Siege Media

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a mortgage lending company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Siege Media?

Our biggest challenge is content strategy and on-page SEO.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our project with Siege Media is two-phase. The first phase was a five-month prep period, and the second phase will begin in the coming weeks. 

The team provides social content, but we think more in terms of research and outreach elements to attract an audience and keep them. As a team, we’re able to create some content, so we use Siege Media as a way to augment that. They’re able to produce graphical and interactive components that we couldn’t build for ourselves.

We’re competing against very large companies in terms of lead generation, so our goal is to use our content to establish trust and authority in the market. 

What is the team composition?

There’s a lot of people from Siege Media deployed for the project as needed, but we don’t interact with them all. On any given day, we’ll have two or three touch points, including an account manager.

How did you come to work with Siege Media?

The company founder and I have a longstanding professional relationship through different companies. When our mortgage lending business needed to think big about our content plan, Siege Media was the only company I trusted to take on work like this.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since December 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t really have metrics, because content strategy is a long project. It’s difficult to assign a specific value, but in terms of anecdotal feedback, our customers tell us that the content we’re making available to them is well-structured, easy to read, and shows a bias toward action. Those qualities lead to more sales. Having Siege Media alongside us is just like having a powerhouse marketing team. They’re helping us to attract and retain customers and earn successful engagement.

The strength of Siege Media is the people, process, and experience. For Siege Media, content services is a multi-year plan, so they think long-term, which is one of the primary reasons why we continue to engage with them. 

How did Siege Media perform from a project management standpoint?

They do a wonderful job with communication. Before we start any new phase of the project, we start kick-off and ramp up 30 days prior, so by the time we get started, there’s no wasted time. The process is really dialed in — it’s extremely efficient. That’s terrific from a business planning standpoint. 

We use different platforms depending on the project, but we’ve used Trello in the past. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Siege Media makes us feel like we’re the only client. If I ever need them, I can call, Slack, or email them, and there will always be someone there. The team even proactively calls me when they’re thinking about the work we’re doing.

As a business owner, I have an aversion to working with consultants, because you only have their mindshare working on your specific project. With Siege Media, I’ve always felt that their team is thinking about the problems we’re trying to solve at all times. It makes them a true extension of what we’re building.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing jumps out at me.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You can bring your best ideas to Siege Media and they’ll help you make the most of them. Have your ideas loosely held and be open-minded and understanding of the experience their team has. Be open to trying new techniques.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Director of NV Group

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Siege Media?

We hired Siege for ongoing content marketing and strategy for several of our portfolio companies. They executed on a well thought out and well-researched plan that saved our team a good deal of time on money.

Having dealt with multiple content agencies over the years, SM stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of quality. One of the most notable parts about their content strategy is high level aesthetic design as part of the package which increased our content performance dramatically.

What were your goals for this project?

Increase organic traffic in a competitive niche and generate more leads.

SOLUTION

How did you select Siege Media?

Based on performance quality and trusted reputable in the online community.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

The scope of work included ongoing monthly content, branding and strategy. This was an end-to-end service that required little input and coordination from our team.

What was the team composition?

1. Content manager
2. Strategy lead
3. Content experts
4. Designers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The project generate a net 3X in organic keywords and over a 12 month period was responsible for a 165% in organic traffic. I'm fairly confident that these results are primarily due to their work as we weren't running any additional organic campaigns at that time.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Seamless. Effective communication and workflow.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Mentioned earlier, the use of high quality design aesthetics to increase user retention and overall quality.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an online marketplace helping business owners shop, compare, and apply to the best financial products available to them. As the director of content marketing, I oversee Fundera's content and SEO strategy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Siege Media?

We hired Siege Media for a full site redesign and for web design work required for launching a new website.

What were your goals for this project?

Improve the user experience of our website and give the website an updated look and feel that would better reflect our brand. For the new website launch, our goals were to create page layouts that would work well for a publishing site and speak to the early stage of the website's brand.

SOLUTION

How did you select Siege Media?

We've worked with Siege Media in the past, employing them for other content marketing efforts that required web design. We saw first hand how thoughtful and talented their content marketers and designers were. Based on that experience, we were very comfortable and excited to move this larger redesign and new site build project forward with them.

Describe the project in detail.

We set out to redesign each existing template on our website, while also envisioning and developing new templates that weren't available to our content team. We worked with Siege Media's team to get aligned on not only the current state of our website, but where we'd hope it would be after the redesign, along with the purpose, goals, and intended use of each template we were going to design.

The Siege team started with our visual identity, working through some design fundamentals for the work upcoming. After that, the team started chipping away at iterations of each template, breaking each template down into components that we ultimately gave feedback on. Siege was responsible for not only incorporating what we wanted in the design, but developing new concepts for us as we wanted to experiment with new components/layouts, etc.

What was the team composition?

We worked with one lead designer (Aren) and our project manager (Emily) for the majority of the project. Towards the end, Aren brought in another designer to help out. They collaborated with me, other members of our marketing team, our design team, and our engineering team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We are still launching the work Siege delivered for us, but so far some of the templates have had outsized effects on the templates' bounce rates. We've seen 20 to 25 percentage point decreases in bounce rate on templates, with 1 to 1:30 minute increases in time on site!

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow between us was quite effective -- the Siege team was incredibly organized and did a great job keeping us informed on the project's process with weekly updates and calls. We worked out a few kinks for delivering and implementing feedback as we got farther along in the project and had more templates under our belt.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

One of their strengths is the team's ability to not only meet your own expectations and goals, but find ways to push the work a bit further. They were great at coming to the table with new designs and concepts for us to consider. They'd frequently take rather nebulous and unformed ideas and deliver concrete work that exceeded our expectations. They have such a great attitude, and no task is too big or too small for them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There really weren't any huge areas of improvement for the team. As mentioned above, there were moments when the best ways to deliver feedback and have it be implement was unclear, but that was mostly due to this being a relatively unique and new project for us.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I consult with an automotive transport trucking company, directing their development of a new B2C retail division to complement their existing B2B business. I directed the building of the website and marketing of this new division. I advised hiring, training, and selection of vendors, as well as assumed operational duties during owner's absences.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Siege Media?

Siege brought an understanding of SEO and link building to the website marketing project. We hired Siege Media to create new content and promote it to other websites, journalists for the sake of getting links back to our website and increasing its domain authority.

What were your goals for this project?

We aimed to break into top 10 ranking for competitive keywords in the auto transport industry. To do this, we wanted to improve the link profile and domain authority of the website. We needed links from credible 3rd party sites. We also needed content that was worthy of promotion to these sites.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We sought out Siege Media as a result of their published expertise in writings and videos, and in writing on trusted 3rd party websites. This demonstrated expertise and gave us confidence they understood the problem. We checked with references they provided as double assurance.

Describe the project in detail.

The project began after founder Ross Hudgeons met me in Los Angeles with my colleague. He confirmed the auto transport niche was competitive but delivered a site analysis that explained the opportunities to improve our existing site, and build new content. Then we undertook the content selection process, seeking topics that would be popular and worth linking to from 3rd party websites that were not directly related to the auto transport industry.

Ross and his team suggested several ideas and we narrowed them down to 3 topics. After the second topic seemed to be a dud, Ross suggested we double down on the third topic and give that an extra effort at no additional cost. We eventually got to two good content pieces we were proud to promote. The development of two solid pieces unfolded.

What was the team composition?

The team included Ross, the founder, plus his team of content linkers and promoters, and designer / coder, and content project manager Caroline Gilbert. My client, the auto transporter, also contributed people to review and publish content.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Among the three content pieces produced, one stood out as an exceptional result beyond our expectations. The stand-out piece was about the weirdest driving laws in the USA. Our take on that topic garnered dozens of links and even made the TV evening news of a CBS affiliate. Lots of TV station affiliates picked up this story and generated a surge of traffic and link authority.

Our content rankings on Google for other pages not created by Siege but keyword-optimized on the site then increased as the domain authority increased. This achieved the goal we had intended.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our teams worked efficiently. There were no problems that were noticeable as the client. There was a slight delay in getting a programmer access to our website to complete a special coding task, but this was solved eventually.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I appreciated the creativity in conceiving of topics that were of interest to a general audience when our industry could be considered boring. What's sexy or exciting about auto transport? Siege helped us find a story that spread by word of mouth, one we were proud to promote.

I also appreciated technical SEO consultations that helped us make the website better -- beyond the scope of new content promotion for which we'd paid. I most appreciated the decision to double down on the effort to design and promote this third winning piece of content after the second piece seemed a dud.

Rather than explain away the poor results from the second effort, Ross suggested his team make up for the disappointment by going above and beyond on the third piece. It showed a commitment to the result we sought, more than the process originally outlined. Ross and his team felt like partners working towards the same goal. This was appreciated by me and the owner of the company who was new to SEO and didn't understand the details of how rankings work.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We'd like to engage Siege on shorter contractual time frames, more individual project basis. But I understand why they've gone to an engagement model that requires a longer term commitment.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a Senior Marketing Associate for an apparel company based in New York, New York. I manage SEO and offline marketing for our company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Siege Media?

As our company has continued to scale up and find opportunities to help grow the business further, SEO was identified as a particular area that we needed to focus on more. We didn't generate much content nor link build internally, so that was an area of need. Bringing in Siege helped us generate content immediately and increase the amount of links that referred to us significantly.

What were your goals for this project?

We ultimately want to see an increase in domain authority for our website -- to help compete more effectively in our crowded industry. We saw an immediate lift after our first post. In the long-term, we believe that these posts and link generation efforts will provide a lift (in sales and traffic) to the entire site for particular product categories we are active in.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Our team received recommendations from our technical SEO agency and other companies as well as have worked with another content marketing company in the past with subpar results.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Before kicking off any deliverables with Siege, they were extremely thorough in terms of learning our brand voice and guidelines so that the content pieces that they would generate would require very minimal critiques and edits. Every month or so, they will send over a content idea deck to garner our feedback or select from -- at this point in time we have only strayed from their ideas once because we had a new product category launching that they were unaware of.

After receiving our approval on the ideas, they will send over a timeline for 1st and final drafts for new pieces for our review. When we push it live on our CMS, they will review and QA. From there, they will begin the outreach for link generation and provide us with a monthly synopsis with how things are going.

What was the team composition?

We work with two account managers and have steady dialogue with their founder -- they are all readily available for communication at all times.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Our first post went viral much to the shock of all parties involved. The post generated more referring links in one month than our previous content marketing agency provided in over a year.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The schedule and communication from the Siege team have been exceptional. Communicated timelines are always met and expectations/actions are always clearly outlined in our email communications. We work on shared Google docs to make comments on particular posts or survey questions and feedback is always incorporated effectively.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

All the expectations lined out at the beginning of our working relationship have been met and have been extremely easy to work with. Siege is easily one of the easiest agencies I have to work with and require very little back and forth in terms of editing the content and ideas that they send over.

They absorbed our brand voice and understood our guidelines immediately. The process of sending over schedules, results, and new content is like clockwork and extremely professional which means I rarely if ever, have to hunt information down.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Overall we are extremely satisfied with the results and relationship thus far. A very small thing that would be an additional benefit is to have an ongoing conversation on how we could be helping them be more effective in their efforts i.e. template improvements etc. It happens here and there, but I think if that was continuous, that would be great.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a digital marketing agency. I am the COO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Siege Media?

We were looking for a content partner to help drive backlinks and ultimately traffic to a set of clients.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to increase traffic to our set of domains as quickly as possible through a content strategy.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We did a phone interview with three different vendors. Siege was by the far the most impressive because they were able to demonstrate a content strategy that was rooted in measurable outcomes.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Siege was to create a large amount of content for a client with an annual referring domains goal in mind. The pace was to be 4 pieces of high-quality content a month for an entire year.

What was the team composition?

We worked with an account manager and a team of designers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We saw the outreach for these pieces of content work almost immediately. The traffic to the pieces of content and then to the e-comm portions of the site started to rise several weeks after publication; just as Siege had suggested it would.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Siege was very responsive over e-mail.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The quality of the assets produced was very very high, especially for an outside vendor that didn't have much context about the space before we started the engagement.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I run a pay-per-click and conversion agency and oversee everything we do.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Siege Media?

A lot of our growth (or should I say, growth we'd like) should and does come from our content marketing. But we've been following the same blueprint for a long time that started to dwindle our returns. I reached out to the Siege Media team to get their deeper expertise and opinion on two parts:

1. Why are we stagnant?
2. What can we do to grow more?

What were your goals for this project?

I wanted to see what was possible to achieve in visitor counts and conversion volume if we followed a different strategic plan. I didn't know the exact defined numbers and goals as I didn't know what to expect.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Long time follower and fan on Ross and team and since they're not far from us (and met them before) it was natural to work with them. They had already established themselves as trustworthy.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

It was a deep dive audit into our analytics, our customer personas, where they then gave us a roadmap of what to focus on and follow through with too.

What was the team composition?

SEO specific analyst and creative manager looking at both the technical content and the aesthetics too.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We've been following their game plan for a good amount of months now and we've been literally growing around 5% month over month of our organic traffic.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Super smooth. We luckily are able to execute based off their recipes so there wasn't a need to start an actual client relationship.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

All their suggestions were backed up by data. There wasn't any opinion given, which was refreshing and also exciting as we knew we would get a plan that would work.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Honestly nothing.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Public Relations Specialist at an online eyewear retailer based in Greenwood, Indiana. Our company has 80+ team members and we sell across three eyewear brands. I oversee media relations, influencer marketing, and link building activities for SEO purposes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Siege Media?

Readers.com engaged Siege Media for a number of SEO-related challenges throughout the years. Most recently, we partnered with them following ranking decreases in top keywords after Google’s August 1st, 2018 “Medic” Core Update. Prior to that, we worked with them to create and distribute infographics on a number of powerful websites to boost our SEO rankings.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to partner with Siege Media to increase our Google rankings and stand out amongst competitors online. Being an online brand only, it's important to us that we're ranking high on Google and grabbing the attention of potential customers.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After careful consideration, we chose Siege Media because we knew they came with a wealth of experience, knowledge, and ability to help us achieve the results we desired.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

When we initially began working with Siege Media in 2016, we worked with Ross and Brian. We would share ideas with the Siege Media team and they would brainstorm the opportunities and come back to us with related ideas for an infographic. After everything was approved, they would handle outreach for the infographic to generate online placements. We worked with them on a monthly basis, first for our Sunglass Warehouse brand, and then afterwards for the Readers.com brand. During this process, the Siege Media team was responsible for creating and pitching the infographics for SEO-related purposes, tracking improvements and successes, and monitoring the placements and results of the links.

When working with Siege Media most recently for Google ranking purposes, the team provided us with an array of initial recommendations so we could begin implementing changes to revert the negative impact we had seen in the SERPs. They did this by assessing our opportunities and areas of improvement. Their recommendations further helped us identify other areas of improvement on our website, which has been extremely beneficial to our brand.

What was the team composition?

Since we've worked with Siege Media on an ongoing basis, the team composition has changed as time has gone on. We work with principles of the firm, and they've been instrumental in generating growth for us. I'm not sure who all we've worked with throughout the years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We've been able to boost our SEO rankings and online presence through the work Siege has done for us.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We were impressed with how quickly Siege took our request and provided initial recommendations within 4 business days, so we could begin implementing changes to revert the negative impact we had seen in the SERPs. In addition, the quality of SEO recommendations provided to us were perfectly in line with Google SEO best practices and helped us identify other areas of improvement on our website(s).

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Siege is one of our go-to SEO consultants when we are in need. The team has always done a fantastic job with being creative. They always implement any feedback we provide them. They are always responsive and really, truly understand our brands, which is something that can't be said for every third party vendor.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not at all, we've been completely elated with everything Siege has produced for us. They are a great team to work with and they truly feel like an extension of our team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Kitchen Cabinet Kings is an e-commerce company that specialized in kitchen, bathroom, cabinetry, and cabinet hardware. As a co-founder, I oversee web development, marketing, and vendor relations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Siege Media?

The field of marketing is always changing, so we wanted to ensure that all of our digital marketing techniques were up-to-date. We did some research and found that content marketing and link building would be the best way to modernize our practices.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In our efforts to stay current, we reached out to Siege Media to develop content for our website and integrate SEO best practices within our existing marketing channels. Our main goal was to update and strengthen the core pages on our website with relevant content. They typically research design trends within our industry and create blogs, infographics, and other digital assets for our site. Our team contributes to this process with topic ideas and related information. Link building is a significant part of their job as well. They often reach out to industry professionals and bloggers to write guest blogs for our site or embed our links within the content on their websites.

Outside of content marketing, their largest task is providing recommendations for our site’s navigation. Per their suggestion, we are merging our education desk page into a learning center where users can find all of our content organized in one hub. They also compile reports every month that show the impact of their work.

What is the team composition?

We work with an SEO specialist, an account manager, and a content strategist. Sometimes, their developers and web designers will jump on our phone calls to give us more insight into their work process.

How did you come to work with Siege Media?

We discovered them through a mutual contact who heard that we were looking for ways to improve our digital marketing efforts. During our first meeting, Siege Media showed us a few examples of their past work and made a convincing proposal on how they could help us. We agreed to give them a three-month trial period, which eventually extended to an ongoing partnership.  

How much have you invested with them?

Our annual total is usually about $120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Siege Media came on board in July 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have seen a steady increase in our search engine rank since adopting Siege Media’s SEO practices. Their link building efforts have been equally effective; they wrote a piece for us six months ago that is still going viral online.

How did Siege Media perform from a project management standpoint?

Sige Media complements our team exceptionally well. We were hoping to find a partner who could lessen our workload, and they have done that for us. Admittedly, I am not the most organized person. Fortunately, Siege Media is phenomenal at keeping both of our teams on track. They use Google Docs to track their progress and email to communicate. Deadlines are met 95 percent of the time. They always tell us in advance when they are behind schedule. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Siege Media had no issues integrating with our team. They have learned a lot about our industry over the past two years, so they know what our audience wants to see. Their eagerness to improve every aspect of our business proves that they genuinely invested in our success. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Our experience with Siege Media has been overwhelmingly positive. We had one development issue pop up, but it was resolved immediately. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Siege Media is a wonderful source for groundbreaking concepts, but sometimes their ideas lie outside of our comfort zone. We have learned that it best for us to be open-minded. Oftentimes, their craziest tactics generate the best results.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work on SEO for Progrexion, which manages the channels for Lexington Law and CreditRepair.com. I help our brands rank for relevant keywords that are pertinent to our industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Siege Media?

We needed help with our off-site link building efforts, creating up-funnel shareable content, promoting our brand, and improving our overall rankings for our search terms.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to improve our brand awareness and the quality of our blog. We also wanted to obtain high-quality links, drive non-brand traffic, increase site rankings, and drive sales.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

One of our executives heard about them from a friend who is a leading thought leader in SEO. After being introduced and learning about their services, we quickly decided that they’d be a perfect fit to help our team combat our challenges.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Siege Media provides several unique services for our team. They create up-funnel blog articles, with associated social proof. They also reach out to other websites for link building. They provide research, proof of concept, written copy, and creative infographics. They handle scheduling and publishing posts. Additionally, they provide SEO consulting hours to ensure site quality and health.

What was the team composition?

I work directly with their CEO, project managers, creative directors, SEO experts, content writers, developers, and more.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We've seen a significant increase in year-over-year organic traffic visits. There’s also been a drastic improvement in year-over-year keyword rankings. Our site health is improving, and our performance matches that improvement.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow between their team and ours is one of the reasons for the partnership’s success. Siege Media has adapted to our business model and unique use cases. They work with our affiliate, optimization, development, creative, and SEO teams. They even provide additional training to my SEO team members looking to expand their skills. They've been incredible in rallying all of their forces to help my team grow and perform.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I've heard horror stories about agencies completely taking over marketing programs, charging high prices, over-promising, and missing deadlines. However, there are never issues with Siege Media. They’re quick to help, and their flexibility and adaptability are key strengths. While they care about us personally, they truly care most about performance. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

I believe that Siege Media is going to continue to improve with time. Overall, the quality of their content is top-notch.