This interview with Josh McCoy of Vision Interactive is part of our Webinar Series.To view the transcript of Josh’s entire presentation, visit our webinar library. A transcript of the Q&A portion is available below.
McKay: That was awesome. That was a really good presentation, and we really appreciate that, Josh, so…
Yeah, let’s get into some questions real quick here, so everybody type those questions into the question bar. Josh went over a lot of stuff, and we want to make sure that we answer your questions about that stuff, so… So here’s a couple of questions to start things off with.
You mentioned SEMrush a lot, I mean, we’ve done webinars with those guys, they’re a great company. Tell me why you think they’re sort of the preeminent tool in that space, because I agree, I think you’re only as good as your information, and your information’s really is only as good as your tools. So tell me a little about why you think SEMrush does such a good job, and how we should view those tools and evaluate them.
Josh: One of the main reasons why I think I like them, I guess a few out there, when it’s a one-stop shop. Like I said, I use that tool for competitive analysis, but I also use it for my own clients, because there’s so many different offerings in that software set or in that tool that it makes my life a whole lot easier.
And I was actually eating dinner last month at Dallas Digital Summit with a tool provider and he was telling, he’s in link building in his world, and he said, “You know, your tool is dying if you’re not coming up with new offerings and new twists to it.” And that’s something I think SEMrush has done a good job of, of adding link data also into the tool, of adding a keyword research element, and then a site auditing tool to go out, find all the SEO mistakes and errors that you’re making. So that’s kind of why I really like them, because they’re always just, they’re on the cusp of it, seems like they’re always changing, coming up with something new.
McKay: Cool, that’s great, innovation’s key, isn’t it?
Josh: Mm-hmm.
McKay: Yeah, absolutely. So what are the biggest mistakes, I mean you guys work with a lot of different types of clients. What are the biggest mistakes you see when you start working with a client? Do you say, “Okay, we’ve got to correct this, then we’ve got to establish this,” as you go through your process when you’re starting to work with a client?
Josh: I think the biggest mistake that you can make with a client walking in is having your blinders on and thinking what, and how do I say it, not getting out of your head, and getting into your customers.
So with what we were talking about, how we kind of lead things off with that content strategy. If you walked into it saying, “Oh, I just know that our audience wants to hear about this, but I really think that they would like this.” Before you go out and do the competitive analysis, before you go out there and look at that audience, and you can even go out and do interviews, and focus groups and things like that to understand what do people want. What are their pain points, their problems? What kind of information do they think is cool? Because when you go in there thinking you know everything off the bat is when you fall on your face, right from the get.
McKay: That’s good advice, probably for anything in life, right. So okay, a couple more questions here. So as you’re evaluating your clients’ campaigns or their content efforts, I guess one of the things is… See, I’m at the core a content marketer. When you’re evaluating a client’s content specifically, is it a good place to go to those, to SEMrush and tools like that and say, “Okay, not only, you know, what should we target, what campaigns should we do, but what content should we actually create? You know, what’s going to be interesting to them? Is SEMrush or a tool like that a good place to gather that information, in terms of what type of content to create?”
Josh: The tool that I would use the most, say, was I think of 34 slides in there. When I was walking out of the Open Sites Explorer looking at length, and then I went into BuzzSumo that tool, and I’m not sure how long it’s been out. But I would say in the last six months, eight months I’ve kind of fallen in love with that tool, just because I can look at a domain name, or I can just even look at a keyword word.
You know pick up topic out there. I mean, I’m not even doing competitive analysis, to see what people like. I put that keyword in there, and I’m not just talking about red widgets. When I put the keyword in there, I’m getting a built out list of, “Wow, somebody did an info graphic on the history of red widgets.” And that got so many shares and so much engagement in Facebook.
“Oh wow, there’s a how-to” that somebody had done, you know, “How can I look at that content that they have made?” Not completely duplicate it, but maybe take a different twist to it. Maybe if somebody has created great content like that that’s four or five years old, I can kind of closely mimic that, because I can update that, refresh it, now I’m going to go out there and get a lot of links on a social engagement for a very similar topic.
McKay: Perfect. And then finally last question, talk to us a little bit about your agency, where you guys specialize, and then also, how people can engage with you, what’s the best way for people to become a Vizion Interactive client, or at least consider you guys as part of their process for choosing an agency to work with.
Josh: Our specialty is the [inaudible 00:42:10] and up. In the far past, we were kind of like, I was talking about, you know, we were much SEO and PPC. And then social came into the fray, and you know, social cues matter for SEO now, and they have for the last couple of years.
So like I was talking about, you can’t just solely have your passion in one place, you’ve got to be doing, a little bit like this presentation, a little bit of everything. It’s digital marketing now, it’s not saying, “Oh, I’m a PPC wizard,” or “I’m the SEO guru.” You need to be a Jack-of-all-trades here.
So that’s something that we definitely encompass, I would say, in the last couple years, is evolving with the digital marketing industry. And not solely honing down into, “We just do SEO.” Because now, even for our SEO campaigns, we’re out there building content that can gain links to help us with SEO, content for social that can help us out to build our audience, and in using fruitful efforts like email marketing and paid search.
It all comes together, and that’s why we love doing what we do, just because we get to do a little bit of everything. If anybody wants to contact me, I’m a doofus and I forgot to put my email there. It’s Josh.McCoy@VizionInteractive.com, Vizion with a “Z.”
And we have our Twitter handle there, @Vizionweb. Please feel free to go out there and heckle me there as well, or ask any questions that you have. Also my personal Twitter handle, which I’m totally fine with you guys reaching out to me there, let me know how I did. That’s Joshua C McCoy, @JoshuaCMcCoy is my personal Twitter handle. So that’s the best way to get a hold of me, and then I’ve got some phone numbers there that I have on that last slide.
McKay: No big deal. All right, well thank you so much for taking the time, we really appreciate it, and everybody, thank you for taking the time as well, any last thoughts before we close up, Josh?
Josh: Go out there and take hold in 2015. The digital marketing world is yours.
McKay: Look at that, motivation to end the call. That’s fantastic. All right, everybody, thank you so much, have a wonderful afternoon, and register for our webinars next week. So thank you much, bye-bye.
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