number one in their target terms if they didn’t see an increase
gine. At the same time, social media platforms like Facebook
in sales.
and YouTube were starting to become recognized as search
In 2014, I started to research what other SEO profes-
engines themselves. Google, Yahoo, and Bing were starting to
sionals were doing about this issue. Come to find out, many
give weight to this and I started to believe that the success of
of those I interviewed said their job was to get rankings for
social media campaigns was becoming intertwined with the
clients’ websites and to make sure their Google AdWords
strength of SEO initiatives. This realization drove me to create
campaigns were getting
my innovation, Digital
clicks. It seemed to be
Engagement Optimiza-
common place to expect
tion.
I used to think innovative ideas needed to be world chang-
high client attrition
Digital Engagement
ing, and I mean global. But with the creation of DEO, I have
because the clients
Optimization (DEO)
found that innovation can be local, changing the way one
couldn’t see the value of
symbolizes the refocus-
their SEO efforts. They
ing of digital marketing
person sees the world around them. I also used to think
chalked it up to the
efforts to not only inte-
that the process was linear. With my continued quest to
ignorance of the entre-
grate social media mar-
take my process national, I have come to understand that
preneur and there wasn’t
keting with SEO efforts,
enough time to educate
but to also take SEO one
innovation is a never-ending journey.
each one on the value of
step further by focusing
SEO. I chalked it up to
specifically on visitor
internet geeks not under-
interaction with each
standing the marketing aspect of what they did for clients.
website. I knew people already did this, but mostly with very
On the flipside, I interviewed social media experts to see
large websites that had significantly more traffic than the local
how they worked with SEO professionals to create synergy in
business websites we dealt with on a regular basis and usually
the digital marketing realm. To my surprise, not one company not specifically tied to their search engine ranking. I created
or freelancer I spoke to had collaborated with an SEO firm to
a four-pronged approach that allowed the digital marketers
further the digital marketing efforts of their mutual clients. It
and SEO specialists flexibility to focus on what would be most
seemed that the techy and creative elements in digital market- profitable for the client at any given time.
ing were siloed.
The challenge of this innovation was to orchestrate a
During the same timeframe, Google started to incre-
scalable process that allowed both techies and creatives to
mentally unveil what I now recognize as the “engagement
successfully work together on the same campaigns. After sev-
initiative.” Google’s focus became more and more about how
eral iterations of team composition and systematic strategies
visitors interacted with websites after they clicked through
in both execution and measuring success, we created a brand
than merely just getting the click through from the search en-
new digital marketing platform that predictably outperformed
any other product on the market.
Comparing 40 case studies in
2016, we garnered 100% success
in three key performance metrics
and increased client retention past
one year from 50% to 85%. With a
92% of our clients confirming that
they saw sales growth from our
DEO efforts, I knew my innova-
tion had come to fruition.
One case study was a com-
mercial laundry equipment
company. It is a locally owned
firm who did business the
old-fashioned way, face to face.
The founders were starting to get
pressure from competitors from in
the northwest. They realized that
their core clientele was starting to
research more on their own via
the internet rather than coming to
July 2017
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