F$%@ Traffic: Prioritizing Conversions Over Vanity Metrics Featuring Bianca Anderson

Garrett: Hey, y’all, welcome back to The Next Chapter of Search hosted by SEO Week and iPullRank. I am super excited. If you haven’t already gotten your tickets, we’re talking the end of April, the 28th to May 1st, New York City, the best, most prolific, most amazing dynamic speakers across SEO, data, AI, and content. I am so excited today to be joined by Bianca Anderson. She is speaking there. She is the organic growth manager at Hims and Hers. Hey, Bianca, how are you doing today?

Bianca: I’m doing wonderful. I’m doing wonderful. It’s Friday. I’ve already had my coffee. Can’t complain too much.

Garrett: The weather’s starting to get warm. You’re in Chicago, I’m in Virginia, still feeling our cold spells. It’s always going to be windy. I’m actually in like a super windy area as well, but not to get into cliches, I want to dive right in and talk too, talk about the world of SEO. You’re in growth. The last 12, 24 months have been wild in marketing and SEO. Where do we stand from your perspective? What’s the current state of search?

Bianca: Yeah, well, I mean, to quote the great Bob Dylan, “the times, they are a changing.” I think we’re in a very strange, transient state where a lot of things are happening. And I think none of it has been settled.

With AI overviews, there’s still a lot of unknowns in terms of, I mean, we don’t even have tracking capabilities within Google Search Console yet. I guess I say yet optimistically. And also, there’s been a huge hit with these AI overviews to informational searches. And I think there’s a lot of implications of that. I think something like 99% of informational searches are being hit with AI overviews. And so, what are the implications of that? I think the way that, well, it tends to be that informational searches draw in a lot of traffic. The lower in the funnel you go, the less traffic is kind of there. So, I think that there are implications to that in terms of what our expectations can be around growth, how we view traffic as a metric, and so many other things.

But yeah, I think we’re currently in a transient stage, lots of unknowns. Oh, and to put it all, to add another thing to the mix, I think Google’s over-reliance on Reddit and other forums, I’m hoping is another transient thing that’s not going to stay. I think it’s currently maybe a Band-Aid that Google is doing to try and give users or searchers more experience-driven content. But yeah, a lot of things are going on in the mix and there’s a lot of unknowns. And yeah, but what is known, informational searches are being hit for sure.

Garrett: And it’s a perfect segue because you being an organic growth manager, organic growth manager at SEOs, we’re all so frustrated because we’ve all felt so entitled to this traffic for so long. But it’s like, your talk is all about like F traffic, fuck traffic, I’m going to say it, “fuck traffic.” I’m so excited to hear your perspective because attribution has been a major conversation in the marketing industry, like executives want it, and yet there’s always this issue of like, are we tracking and focusing on the right measure? So, can you give a preview about your talk and kind of why someone should come and what they’re going to learn from you at SEO Week?

Bianca: Yeah, so yeah, very colorful title, but I have to admit.

Garrett: Love it.

Bianca: But yeah, so as I said, we all know informational queries are being hit. Those tend to be the type of queries that do generate a lot of traffic. I think that in the midst of that, there needs to be more of a focus on the lower of the funnel converting traffic, the traffic that, sorry, the lower of the funnel converting URLs that generate the largest submissions or whatever your key converting metrics are. So, in my time as an SEO, every site I’ve worked for, they followed kind of Pareto’s principle. So 20% of the URLs on the site are generating 80% of the submissions or whatever, again, conversions. And so I think with that, there’s this real importance to have these pages endure the constant shifts of the algorithm to really have a closer eye on their performance. And I think that with this talk, that’s going to be a huge focus is how can we kind of treat these 20% of URLs as more of a kind of VIP type of thing, giving them special care. But it’s also not just a, what is the word? Offensive, okay, offensive, defensive. It’s both offensive and defensive.

Garrett: I like that.

Bianca: In the sense that I’m saying, let’s preserve what we have in terms of the high converting URLs that we’re noticing on a site. But also this framework will help you identify potentially new high converting URLs that are not at their full potential yet. Maybe they’re not getting as much traffic as they can get. And so there’s ways to optimize for that as well. So I think this talk is really going to center around, okay, we’re in this time where traffic is down. Okay, so what does that mean? What are we weighing as the most important metrics to consider?

And so, yeah, the title is very colorful, but I think the overall message is that we just need to just center traffic as a core metric. And we need to look at other metrics. And in doing so, start to really treat the URLs that are driving our core KPIs with a little bit more TLC, love and care and whatnot.

Garrett: I love it. I’m so excited because I think that regardless if you are a scrappy startup or a massive enterprise, you are still so hyper-aware of resource and budget allocation. And your focus is, it’s not a spray and pray. It’s like, let’s actually make sure that we’re spending the money in the right place. That’s going to drive the important metrics and using traffic in an almost mature, responsible way to do that. I love the approach. So, what’s something that people can do right now that you preach, that you’re like, this is a tactic that I think you got to get behind?

Bianca: Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of simple, but I do think there’s a lot of merit in taking stock of your current URLs and doing an audit that’s focused on just conversions. Like seeing what type of topics or topic clusters are among the high converting cohort. And then from there, I would recommend doing audits to see if there’s any green space left, if you’ve exhausted that. Because I think it’s really good to see what is performing well in the realm of conversions and then trying to exhaust that. And then once that’s exhausted, trying to preserve what you’ve got.

So I would say do an audit that is centered around conversions. See if there’s any trends you can suss out between like topics that tend to lead to more conversions and then go from there in terms of prioritizing new content and prioritizing optimizations. And in my talk, I will give a more structured framework, wink, wink, but yes, that’s what I would say.

Garrett: I love it. I mean, it’s like, yeah, you get to really be the detective and uncover. The interesting thing about it is like you do this right and you find the revenue and you are all of a sudden like a hero in your organization because that’s what C-Suite cares about.

Bianca: Exactly. It’s a lot more, it’s very sexy work. It’s very sexy work, I’d say.

Garrett: Very sexy, I love that. No, so speaking of sexy, what’s next? The future of search, there’s all different directions, all different perspectives. Nobody fricking knows. What’s your take?

Bianca: I think we’re leading, we’re going into an era where Google doesn’t quite have the monopoly that it has had in years past. From an ethical standpoint, I’m all for that. Like boo to monopolies. From a practical everyday standpoint, I do anticipate learning curves as we try to figure out what it looks like to optimize for channels outside of Google search, which is exciting, but there’s going to be learning curves and growing pains and whatnot. I also, I would like to think that Google’s over-reliance on Reddit and other forums is not a sustainable long-term thing. I think that as more and more sites start to prioritize experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness, content will be, more content will be on the SERPs that is experience-driven and can compete, I guess, with whatever Google sees in this Reddit takeover of content.

And so I think that is going to continue to be a very important thing. Search is becoming more democratized. Great, great, but still lots of unknowns there. Yeah, and I think informational queries, yes, the hits that we have seen from AI overviews, I don’t think that’s going to subside at all. I think that in turn, our expectations around what SEO can give as a marketing channel are going to change. That doesn’t mean that it’s dead. It just means that we’re shifting our focus a little bit into other ways that we can convey the value of SEO to stakeholders.

Garrett: Oh my God, I’m with you on so much of that. AI overviews, you touched on a few times. What’s your personal take? Do you like them? Have you used any other like AI search channels? Do you find yourself doing that? Or are you just like, “Nope, not for me.”

Bianca: You know, it’s so hard to say sometimes because I hope I’m not too biased by my profession, but I will say, I think AR overviews are cool. I think there’s been instances where they’re pulling from sources that like Reddit, like forums, where it’s like, “Hmm, I don’t know how trustworthy I can feel that they are.” But as a user, I think, yeah, I think for informational queries, it is a really great way to get what you’re looking for very quickly, which explains why informational queries have gotten such a hit.

But yeah, I think this is a tool that Google continues to refine on. And so it’s a lot better than when they first released, what was it, SGE. So yeah, I think it’s doing its thing. There’s still some areas of improvement and maybe I’m biased as an SEO and that’s what’s driving me to say that, or maybe not. But yeah, no, it’s cool stuff.

Garrett: It’s interesting. I mean, it’s so controversial and it’s such in our wheelhouse and it makes what we do fun. I cannot wait for your talk. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

Bianca: Thank you. This has been great. So excited.

Garrett: Oh my God. So, if you haven’t got your tickets, SEO Week, end of April, New York City, come join us, chill with Bianca and me and all the other awesome SEOs and content markers and growth managers that are going to be there. It’s going to be so much fun. See you in April. Bye-bye.