6 ms·

Co-founder/CTO here. Please share any SEO questions!

by dillonforrest 10y ago

mhoad 10y ago
How does your product compare to Distilled's offering? https://www.distilledodn.com/ https://www.distilledodn.com/
- ryanb 10y ago
  Ours is automated and continuous, and there's is a self-service product. We like those guys though!
  - austenallred 10y ago
    That's an enormous difference for me, for what it's worth
  - TomAnthony 10y ago
    We allow self service but most of our customers use our team (currently 16 SEO Analysts and Consultants) to work with their team, helping ideate, manage and run tests on an ongoing basis. See https://www.distilledodn.com/learn-more/expert-insights/ https://www.distilledodn.com/learn-more/expert-insights/
- will_critchlow 10y ago
  I think it's fairly similar - I remember showing Ryan a demo of our tool back when he was at 7cupsoftea before RankScience got going. We just published an update on our first year of data: https://www.distilled.net/resources/distilled-odn-by-the-numbers/ https://www.distilled.net/resources/distilled-odn-by-the-num... (Distilled founder & CEO here)
saycheese 10y ago
Why have you taken this approach to monetizing this SEO optimization method, instead of other options, for example PPC arbitrage? Why A/B testing and not a more complex statistical hypothesis testing method?
- ryanb 10y ago
  The biggest reason is that there's so much more volume in organic search (80% of all clicks) vs paid search (20%), and the ROI on SEO is so high. There's also so many companies in the PPC space -- it's quite saturated. SEO is appealing to us because we think it's overlooked due to stigma. SEO and PPC are really two very different games overall, but I have a ton of respect for people who are really good at PPC.
  - saycheese 10y ago
    Thanks, just to be clear, I mean you generate the clicks via SEO and selling them on a PPC, lead, etc. basis.
    - ryanb 10y ago
      Oh, I misunderstood. Good question. A lot of people have suggested this. The main reason we've avoided it is complexity, but it's something we might revisit. I'd also be concerned about customers not having an easy way to understand our pricing.
      - saycheese 10y ago
        >> "I'd also be concerned about customers not having an easy way to understand our pricing." That would likely to be best expressed relative to major PPC players like Google. For example, "clicks are 20% cheaper than Google for the same keywords." Anyway, just nitpicking, awesome solution to a big problem. Good luck!
        dillonforrest 10y ago
        Thanks for the thoughtful questions! :)
        ryanb 10y ago
        I think this is a super compelling idea. : ) Thanks!
rloc 10y ago
Does it work with French websites ?
- dillonforrest 10y ago
  Although we work with almost entirely English sites, we're starting to expand to non-English too.
  - rloc 10y ago
    Cool I applied with a French website. Happy to help you guys test it.
- ryanb 10y ago
  Yep, we work with all languages. One caveat though is we only test against Google metrics, so if you live in a country where Google is not the predominant search engine, we're of no help at the moment. : )
inthewoods 10y ago
- Is there a minimize traffic to the website required to get statistically significant results? Or does it matter since you're trying to move the site up in the Google ranking? - Does site traffic affect the length of time it takes to test?
- ryanb 10y ago
  Good question -- all of the things you mention are factors. It's harder to run statistically significant experiments with really small sites that have few pages. The factors involved are: # of total pages, search traffic, and Google crawl rate.
eonw 10y ago
seems like a hard nut to crack, considering there are constant changes to google algos that could screw with test results mid-test, and many other moving parts. I think what you are doing is great, have built similar tools in the past and always ran into issues due to so many moving parts, but im not a statistician. Also what do you consider success? what if one title/meta combo gets a better rank but fewer clicks(ie; the bots like it but the users dont)? which one would you keep? I know many people like to brag about how many rankings they have but as an SEO for over a decade, i think traffic count is still king. in that id rather rank 11th for an extremely high volume term, then rank 2nd for a low volume one. another thought... a blackhat site gets banned halfway through one of your tests and you move up based on no actions you took. thus you would get a false positive, no?
opendomain 10y ago
Dillon, I have a proposal for you - please respond via my email Ric AT myUserName
- dillonforrest 10y ago
  Hey Ric, we'll be in touch!
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Co-founder/CTO here. Please share any SEO questions!

mhoad 10y ago

How does your product compare to Distilled's offering? https://www.distilledodn.com/ https://www.distilledodn.com/

ryanb 10y ago
Ours is automated and continuous, and there's is a self-service product. We like those guys though!
- austenallred 10y ago
  That's an enormous difference for me, for what it's worth
- TomAnthony 10y ago
  We allow self service but most of our customers use our team (currently 16 SEO Analysts and Consultants) to work with their team, helping ideate, manage and run tests on an ongoing basis. See https://www.distilledodn.com/learn-more/expert-insights/ https://www.distilledodn.com/learn-more/expert-insights/
will_critchlow 10y ago
I think it's fairly similar - I remember showing Ryan a demo of our tool back when he was at 7cupsoftea before RankScience got going. We just published an update on our first year of data: https://www.distilled.net/resources/distilled-odn-by-the-numbers/ https://www.distilled.net/resources/distilled-odn-by-the-num... (Distilled founder & CEO here)

saycheese 10y ago

Why have you taken this approach to monetizing this SEO optimization method, instead of other options, for example PPC arbitrage? Why A/B testing and not a more complex statistical hypothesis testing method?

ryanb 10y ago
The biggest reason is that there's so much more volume in organic search (80% of all clicks) vs paid search (20%), and the ROI on SEO is so high. There's also so many companies in the PPC space -- it's quite saturated. SEO is appealing to us because we think it's overlooked due to stigma. SEO and PPC are really two very different games overall, but I have a ton of respect for people who are really good at PPC.
- saycheese 10y ago
  Thanks, just to be clear, I mean you generate the clicks via SEO and selling them on a PPC, lead, etc. basis.
  - ryanb 10y ago
    Oh, I misunderstood. Good question. A lot of people have suggested this. The main reason we've avoided it is complexity, but it's something we might revisit. I'd also be concerned about customers not having an easy way to understand our pricing.
    - saycheese 10y ago
      >> "I'd also be concerned about customers not having an easy way to understand our pricing." That would likely to be best expressed relative to major PPC players like Google. For example, "clicks are 20% cheaper than Google for the same keywords." Anyway, just nitpicking, awesome solution to a big problem. Good luck!
      - dillonforrest 10y ago
        Thanks for the thoughtful questions! :)
      - ryanb 10y ago
        I think this is a super compelling idea. : ) Thanks!

rloc 10y ago

Does it work with French websites ?

dillonforrest 10y ago
Although we work with almost entirely English sites, we're starting to expand to non-English too.
- rloc 10y ago
  Cool I applied with a French website. Happy to help you guys test it.
ryanb 10y ago
Yep, we work with all languages. One caveat though is we only test against Google metrics, so if you live in a country where Google is not the predominant search engine, we're of no help at the moment. : )

inthewoods 10y ago

- Is there a minimize traffic to the website required to get statistically significant results? Or does it matter since you're trying to move the site up in the Google ranking? - Does site traffic affect the length of time it takes to test?

ryanb 10y ago
Good question -- all of the things you mention are factors. It's harder to run statistically significant experiments with really small sites that have few pages. The factors involved are: # of total pages, search traffic, and Google crawl rate.

eonw 10y ago

seems like a hard nut to crack, considering there are constant changes to google algos that could screw with test results mid-test, and many other moving parts. I think what you are doing is great, have built similar tools in the past and always ran into issues due to so many moving parts, but im not a statistician. Also what do you consider success? what if one title/meta combo gets a better rank but fewer clicks(ie; the bots like it but the users dont)? which one would you keep? I know many people like to brag about how many rankings they have but as an SEO for over a decade, i think traffic count is still king. in that id rather rank 11th for an extremely high volume term, then rank 2nd for a low volume one. another thought... a blackhat site gets banned halfway through one of your tests and you move up based on no actions you took. thus you would get a false positive, no?

opendomain 10y ago

Dillon, I have a proposal for you - please respond via my email Ric AT myUserName

dillonforrest 10y ago
Hey Ric, we'll be in touch!

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]