Best Practices Connected to SEO & Content Marketing In 2022
Nate Turner The Founder of Tenspeed
He was the first marketer at Sprout Social, where he built and scaled the inbound engine from $100k to $100m in ARR.
He is now the co-founder and CEO of tenspeed.io, a content optimization agency helping SaaS & D2C companies create revenue-generating content and an advisor for SaaS companies and host of the Content That Grows podcast.
Shows Main Questions
#1 – Has the content marketing landscape changed fundamentally over the past couple of years, if yes in what ways?
#2 – In a world of YouTube, podcasting, and social media platforms how does content marketing fit into this new world?
#3 – What are some of the consistent mistakes you see your clients (SaaS) make connected to content marketing before hiring Tenspeed
#4 – What practical advice can you give to a small startup in either the WordPress or SaaS world connected to content marketing can you give?
#5 – What have been some of the biggest challenges you have faced getting Tenspeed up and running and getting in a state of growth and business sustainability?
#6 – What are a couple of leading figures that have influenced you the most over the last couple of years in the world of SEO and content marketing?
Full Transcript of this insightful interview
Jonathan Denwood: Welcome Back folks to the WP to show. This is episode 661. We’ve got a great guest. It’s gonna be a great interview. We’re gonna be talking about content marketing again and digital marketing in general. We’ve got a really knowledgeable guest. We’ve got Nate Turner. Who’s the founder of 10 speed. He’s one of the founding marketing team on sprout social. He’s a true expert on this. So Nate, can you quickly introduce yourself to the WP tonic tribe?
Nate Turner: Yeah, thanks so much for, having me, I’m excited to chat through all of us today. Yeah, I was the first marketer at sprout social, spend about eight and a half years there. So I had the opportunity to help kind of build and scale the inbound engine, and help the company grow from about a hundred thousand in ARR to about a hundred million in ARR. And then IPO so, from there, I did some consulting with a number of, SaaS companies and then, co-founded 10 speed, which is a content optimization agency. So really working with a lot of, SAS and D2C companies on, organic growth. So SEO, content marketing, and a little bit of conversion as well. And then we also have a podcast where I’m the host called content that grows. And we chat with companies that, kind of talk through content they’ve invested in and how it’s helped, grow their company. So, yeah, that’s a little bit about me and like I said, excited, to be here.
Jonathan Denwood: That’s great. And I’ve got my great co-host and very patient I’ve got Steven. Steven, would you like to introduce yourself?
Steven Sauder: Yes. Steven Sauder from, hustle, fish.com. You’ve heard me before.
Jonathan Denwood: Yes, before all we go into this great interview, we’re gonna go and have a quick commercial break off our major sponsor. We’ll be back in a few moments’ folks
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Jonathan Denwood: We’re coming back and I’d like to point out, Castos is offering a great special offer to the tribe. And all you have to do is go to WP tonic slash recommendations. Not only do you find a special offer there for Castos, but also some of our all sponsors and some just general great recommendations. If you’re looking to build out a WordPress website for yourself or for clients, so Nate let’s go straight into my first question. So, do you think in the last couple of years, the kind of general marketing, digital marketing specifically around content marketing has changed fundamentally anyway, or changed any in a specific way, before let’s say the outbreak of the virus?
Nate Turner: Yeah. yeah, we could talk for a long time about how the pandemic has, has, shifted marketing, but yeah, even outside of that, I would say, certainly when you think about like written content in SEO, the landscape has changed quite a bit in that I think it’s, continued to be adopted by more and more companies and therefore, just continues to be, be more challenging, every year from that standpoint I think the resurgence of, podcasts has been a, a big factor in how the landscape has changed. Not only just the number of podcasts, over the last few years but, the number of companies investing in that as a good marketing channel and, and a way to generate a lot of content. and then I think, even more recently, some of them, like creator economy type of stuff, that’s really, we’ve seen a lot of people developing their own, Substack or Patreons with a lot of content coming through there, building their own communities, doing some things there that I think are, are shifting that and changing the way companies are engaging with folks that are creating content or, doing things along those lines. So that would be a few things that I think have, have changed quite a bit in the last few years. Yeah.
Jonathan Denwood: So just a quick follow-through question. So I got from that, that, with podcasting, cuz I’m big into podcasting like yourself. I do 3 podcasts myself a week, podcasting, YouTube videos, influencer outreach, I think they’re the main and also written blog posts and more detailed white paper content. The landscape’s got more competitive, but there seem to be more and more types of content first of all, would you agree with that and how do you kind of what has been a successful mix? I know that’s a slightly big question, but maybe you can give some quick insight into how you look,– what’s your attitude towards YouTube podcasting and how you mix it with written content.
Nate Turner: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, I certainly can’t say that I’ve been doing it long enough to have, my own case study on our work to, share as a success story. But I think we can look to a number of other, companies and just see that there’s I one, I think following and just understanding where people are consuming content and how they’re consuming content. So, understanding how to utilize things like YouTube, or social media. but I think the podcast in, generally like the episodic content type of things work well, as that you know that you can sort of creating this, episode or this, piece of content, if you will, though, a podcast episode and then be able to kind of break that out and distribute, certain parts into YouTube, other parts into social media, and really kind of like give people some more of those short clips and, things that they can consume or just, in the format that they like.
So, people may very well consume full podcast episodes, via YouTube, but that’s just sort of there, preference. So yeah, I think a number of those, certainly play into that. And then I think the folks that do it well, understand how to kind of either do, thoughtful recap or rollups, or, or different types of ways to integrate, podcast or video content into written blog content as well. So we do that with a number of clients that have podcasts, like understanding there is a podcast on this topic. Now there’s a written blog post on it and we can link to it. And that just creates a better experience for, anyone who is landing on the site and reading that content that if they do want to go deeper on that topic, they’re able to kind of click-through and, and engage in a different format of video or podcast.
Steven Sauder: I think one of the really big, challenging things, at least in talking to other business owners too, is everyone like, can recognize like, yeah, we need content. We need stuff out there so people can engage with us, but the creation of it, like, do you create it internally? Is it something you can outsource once it’s created, right? You can hire people to distribute it or market it or create social posts, but it seems so many people get stuck in the, I have an idea of what I want to create. I know what’s gonna happen after I create it, but it’s the creation process itself of the content that people often get stuck on. Is there, ways that you can outsource that, or is that something that the company should own internally cuz of your audience and your product?
Nate Turner: Yeah. I mean think there are, a couple of ways to think about it. One, when I’m talking, with companies, I often will kind of break it down into like thought leadership, very like product-centric, product marketing type of content. And then you have more like educational awareness and, creative types of content. And I think that thought leadership and product marketing are typically best served to be done internally because that internally, you have all the knowledge on the space where you’re going the like that’s much easier to, to write about and obviously the deep product, knowledge as well. I do think, and that’s where we get kind of brought in a lot of cases is the informational educational type of content. that’s much more, top and middle of the funnel is certainly, a way that you can, like hire that out or work with other folks to help on the execution. When it comes to like podcasts and maybe videos, stuff like that. I think those certainly kind of fall in those first couple of buckets that typically that type of content’s gonna be in-house as well.
Steven Sauder: Do you, think that most, companies would benefit by hiring a dedicated content person internally? Or is that something that you can kind of just like, Hey, let’s put a task on everybody’s to-do list once a month to create a piece of content, like if you wanna start career what’s the,
Jonathan Denwood: I think you are putting Nate on the spot he’s bound to say hire 10 speed. Isn’t it <laugh>
Steven Sauder: Hey, if that’s the solution. That’s the solution.
Nate Turner: Yeah. Well certainly, I mean, that’s certainly that’s always an option. But no, it’s a great question. I think it’s, it’s certainly one of the like content as an umbrella or even content marketing is huge. So when you don’t have some level of ownership, it’s sort of that old adage that things that are measured get done or whatever, like I think it falls very well into that. Like if there’s no one focusing on it and owning it, I think you have, a challenge in really making it a priority. And so we actually, despite the type of work that we do, I would say the majority of our clients have someone dedicated to content or content marketing in-house. But that person is often very wide and not able to be very deep. So they’re, covering, sales, collateral, they’re covering, decks, eBooks, webinars, video, blog content, thought leadership, PR like they, they span a lot of, a lot of content. And then that’s where we’re able to sort of going deep in the area of sort of SEO content, to augment. But yes, very much I think if it’s a priority for you then, and that’s, an important thing to have someone owning it and, and driving it forward.
Jonathan Denwood: That’s great. So I think you’ve got my radar Nate because I think you were either interviewed by Rob Rowlin or you came on my radar in the slack group of MicroComp. Because I know you do a lot of work for SaaS companies. so, are there any consistent patterns around things you see SaaS companies or companies that approach you in general that they’re doing consistently or on the consistent pattern, that you can advise ’em that they need to change? Is there anything that consistently that comes to your mind that they consistently do wrong?
Nate Turner: Yeah, I, I think there’s a few, one is like on the strategy side, sometimes it’s we come in and, and the approach has sort of been, yeah, we just kind of jump into HFS or SCM rush once in a while and, and, look at topics that have volume and then we write about ’em or, we just write about whatever topics people have ideas on, and there’s not really like a cohesive strategy to, build that forward, like build out on the right topics, establish authority, all of that. from an execution standpoint, I think what we see most is inconsistency because of, just like a lack of bandwidth, or creating good content, but it’s just not like formatted and structured well, to rank. And so, being able to help with that.
The third I would say is distribution. Like there’s a lot of, a lot of times we’ll see content being created, but it is sort of put on the blog and then that’s it like, there’s not, a lot of thought or care going into, how do we continuously promote, like we’ve spent the time creating it, how do we keep promoting it? How do we break it up and share it into different channels or, things like that? And then the last one I think is pretty big as people have been going for a little bit longer, not really any attention being paid to existing content, and how to, to reoptimize that. So, it’s, pretty natural for content too, an increase in performance once it’s new and does well. But over time that begins to decay and there are issues from competition or internal things that cause that, and really requires ongoing attention to your existing content to keep it performing well. So yeah, obviously that’s the four biggest ones are strategy execution, distribution, and then, existing content.
Jonathan Denwood: Oh that’s a fabulous answer. Thanks for that. Yeah. We’re gonna go for our break when we come back, we’ve got some other great questions from Nate.
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Jonathan Denwood: We’re coming back. just wanna point out that if you want to help the show and really engage in the conversation, a great way of doing that is to join the WP tonic mastermind Facebook group, just go to Facebook and look up mastermind Facebook group, mastermind WordPress group, I should say. And there’s me and plus some of the regular panel on the Friday show moderate, all the content and add it, it is a great community. So join us there for the, like the micro comp crowd, they can have funding from angel investors, they’re not being fully VC invested, so they’ve got investment, but it’s not millions. And they’re looking to get the engine going. Is there any kind of things that you could advise them that they around maybe around that first part before we went to the break around strategy, because that’s probably I’m only surmising it, that’s probably the thing that they don’t think about is build some strategies? You got any insights around that do you think that’s a good question to ask you?
Nate Turner: Yeah, it is definitely a good question. I think the when a company has less budget, I think there are two, two main ways that, that they’ll tend to think about it. One is we still want to do a lot of content, so we’re going to try to find the cheapest way to do that. Or we want to figure out how to create good content, but a lower volume that kind of still stays within the budget. And so, I certainly always try to advise people on the second option. I think there’s, really my thought is always like do as much as you can do well. Whether that’s a bandwidth restraint or a budget restraint. so even if that’s only publishing one or two pieces a month, in if that’s a blog or some other format, like, just really focusing on, on what you can do well in that. And knowing that over time, you can build into it later, with a budget.
So I think that’s important. And from a strategy perspective, if you were to talk more written content, I think there’s, a lot of value in starting pretty close, like topically starting pretty close to your product. So whatever that may be, don’t go right about one thing and then another, and sort of like all over the place, like really start in a very narrow, set of topics that are very closely tied to your product. And then over time, you can sort of move out from there, but, given sort of the level of intent and what people are searching for, and some of that, it tends to work well to be starting close to product in terms of, of topics that you’re selecting,
Steven Sauder: Where does paid advertising media type stuff fit into this. Like I know there, I feel like there’s been a sentiment that I’ve seen or read and heard just like around online about people saying that like, oh, content marketing is impossible these days. Like there are just too many people trying to do it. It’s all paid. Like if you’re gonna get results to go paid. And there are people that are like, no, it’s like a hybrid thing. Write your articles, pay to promote it, try to get some shares out there to get that SEO, up there. But in your mind, like how does, how does the, it feels like there’s been a move to people, move, funneling more money into paid stuff. But that’s all anecdotal from, from my side of stuff. So like, how do you think about that?
Nate Turner: Yeah, I mean, I think, certain certainly, those two, things that you mentioned are what I hear a lot as well. but I think,– like we, we have a number of clients that, that do pay, but they’re doing it, in reality, just an acquisition focus and not necessarily paying to distribute content or anything like that. And they’re still able to get good results and get growth. I think one comes down to kind of how you structure your goals and your expectations of the content. and so depending on what those goals may be, you may see that as a viable option to pay, to promote, to hit whatever goals you’ve set to really be able to have a certain number of people viewing the content. So I think, yeah. Goals and, and what your intentions are matter.
I also just think the, there’s a number of people that say like, not focusing on, like, how do I get a lot of people to see my content? It’s like, how do I, create content worth people’s attention that they would want to, read. And so I think, again, that’s a little bit of like perspective, but not like, well, we wrote these 10 blog posts now, how do we just make a bunch of people look at it? So I think there’s a little bit of that foundational approach in how you’re doing that. But yeah, I would say the best, examples that I’ve seen, companies have pretty clearly delineated a certain amount of budget too, like performance marketing, very focused on the acquisition, very ROI focused cost per lead, whatever it may be.
And then there’s sort of another bucket of pay that’s very focused on awareness. That may just be general ads, it may be, YouTube pre-roll video podcasts, sponsorships, any of that kind of stuff. And within that, I think I would lump in paying to promote content, cuz you’re not really expecting direct leads or conversions to come from that, but you want to distribute the content. And then there’s another budget that’s really just, content and some other things that, you know, you wanna invest in. So hopefully that answers your question.
Steven Sauder: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. how do you, I guess kind of just like a follow-through here, like, whenever you’re talking to companies about budget, oftentimes ROI gets brought up. Can you like start thinking through, or, how I guess can you stack up the ROI to content like spending whatever it takes to write one blog article versus, a thousand dollars, let’s say a thousand dollars to write an article versus a thousand dollars to run an ad, just for sake of argument. Like, can you compare those two ROIs and say, this is what you can expect here. This is what you can expect with that ad or is it kind of like apples and oranges and really we’re talking about two distinct marketing channels that are gonna hit two different people. And so there’s not a whole lot of like the direct comparison that can be drawn from that.
Nate Turner: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, to be perfectly honest, anyone that I’ve chatted with that has like, views like the content and SEO through the exact same lens as paid performance, like we don’t work with them and it’s just, you’re kind of approaching it immediately with the wrong mindset. But the few things I would say there, one is like, in your example of a thousand dollars in each, the thousand dollars can efficiently get you those customers through paid. But once you’ve done that, you’ve done that and it’s over. And if the thousand dollars for content can create good content that, works on your site long term, over 12 months or 24 months or whatever it may be, then you certainly have a longer runway. And when you’re doing that every month, creating more content, you’re building that up much more.
But I also think it’s worth noting. Like it’s pretty common that we see like 85 to 95% of a blog post on a website do not directly generate conversions, as like the main landing page. So it is, by and large, an introductory, channel. So it’s helping people, your post comes up in a search, they read it, they become aware of your company, what you do, and then if they are a fit sort of move through and eventually convert, on other channels. So that’s worth noting that like majority of content, is not typically like this much traffic came in this many converted, this is how much we spent on that post here’s the direct ROI. so I think that’s typically how we, talk through a lot of that and help kind of understand the differences, but the other flip side of that is like you have, if you’re doing the distribution point that I mentioned before, that content is also a huge, fuel for other marketing.
So it’s good content that goes in your newsletter. It’s good content that sales can send to prospects. It’s content that you can break up into a couple, several different social media posts. There are all kinds of stuff you can do with that content as well. Versus like I said, just slapping it on the blog and leaving it there. So I think it’s not as black and white as, the paid ROI, but there’s certainly a lot there. And I think the companies that understand that and invest in it, do well in the long run.
Jonathan Denwood: I want to ask you a question about what I call the customer journey. When I’m looking at a new product, a new service, I tend to go to Google, I’ll put in some general terms, I do a read-up. It really depends on the price point. If it’s a service that WP-Tonic is gonna use, it’s probably in the app, it’s gonna be a service provider or company that provides a service. And I do a bit of a morning afternoon, a day. I do a bit of, what I call a Google dive. And I do an extensive search of articles, videos make some, is this person biased? Is he about affiliate marketing or is he an honest individual? And then I try and write down some of the key things that I need to know about the product to make a judgment call. And then I go to these people’s websites and I do a read and I tend to look over everything they’ve got to offer, and then I’ll make a judgment call around the price, feature set, which person- Is this what people have to understand– what I’m stating to you, do you think it’s what most people are doing now and based on your experience, what does in influence people to do that first outreach when they’re looking at two to three product providers?
Nate Turner: Yeah, I mean, I think at that stage, you’re pretty, you’re pretty deep into the process if you’re sort of comparing options. and that’s where we’ve seen, like, thinking about a funnel or buyer journey is like problem solving and then like, consideration or whatever it’s, the problem is like, you’re literally just Googling terms of how to whatever, like trying to figure out how to solve your problem. And then once you kind of understand, okay, it’s whatever a marketing automation platform here is, what would actually solve it, then you start Googling, best marketing automation, platform, marketing automation, platform prices, things like that reviews. And then eventually you end up at something like HubSpot versus Pardot or HubSpot versus Marketo or things like that that are, much more in that tent.
So certainly in your example, you’re, pretty far down that process and that you’re, you’re already comparing, but that’s where, we often see a ton of opportunity around, the product name and pricing or, creating those competitor pages of, one versus the other, and things like that, where it’s still kind of targeted to those terms and understanding that stage of the, of the buyer journey, and creating that content that sort of solves what they’re looking for and, satisfies that search intent.
So, yeah, I mean, I think that’s, that’s extremely typical even, even with the rise of G2 and Capterra and a number of sites that allow you to kind of do comparison research within their website where you wouldn’t see some of those queries, it’s still, extremely prevalent to have people searching for that in search engines.
Jonathan Denwood: Yeah. I find their content to be a bit shallow as I would call it, like all directory kind of. And I kind of, classify them as kind of quasar directory websites. I’ve got a feeling and especially with my own website in the next months, I’ll be trying to rectify that is that we’ve got a lot of blog content, but we haven’t– I see the real opportunity is what you highlighted, about comparisons, really thinking of the mind of the possible customer about giving them content says, there’s this product and [inaudible29:56 ] and these are the good things and being totally honest. And this is honestly why we feel you should look at ours. Do you think I’m on the right track?
Steven Sauder: Yeah, absolutely. I think that comparison type of content, one versus the other, or even, in the example I gave with market automation, like, HubSpot alternative or Marketo alternatives, as that type of search is also, again, someone who’s very much, I know of this one. I wanna look at how it stacks up against others. And so yes, doing that, but, yeah, we certainly always recommend doing it in a very honest way. Not trying to kind of hide, where the other product may be stronger than you or offers more users in a plan or anything like that. I think it’s, in your best interest to be honest and show that comparison and, know that anyone who does still choose to go with you from that, knows what they’re getting into and will be happy on the other side of this sale.
Jonathan Denwood: Right. I think we wrap up the podcast part of the show, Nate has agreed to stay on for some bonus content, which you’d be able to watch the whole interview, plus the bonus content on the WP tonic YouTube channel and the WP tonic website, where there’s gonna be a full transcription of the, of the interview. If you really, want to support the show, give us a review on iTunes that really helps. And if it’s amusing, I will read it out good or bad so Nate what is the best way for people to find out about you and 10 speed and find out more about your great knowledge?
Nate Turner: Yeah. So you can find me on LinkedIn. Username, I think is Nate Turner one, and, 10speed.IO is the website for our agency. And then, also the podcast, that we’ve been running is called content that grows, which you can find on any and all streaming platforms and, YouTube as well.
Jonathan Denwood: And Steven, what’s the best way to find out more about you and, and your company and what you’re up to?
Steven Sauder: Yeah, you can head over to our website, hustlefish.com
Jonathan Denwood: That’s great. And what I’m gonna be, discussing with Nate is more about the journey of 10speed itself, what’s some of the challenges and what’s the future of 10up. It’s gonna be a fantastic dis in the bonus content, but we are wrapping up the podcasts and we’ll see you next week with another great guest. We’ll see you soon folks. Bye.
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