SEO On-Air: SEO Hacks For Small Businesses to Stay Atop of Big Boys

In this episode, we cover:

Today, we speak to Roman Prokopchuk, founder of Nova Zora Digital. He’s the host of the Digital Savage Experience Podcast, one of the Top 100 Podcasts in Apple Podcasts for “How-to.”

In this episode, Roman is going to speak about SEO hacks for small businesses.

Stay tuned for the next podcast episode, where our guest, Alan Bush, shares Google Knowledge graph hacks for small businesses with us.

Show Notes Explanation

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of SEO On-Air. Today we have a special guest, and I’m pretty sure you’ll love him. His name is Roman Prokopchuk. He started his career during the recession and has found his passion for digital marketing.

He has his own agency and worked with 600+ brands worldwide. He does lots of podcasts as well, and he is among the top 100 hosts on the Apple Podcast. I’m very honored to have him on this show.

Time Stamp: 01:21-03:40

Senthil: The current COVID situation is no different from the 2008 Great recession. I’m pretty sure people are thinking of cutting their marketing budgets because that’s what companies mostly do during this situation. Are there any tips that you’d like to share for startups to get the best out of this situation?

Roman: I think adjusting your content marketing strategy to tailor it towards the current user behavior will give you favorable results. As a lot of people are spending more time online during this lockdown, they are also consuming content differently. So don’t be afraid to utilize your internal team in this opportunity.

Your internal employees are experts in assessing what is best for you to do, so leverage those people in content creation. If your budget is being cut, you should set goals for your internal employees to produce a certain amount of content to add value.

A lot of companies are adjusting their content marketing strategies to give back things for free such as webinars or training to drive engagements so that people really look up to them when they are out of the current crisis.

Time Stamp: 03:43-7:25

Senthil: That’s a great idea. I don’t see a lot of companies tapping much into their resources when it comes to sharing content ideas. But since employees know your business better than anyone else, they can be utilized to generate wonderful content ideas.

I know content is essential, but when we see another part of it, i.e., SEO, link building is another critical part. When you write content for the web, it also needs to be discovered by people and rank better. Link building helps in accomplishing these goals, but how can small businesses do it better and more effectively?

Roman:  Well, link building has become more of a relationship building. By building relationships, you are also growing your authority. Combining tactics such as corporate podcasting, PR marketing, and branding can also help you in link building.

For corporate podcasting, you reach out to subject matter experts and interview them. Once you’ve interviewed, you can create a blog post surrounding the podcast and link back to the relevant landing pages. This post can be syndicated to several channels such as Spotify or Pandora  to get you qualified referral traffic

Time Stamp: 07:27-10:11

Senthil: Yeah, I think a podcast is a great source to produce different types of content. You can convert it into audio, video, infographic, or blog post. So, when entrepreneurs think about creating podcasts in a huge quantity, are there any automation tools to make the work easier?

Roman: Well, most of the time, it’s your host who recommends platforms for syndicating. There are many platforms that you can utilize for the same, or you can build an online streaming system from scratch, like a radio network.

If you have a virtual assistant, then a large component of that is to follow a process to do the outreach and building relationships.

Time Stamp: 10:14-12:05

Senthil: So, we’ve learned how to make content work during this time, and we’ve also learned about the relationship-building exercise. Now, coming to the main point, how to make conversions happen? Are there any hacks that can help businesses improve their conversion rate?

Roman:  Yeah, I think it comes into play for your content marketing tactics. You must focus on multiple intent-type, i.e., navigational, informational, and transactional. By doing that, you can get a wider reach.

Navigational keywords can be incorporated in saying what your brand does, and informational keywords can be incorporated into case studies and other supporting assets to support your claim. The transactional keywords can be incorporated into reviews and testimonials to develop a trust factor and a holistic view. This is required to give users everything they need to make sound purchase decisions.

Time Stamp: 12:08-14:04

Senthil: Yes, I think having testimonials is another way of relationship building. So, do you think podcasts by small businesses can also be used by top landing pages to show thought leadership? These small sites might also see increased conversions. What are your thoughts on it?

Roman: Yeah, but you also need to add value to it. A lot of people put up press releases to get syndicated into different platforms. So, your content really needs to add value to get quoted in interviews or podcasts. If you demonstrate your expertise, then it makes sense for established websites to showcase your content and help build your reputation.

Time Stamp: 14:16-16:34

Senthil: Okay, great. Now stitching all these together, is there any more quick hacks for small businesses that you’d like to share?

Roman:  I think small businesses should focus on delivering timely and specific content.  By content, I don’t mean writing a few blog posts but focusing on building a knowledge base. If you can offer solutions to the problems people are dealing with, it can drive traffic organically and add value to your business. So focus on informational content because that is what is going to give you an edge over your competitors and help you win half of the battle.

Time Stamp: 16:35-20:55

Senthil: Really, the more answers you provide to questions, I think the higher are your chances of appearing in the featured snippets.

One final question, how do you manage to pull out so many podcasts, and what inspired you to choose this medium to publish content?

Roman: I think I’ve figured out early on that audio is a superior medium that can gain attention more quickly than text, image, or video. You can work and still consume audio content, which might not be possible for other mediums.

Senthil: Amazing. I love the ideas you shared and thank you for being on this show.

Please check the footnote of this podcast for links to some amazing tools mentioned by Roman and a bonus surprise resource. Thank you, everyone!