SEO services, what's included in Build, Grow, and Accelerate?
In our monthly marketing programmes, there is a standard inclusion called 'Ongoing SEO recommendations'. This is outlined as being our way of sharing known SEO issues with you, for you to share with your website management company for them to fix at an additional charge.In our search to add value to our existing customers, and in instances where we manage their website, we perform many of these tasks when the monthly scope allows. This reduces the additional costs for our key partners, without disrupting the standard monthly marketing.
Why the confusion?
With the launch of our more advanced SEO service, there has been some confusion as to what, exactly, is included in the monthly scope under 'SEO recommendations' and what is not.
But firstly, why release a new SEO service if the current monthly marketing includes SEO work too?
The first thing to outline is that both the SEO recommendations and implementation under the monthly marketing services are for basic-level upgrades. As the chart below outlines it's for on-page updates with a blinkered view on the keywords we target. These keywords are uncovered during our blog topic research and help us to improve our chances of ranking for these keywords.
A common restriction we find is that we can also only make these changes if the monthly scope has the capacity for these edits. Another restriction is that, as marketers, our campaign managers have a basic understanding of SEO and how to improve results, but they're not experts in that area.
Over the past 18 months, the requests for advanced technical SEO work from our clients have increased. No longer happy with only pursuing blog-based SEO many clients want to be competing for the top results on Google for their products and services, and this requires specialist knowledge and expertise.
What's changed?
With the monthly marketing programmes, nothing. SEO-focused blogs are still the standard, and on-page edits can still occur if the scope allows.
In mid-2024 Vanguard 86 hired its first dedicated SEO strategist to meet the growing demand from clients, and to expand our service for those businesses seeking specific gains in search results. This hire aims to add a layer of more advanced strategy and expertise available in addition to the monthly marketing programme, should businesses need it.
The chart below helps to explain the standard differences between our monthly marketing SEO inclusions, and the focused SEO programme. Click on the hyperlink to learn key differences across both programmes for a particular inclusion.
SEO inclusions
| Monthly marketing (SEO) | SEO programme | |
| Keyword research | ||
| On-page updates | ||
| - Meta description | ||
| - Alt text | ||
| - Page copy | ||
| - Image size | ||
| - URL | ||
| New page creation | ||
| Disavow toxic backlinks | ||
| Monthly SEO report | ||
| Page speed analysis | ||
| Speed optimisation | ||
| Backlink analysis | ||
| Backlink creation | ||
| Competitor analysis | ||
| - Ranking | ||
| - Page speed analysis | ||
| - Domain authority | ||
| - Keyword gap analysis | ||
| - Backlink analysis | ||
| Internal linking | ||
| Content structuring | ||
| Position tracking | ||
| Technical SEO | ||
| - Indexing | ||
| - Site structure | ||
| - Crawl bot management | ||
| Website audit |
Keyword research
Within our managed marketing services (Build, Grow, and Accelerate) we focus the keyword research on topics for our educational content. With Build, for example, we find 4 popular keywords in your industry and centre the blog article to address this topic. With Grow and Accelerate we show 6 and 8 keywords respectively, and also highlight your current rank for these keywords to help you understand why we're focusing on these topics in our article.
We do this so that your blogs have an increased chance of ranking when prospects search these long-tail questions. This attracts people to your business by showing when people are conducting their research.
With the SEO programme, we expand this remit extensively but focus on keywords with commercial intent. This means aligning your products/services with keywords that indicate buyer interest to generate leads.
Educational intent vs commercial: what's the difference?
Keywords have different intents behind them. Educational intent indicates the user is researching their options, and is learning about what's out in the marketing. Commercial intent signals an active buyer, a person interested in your offering directly.
We target different keywords with content that aligns with the buyer's journey. Blog articles are excellent for educating users and explaining different options, while website pages are better for explaining your service offering.
So while keyword research is done as part of our monthly marketing programmes it's focused on steering the blog direction, to attract new visitors via our content, and not necessarily a wider SEO strategy.
On-page updates & new page creation
Our Build, Grow, and Accelerate monthly marketing programmes feature an allocation for web page updates and creation. Depending on your scope this will be between 1 and 4 pages per month.
If the scope is not needed for tactical marketing activities that month we fill this allocation with basic SEO upgrades, often centred on the activities featured in the chart above. We use the keywords uncovered in your blog research as a focus for these changes.
This is completed on an 'as available' basis. If you need brochures gated behind landing pages, new pages created for new products, or if you need custom modules added to your website then we prioritise these activities over SEO updates.
So while on-page edits are available in our monthly marketing programmes, they are on an ad hoc basis when your scope allows.
Disavow toxic backlinks
This is another SEO task that is completed when your scope allows. If we have a lower workload in a particular month we take the list of toxic backlinks provided in SEMrush and file this with Google. This is listed under 'other' activity in your monthly plan.
Please note that only Grow and Accelerate plans feature SEMrush tracking and optimisation reports.
Monthly SEO report
Within our managed marketing services, and before moving to the V86 Hub reporting software, Grow and Accelerate reports included a snapshot of a client's top keywords versus 3 competitors. This showed who ranked higher, and for what. This was most commonly used to highlight keywords that could be the focus of future articles and for SEO recommendations. Build programmes did not include any SEO reporting.
The SEO programme features more detailed and focused reporting on SEO results and analysis. It sits as an additional report to the monthly marketing report and focuses on technical site improvements and keyword position changes.
Summary
While there has been no change to the scope of our managed marketing services what we have done is made it easier for businesses to fully unlock their SEO potential with specialist skills.
To the letter of the contract, our managed services include no Search Engine Optimisation work and only recommendations for changes. In reality, we know the importance of ongoing SEO so include acting on our recommendations whenever the opportunity (scope) allows.
What the SEO programme does is enable those businesses focused on becoming one of the top results on Google for their products or services to achieve that outcome without hiring another agency.
Additionally, our SEO programme reduces the risk taken by the business by charging a significantly lower monthly retainer for the programme. Instead, we weight most of our charges to achieving real results.
Learn more about our results-based SEO programme
Featuring a lower monthly retainer and pre-agreed milestones this programme focuses on delivering real results for your business.
Learn more
