require optimisation on the landing page level.

Cost Benefit Analysis of SEO Versus SEM

The costs and benefits associated to each strategy aren't only monetary. However, they are also related to: time required for results. SEM, PPC campaigns may require some budget upfront, especially for competitive keywords. However, I'll still recommend SEM to business owners as it offers the ability to go live, test offers, product market fit, and adjust fast. Nonetheless, PPC done right can too be done on an efficient budget.  In comparison, SEO efforts require more upfront investment in quality content creation, technical SEO audits, backlinks but can be more cost-effective in the long term. The reason I'll recommend business owners to go with PPC first is because you don't want to end up spending all the time building up SEO assets, driving traffic by ranking at top search engine results and not achieving any conversions after 6 months! You can repurpose research from PPC campaigns to SEO. Yes, by building SEO content/ landing pages around converting keywords and user queries from your SEM campaigns. SEM for Immediate Results PPC/SEM campaigns provides instant visibility, making them ideal for businesses looking to generate immediate traffic and leads. The duration of these campaigns also vary based on your budget and return on ad spend. If you achieve a positive return on investment, then why not spend more for longer periods of time! With SEM, you can quickly test and adjust your marketing strategies. Immediate feedback from PPC campaigns allows you to refine your marketing messaging, offers and optimize the campaign for better performance. This flexibility is a significant advantage for businesses looking to test new markets and offers. I am a huge fan of SEO. However if you’re a small medium enterprise owner starting out, I’d say go for search engine marketing first because it allows for rapid testing of offers to achieve product market fit. Nonetheless, effective SEM requires continuous monitoring and tweaking. Tools such as Google Ads, Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag manager can be used to track performance. On the digital media end, metrics such as click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates are looked at. You can optimize by adjusting bids, ad copywriting, keyword intent and targeting parameters.

SEO for the Long Run: Building a Company Asset

While SEM can give you immediate results, SEO is a long-term strategy that builds long term value for your business. There are entire marketplaces such as EmpireFlippers, Flippa that investors, sellers buy and sell, websites that has SEO traffic. These SEO ranked websites are worth millions of dollars due to their sustained traffic, organic rankings and cashflow it produces. If you are look to exit your business for a multiple, I am sure strong SEO organic traffic can help with the exit valuation of your local business. Long-Term Benefits of SEO  Investing in SEO is akin to building an asset that continues to grow over time. High-quality backlinks and optimized content increase your website's authority, making it easier to rank for competitive keywords. This ongoing effort pays off as you gradually see more organic traffic and improved online visibility. Requirements for Long-Term SEO Success Follow the 80/20 rule, backlinks are the key to traditional long term SEO success. I'd say spend a good time building a strong backlink profile by earning links from reputable sites. SEO friendly, on page SEO and quality content is a given. Secondly to note, local SEO done right has been taking the SEO industry by storm and ranking on Google maps pack has became a quick fire strategy. As with with building any asset, time and monetary investment are required from hiring a team to produce SEO friendly content to hiring an SEO agency to help you earn backlinks through link building outreach. SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush and Majestic SEO are required for backlinks prospecting purposes, technical SEO audits, content audits, and to monitor SEO performance.

Recommended Course of Action for Business Owners in Singapore

In my experience working alongside Singaporean small business owners, they are often anxious for leads because customers can make and break a company's cashflow. Hence forth, I recommend combining both SEM and SEO. A "blended search" method can yield optimal results. Here’s how to strategically use both SEM and SEO for Optimal Results: Start with SEM for Immediate Traffic: Launch PPC campaigns to generate quick visibility and traffic. This helps you gather immediate data and understand which offers, keywords and ad copies perform best. Invest in SEO for Long-Term Growth: While running SEM campaigns, simultaneously invest in SEO to build a robust online presence. Focus on creating high-quality content and earning backlinks. Analyze and Adjust: Use the data from your SEM campaigns to refine your SEO strategy. Understanding which keywords drive the most traffic can help you optimize your content more effectively. Continuous Monitoring and Optimization: There are overlaps in SEO and SEM such as conversion rate optimization, tweaking of content, visuals on landing pages. You can use data from both campaigns to make necessary adjustments.

Conclusion

I am a hardcore SEO fan. However, there is no denying the strengths of paid traffic from SEM to social media marketing. Ultimately, the goal here is to create an end to end customer acquisition funnel with positive return on ad spend on paid channels.Then, compliment it by building for the long term with SEO. This way, business owners can achieve both immediate and long-term success in search marketing.  This strategic approach ensures that you not only attract customers immediately but also build a compounding search presence to potential customers over time. Read the full article

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Beginner Friendly SEO Tools for SME Owners in Singapore

For a small business owner in Singapore, search engine optimisation can be difficult. Fortunately, there are multiple SEO tools are available to help beginner SEOs as business owners like yourself enhance your site's visibility and user experience, ultimately leading to a better ranking on search result pages. They can be free to paid tools to help improve user experience and visibility of your website on search results. The goal is to create sites that are user-friendly, that generates traffic from top local search results. These beginner friendly SEO tools can help: - Help in assessing the performance of your website - Understand your competitors - Identifying low-hanging fruits such as low keyword difficult keywords to rank for

SEO Essentials for Small Business Owners in Singapore

Getting Started with SEO You want to start with keyword research to find out what your customers are searching for. You can use Google’s free keyword planner tool for keyword research. Google has a suite of free tools that can empower your small business's website. You may sign up for Google Analytics to track your website's performance, and use Google Search Console for deeper insights into your site's search traffic and performance. These SEO tools are free resources, helping you to track your site's traffic, understand user behaviour, and craft an SEO strategy all without breaking the bank as a small business owner. Basic SEO Website Optimization The basics of website optimization for SEO are speed and mobile. The upsides of a fast-loading website not only improves user experience but also supports higher conversion rates. Secondly, most users browse on their phones. Your site must be mobile optimized to ensure it's user-friendly on any device. - Website Speed: Every second counts. Tools like Google's PageSpeed Insights can analyze the speed of your site. - Mobile Optimization: Check how your website performs on mobile devices to ensure a smooth user experience. You can use Google's free mobile friendly testing tools. Basic SEO Implementation The first step is aligning your blog posts, pages and content based on topics and keywords from keyword research. Then it's ensuring your website has SEO optimized content that is in-lign with the user query and is optimised including the relevant keywords. You can use Google analytics to track your progress from implemented changes. Google analytics can help you look at user experience, drop off points and retain interest. The objective of a successful SEO campaign is not just to increase traffic but to convert that traffic into loyal customers.

Some Common FAQ for SEO Tools for SME Owners in Singapore

The majority of small business owners in Singapore are not SEO trained and hence navigating the terrain of SEO tools and strategies for your small business in Singapore can be tricky. The top-rated SEO tools suitable for a small business website in Singapore? If you're on the lookout for the best tools to enhance your website's SEO, consider options that offer comprehensive features yet are user-friendly. I recommend All in One SEO Tool so that you can make manual edits to title tags and meta descriptions. I'll then recommend keywords.com as a basic free rank tracker. How can a newcomer to SEO effectively optimize a small business website? SEO may seem confusing at first, but starting with the basics help structure it out. Educate yourself on basic keyword research, on-page optimization, copywriting for quality content creation. Can you recommend strategies for local SEO improvement for a small business? Local SEO is like the neighbourhood bulletin board—it's your way to visibility in the local scene. Local SEO can be optimized by making sure your business is listed on online directories, encourage reviews from your customers, and ensure NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) consistency across the web. Is it possible to find professional-grade SEO tools that are free of charge? There are many professional grade SEO tools offer free or trial versions with essential features. If you're looking at link building and deeper competitor research. Then, I highly recommend Ahrefs, SEMRush and Mangool Tools. Using premium SEO tools can make your life easier by automating tasks and providing valuable insights. If you are not looking to invest in these tools, then consulting an SEO specialist in Singapore can help you. Does Google offer any SEO tools that small business website owners can use for free? Google has suite of free tools that can empower your small business's website. Google Keyword Planner, Google Analytics and Google Search Console are your go-to resources.

Importance of Local SEO

Local SEO Insights When vying for visibility in Singapore's bustling online market, local SEO is a game changer for your small business. Simply put, it's about being seen by your target audience in Singapore. You can get listed on Google maps pack for FREE.

Summary

If you're a local business owner looking to implement basic SEO. Here are the steps you can take today to fine-tune your online presence, making you irresistible to local customers and to Google itself. - Keyword Research Tools: Your first tool is keen insight into what your local customers are typing into their search bars. You want a tool that can slice and dice through search data to give you high—volume, locally relevant keywords. - Competitive Analysis Tools: It's a social media jungle out there, especially in a competitive place like Singapore. Keep a close eye on your competitors: what are they ranking for, and how can you outdo them? Tools that offer insights into their strengths can help you build your unique edge. - On-Page Optimization Tools: You're are not just juggling keywords and backlinks in SEO. Nailing local SEO means getting your on-page elements just right. From meta tags to headers and local schema markup, the tools mentioned in this article can audit your pages and suggest improvements tailored to the Singapore market. - Local Listing Managers: Your business needs to be listed consistently across numerous online directories to send trust signals to search engines. These tools help manage your listings and ensure they're accurate and up-to-date. These tools can contribute significantly to SEO efforts as a beginner, steering your business towards better visibility and connections with local customers. If you are weighing up the costs, SEO packages tailored to Singapore can provide clear guidelines on what you might expect to invest. Read the full article