180 Marketing

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of eCommerce of ROAD iD

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We create elegantly simple, wearable ID & technology that connects you to friends and family when it matters most to save lives, deliver peace of mind, and fuel adventure.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire 180 Marketing to accomplish?

• SEO cleanup and optimization across 2 sites
• Drive revenue growth via organic search
• Maintain SEO credibility and performance during a complete site redesign/Shopify theme change

SOLUTION

How did you find 180 Marketing?

Referral

Why did you select 180 Marketing over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Across 2 websites: 

• Comprehensive SEO audit 
• Keyword+ page optimization strategy + execution 
• Technical SEO execution 
• Link-building strategy +execution 

For 1 website redesign and theme change: 

• Site mapping consultation 
• Page+ link maintenance strategy 
• Post site launch audit & cleanup (strategy + execution)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Across 2 sites: 

• Increase in keyword ranking and search engine 1st page appearances 
• Increase in revenue from organic traffic 
• Increased internal SEO knowledge, understanding, and skillsets 

For the updated site + theme change: 

• Maintained SEO performance despite drastic changes

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Excellent project management! Scott, our dedicated account manager and SEO expert is extremely organized, is always quick and helpful in responses to questions/needs, and punctual in delivering on commitments.The game plan is always excellently strategized and documented in a manner that is user-friendly for both teams. Additionally, thorough recap emails and shared documents ensure everyone always knows 1) what needs to be done by what team, 2) timelines and 3) priority level.

What was your primary form of communication with 180 Marketing?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I'm most impressed with 180's: 

1. Industry knowledge. They are truly SEO experts in every facet of the field (technical, content building, backlinking, etc.). Their passion for what they do shines through in every interaction. 
2. Ability to educate clients: We joke that each time we meet with Scott, we feel like we receive a college course worth of SEO education. SEO can be an intimidating, murky topic, and they explain everything in a way that makes us feel comfortable and confident in understanding the strategy and process. 
3. Team efficiency + project management: Well organized, always helpful, delivers on time, and create documents + process that makes it easy on us (the client).
4. Team culture and vibe: They are all wonderful people that we genuinely love working with. We see and treat them as extensions of the ROAD iD team. Client service and care is their #1 priority and go out of their way to prove that to us.

Are there any areas for improvement or something 180 Marketing could have done differently?

none

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the marketing consultant in charge of SEO strategy in a fast growing e-commerce company specialized in Japanese products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 180 Marketing, and what were your goals?

After working with a design agency for our new website, we noticed a big drop in our organic traffic due to some technical issues and new site map. We were looking for a trusted partner (already worked with 180 Marketing a few years back) that could help us to develop a brand new strategy and fix all technical issues.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We interviewed a couple of SEO agencies and felt like 180 Marketing had the best offer. Adding the previous proved experience we had working with them a few years back.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

The agency started with a clear 6 months schedule so we could have the visibility on what was going to happen. They mapped a complete technical issues diagnostic and solution for our devs to work on it and we then moved to the content creation strategy. Over 130 articles and topical authority pages for the website. We finally moved to the last stage of link building with a deep strategy to gain authority.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked closely with Zoe, our project manager on a biweekly meeting and emails in between, as well as occasional follow up with Andy, the SEO Director.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

I can't disclose exact numbers but we are pretty happy with the deliverables, clear visibility on metrics and next steps all the way through the 6 months. General and niche rankings have improved, as well as organic traffic and domain ranking.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Deadlines have been met all the way through. Communication mostly happened through biweekly Zoom calls and emails as needed.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Big props to Zoe, our project manager, that worked around the clock to meet deadlines and deal with our timezones challenges (company is in between Japan and LA, but I'm currently in Europe). She even helped with side questions we had for our other ecommerce website.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We just had one issue at first with a website implementation that was a bit fast without double checking. Leading to 404 error on a main page. But it was fixed within an hour and did not create any big harm on our end. Overall, there was no major issue.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Managing Director for BroBasket. We are an online gifting destination specializing in liquor, beer, wine, and champagne gifts for the consumer and corporate market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 180 Marketing, and what were your goals?

We purchased the business in March 2021and discovered that the SEO health of the site was on the slide for some time. We engaged 180's services to right the ship, regarding technical and on-site strategies and to refocus our efforts on opportunities that had the greatest returns

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

They came highly recommended by a few people. We conducted interviews with several agencies. 180 were a stand out. They clearly had the experience and it was obvious to us that as SEO has evolved so has their agency. This was a huge factor. The team is rock solid, especially Management. They had a track record of success. Finally, we all had great chemistry with them.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

Our working relationship started with a discovery phase. They dug deep into keyword research, meta descriptions, onsite metrics, etc. After 2-weeks they presented an Optimization Roadmap which over time has evolved to include many more projects. The roadmap was then given a timeline and turned into a Project Plan. We met and still meet every 2-weeks to review the Optimization roadmap.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Our first contact was with the CEO. We were then introduced to their SEO Director who was our Account Manager for at least 3-months. We now have an excellent Account Manager, however, the SEO Director is still involved in our account

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

I'll speak to a recent Project we just executed with 180's support. We recently migrated from Woocommerce to Shopify with a new domain! The old domain has a 56DR and over 25K backlinks, so needless to say this was a big and risky project. Their expertise and advice was invaluable. They spent countless hours ensuring our 301s were in place correctly, on-site content was transferred to the new site, etc...I don't know what we would have done without them.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

They are organized and clear about what they are working on and what progress has been made. The Optimization Roadmap is always part of the discussion. We use email and slack to communicate on a regular basis and meet on Zoom every 2-weeks.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They are far more than an SEO Agency. Management have been in ecommerce for 20-years and the knowledge they have about the ecosystem is something you don't get from your run of the mill agency. We can often call to ask for their advice on something completely non-SEO related. They are strategic, smart, and know how to connect the dots outside of their immediate world.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nope!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're cleaning products brand that primarily sells via e-commerce

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 180 Marketing, and what were your goals?

We hired 180 Marketing to improve our organic reach. We had been seeing a slow decline in our organic traffic and wanted to turn that around.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Social proof. I personally knew several other e-commerce companies that had used Jeff and his team and had positive experiences. That's rare. Usually people are not happy with SEO's!

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

• Technical SEO - Getting the site structure, meta data, etc. correct.
• Keyword research
• Helping us with content ideas that would deliver the most impact
• Link building

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

2. Jeff is the owner, and he created the strategy. Michael was our account manager. Both were very attentive, listened to our needs, and delivered.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Our organic traffic improved 49% while working with 180 marketing. Our rank for our main keywords improved immensely, in some instances we ranked 1 or 2 for important keywords.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Communication was great. The expectations were clearly laid out in the scope, and 180 Marketing stuck to the promised timelines.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We're pretty particular about the content that's put up on our site, and while it took a few tries to get to the point that the content they were creating met those standards, we got to that point.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We didn't have any issues with any of the work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Owner of Michelle's aDOORable Creations

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Holiday and Home Decor Store

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire 180 Marketing to accomplish?

• Google
• Brand Focus

SOLUTION

How did you find 180 Marketing?

Online Search

Why did you select 180 Marketing over others?

Introduction Meeting

How many teammates from 180 Marketing were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Blog post

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Higher rankings on google listings

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They are great to work with and respond in a timely manner and provide fast feedback

What was your primary form of communication with 180 Marketing?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Constant contact and updates

Are there any areas for improvement or something 180 Marketing could have done differently?

There is always room for improvement with any company.  Improvement with blog post and SEO marketing

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the brand ambassador coordinator for Bones Coffee Company. We create uniquely flavored, high-quality coffees with creative packaging, offering adventurous blends and seasonal varieties.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 180 Marketing?

We needed help with our SEO strategy.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

180 Marketing provides SEO, link-building, and blog writing services for us. They deliver weekly blog content using strategic SEO terms.

What is the team composition?

We work with one teammate from 180 Marketing.

How did you come to work with 180 Marketing?

I took over the correspondence with 180 Marketing from someone else on our team, so I’m unfamiliar with the origins of our relationship.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with 180 Marketing in January 2024, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve seen great improvements in our rankings within Google and other similar search engines.

How did 180 Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

180 Marketing delivers on time and is very professional. We communicate via email and biweekly video meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

180 Marketing’s ability to utilize SEO to bolster our search engine placements is impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Owner of a spa products retailer

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We sell saunas and spa products online.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire 180 Marketing to accomplish?

Increase our organic traffic and revenue

SOLUTION

How did you find 180 Marketing?

Referral

Why did you select 180 Marketing over others?

High ratings

How many teammates from 180 Marketing were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We worked with 180 for 6 months, with disappointing results.

Our contract was $4K a month, and for that I expected them to put in some serious effort. 180 has not done this at all for us, unfortunately, and ended up completely wasting our money. I feel we have received no more than a 20th of the value we’ve spent, which has been utterly unacceptable.

Here’s the details on why it’s been a waste.

After 6 months, we have had an extremely minimal traffic increase. They built about $500 worth of links per month, many of which are low traffic and DR. We did have a high DR increase with a specific strategy they use, however, this is just that – an increase in DR without traffic following. This seems to be true with their other clients as well.

Their progress reports were not the most professional. We received numerous slides and spreadsheet items relating to other businesses, that had clearly been copied and pasted.

When mentioning I was ending our contract, 180 tried to take credit for increasing our brand traffic. Ultimately that was us spending months building up our brand name. Any professional SEO agency should not take credit for an increase in branded search when we’re already in first position.

Their technical and on-page SEO has been subpar, to say the least. They gave up on fixing Shopify’s breadcrumb URL structure, our schema optimization, and they have not spent a second optimizing many of our key collection pages.

Our HSA/FSA page, which is one of our main revenue-driving non-collection pages, actually dropped under their management.

When selling us, their projected traffic and revenue targets stated an increase of 23,520 and $1,226,302.54 per month respectively. Realistically, this has been one-hundredth of that number.

If you own a small business without a completely limitless SEO budget, I would be cautious about the initial selling and them mentioning they are not big on wasting people’s money.

While 180 Marketing does seem to be popular in eCommerceFuel, I have not seen them mentioned in any other communities, on Google, or Trustpilot, let alone being recommended in any SEO communities. I should have seen this as a red flag initially.

I can not recommend working with 180 Marketing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

None, really. We spent $24K over 6 months and got a 200 increase in traffic.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Items were delivered on time, and needs were mostly responded to. They are professional.

What was your primary form of communication with 180 Marketing?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The only positive was the content they produced and our increase in DR.

Are there any areas for improvement or something 180 Marketing could have done differently?

180 could have placed a lot more effort into our account. There were many instances where work was slow, and things were given up on. Our main collection pages still haven't been optimized. Schema optimization wasn't done. Minimal link building ($500 per month).

Their progress reports also are not the most professional. We received numerous slides and spreadsheet items relating to other businesses, that had clearly been copied and pasted.

Company Responses

The vendor responded on August 5, 2024.

Everything was delivered on time, and within 8 months we were able to obtain 4.3x organic search traffic: 

Here are some stats from the 8-month SEO campaign.

• 4.3x increase in organic search traffic
• 355% increase in # of keywords ranking on page 1
• 47 pages optimized, including all top collection pages
• 38 backlinks manually acquired with an average Domain Rating of 48
• Domain Rating increased from 11 to 27
• 14 technical SEO issues identified with actionable recommendations provided or implemented

All other clients have been extremely satisfied with our SEO services and rate us between 4.5 - 5 stars. The results speak for themselves, and this client's concerns are an isolated incident. Despite the incredible results, we still gave the client 3 free months of SEO service in attempts to end on good terms.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Manager 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We produce custom sports apparel and gear.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire 180 Marketing to accomplish?

• Implement onsite SEO
• Improve domain ranking and overall website experience
• Create backlinks

SOLUTION

How did you find 180 Marketing?

• Online Search
• Referral

Why did you select 180 Marketing over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from 180 Marketing were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Onsite SEO and website deliverables from 180 Marketing and from our company to improve our overall SEO performance and website usability.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Domain ranking has continued to climb, including keyword rankings and page rankings. We are at the top in our industry now in search due to the great work done by 180 Marketing.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

180 Marketing is extremely thoughtful, providing great reports, summaries, and communication. They are always on time, and they are always suggesting new best practices and implementations for us to stay ahead of our competitors. We highly recommend 180 Marketing for all SEO improvements!

What was your primary form of communication with 180 Marketing?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Incredible communication, suggestions, and attention to detail for improving SEO performance. Extremely knowledgable in SEO. Also love that they take the time to learn a lot about our industry.

Are there any areas for improvement or something 180 Marketing could have done differently?

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Growth Manager of Americanflat

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We sell picture frames, wall art, and home decor products

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire 180 Marketing to accomplish?

• Increased organic search traffic per month
• Improved on-site UX
• Better content marketing strategy

SOLUTION

How did you find 180 Marketing?

Referral

Why did you select 180 Marketing over others?

• High ratings
• Referred to me

How many teammates from 180 Marketing were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• Page Optimization 
• AI-powered blog post creation tool 
• Bulk AI-powered meta optimization tool 
• Blog post internal linking tool 
• Technical SEO 
• Bulk URL submission/removal tool 
• Keyword cannibalization tool 
• Link Building 
• Bulk backlink quality analysis tool 
• AI-powered backlink relevancy tool 
• AI-powered email personalization tool 
• Research Google Autocomplete scraper 
• Google People Also Ask scraper 
• AI-powered keyword cluster tool

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• 187% increase in organic search revenue in the past 3 months 
• 211% increase in total users from organic search in the past 3 months 
• 149% increase in clicks to our site in the past 3 months 
• More new, page 1 ranking keywords than I can count on 2 hands

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They deliver on time and concisely! Even when we ask for more than is in the SOW, they deliver!

What was your primary form of communication with 180 Marketing?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We were most pleased with their great communication and SEO knowledge.

Are there any areas for improvement or something 180 Marketing could have done differently?

Sometimes the email recaps are really long. Not sure if its even possible to make more concise though