Unmasking SEO: a Conversation with Pulkit Agrawal

Leonie Seysan, Director of content agency Article Writers Australia, speaks with SEO consultant Pulkit Agrawal from UR Digital. An informative conversation about the bad practices seen within the industry and the trends that are on the rise. If you’re struggling with the concept of SEO, Pulkit has some helpful tips to help you manage the process, producing the best result for your business.

Transcript

Content with Humans, Episode 3: Unmasking SEO

LEONIE: Welcome to Content with Humans, episode three. There's no doubt the generative AI is disruptive. There's a lot of debate around ethics in the background, but that's not stopping the wave of change that's crashing through marketing right now.

The functions of gen AI tools and search engines are beginning to merge. Content is being created at an unprecedented scale. Search algorithms are changing to adapt to the deluge and the SEO landscape is about to be upended.

Nobody knows quite where it's all going to land, but we can certainly speculate. My guest today is SEO consultant, Pulkit Agrawal from UR Digital SEO Consultancy in Sydney. Pulkit has over 15 years’ experience in SEO and he's witnessed many of the significant changes that have occurred in search over that time.

Pulkit, welcome to Content with Humans. 

PULKIT: Thank you, Leonie. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be on this podcast with you. 

LEONIE: Excellent. 

Get to know Pulkit

LEONIE: Let's start on a personal note.

Pulkit, we met a couple of years back when we were both living in Castle Hill area. UR Digital was only about a year old. So tell me, where are you in life and agency life in 2024? And what does a day in the life of Pulkit Agrawal look like? 

PULKIT: Thanks, Leonie. Yes, yes. I remember those times when the business was just one year old. I mean, in life, I have grown bigger in size for a lot of salt and pepper since the past few years. But as an agency, we are in a very good space - working with some of the largest businesses in Australia, especially with franchisors. Since when we met, our agency has grown 2X on all metrics annually, year on year. So we're super excited for the future. And yeah, that's where we are. 

LEONIE: Excellent. So a random question for you now, again, on a personal note. What was your favourite food growing up and does it still have a place on your dinner table? 

PULKIT: Oh, do you mean an individual item, a specific item, or did you mean- 

LEONIE: Maybe a dish that was your favourite? 

PULKIT: Ooh, my mom makes curried cabbage, which usually goes on. It's a very traditional Indian dish. It usually goes, pairs really well with roti, as most people would know. And I would eat it any time of the day. And we usually cook it once a week because we can't have it every single day. So we usually cook it once a week. So yes, it still has a place on my dinner table and I can eat it any time of the day. 

LEONIE: Excellent. The curried cabbage, I have never tried that. And now I have to. 

Generative AI and SEO

LEONIE: So let's jump into the topic on many people's minds, generative AI and how it's likely to shake up the practise of search engine optimisation. What changes have you already seen? Is Google going to turn into something more like ChatGPT than the search engine that we're used to? 

PULKIT: Ahh. The short answer would probably be no. This is probably a bit more of an open question in my opinion. I don't think Google is going to turn into a ChatGPT-like interface anytime soon. Although they've been trying gen AI tools for some form of AI overviews or gen AI in one form or the other, but they've had many issues getting it right, number one. 

So the main difference between ChatGPT and search engines like Google or Microsoft Bing, now ChatGPT-like interfaces are point-in-time interfaces. So they have the knowledge built up in point in time, whereas search engines like Google, they really crawl the web and they always have the most updated information. So the main difference, I don't see the blue links going away anytime soon. And even if gen AI or AI overviews take over or. There will be some form of AI in the SERP or search engine results pages as we see.

But if. Think about this - if you're looking for a product, then from Google's point of view, they need to provide you unbiased information. And when it comes to unbiased information as a buyer, as a purchasing decision maker, you probably need multiple angles. Maybe it's the shipping information, how fast you need a product or maybe it's the price or maybe it's the availability. So it really depends on multiple factors. And I think we will see more and more of that into AI or AI overviews. 

And the Gemini AI or ChatGPT-like answers, yes, they will definitely take over, but I don't see the blue links going anywhere anytime soon. It may become a part of the AI overviews as we go forward.

LEONIE: That's interesting. And it might take a while for us to see how that's going to pan out. 

PULKIT: Absolutely. In fact, in the last few weeks, they rolled it out in the Americas and then they reduced it significantly. I think it's about 1.7% of the total number of searches across the web. So it's really minuscule and they're really trying to perfect the model as we speak.

LEONIE:  Mmhmm. 

AI and Content Creation

LEONIE: So it's tempting to think that generative AI levels the playing field when it comes to creating written content, but I don't really think that's going to be the case. If Google prioritises the factors of expertise and experience and its algorithms are constantly being tweaked to reward unique high quality content, it seems more likely to me that businesses that can afford not to use generative AI will have the advantage. And I guess I'm really thinking of B2Bs and service-based businesses. If they can afford to create a steady stream of thought leadership level content and produce market research reports that allow them to develop their own original high quality content, then they're going to have quite an advantage. What are your thoughts around that? 

PULKIT: Content creation at scale is definitely there. People are producing all forms of content irrespective of their knowledge or experience or expertise in that domain. And this is something that Google has tried. And the additional E in the EEAT factors, what we call experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, the additional E was added after the release of ChatGPT because if I write about vacuum cleaners, it's essentially misleading advice. 

There's a lot of content out there in the web and Google does a really good job at detecting AI-generated content. And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with AI-generated content, but if the content is created just for manipulating search engines, it's not going to work. Yes, you may have a huge, where AI-generated content may work is where you're working with thousands and thousands of lines of data and you need it to summarise and come up with intelligence from that data. That's where you may be able to use. It's more of an aid than a content creation tool, in my opinion.

LEONIE: Yeah, it's interesting to think about what's emerging in that. 

The importance of author bios and blogs

So in terms of content like articles and white papers, differentiating your content in this new environment seems to me that it's likely to require two things. One is creating content that has unique insights, whether that's by incorporating the lived experience of your subject matter experts that work in-house or by creating content that's based on company research. And then the second thing is having an identifiable human author associated with that content by way of including an author bio. So from an SEO perspective, are author bios on company blogs increasing in importance? 

PULKIT: Yes, they are. The short answer is yes, they are. In fact, I've taken, some of the companies take it a step further - where their internal subject matter experts, they do have their own author profiles, but then they get an external subject matter expert to review the piece for what's getting published. So yes, author bios are going to be important and it just doesn't stop with the author bios. So with the author bios and author page, there needs to be additional bits of information like say, for example, if they run a YouTube channel, a connection to their YouTube channel, so Google can actually understand whether they are a real person in the real world or not, or having a LinkedIn profile or having a personal website.

Think about, so outside of my agency or outside of anybody's life, they have some kind of preferences. Like say, for example, they are in a band or they're a keynote speaker, things like those. So it is extension of those author profiles that yes, this person is real. 

Yes, this person is an expert in the industry that he's talking about. It's extension of those author profiles and then connecting it with a proper markup. It's going to be absolutely critical, absolutely critical for anybody if they really wanted to, for those blog pages to really rank.

LEONIE: Okay. So they really need to be building their personal profile. And then in the author bios, you should be linking to their LinkedIn or to other podcasts or YouTube channels or anything that helps to identify them.

PULKIT: Absolutely.  

LEONIE: Okay. 

PULKIT: 100%.

Business prep for the years ahead

LEONIE: So a curly question for you now with two parts. The first, if you were a B2B marketing director or CMO wanting to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to online visibility and SEO, what would you want to focus on in preparation for 2025? 

PULKIT: Interesting question. I would say just one thing. If anybody is not looking at voice search, I think they are already behind. Because voice search, when we think about voice search, we're talking about Siri, Google Assistant. On all Android phones, voice search is essentially standard. So not just looking at the traditional search model.

In fact, I am in Canberra at the moment and I am closely watching my 14 year old who will actually become a purchaser within the next five years. And I have not seen her do a text-based search. She always uses a voice search. So that's the new generation coming forward. So all these youngsters, they will very soon, they're probably not used to using a text-based search. If you're not focussing as a business, if a business is not focussing on Google Discover, and if the business is not focussing on voice search, then they are essentially in big, they would find it very difficult in the competitive landscape that's emerging.

LEONIE: Well, the second part is the same question, but with retail or e-commerce businesses in mind. 

PULKIT: For e-commerce businesses, one of the things that Google wants to essentially do, now, it's actually changing. The e-commerce landscape is changing quite heavily.

A few months ago, I saw Google trialling an eBay-like interface where it had filters on the left and a 12 by 12, no, not 12 by 12, five by five product grid where people could actually purchase products directly from the grid itself. And it would add the products into the cart. Google, what is, I've not seen that lately, but I saw something recently when I was doing a search for a shampoo bar, interesting product for a client.

And again, we saw the grid, but only it was a two-line grid with the reviews and all of that stuff. But what's changing or coming forward is that Google wants to connect to all of these e-commerce platforms or the, like Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce or any e-commerce platform, BigCommerce, whatever platform you're running on. And Google wants to, along with the shipping partners. So Google actually wants to know how long it actually takes for a postcode to receive a product when they order it. So they will also be able to see, along with the reviews, which are already available right now, but Google will also show that you will approximately get it in five days or three days or two days, not just what the company claims. 

LEONIE: Oh, okay. So is that almost as if Google's trying to step into Amazon territory? 

PULKIT: Well, I would not exactly say that, but really what they would really want to do is they want to arm the customer because it may be a part of their buying decision on how fast you can get a product. Because if I really need it urgently, then price is probably not my consideration. If I'm happy to wait, then maybe price becomes a consideration for me that, okay, I may want to get the cheapest item. But when it comes to e-commerce stores, I think the landscape... So if anybody who's not using a Google Merchant Centre, I would highly recommend you get onto that Google Merchant Centre. Again, don't have to run a sponsored ad. Whether you do it or not, it's a choice that you have to make, but definitely get onto the Google Merchant Centre, connect your store into it, and leverage, take the full advantage of whatever organic optimisation strategies that are available to you.

And this would be really essential for e-commerce stores going forward. Otherwise, if they are not doing it today, they are essentially really living in 2022 at the moment. 

LEONIE: Right, okay. 

Content for an e-commerce business

LEONIE: And are there any implications for e-commerce businesses with that around content? 

PULKIT: Yeah, see, high quality content is always going to be super important. I've seen a lot of sites that don't use content effectively. And with the content, they tend to forget that content is no longer... Content no longer sits in silos.

It's a very interconnected world. So, and products are complicated. Things like, if they're not focussing on TOFU, MOFU, or BOFU, which is top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel content.

And not only that, after that, after sales or how to use product information videos or product information content, they're really, because this is all a part of the buying journey for a customer. So when it comes to content, they need to ensure that the entire buying journey is covered with content. And post-sales journey is also covered with content because they may have troubles using the product or a service, or they may require maintenance.

It could be different types of things, not just actual product, but also from a services point of view. So a clearly defined content strategy is extremely beneficial, helpful. And I see a lot of sites where how to use a product.

They are more than happy to explain it over the phone, but not ready to publish it on the web. It really doesn't make any sense because then Google can only go by the information that it can actually see on your website or on the web. So yes, now, so that's the e-commerce bit.

Content for a retail business

PULKIT: For the retail customers, I think click and collect is, even if they're really wanting to sell online, click and collect or booking appointments directly online through the website is essentially an excellent practice to get people to walk into the store, really touch and feel the product because some products require touch and feel. 

Visualisation techniques - say for example, and Dulux does this really well with the paints and everything. They invite people to visit their website, create a, upload their own pictures, add their own paint and see how it looks, have a consultant speak to them one-on-one, booking an appointment, walk into the store, touch and feel the product, touch and get the experience because one of the things that I'm really passionate about, and I tell this to everybody I speak to, is even though they're buying from your business, but they really need to like you as a person on the other side of the table. If they like you, once their comfort level is there, they'll be more than happy to… If they need to be feel, they need to feel welcome on your website, they need to feel welcome on your in-store experience and the whole, then they can choose whether they want to purchase it through your website or even if they want to visit your retail store, but booking appointments, answering phone calls, super important, be it any form of industry, it's the whole experience that sells, not silos. 

LEONIE: Yes, so really it does, it comes down to really good business practice, doesn't it? It's about creating the right experience for the customer that makes them feel comfortable. 

PULKIT: Absolutely.

LEONIE: And wanting to use your product or service. 

PULKIT: Absolutely, I'll give you another example, I bought an office chair recently and it came with an instruction booklet on how to, and I was not able to get it to tilt, so I just quickly looked up the booklet and I was able to tilt it. So that's one, it's a very little thing, but it goes a long way when it comes to exceptional customer service. And content. 

LEONIE: Being able to find the information that you need. 

PULKIT: Absolutely. 

LEONIE: Yeah, because when you can't, you go away feeling frustrated. So obviously if their products frustrate you, you're less likely to be buying them in the future. 

PULKIT: Absolutely, so I think it's the whole experience and that's where the content is super important. Even people think that they don't like to read, but I kind of think that people like to read because every single day we're reading a lot of stuff. So yes, content, super, super, super important. TOFY, MOFU, BOFU, after sales, every single piece of content, connecting all the dots and not looking at the piece as an individual piece, but where it sits in the bigger picture.

Yeah, yeah. 

Building credibility with content

LEONIE: So thinking of smaller businesses for a moment, where the founder or the CEO is often the main topic expert in the business and content budgets are often limited or non-existent in some cases, CEOs are time poor. What are some strategies that are affordable and less time intensive that those businesses can use to create the sort of content that bolsters their credibility with potential clients and in the eyes of search engines as well? 

PULKIT: Yes, so I would say quality over quantity. And I was in this discussion only, I think on Friday, yeah, Friday with another client and they said, we want to publish a blog on our website and they're super time poor. They said, we'll get our VA to write it and all of that stuff. And I was like, okay, let's take a step back.

If you're really wanting to publish a blog, creating content is expensive. It's time consuming, it requires effort. And if you're asking somebody else to spend 10, 15, 20 minutes, whatever the time may look like, 5, 10 minutes, are you making it worth their time? Number one.

And the second thing is, even if you're time poor, you don't have to publish weekly, you don't have to publish fortnightly, you don't have to publish on a schedule. All you have to do is you need to publish at a time, you need to publish great quality pieces, quality pieces that add exceptional value to the person who is reading it and is solving a problem for them. So people don't, people search for problems in the hopes of finding solutions.

So if you are able to solve one, if you're able to solve one issue with your content, that's your objective achieved in my opinion. More, again, whether it belongs or not is a different storey, but quality over quantity, rather than using any of the AI generated tools, I won't name or shame ChatGPT or any other ones out there, but use it to refine it, use it to add quality, add your own unique angle, what issue you're solving, and then you are in a very good position when it comes to content, and you will always find a reader for it when it comes to search engines. 

Affordable content ideas

LEONIE: Are there other types of content that they can create that would be more affordable? I mean, we're seeing a lot of video content out there, and then there are other options around podcasts or even being guests on podcasts. What are some of the more affordable ways that small businesses can use to bolster their visibility?

PULKIT: I think one form of content is probably not going to be enough. They will need multiple forms of content. Now, some businesses are not greatly suitable. Let's say, for example, if I have a plumbing issue at home, then I'm not going to go listen to a podcast for it. I'm not going to go listen for it.

So it really depends on industry to industry specific, but yes, people are consuming a lot more videos, as opposed to other forms of content. People are also consuming a lot of text-based content. And the other forms, see, I would really, really, depending on the industry and where your customers is. Essentially, I would really be doing a customer profile and trying to identify what type of content they would prefer.

Even in age demographic is going to be super important, whether they are comfortable reading, watching or listening. So age demographics, and yes, I would essentially use two or three forms of content. Video, definitely. Text-based content, definitely. Whether a podcast would work or not, it's a difference. I cannot answer that question. It's a bit open at the moment, but yes, people are listening to a lot of audio books and listening to a lot of podcasts as well. 

SEO tips for small to medium businesses

LEONIE: Okay, so let's have some SEO tips for small to medium businesses. Let's start with B2B. I'll give you a scenario. If you were engaged by a B2B company that offered services nationally, but had low visibility online, and your task as an SEO expert was to improve that significantly over a year, what are the first three things that you would assess and why? 

PULKIT: So I would really start with looking at two things. One of them is their indexation report, is whether Google is able to actually find all the pages of their website or all the content that they have published, number one.

The second thing that I would do is look at what their technical SEO looks like. That's super, super important because if Google's having trouble accessing your content or there are a lot of errors on your website, it's a poor experience for the user and the search engine bots, then that may affect your visibility quite heavily because again, this is another personal favourite quote of mine, Google is not your customer. And Google wants to ensure that for its customers, it provides the best experience.

So who is Google's customer? So the person who is doing a search is Google's customer. So Google only wants to send them to the sites that provide the best experience. So sites that are riddled with errors, that's one thing. So Google will not, I wouldn't say penalise,  it’s probably a very strong word, but I would say it would push you lower if it's not a very poor, good user experience. Indexation reports, super important. And whether they're actually ranking for their core search terms, which are their core branded search terms, super important.

Even if they're not even ranking for their brand names, then essentially we have an issue here. So I would really start with that and I would start to focus on improving the visibility by making sure that Google is able to see whatever content they have published, making sure that technical SEO is clean and nice. And I'll give you an example.

An e-commerce store reached out to me last year. They have 5,000 products in their catalogue. And when I looked at their search console, there were about 150,000 URLs that were being rejected by Google. How can a store with 5,000 products have 150,000 URLs? It doesn't make any sense. So that's the kind of experience we're talking about here. So those are the three things I would do.

Their current visibility, their current technical stuff, current indexation, and also whether they're ranking for their core search terms and if yes, where. 

Locally-focused SEO tips

LEONIE: Okay. And now similar for a business that has a local focus. So perhaps it's a trade business like a plumber or a solar installation company. And let's say the problem again is low visibility online and your task is to find and fix the problem. What are you checking first and what actions might you take to get their phones ringing? 

PULKIT: For local businesses, I would really start with, yes, I would still look at their current technical SEO and their Google search console. But the third thing that I would check is their Google Business Profile. It's called Google Business Profile. Now it's a terrible choice of name. It used to be called Google My Business. I think they should have changed it to Google Your Business, but it's called Google Business Profile. So having an audit of their Google Business Profile is going to be super important, making sure their phone numbers are updated, making sure their profile’s verified and claimed, making sure all the service areas are updated, also making sure their category selection is very important when it comes to Google Business Profile.

When it comes to a local business, it's essentially a very local focus. So having those service areas updated is going to be super important. Because as I said earlier, if I'm looking for a plumber near me and I see a lot of businesses to change their business name to Plumber Near Me or stuff like that, we won't go there, but yeah, so really looking at, auditing your Google Business Profile, making sure your indexation status and your technical SEO is top notch.

And I'll add one more is having quality reviews. If a customer is happy about it, ask them to do a review, ask them to share the photos, ask them to request them to share the photos, request them to do a review of your business. And that one little review goes a very long way.

Common SEO mistakes

LEONIE: Okay, what are some of the things that you wish business owners would understand about SEO that they don't often don't? 

PULKIT: I would summarise this in a brief way is, again, what I said earlier, Google's not your customer. You want to make sure that if you are providing the best experience for your customer, who is either walking through the door, ringing your office or your store, or placing an enquiry, because if you're not focussing on that experience, then that business will always struggle with Google. In the last 17 years, a lot of things have changed when it comes to SEO, but the core practices have not changed at all.

We still see a lot of bad practices still going around with SEO. If people are not using structured data, it's a no-brainer. I mean, essentially it's a no-brainer. If you're not using structured data, I know it's complicated, I know it can be hard to, depending on the platform, it can become really tricky, but if you're not looking at scale, if you're not taking advantage of structured data, then there is no saving grace, but do the right thing. Don't try to falsify or create additional content. Don't try to invent stuff. Do the right thing that works for your business, and you will absolutely find success when it comes to SEO. 

SEO bad practices

LEONIE: What other things are there that you would like people to understand about SEO? 

PULKIT: I think the importance of structured data is very understated at the moment. Good SEO companies do realise the importance of structured data, but we still see a lot of bad practices in the industry, a lot of bad practices.

LEONIE: What are some of the bad practices that people should raise a red flag for people? 

PULKIT: Well, I'll start with some real life examples. I was in a meeting trying to unravel a report a couple of weeks ago, and I was told that the structured data is present on the website. Took us less than 30 seconds to figure out that that's not the case. Just put it into Google Rich Results test, and there was no Google structured data. That's a bad practice. That's falsifying.

You're telling article submissions, social bookmarking for backlinking. That's really bad practice. I mean, you know some of these practices.

Essentially, these are all 2009/10, and we still see it. In fact, we took down a report a few months ago that had article submission, and there was like, oh, I thought I would never see that again in 2024, but I still saw it, and I was like, no, don't do it. 

LEONIE: Is that like, are some of those article directories still around? Are they like Ezine Articles? 

PULKIT: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there are still, there's still, you see, again, you know, if you go onto Fiverr or, again, I'm not against Fiverr, or I'm not against any individual person here, but one of the things that Google is looking at is if you're getting a backlink from a site, what's their traffic like? Who their customers are? It's no longer just a backlink, but it's much more than that. Is the page actually receiving any traffic or not? If you have, so for example, if you work in the sales and marketing industry, and if you end up getting a link from HubSpot blog, then you know that's gold because they publish good quality stuff every single time. Whenever they make a publication, whenever they publish a blog, it's great quality stuff, but then again, a low quality directory or a low quality article site is not going to bring any value to anybody. Nobody's going there. Nobody is looking at it. And I think one of the other metrics that I personally, again, you know, I'm a bit of a misfit and a rebel in the industry. That's what I think. But all this talk about DA, PA, DR, PR, all of that kind of stuff, which is domain authority, page authority, and stuff like that. I think it's a bit of an overstatement, I would say. If you really publish good quality stuff, and even if your DA or whatever that looks like is non-existent, Google will reward you with excellent visibility because Google is able to understand.

When a user does a search, Google also looks at their past history, and it's super, super, super important when it comes to structured data, which is very important. I would say, look at all of these things, provide excellent user experience. Don't try to falsify things, create great content, and you will be fine.

SEO packages

LEONIE: Pulkit, what do you think of the SEO packages that are out there? Because I know we hear of a lot of clients that get stuck. They get stuck into contracts, paying a certain amount of money for a certain amount of time, and often they can't see the value that's coming from that. What are your opinion about packages? 

PULKIT: My opinion around SEO packages is actually quite strong. I think SEO packages are an imagination of agencies who are really trying to, I wouldn't say they're trying to cheat businesses, but SEO packages should not exist. SEO packages, a product like SEO packages should not exist. It's an incorrect product because what works for, again, we'll go back to the earlier example, what works for a local business may not work for a B2B business. What works for retail might not work for e-commerce. What works for trades, even within trades, what works for an electrician may not work for a plumber. So SEO packages as a product does not exist. One size does not fit all. If anybody's using SEO packages and they feel that they're not getting any value out of it, then they're most likely right, that's what I would say. 

A few months ago, I've got a mate who is a builder, and they were in the process of getting their website redone. And they told me, our web developer is pushing us to do SEO for an additional $699 a month. And he called me and asked me, how much do you charge? I said, don't do it. Neither with me, neither with your customer.

You may want to do it to increase your visibility and all of that stuff, but if you're really expecting leads to follow through that process, then you really need a good, decent chunk of money, maybe $20,000, $30,000, and not just on SEO, but really spending across all channels, be it your social medias, be it your content creation, even offline advertising, even online, because a customer's buying journey for selecting a builder is going to be a very long journey. They may even have to take a mortgage before they engage with you. So $699 a month is not going to do any good to you, not because it's $699 a month, but because the customer's buying journey is so long, and in the end, you will get frustrated.

So SEO packages, 100%, in my opinion, should not exist. It's a mythical product. 

LEONIE: Hmm, and it's interesting, isn't it? Because I know over the years, I've spoken to quite a few SEO people, and it's pretty impossible to get an SEO person to do a particular task for you unless you seek out an individual consultant, because the agencies all want to do 12-month-long packages, and they're not interested. They're not interested in fixing a problem and getting a couple of thousand dollars for it. They're interested in getting a couple of thousand dollars a month for the next year. 

PULKIT: Yeah, yep, that's what it is, that's what it is. The amount of stuff that we still see for packages that have some amazing package names, silver, bronze, 25 keywords a month, 30, 50 keywords a month, that's outrageous. I mean, that's really, in my opinion, I would call it a daylight robbery, daylight robbery. So packages, anybody should be wary of it, irrespective of their size, whether, I mean, the corporates are pretty good at it because they have the knowledge, experience, and resources.

They have the team to back it up, but usually it's the small businesses that get caught out in this process, and web developers are not SEOs. So don't, no, don't do the packages. I've got some strong opinions, sorry.

So packages is important, and the other one that I still see a lot is people not focussing on buying journeys. Buying journeys is very important. 

What should you spend on SEO

LEONIE: So, Pulkit, how much should people expect to spend on SEO? 

PULKIT: I think I don't have an answer to that question, and I'll tell you why - because as a business, you need to look at your CAC, or customer acquisition cost, and once you look at your customer acquisition cost, then you need to allocate a marketing budget or a marketing time cost to it, whatever percentage that looks like, and that be 10%, 20%, 50%, whatever that looks like, and then you need to divide it within that, and then you need to look at how many customers you want to acquire on a monthly basis.

Then you will get an idea of how much money you need to spend on SEO, and whether it will be worth the effort or not. If you're really, again, going back to the example of the builder, we all know that building's expensive at the moment, and it's becoming really hard to acquire customers, so people need to, businesses need to push really hard. So if your customer acquisition cost is $100,000, and if you're spending, if you keep 20% as a marketing expense, then spread across whatever channels that you're using, and if you want to acquire five customers, so you have a pool of $100,000 annually, and then you decide, okay, that's the money I want to spend on SEO, rather than me telling you that, okay, this is the money you will spend, and I'm gonna pull the magic wand out, and it's gonna do the magic at the end of the year.

It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way, and the other one that is super important from an agency, from a business point of view, and I think it goes back to your earlier question about where businesses are heading, or what SEO strategies or challenges are for 2025. One of the key metrics that I still don't see a lot of people look at is KPIs.

So when a business approaches us, we spend a lot of time understanding what their KPIs are. Is it ranking? Is it visibility? Because most businesses think that if we get onto the first page of Google, or if we get really high rankings on Google, then we will suddenly have a huge influx of customers walking in through the door. It doesn't work that way.

As an agency, we are your marketing partners, so we really need to look at your KPIs. We need to understand what those KPIs look like in the online world, how to track them, make sure that as an agency, or a marketing partner, we are looking in the same direction as the business owner, or the decision maker, and we are walking in that same direction. Otherwise, and that's where we see the disconnect, where agencies are doing their own thing, businesses are doing their own thing, they get a report on a monthly basis.

Oh, the rankings look great. The business goes oh, because we've got no leads this month. So that's the disconnect.

So if you're not looking at the KPIs, super, super, super important, look at the KPIs for, and look at your customer acquisition cost. 

Pulkit’s business model

LEONIE: And that's actually what I really like about the model that you work on with consultancy is that whether a business is a small one or a big one, they can actually go to you as a consultant and only use as much of your time as is necessary to solve the problem. And in doing that way, you're putting strategy first, which is always important in that you're putting strategy first, you're identifying what is important, what deserves to have money spent on it, what doesn't deserve to have money spent on it. And they're actually spending a lot less time doing it. If there are problems, they get fixed and then they're not committed to ongoing payments and you can give them guidance to help them keep things going themselves. 

PULKIT: So yes, it doesn't require a commitment, absolutely not. And if you have an issue, fix the issue, look at the issue, fix the issue, it's not $699. 

Which website platform is the best

LEONIE: When it comes to websites, is there one type of platform that's better than another? Is WordPress better than other platforms? 

PULKIT: The short answer is no. Google is platform agnostic and Google's platform agnostic, it does not, your underlying technology has got no relationships with Google.

LEONIE: So I guess content really still is king. Content is king, content is king, 100%, great quality content. And if, I keep on referring this, if you are going to ask somebody to read, you would want somebody to read the stuff that you publish. So make it worth their time. 

Contacting Pulkit and consultation structure

LEONIE: I'm going to put up your contact details so that anyone who wants to reach out to you for a consultation can do that. So tell me a bit about how you offer your consultations.

PULKIT: So I'm a government funded advisor for the Digital Solutions Program. And for businesses that are based in New South Wales and ACT, they can get access to up to four hours of one-on-one consulting. It doesn't have to be fully with me.

And it's brilliant for just $45. But once they've exhausted and if they need more help, then yes, we do offer the consulting. I think we've got two models.

One of them is a starter model, which is focused at the small and medium businesses who know what their issues are. And they want a fix to that particular issue. And we usually start with asking a lot of questions around what their issues are and suggest how much time it may need. Some issues are complex. Some issues are long-term. And then there is another model, which is a retainer model. Again, consulting where it's an SEO on call. And that usually works with larger businesses where they do have an internal resource team, but given the size and nature of their businesses, they keep on encountering one thing or the other. 

There's no commitment with either one of those ever. And have a chat with us. If you're unsure, have a chat with us. If there is an issue, more than happy to look at it.

But yes, that's the consulting model. There's no commitment. 

LEONIE: Anyone can contact you and let you know what their problem is and get a bit of an estimate on how much it might cost to solve it.

PULKIT: No commitments, once-off issues, answers to your once-off questions.

Content with Humans is produced by Article Writers Australia, a Sydney content marketing agency.