How to Increase Website Traffic Organically

Episode 1005: How to Increase Website Traffic Organically, with Ken Knorr

How to increase website traffic organically—Discover effective strategies to boost your website exposure. Learn how to increase website traffic organically.

How to increase website traffic organically? Ken Knorr is the Founder and CEO of the leading white label marketing company: That! Company, and he is involved in numerous community organizations and is the host of The Daily Drive Show.

A serial entrepreneur, Ken has been in digital marketing since the rise of Google, and he’s been able to pivot several times to react to changes in the marketplace. In terms of collaboration, Ken believes that when you bring people from different backgrounds together, you find out that one plus one equals three or more. His message — particularly the fascinating “Exercise of the Sevens” — is vital for entrepreneurs, leaders in any industry and anyone looking to build their legacy.

What you’ll learn in this episode is about how to increase website traffic organically: 

• How Ken got involved in digital marketing, and how the infamous Superbowl “wardrobe malfunction” taught Ken how to increase website traffic organically and master SEO
• How the business name “That! Company” came to be, and how a series of happy accidents landed Ken’s business the memorable domain URL www.thatcompany.com
• What has stayed the same in SEO, what has changed, and how you can utilize these concepts to increase your website traffic organically in ways competitors aren’t exploiting
• Why you should look at your metrics and user behavior as a crucial and invaluable resource, and why many too many SEO companies don’t use or even look at this data
• Why Google rewards content that is helpful, generous, and applicable to your audience, and how the algorithm is set up to punish attempts to “game the system”
• How the changing privacy landscape is impacting SEO and data collection as new regulations are created, and why having specialists on your side is vital
• Why user data tools are beginning to go away due to privacy changes, and what that means for paid advertising
• Why That! Company has a complex relationship with the big platforms (Google, Facebook) due to their commitment to putting clients first
• How building a stronger brand reputation starts with doing a search for your brand and understanding the landscape
• Why you need to solicit reviews from your customers to help control your online reputation, and why responding to reviews (especially negative ones) correctly matters
• How Ken’s powerful “Exercise of the Sevens” can help you truly understand your priorities and make the most of your time

Resources:

• Learn more about how to increase website traffic organically, and you can find Ken here.
• Elevate your strategies on how to increase website traffic organically by tuning in to this episode
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kknorr/
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/that-company/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/thatcompanycom
• Twitter: @kenknorr
• Twitter: @ThatCompanycom

Additional Resources:

• Free Executive Leadership Summary report from Predictive ROI: https://predictiveroi.com/research
• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/

 

 

How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Full Episode Transcript

 

Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner. 

 

Good morning, Onward Nation. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI, and your host. Okay, this is one of those episodes that you are going to want to buckle in because, holy bananas, the conversation we’re about to have with Ken Knorr, founder and CEO of that company, is going to be super helpful. And in my opinion, helpful, and a lot of ways, but I’m going to break it down into three big categories. First, I’m having conversations with agency owners, business coaches, and strategic consultants. I often hear things like Stephen, we just need more traffic. If we had more traffic, if we had more at-bats, more opportunities, we’d be able to increase sales. 

 

Now this, of course not that simple, it’s a little bit more of a complicated calculus than just that, but increasing organic traffic to your website, which will help you grow your audience is a wonderful place to start. So Ken and I are going to talk through some of the mistakes. He sees business owners making with respect to increasing organic traffic, and he’ll share some steps that you can take and apply in order to fix some of those. Second, the paid media social media world is kind of in a frenzy right now and it’s not just over Facebook, changing its data collection, and Apple changing its thing. And you know, you can just point out to me and the greenroom, Hey, Stephen, it’s not just those too it’s also Google as well. 

 

And so how are all of that impact paid ads going forward? Well, Ken and his team have a depth of expertise in paid media. So you’ll hear us talk through that and how it will impact you and your team if buying traffic through paid social or PPC, if that’s of your channels, you’re going to want to pay attention to this and the recommendations and insights that can is going to share in third last, but certainly not least can. And I am also going to talk through the value of online reputation and yes, some of that might seem obvious, right? Of course the business should be concerned about their reputation, but it has been my experience that very few business owners are intentional about building a positive online reputation until there’s a problem. 

 

You know, someone posted negative reviews and we posted about blog posts, a video that’s not super complimentary, then reputation becomes a priority. So Ken and I are going to talk through some strategies that you can put into place right now to ensure that you’re consistently strengthening your online reputation instead of needing to be in full-on react or crisis mode when something happens. Okay. I should also say when I said that Ken, as the CEO and founder of that company earlier, yeah. His company name has actually that company and you will hear him explain why and just a minute. So, without further ado, welcome to Onward Nation. 

 

And thanks for having me, Stephen, how are you today? 

 

Well, I am great. And I thank you. and I’m super excited, ah, as you can tell is like, give me the, of the introduction. I’ve just super excited about the conversation because I know that it’s going to be super, super helpful for our audience. So before we dive in though, or take us behind the curtain and give us a little bit more insight into your path and journey, and then of course just tell us the strategy behind that company that was an accident. And that’s the truth is well, good morning, Onward Nation, glad to be here. And so the journey I was born, no, we don’t want to know that I was in in a previous life. I’ve always been an entrepreneur and I am a serial entrepreneur sometimes and parallel entrepreneur cereals. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Ken Knorr’s Introduction

 

And you have to work a little bit better for me when, at a time we were just trying to did too much at once, but I took a break and when, and the corporate for about 10 years, and it was a really, really good experience for me. So I, I joined a and an it background and the systems engineer by trade and training. And I was in the corporate world when Google was born, how is the director of information technology or a regional retirement community developer in Florida? So retirement communities, Florida, it’s kind of a cliche, but the street and I worked for, it was small builder, actually the end develop or when I started it with them that were built in and out 50 homes a year. 

 

And the owner looked at me and said, we got to figure out this Google just born. And I don’t know, what do we need an old people or retirees well, and that’s where your wrong our customer are there or they’re white color or getting ready to by three to 500,000 on at home, they’re gonna retire in Florida and there up north right now and the rust belt and their making decisions by the thing that we’re looking out on, that the theater is where they’re gonna visit. And they’re gonna think about where they’re gonna retire and they’re gonna do that. Well the whole building business and we tried and the community development business I know of computers. So I looked at the challenge of Google and search engine optimization as a mathematical systems problem. 

 

And so I began to try to reverse engineer the journey that got into digital marketing and candidly. So in, in 2001, you may recall a wardrobe malfunction and it was, is the super bowl. What do you remember that? And so Sunday and a group of colleagues working on this hole figured out this Google thing since the late 1999, instead of they’re all of the 2000 and then early 2000 won the super bowl happens and we think we’d got it. And I picked up the phone that signed the evening and I called with the friends of mine. I said, I think that we got it. 

 

Let’s see. And we got a moment here to prove something. On Monday morning, my personal website, or.com ranked as number one, what do you search for Janet Jackson’s breasts? I rang their report for the civil war time show and I had nothing inappropriate on my website. How do you have that right now? But I took, so I took that the ranking is literally overnight and won that Monday, midday I S B. And it was hosted on my website, a little company and Hartmann and no-call sun dial internet services. And as the name of Mike, a hint at it, they were actually selling the dial up internet is this is how can we go back to, and they call me and we said, we had to shut you down at the shut, this website office of why you so much traffic or telling us we have, and the team one language is a Meg and a half of those and we we’re burying them. 

 

And I’m like, okay, I got it. But we knew we had figured it out. And so what I learned kind of all of my personal time, brought it back into the company and that took the number one spot for Florida retirement news. And I took this a little as 50 homes a year or builder to were. We were selling a thousand times a year. Yeah. From 2001 that we went now that the housing bubble was starting. There is there’s a part, the economy here, but the fact is we can prove that seventy-five percent of the wholes. We stole our first contact with, through the internet and took the number one slot where the time and communities, and is it dynamically changed that business? 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: From Home Building to PPC Management

 

We are building 50 homes a year and a thousand bucks a year over the course of the next four years. I graduated up inside that organization from the director of information technology that was super star and obviously ’cause of what I was doing to their marketing side, but I graduated or the ultimate vice president of operations and the, yeah, I was home building and I was responsible for everything within that organization or land development to warranty, to instruction. We would customs the custom home builder with the art designed department or all of those areas report it to me and everything except with the sales department or the salespeople themselves and our accounting department. 

 

And in that journey and that growth of being with that company, I learned a lot and I was an entrepreneur before, but then I got this incredible lesson of watching the company and exploded and working with them, digressed the soul and the incredible man. And I sat at his knee through all of this John Pringle, who was the CEO and hire that out. and I learned so much about API and measurements and how to measure the success of our business and looking at every factor of our business. And that was the journey. And 2007, I decided to start a company called built. 

 

This is the bad marketer in me. It was a bad name and nobody can pronounce it that spell it. I really want you to call it, build the intelligence, but this was also me not having a great, or I decided to start a company called boats houses, flip solutions. and my idea was that I would take this knowledge that I gained and I were taking it, the home that there’s all over the United States. And I would, I would do this and help home builders grow. And I’ve made quite a name of the whole building industry and the international association of homebuilders, like the speaking events and all kinds of stuff. And anyway, so I launched this thing and unbeknownst to me, and I launched that and May of 2007 and 2008 the industry crashed and burned. 

 

And I have left a quarter million dollar salary job with bonuses and started off on this entrepreneurial journey. Again, I just stopped being and entrepreneur and I chose the wrong industry, but it did, and I didn’t choose the wrong. And she has just learned about that. And we pivoted, we became agnostic and we did and digital marketing, we were all, so we started selling retail. The first thing that you went out was Pay Per Click and we’re putting as management and the data. So we are PPC management.com. I don’t really do that that much anymore, today, as far as selling direct, but we had the number one spot. It said, what up my pay-per-click management and PPC management? 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: The Story of a Rebrand

 

I hope that the number one spot for that, and I had with the number one spot for SEO company for close to the decade, while we sold retail, while we were selling retail, though, I merged and acquired a small PR and advertising agency to bring in some knowledge about that and your organization at 2008, they told me that our name was terrible. You know, that they’ll tell just, was just not very good brand and not very memorable difficult. And this is the accident here is the accident. And I’m going to show you the slow-motion version of that. So, I’m an SEO guy. I love S you know, and I know that we were both considered and back in those days, it’s changed. 

 

Example of how to increase website traffic organically:

But back in those days, the domain name was really, really important to you, right? Like if you have the search word domain, ah, that was very, very helpful. And so we had just acquired this advertising and of course the best of the best domaining with how that would be advertising agencies.com. I wanted to take as the top spot for advertising, but that’s not available. Well, I also happened to know that Google ignores what we call white words, and so I said, wonder if that advertising, you can see that. So I’d rather that an advertising agency, and then somebody on my teams that do you know what we really need it. 

 

We can become companies. And I said that’s what really needed ideas. So we went and looked for that copy that it wasn’t available. And, in Texas had it and nothing on the website. And so we contacted the guy in tech. So we want you to buy your domain name. And he says, I cannot remember my password in my domain registrar, or now I can even get to it, what I like, okay, you can do master or recovery, but he is doing nothing. So we literally watched for it. And we were so lucky at the time talking about timing and everything else. So lucky, it was literally a month away from expiring. So we watched it. And the second that expired, we stashed it and took. And so we got to the domain name and that company, and we rebranded, and we still built out solutions, LLC, but we’re DBA that company. 

 

And we changed all of our brand names and moved into that company. We’d been that we ever sensed. It was all because of the SEO play, but it has been so perfect because the brand is so memorable. Nobody forgets that company. In fact, I have conversations with their speeches and stuff. You know, you’ll never forget when you say we remember that company that you are taught me or not. If you’re at account that you were saying that that company knows this money, and then we played with a sense. So just to give you a complete and utter understanding of how deeply this game goes, that company is actually owned by wait for it. This company owns that company. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: How a Rebrand Changed Everything

 

And I’m not making that up. I feel as an Abbott and Costello skin is beautiful and is open and other, we’ll be the other, so I’ll have this, that, and the other. So we’re ready. But anyways, so, and that is that we have the Gavin with the seller who’s on first conversations all the time and sales, all the companies and stand with that company. What got me that is that. And then we pivoted that was another pivot in 2015, in 2008, we got our one-year and this is our very first label opportunity. We were doing pay-per-click management, and that was our flagship of PPC or all kinds companies all over it. 

 

How to increase website traffic organically? A big SEO firm out of New York City contacted with us and said, Hey, we’d really like to do Pay Per Click, but we don’t do, what would you want to do pamphlet for us and the center? And we built a very custom agreement for them. And that became the model for how we were going to do light label years later didn’t know what it at the time, but they needed sale support. They need us to talk to the customers and be able to help them sell pay-per-click. They needed us to interact directly face-to-face with their customers on, and that face-to-face in there business, but the video calls on the phone and stuff like that. And then we built out this entire arrangement of how we would provide what legal services for them. 

 

They ended up ultimately bringing us about 70 clients, but that was very, very helpful and growing our business. Ah, but we were still mostly in retail, in 2015. You decided to put that completely. And the white label where we do work with agencies and we don’t go out and do, we don’t want retail anymore. We just threw our partner and our channel partner. And now the brand is that’s even better ’cause with that company in that company, in that and that company. And so on the brand, even Pitts, or even better than it, that it did, that we had no idea was complete accident, that he became that company. It was an SEO for that advertisement that ultimately, so there you go. Happy? 

 

What is that painter, the guy that earlier, or no cool story and super relevant to you with some cool lessons inside of it? So, let’s take that piece. When you talked about how this was an SEO play. Yeah. So would really love to get your perspective here on two things, as it relates to search one, what are some of the most common mistakes you see owners making and then we’ll get into some of the fixes. I realized there’s no silver bullet here. There’s no like quick fix. If you just flip that switch, then everything else is better. I get all of that, but that takes work. So we’re not looking for the silver bullet or the magic Dominick, what or some of the biggest mistakes you see people making as a race relates to organic? 

 

And so this one’s going to be less obvious, but it is the mistake. And I don’t think that and it’s, and it’s because of the evolution of the search. And as you, as I explain to you, I reverse-engineered. That was my goal. I’m still involved in our organization and the search side of the organization, SEO side of the organization. I still find it a passion and very interesting how Google works. And one of the pieces, I think that business owners I’m missing a and maybe working with at and SEO for, and that SEO for, and if your SEO firms got doing what I’m about to tell you then and there or missing. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: The Evolution of Search Results

 

How to increase website traffic organically? So Google has very, very much moved towards let’s call it crowdsourcing. Okay. Search results are now crowd-sourced, which is very layman’s wait for you to describe it, so that we all understand constables. And then we go out crowdfunding and we get a lot of people through a technology that actually started back in 2015 called RankBrain Google. Now look at the behaviors of searchers far more than they did before. See, and all you used to be about what was on the page. I’m not saying that its not about that. Now the contents on the patient’s structure, that content on the page or the links that we’re coming to the website and where they’re coming from and all the Jews and all that stuff is still and that’s still playing. 

 

But now we’re seeing this RankBrain or the impact on user behavior that has so much to do with a search result. So let me just paint it for a very simplistic way. Let’s say Google ranks your site. It gives it a shot and they’ll give you a top of the top 10 position. And then we have a particular page that you wrote the book or keyword or whatever who puts in position number box and visitor’s come to that search. We scroll down, they’ve done the search and they can do that search result. So I’m just going to take you through an idea, a moment of what a single visitor or my eye, and then imagine that multiplied by a thousand or 100 thousand and then thinking about what Google has that data. 

 

And that makes sense. And now it will all come clear. So I do a search for you to do a search from this term up comes out you used to be 10 position’s now can be as little as seven ads around it, but 10 will just say the time positions we skipped the ass we put down and we click on the first result and we, we looked at it for a minute or two and then we go out exactly what we hit the back and back to the search. We read a search result number to, but we didn’t like it is headline or whatever. And underneath, which is actually the name of the description. We didn’t like that. We get out in the search results, and we go in and look at it, and then we go into another page, and then we back out, and we come back to the search results, and we work our way down, and we click on number five. 

 

Imagine now that this is repeated over and over and over again. And people are clicking on number five, but when they go into number five, they clicked on your search result. We put the number of five and they into page and then they click on another page and then they click on another page, and they disappear into this site. And then we’ll come back with the search results. What are you saying? You think that is relevant and what we know what I just described here. They’re going into website and then your measurements of the KPI and or website to get the balance rate, who is what we call out. But more importantly, where we go to that when we come in, there is another term and SEO space. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Understanding User Behavior in SEO

 

How to increase website traffic organically? We go out into the search results or you can bounce out of that surgery and they go down to the next one. And we bounce out of that, sort of, that is a phenomenon now termed as Pogo stick. So we’re bouncing or Pogo sticking out a way along what most SEO firm are failing to get. And what most business owners today are willing to do is to look at user behavior because SEO didn’t give a crap about user behavior. By five years, 10 years, we didn’t care. We cared about what website was that we got your game ranking, but the winning was organic, right? And you just no longer enough because Google, if we Pogo stick that top spot, we pull the stuff that the top. 

 

So by over and over and over again, Google begins to go. Search is not looking for that. The content is not good enough. The searcher is not interested in that. Let’s get number two is shine. Let’s move them around what we call. And I’d like to call, click and SEO, which means I can’t just put in the page and I have to win the game. I have to get them to go further and my website, or you have to get them to interact with my website. I have to get them to stay all of those things that we talked about in general marketing website, marketing now in that user retention time. How long, the time on site, in-depth insight, whether or not they click in and go further into the website and bounce rates. 

 

How to increase website traffic organically? Those all matter. And the matter a lot to the SEO and most people had no clue. There is still focused on what’s on the page where you got to make sure that Google understand some content will properly rank based on the keyword, keyword who, so that title tag on the SEO one oh one of the stuff we all kind of generally we don’t have to get hung up on that. As we used to that, that’s not as important as as this user behavior. If you have a result that the users, then Google will find, figure that out, we’ll watch that user and you will move up in the search results you have is often we know that we looked at it and we don’t, we didn’t have anything to do with us doing that SEO and I have to do with it. 

 

The fact that you just don’t like the content and Google is figure that stuff out is also another reason. So I can show you can do this on your own. Your listeners can do this on their own it. We talked about search intent and that’s another thing. So let’s talk about search intent for a minute. Give me two examples of searches you can do that will show clear differentiation in search intent and how Google now understands search intent and presents results that match the intent of the searcher. So here’s the first surgery first search. I’ll give you just search for Air Jordan site and look at it. And now I’ll take a minute and go and look at all the different results. 

 

Look at the first five results, not, not the answer or the actual results or flip from the organic results and look out and you’re gonna see a commonality in those search results. What is the commonality? Air Jordan size 10. You are going to get that out. What we call it a grid result, meaning the pages themselves are e-commerce basis. And by re there’ll be a bit of a grit or a list you will get back on it. And we need Congress site, the grit of four shoes across the us, or choose down. Or you might have a list of shoes that are there, but this search intent of Air Jordan size 10 is a buying signal. And that is somebody who’s looking to purchase the product. And so Google will respond back with e-commerce sites. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Matching Content to User Queries for Better SEO Results

 

They didn’t respond back with an article about Air Jordans that could have, but they did do a search for the history of Air Jordans. Air Jordan’s history in you will get back to a completely different type of search results. Now you will get back articles and informational resources. Why? Because Google has figured out that that search intent is you are looking for information. You are not looking to make the purchase. And so when you are working on a keyword and you’re thinking I want to rank for a keyword, you certainly, or to go look out the results that are currently there and make sure that the type of content that you are going to present to Google matches the search intent. 

 

So, and if you wanna see a mixed, what I’ll show you, that I can give you an example, a very mixed results. And I have a claim that on the date that the iPhone 12 was released on my page won and I was number one and those are my other monster keywords we’re talking about. So I own 12 is a great example of a search that was mixed results. and it was changing result prior to Apple announcing you the iPhone as well. It wasn’t a real product. So all of the search results that you would get pre launch or informational results. And there were all cloud roomers and projections of when they’re almost gonna release all these things. 

 

So what the specs might be and everything out on the day after I released the results changed dramatically and what you will see there, and now is very much of what we call that mixed results. So you’re gonna find some national results, they’re OSA national and these or results that are not a local company or national companies. And you will find some information or results. You will find it a mix of the age of, of, of results that are, we call a purchase sentence or transactional results or the appliances e-commerce site. And they’re not really converse sites, but they are selling the pipelines as well as you’re going to find the big carriers now T-Mobile and Sprint. 

 

And then you will also, and backed by the map pack. And most of the time, which is going to show you three local stores at what you can go by that is not what the search results look like. And if you were to go do a search data for iPhone 13, which is the phone to come and is not yet, you will see informational intent results and you will not see e-commerce results. And we won’t see you on that as a result, that’s a really extreme example because they’re not the sale. You get the idea that search intent matters. You need to understand the search intent. You need to make sure that your content, that we are developing matches them, and don’t pursue a keyword that you don’t have the search intent of a fill. So if you are trying to pursue a keyword, that is e-commerce or my keyword don’t bother if you’re trying to, if you’re a local company or maybe, or a local company, and I, you know what I’m telling you, you’re talking and the agencies, they are mobile companies and a lot of cases as they walked in their, their region, they are national agencies, some of the more, but if we’re looking for a local result, make sure that the keyword that you’re pursuing actually has a map pack in that otherwise you’re going after a national search results and the competition and levels or different that how you attack those is different. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: The Key to SEO Success

 

But the key big takeaway Stephen is to look at your metrics, your user behavior, and most SEO companies have not even moved into even monitoring. We’ve been so trained that it doesn’t matter what matters more and more and more, well, let me see if I can some of the sub. Yeah. And if so, if were paying attention to winning, uhh, or not just winning the page, like what you’re talking about the actual rank, but, but if we win the interaction, if we truly actually win the interaction really solving for the behavior that you mentioned, if we truly win the interaction, then that we’ve solved, or at least made progress on Pogo, sticking out and search intent, right? 

 

Because you can’t win the interaction or you can’t win the Pogo sticking, or the search intent, if you haven’t really tried to solve the calculus for the interaction. Right. True. True. There is a little bit of right. So what do you do first that if you don’t have the content that you got to do, you’re one-on-one, which means you at the right content that Google recognized. Sure. There, that keyword belongs there. We got to do all those things, making sure that all of that, but once we have the position is ours to lose and it’s always a loose by how you interact with them, and by the way we think about that, I am at Google is pandering to the user. 

 

They want the users that have never forgotten the word with you that never forgotten it. And the artifacts. So that still is, if you do a search on Google, it’ll still show you that X number of seconds to that search. And you know, that is left over from battle with Yahoo with the days we’re that you can do the search and it was good, but it’s how you respond. And Google is the main answer and say, look how the faster results and that is still there. So they’ve never done that other search engines or different. And yet we’ll see you unkillable that they are true, better mousetrap that came along and the people were driving and they know that. 

 

So people are always making sure that they are answering the user’s need, which is a good search result, right? They need to provide relevant searches. And that’s a good transition as we talked about, what’s going into paid and user behavior and use or tracking and all that stuff that we are going to get just a minute on the application and search as well. And let’s make sure that we don’t run out at a time cause I want to be cognizant of your schedule. So let’s go ahead and make that transition. The last point that I wanna leave with Onward Nation about this is Ken just, or just put a fine point on this can just reinforce how important it is to always be helpful to your audience to always create content. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Navigating the Changing Landscape

 

That’s not trying to gain the system or whatever, or Google wants you to be helpful to your audience. And you do that in a super deep way. Be generous, teach, share, or give the best of what you got. And if you do that, your audience will reward you with the right interaction. And then Google is going to reward you too, because they see that you’re actually creating content. What is helpful, what users want. Yeah. And the users don’t want it. Is it there doesn’t want it there either. Absolutely. So, but that really one last thing we’ll talk about business coaches. And I know this is part of the audience. We all know the importance of KPI speaking. You are not regularly looking at your analytics and you use or behavior. Then you’re not even looking at the measurements to tell you can create really useful context and you think it is really useful, but you used to think is, go look at your KPIs, look at the time on site, to look at the data. 

 

And don’t use your head to think that you are better than your users. And now your users, what the answer of whether or not, or whether or not your content is good by how they live. Because sometimes we, as owners, we get wrapped up in our own bias and the KPIs do not lie. My friend that you do not. Okay. So take us into the world of privacy and data collection and how that’s changing the landscape of paid as it relates to people and our audience owner’s and our audience who may be paid traffic is the biggest slice of their, of their traffic mix. So what is, yeah, so the short answer on that, and don’t know that I’m going to get a super helpful as what you need to do going forward. 

 

Then the cop put that right on the table right now, because it’s it is a changing dynamic is changing marketplaces fluid, we saw an overreaction or I’ll call it that and overreaction in Europe where the GDPR, that was kind of where we saw the beginning of this privacy thing. There’s a lot of — look, I don’t like that Google can watch. And candidly listened. Although I’d like what it gives me. Okay. I like the benefit. And I get from sharing that personal information because I get very relevant things back that matter to me. 

 

But I think that, and an understanding, and truly at a real deep level, each of us understood just how much information there is and how they’re combining information. And from alternative sources of it is very brightening that I, that companies have this much data about us and our behavior. But being in the marketing business, I also understand their motivation, their motivation to collect this information quite candidly is to, to make money and to make money by being able to slice and dice and sell advertising, which is their chief source of revenue. And we look at Google, if we look at Facebook, I remember that Facebook and their chief source of revenue is to sell ads. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: The Importance of Specialists

 

And yet the general public as beginning to be more afraid of this data collection. And I get it. And I understand that. And so we, we would hope that the industry, what is self regulate, I got a chance on my own podcast and Inc is actually interviewed the guy that invented the pixel, which was the tracking methodology. And it was that was a really amazing therapy. And to understand that, but that has evolved so much that we become used to as marketers to have those tools, or the thing that I will, that I will say is this is fluid situation. 

 

and as things are gonna change is that you are going to, in short, you need to have specialists on your side. I hate to say it that way, but if they’re gonna do data there and it’s been kind of this way, and it’s been definitely developing this way for a number of years, Google and Facebook, and make it very, very easy to waste money, and you can spend a lotta money. They’re not that there is. And I meant that I saw personally, personally, and I am not the specialist it’s, it’s taught. And so intensely deep that I can’t, I can’t keep up with that. 

 

I manage what I started our company 2007. I managed our very first paper and McLellan, and I managed the one with SEO clients, or I could not touch a bit of a quick line today. And Pay Per Click, I mean, and I group that all together, that’s all paid advertising online, whether that be a social media paid or, or whether that be search or display video or all of the place where you might pay or a click, a taste, a level of specialists, including if we wanna talk about Amazon seller central and James data advertising you, all of this is a very specialized team, and you do need an expert. That’s gonna kinda guy and through that and understanding how to work with the proper audience selection. 

 

So we’re going to back off now and not be able to watch user behavior and tracking as much. And without it being wrapped inside of a nice anonymous kind of thing, Google is getting ready to take away the cookie, which means that we won’t be able to use that for tracking of our own. And I say Google controls Chrome. And as such a large market, share that if they make that available to us, then Google will take that away. What that means is that Google’ll have all the information themselves with just a really is true. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Navigating Changes and Specialization

 

And so they will have the information that we will have to use their tools to understand how to market utilizing your information. So they’re slowly moving towards audiences. And we talked about, I know you want to talk about that, but it’s very similar in these and I, that I can speak to the people just a little bit more, but I can tell you this, when you go into Google today, Google ads, and you go in, look at what’s happening, and then it we’ll give you recommendations. You needed to do this and be more efficient. You needed to do this and more, you do this, and they are guiding you into that. And all of the recommendations are in your best interest, you don’t remember Google is there and make money. See you kind of how the recommendations, our, the old adage of boxes garden. 

 

And you have that. You don’t have to have some specialist on the side that and understand it, and they get it. And its a deep specialization. We used to be generalist guys that would do all of this pay-per-click social media or search engine optimization. It can not anymore. That takes a lot of specializations and we’re losing those tool. We’re losing some, some visibility into that. Or again, is it on one side of the argument as a consumer saying, I don’t want you to be able to see, right. And then, then the other site is the marketer who is trying to effectively spend or how are clients the advertising dollars? So we don’t waste money or places. 

 

We don’t need it. That information helps us people, people hate it. And history lesson here, you look like you’re in a similar generation with me. But I remember when my boss, my mailbox, what was filled with junk mail today, junk mail has just not used to as much why junk mail was the spray and pray right. Mail everybody. And I’ll put my ad in front of everybody and hopefully, and in that race, I’m giving that target. Yeah. Well the user tracking for us has given us the ability to hit the target without getting collateral damage. I’m not advertising grave sites to a 20 year old, right? 

 

That’s an extreme example, right? And I’m not advertising well. And those who have been on the internet and long enough to know that Cialis ads were everywhere. We don’t have to do that anymore. We could target that. You have a very specific demographic and back that we can watch it. And just knowing that they came here, they went there and then went there like you can predict that, that it is a sixteen-year-old pregnant girl because of their buying habits on what she is targeted to that. Or the number of years you haven’t looked into that audience. I looked at that target of predicts, pregnant teenager, look at the sprint store. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Advertising in Transition

 

And it’s through that. They figured out that watch the user behavior of these vitamins and the pre-K chance she’s pregnant, how the short stories is bothered, Keenen. And so at Target started yelling and my manager and why are you said that her ass or Cribbs and all that stuff. This is ridiculous. You, my daughter, couple of weeks later come back, very apologetic. I’m really sorry to just be something going on. And we didn’t know she’s pregnant, that she was pregnant. What we can do with userbase. We, we had those tools that the, and they’re going away. So what does that mean? It means pay is going to become less effective, or we are going to become more reliant on the big guys to kind of hiding that information from us to manage our advertising for us and when Google and Facebook or, or the box. 

 

And you don’t have the guy that that’s all he does everyday, which you would, you go to you’re, you’re GP for brain surgery. And now that you want us specialist on your side of you need somebody that that’s what they’d live, breathe and eat all day long. I, and I know that’s fantastic answer that exactly what it is. It is. Yeah. It is a great answer because so onward nation, you’ve heard us talk before. And how important is it is, so let’s think about this from two perspectives, how important it is Onward Nation for you to plant your own flag of authority for you to claim a niche and be seen as the expert in that space, not a generalist as Ken just talked about. 

 

So thinking about what can just share with you through the lens of your own business, this is why it’s so important for you to plant your flag, to of authority, to be seen as the expert, the specialist’s the premium price provider of all of the results that your audience is looking for. So that’s one piece. The second piece is Ken. I think you’ve done a great job of talking about how the fact that if you were investing in Facebook, Google, they make it really easy for you to waste money. So if you’re going to hire somebody, make sure that he or she as a specialist and can then demonstrate their expertise through the KPI’s the matter for that business. Right? Absolutely. 

 

So just throw this out at you. And this is a challenge we have today, and I’ll, I’ll talk about people or more specifically here, we do Google ads management, and I told you in the interface, it says, do this to be more efficient to this and the more efficient, et cetera, et cetera, we will have clients that’ll come in because they can have access and I’ll look at it and I go, well, you haven’t done this. You haven’t done that. And my guys, or we don’t want you to do that list. You need to listen to us and understand that we are intentionally ignoring that you ended up though with clients. And I don’t understand, they’ll read the press of little question. Mark is fine and Google and very layman’s terms. Explain why the sounds so wonderful, but we know that when we trust that dial, we just gave Google the money. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Proactive Strategies for Business Success

 

We didn’t need to give them right. And so we also needs not only work with the extra as well, since you’re experts, sometimes we are going to disagree with them. And when they say, well, you don’t work for Google. You don’t work for you. We worked for you. Or I have a logo or a that we, that we did internally or everywhere that we brought shirt’s and months we can’t put it out there and said, Google logo with the screwdriver in. And just that stringed, Google sense of seven. That’s our, our internal thing. Our internal thing is we are here to work out clients and we’re not here for Google. We’re not here for Facebook. When I hear, yes, we make them a lot of money, but no, our clients come first, which means that we have to actually work against. 

 

And with at the same time, the bigs, the big platforms, Google is preferential treatment, or it does that better click-through rate and the council and make them or money. So we have to show them and show Google that this has a profitable count for you. At the same time, you got to cut the crap out of it so that our client gets the best results at hand. That makes any sense, but it makes total sense of. We are playing with both sides of the house here with setting the note. Okay. So when we think about online reputation assigned from the obvious of sure, of course, I want to have a positive online reputation in, in your words though, define online reputation. Yeah. And then let’s talk about some ways to boost that proactively strengthened pro-actively instead of holy bananas, there is a crisis. 

 

Okay. So first and first and foremost, you’ve given me an understanding of your audience for you business coaches and agencies. And so first and foremost, just search for your brands and just do the search rebrand start their let’s just to understand the landscape, is that what your customer is gonna do? And that’s what your reputation ladders with that. And I wasn’t at the front page, or do you control that? Or is it yours, or is it somebody else’s that you need to, that needs to be part of your SEO tactics to take over your brands? Do is do a search for you, your name, is that yours, or is it somebody else, or do you happen to, and lucky? And one of the degrees that maybe that famous person shares your name and you’ll never come up, or you don’t have the protect that brand as much as if you have the same search game is and NFL star, and maybe they’re gonna dominate search results. 

 

And you’re not going to hear that, but if you are name is coming up and it’s mixed with a bunch of other common people understand that any complaint written on line and is going to appear in my search results. And that’s where your customers can go to check or a rotation for search is that’s where they start. It’d be thinking about doing business, be on the search and company name, or I might even search and the word, the word reviews. I might’ve been the other word on with that complaint. And you need to look at those search results. You need to know what’s there right now. So it’s really simple advice. And the simple advices, like you said, don’t wait until crisis to you should go look, you should decide how you are going to take a takeover to get over right now. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Strategies for Positive Brand Presence

 

And by the way, I constantly do this, or have you gone out and searched money and you will find that out? I dominate this search results for me. And there are other Ken Knorr in the world. That space and podcasting is one of the ways that I also show those get put out. And all of a sudden, I am wondering on the show, well, those are positive results. You cannot stop negative results. You can’t, you can’t, you can get good business and good things. And when your customer’s, I’m happy with you, if you get right, you can do all of that. But if somebody’s is going to complain in and you’ve done everything he can, and they’re like, we can’t stop them from hearing. 

 

What you can do is balance the results so that you have positive results out and you might have negative results. Or the other part is you’re not actively seeking reviews from your customers. Why you don’t need reviews. Nobody’s really looking at my own. Yeah. They are not looking at your use right now is you don’t have anything that you suddenly get. That one, that man, you don’t need to go out there and try to get as much of good. Why don’t you go and get the good ones now got happy. Customers, ask them for their reviews, make it a part of your, that your ongoing business operations and reviews, Google reviews, or great. If you’re at e-commerce, which I know most of your audience probably isn’t then making sure that you get reviews of products and things like that matter, but, and the case with most of the audience, or you’re just driving a good Google reviews, is it? 

 

So go into your Google, my business listing right out of the gate. They’ll you can, we can go in and you can create a short URL and it we’ll let you do that. And then copy that you were on a regular basis as customers. We just built it into your system. First of all, the people liked that in a regular cadence. Anyway, they don’t like to see bursts the reviews I’ve got 20 and then never got again, a regular case and you don’t need it. You just need to have a good one. So when the one negative one does show up, it doesn’t dominate, right? It doesn’t, it’s not out there as the one bathroom. You almost two other good reviews and they gave you the PIs and the sky, I give you a one and you can not do it. Go get regular reviews, or you’ve got happy customers to look at reviews or do that. 

 

Maybe the part or what you do and the other, the other piece of advice. So we get there is that any time you do see something negative anywhere, your first read your, your first response is to try to take the conversation offline. And that’s what your clients do buy that. So like some of you guys, or, and this is catching your advice and the other businesses, and this is a very good piece of advice. And they get the negative habits. He talks when it comes with that. And they wanna go in, there is the owner reply to that review. And we want to say that Mr. So-and-so did this for you. And I did that for you. And then that person that likes back, and I just put, no, you stuck with this. You don’t wanna start the conversation there. That is not the police for that conversation. 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Navigating Negative Reviews with Grace

 

We wanna drive the response. Your response needs to show all of the other customers that the care that you care about your customers, did you care about quality that you care about a good experience and that you’re there to answer them. So or you get a negative review and you know, pulling out or the director. But Mr. So-and-so, I’m very sorry that you had a negative experience with our company. I’d like you to contact our manager at this phone number and we’re going to work hard to solve that for you or quality of our services is super important to us as a company and whatnot. What does that say to the other people? Reading reviews: Hey, there’s a bad review. Hey, they responded, they didn’t ignore it. 

 

What they said was good, that they have really, really, really talked about the quality of care services and the quality of the product or wherever. And they give ’em a customer service number for response or the call. And that they’re looking to having interaction with the things that don’t get it into the debate online and don’t defend yourself and the online team, the conversation offline. And the final thing is because we are as small businesses, don’t get stuck on prime. Let the customers or unhappy customers and make them be jerks. And you could be completely and absolutely legitimate illegitimate. Yeah. And that one review and today’s world not worth it solve it. 

 

It’s almost like settling at, of course you’re gonna eat it, eat it to what you gotta do is sell it down and don’t let it turn it into this thing because is not worth the longterm. What standing your ground on principal with one customer, cause they were wrong in your eyes. You know, it’d be worth it. You are going to have to the way that, and sometimes you need to just get in and say you know what, I’m just gonna make this customer happy and I can give him his money back. I can’t afford to do it and I’m gonna do it. And then we just need them to be happy and I need them to spread it. That was helpful. It was extremely helpful. Love how you got really I level with the response and the best way to answer and then move it offline. 

 

That was super helpful. A great conversation. I knew that this is going to be incredibly helpful for Onward Nation business owners. I am grateful for your generosity before we go, before we close out, I know we covered a lot, but any final advice you’d like to share anything you think we might’ve missed. And then please do tell our listeners the best way to connect with you. Okay. All right. I’m going to go a little long on you and where you want that you got more with a room for me because I guess not the void I gave you all of the house. Now I’m gonna give you so we’re not all entrepreneurs. And I wanted to share this with you. ’cause, it’s deeply personal and deeply meaningful. And we talk about all of the house. How did you, or what we do and how to be good at, and I’m sure you’re shown is on that, but I want to zoom in on the why, why don’t we do all this? 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Finding Purpose in Entrepreneurship

 

Why are we entrepreneurs? Why would we do all this? And I was an exercise and I went through a number of years ago. I actually repeat the exercise is worthy it’s time or the it’ll take five minutes of your time, but I can impact your life forever. And that, and it’ll help you understand the why. So I call it my seventh and this is Jenn. This is ten seventh. and this is what you do. So I want you to listen to it is to drive and Melissa as bypass. Do you not close your eyes all over the road or do it later, but take a moment. Close your eyes. Know what do you think about what you are? I want you to think about your life for a minute that I want you to say. If I had seven years to live, if I had seven years to live, what would I want to get accomplished? 

 

Then the next seven years, hu, what I wanna impact and who would I wanna be around and Nicole list. And then you have a list of things that we wanted that done and people that you wanna impact and all that you want to be out. And now after you completed that list, I, you don’t want you to, or to knock it down and you got seven months, we got seven months to live. What do you want to accomplish? Who do you want the around? Who do you want that knocked it down. And I got seven weeks. We don’t want, what do I want to accomplish in the next several weeks? What we want to accomplish? Who do I wanted to be around going? You got seven days, the seven hours and then seven minutes in that seven seconds. How does the list change? 

 

What’s on the list of seven minutes. That’s or maybe the other way to ask that is what’s on the list at seven years. That’s not almost et cetera. Are there things that I is very clarifying and you start going to the seventh about why you’re doing what you do. And the question you got to ask yourself, and you’re going with the exercises. Are, are you doing that now? If calling the moms on that list, why don’t you call your own dinner? Cause none of us have any idea of how much time you got left eye. We sit down with this interview, a meatier goodbye through the ceiling, and it can be crushed. Now you might doing the things that are at my sediment everyday or a lot because that’s what I’m doing this wine and entrepreneurs, why the most mind, but I do all of these things that not all or most of us or, and probably not fortunate enough to be completely independently wealthy, that we don’t have to do something for a living. 

 

And you have to actually spend our time every day investing into our lives, 82 or three forever and put on our families, the tables and whatnot. But everything outside of those hours of work is the concept of choice. And, we making those choices just with doing all of this for that. And the question I went through this exercise at the time, I was a big time online game. I was addicted to a game called the EverQuest, loved the game of the player at, or, or caught myself one day. Getting up from the restaurant was at dinner with my kids, my kids are 29, and 27th. And what are they when they were little kids, in elementary school? 

 

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How to Increase Website Traffic Organically: Last Bit of Advice and Connect with Ken

 

And I realized we were sitting at a at Denny’s when I got up, oh my gosh, we got to go to the online collection. I’m going to go raid this place. And that Donnelly, what are you doing? Why are you getting up and walking away from your real family to go and play it on? My game was the level of 40 Clare and really all my best. And when I went out on my list and I realized that the thing that I want to do for grandchildren, so that it really wasn’t on my list of, and the, if you do the seventh and you understand why I’m with you understand why your house, because the more you’re more motivated it into the house. So that’s the whole point is when you understand your, once you become even more motivated and more driven to be successful in what you do and you’ve worked harder to do with it. 

 

So, thanks for letting me share that with you and the last minute here. And so lead, that is the deep, another level of that has nothing to do with her and your business. Why are we on? I would disagree. I think it has everything to running your business and keeping it in perspective and making sure that you’re running your business for the right reasons. and maybe, and maybe some of our listeners, you hit them square between the eyes, maybe the running the wrong business, or the running the right business for the wrong reasons, or there’s a litany of things. So that was a great way to really powerful way to close out the conversation. Okay. So best way for Onward Nation to connect with you Ken is thatcompany.com, honestly, but we always run and hopper evergreens, or you could be listening that spoke to that company out slash five tests. 

 

And while we were in opera podcast listeners, I think of right now, there’s a joke on that, like the marketing as the new job by the market, and just go check out the, that, and if you want to put the online, and this is really weird thing, so I will accept a Facebook, unless that actually meant the in-person could shake your hands. I have the fiscal, the actual fiscal interaction. And it’s just how I divide my little light there, LinkedIn, you know? So I love that connection with any of your listeners. You ever do anything for anybody, loved the hell. 

 

Awesome. And Onward Nation, no matter how many notes you took or how often you go back and re-listen to Ken’s words of wisdom, which I sure hope is that you do the key is you have to take what he says, the generously shared with you. You take it, apply it, put it into your business be better for it, and accelerate your results. And Ken, we all have the same 86,400 seconds and a day. And I’m grateful for you sharing some of yours with hours or with us coming on to the show, being our mentor, being our guide to help us move our businesses onward to that next level. Thank you so much, my friend. 

 

That was awesome. I’m glad to be here. There you go. 

 

This episode is complete. So head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more foods that fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation. 

 

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