Victorious

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work for a B2B online ID card printing platform. I oversee web development, marketing efforts, and user experience.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Victorious to handle our organic search (SEO), including article writing, backlinking, and site audits. Our goal was to increase our position for relevant search terms in an increasingly competitive space.

SOLUTION

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

We had gone through some "less expensive" vendors with mixed-to-poor results. We decided to try a more "premium" vendor and found Victorious on top of a few lists. We reached out to 2 or 3 vendors, but were impressed with the quality of their response.

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

The work started with a site audit, which I acted on immediately. Then, we were to get a certain number of backlinks and articles each month (although these were often not delivered on time). The entire contract included monthly meetings where we would receive a report..

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

We had one main contact, but sometimes we would also have one of their specialists on our monthly call.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I learned a lot about SEO during this period, and evcen learned how to efficiently use Ahrefs (mostly to keep their reporting honest). Our position increases mostly seemed due to the pandemic, being lost as COVID concerns declined. Any other increased rankings were mostly for terms unrelated to our core business and didn't translate into meaningful interaction. The blog posts were often late, and we had to keep reminding the team of what was owed us.

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

While the team was good in sharing documents with Google docs, they had a hard time keeping to deadlines. Additionally, they would try and distract us from the fact that they owed us content by trying to come up with *new* content ideas while we waited.

We had to finally express that we wanted the content due us before working on new ideation. As far as management went, we had 3 different project managers for our account during the 2 year period. Each seemed more wet-behind-the-ears than the last.

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

This company is excellent on *how* they communicate with clients, making the client *feel* like he or she is being heard and prioritized. They have definitely taken a "high-touch" approach to their client interraction.

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

They seemed to prioritize the client's perception of them as a company over their actual results. E.g. SEO takes a long time, and a campaign cannot be assessed, really, before several months. However, within a month or two of working with them, they had already tried to ask me if I would recommend them as a firm. Any such recommendation could not be based on tangible results.

Additionally, I had to request that they remove certain irrelevant keywords from their reporting. These keywords made it look like we were seeing victories that weren't really applicable to our business. When correcting for these the monthly reports became much more grim. Victorious needs to figure out how to keep good project managers.

Also, the need to figure out a better solution for content creation. They could also stand to try more creative approaches to SEO when the standard playbook fails. It felt like I had to constantly make suggestions on what to try. Their formula might work for a company who's *never* tended to SEO, but didn't seem to cut the mustard in a more competitive space. Finally, they once reached out to me for my address to send me a gift. I never received it! ;)

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital marketing lead at enTouch Wireless, a national wireless provider of services for the Lifeline program and the Affordable Connectivity Program, which are phone services subsidized by the government. We offer free phones, text, minutes, and data for eligible customers by income level or government participation. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Victorious?

We got into a couple of new states this year; we now offer our services in 33 states across the US, plus Puerto Rico. Our goal was to drive our brand awareness and rank above competitors in this space. We wanted to increase website traffic, impressions, and overall clicks.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Victorious provides us with SEO services. First, they onboarded us and gave us a form to fill out where we discussed the goals we wanted to reach with their services. We also gave them access to our website and Google Analytics account. 

The team helps us with monthly backlinking and content optimization. They do SEO audits on pages on our website, then recommend content changes to help improve them to get featured snippets and rank higher on Google. For example, we wanted to prioritize our California page because it’s one of the larger states where we offer services. They’ve run a campaign and done content optimization on that page. 

They also do site sweep analyses, which consist of a more in-depth analysis of our website to identify any issues, such as index flow or broken links, and offer solutions to help optimize the site as best as possible in order to rank higher on Google. Additionally, every month, they do a 30-day analysis of the results and give us statistics on our performance changes, walking us through impressions, clicks, time on site, and whether any keywords moved up or down. They’ll also call out if we get featured snippets or other big wins or losses from the past month. 

What is the team composition?

We primarily work with two people; Brandon (Sales Team Lead) was mainly involved in the quoting and onboarding, and now Amber (Customer Success Manager) is my main point of contact. 

How did you come to work with Victorious?

We found them through a Google search. We were shopping for some SEO agencies to help us with our campaign, and we had a couple of companies quote out the process with us. After Victorious talked about their service offering, they gave us a couple of different packages to choose from. They were very friendly and knew their stuff, plus we really liked their presentation because they gave us some optics into what they’d done for other clients. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested roughly $70,000; we pay them about $5,500 a month. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2022, and the engagement is ongoing. Although our first contract ends in December 2022, we’ve just signed for another 12 months with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Victorious has helped increase our company’s revenue tenfold, and our ROI is excellent. In August 2022, our monthly clicks increased by 18%, impressions by 10%, and organic sessions by 18%. We also had a 4% increase in ranking keywords, with 1,261 ranking in the top 10 on Google. 

For our California page, we went from position seven to four in one month, and the month after that, we finally reached position number one for the ranking keyword. That was a big win for us and one of the great results of their campaign for that page. Out of the three packages Victorious initially offered us, we went with their growth strategy, which has been extremely effective over the past ten months — we’re very happy. 

How did Victorious perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re fantastic at project management. Amber always follows up and follows through. The team has everything well mapped out in their deliverables calendar; when they onboarded us, they broke out what we’d be receiving each month. They also offer us flex credits, which we can use for additional tasks needed at the time. 

Moreover, they’re always timely and stick to their commitments. Our communication has been well-documented and clear throughout the entire process. We have a meeting every 2–3 weeks where they update us on deliverables and the project status. They also have all the information linked on Google Drive, so it’s easy for us to access. 

They link us to a monthly report, which Amber walks us through in our meeting. The report includes all the deliverables within the past 30 days, where they’ll break out all the metrics. They also go through specific keywords that are significant, such as with our California page campaign. As a result, we have total transparency about how they’re performing. 

As for tools, they use Asana with us and have their own tool where we can track keywords and performance called Victorious Analytics, where they’ve provided us with our login. We primarily communicate via email and Google Meet. Overall, they do a great job of making everything accessible to us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of work Victorious provides for the cost is really great — we get a lot for what we pay. Their customer service is also top-notch and is one of the reasons we want to stay with them, on top of their performance. The combination of their results and service is why we’ve brought them on for another 12 months, and we’ve also brought on another one of our brands with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they need to improve. The cadence in which they communicate with us is perfect, and they’re eager to listen to us and help when things change. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take your time filling out that onboarding form and ensure you’re really clear with your goals. I would also advise making sure you have resources available to review the campaigns and deliverables to see if they align with those goals and implement them. Additionally, keep the communication lines open with your customer success manager. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a small business insurance company that sells policies by the hour, month, or year, making small business insurance more accessible to companies just starting. We offer flexibility regarding purchasing policies, both by duration and by allowing customers to pause and cancel. While standard annual insurance can be expensive, we help our customers ensure they’re covered while enabling them to get what they need and can afford.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Victorious?

We hired them for SEO services. We had aggressive goals regarding organic growth and getting people to find our website through Google search. We wanted to be the first to pop up when users searched for liability and small business insurance. 

SEO is a long-term play, and our team has been working on growing our organic presence since I joined the company. We had worked with another agency, built a team internally to handle the work ourselves, and ultimately hired Victorious.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Victorious provided SEO services for us. They helped us with backlinks focused on improving our domain authority; if other sites link to ours, it indicates to Google that we’re a reliable source trusted by many. The team also provided a number of other SEO services, including website audits and recommendations for improvements across content, meta descriptions, and tags to help us boost our Google search rankings. 

First, they did a full audit of our site and indicated areas of improvement across several aspects. They gave us a checklist of things they could improve for us and some of the things our team could address, whether it was through design, content, or development. This phase lasted a couple of months, and once they finished the audit, we went through that checklist. 

From there, we had a standard monthly engagement with Victorious, where they provided monthly reporting on the results and rankings or site traffic changes. Their standard monthly deliverables included backlinks and sometimes content ideas, improvements to meta descriptions, or other items. We had a full content team in-house, including a director of SEO, editors, and freelance writers that took the idea list Victorious provided and wrote the content itself. 

What is the team composition?

We had three main contacts at Victorious; the first did the sales pitch and ushered us into the contract, helping us define the deliverables and cost. From there, we had two account people who ensured we had everything we needed. Behind the scenes, more people worked on our project, depending on the deliverables for each month.

Additionally, Victorious had a team dedicated to getting backlinks and doing outreach. 

How did you come to work with Victorious?

I found them online while searching for the best SEO agencies. They popped up because they have good SEO, so I contacted them and had a really nice conversation. Although we vetted quite a few agencies, Victorious stuck out to us because we liked the people, and their backlink package was exactly what we needed at the time. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $105,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in December 2021 and paused it in August 2022 because we needed to slow down for the end of the year. We plan to ramp back up with them in the new year. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Although it’s hard to quantify in a single number, Victorious helped us continuously improve across all pages and keywords. Through our own efforts, we had continuous growth when it came to our organic channel. Victorious didn’t just help us maintain that presence but also grow it. 

Thanks to their efforts, we saw month-over-month (MoM) growth in organic new user acquisitions and some pages that hadn’t ranked before started ranking. Any improvement in a page rank was valuable; even if a keyword went from the seventh to the sixth spot, we saw a major impact in traffic to that page.

Moreover, the team was wonderful to work with. They were also organized, which can be hard with SEO because there are many moving parts. Victorious had a clear cadence of deliverables from a list they outlined. It was helpful to have an agency on top of their work. I never felt like I had to chase them; they showed up and guided the project. Overall, I appreciated the people on my account and how they ran their agency and client relationships. 

How did Victorious perform from a project management standpoint?

They laid out a year’s worth of work clearly from the beginning, so we knew exactly what they needed to deliver every month and how to look for success. Things can change, so they also built in flex credits to address those changes. This approach helped manage scope creep, so we didn’t need to demand extra work from them that could affect the budget. As a result, we kept on track and within the budget. 

Moreover, Victorious hit all their deadlines and delivered what they promised. We mainly communicated through email. Although we wanted to use Slack, they requested to try email to keep things organized on their end, and it worked beautifully. Since they hit all their deadlines, we didn’t need as much daily or weekly communication as we initially thought. 

If we needed any changes, they reached out to us through email. Our account person was front and center in our communication, and when he needed additional information, he’d collect it from other teammates and get back to us within a day or two. We also had monthly check-ins for reporting, performance reviews, giving feedback, and the use of flex credits. 

On top of that, Victorious was really flexible with us; when we told them we needed to slow down, they were wonderful and offered to pause the engagement. Working with an agency that’s so flexible and understanding was nice. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed with Victorious’ organization. As a manager running a million things, also trying to manage an agency that isn’t organized and doesn’t run the project can be draining and more work than it’s worth. With Victorious, it was turnkey; they had a process and knew exactly how to run a successful campaign. While we reviewed the plan and gave feedback, they outlined what they knew would be successful and ran it themselves.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing they needed to improve stood out. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re looking to hire an SEO agency, you must understand your own business first and know exactly what you’re looking for because that makes the engagement successful. We had two years under our belt of working on our own and with another agency, so when we vetted Victorious, we knew exactly what we needed, which is really valuable when approaching an agency. If you know what you need, you can use that to shape the contract.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for an automotive manufacturer that makes SUVs and minivans wheelchairs accessible.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Victorious?

We brought them on board to be our SEO provider.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When Victorious started, they did a technical SEO audit and keyword research. They hit our main keywords and also found some interesting ones that we hadn’t found yet. They uncovered a lot of techniques and areas of value that our former SEO company didn’t.

They suggested a number of changes, including to our H1s and title tags. We’ve also moved on to optimizing pages and creating new content pages. Finally, Victorious suggested that we change our vehicle inventory pages’ URLs. They’re also doing backlinking for us.

What is the team composition?

Their main lead is Amber (Customer Success Manager). She’s been fantastic and always explains things well.

How did you come to work with Victorious?

I started my search on Google and saw that they’d won a number of awards and been mentioned as a top SEO company. Tim (Account Manager) was our first contact; he made some initial suggestions and put together the beginning presentations for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $40,000 with them. It’s been worth it for us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since January 2022. The initial audits took a few weeks, and then Victorious started writing content in February.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve definitely helped improved our rankings. On the pages we’ve optimized and created with Victorious, we’ve seen organic leads and visits increase. We’ve also seen visits increase for specific keywords that we targeted.

Looking at this month last year compared to this year, we’ve dropped four points in our average rankings, but we have over 1,000 keywords with top ten rankings right now. We continue to have keywords moving into the top three spots as well. There’s also been an increase in conversions.

I was a bit on the fence about changing the URLs of our vehicle inventory pages, but we’ve seen more visits now thanks to the new keywords in the URL. Visits are up 32%, and conversions are up 10%. Additionally, our content is much better than it was previously. We’re so much happier with how well-written and researched the content is.

How did Victorious perform from a project management standpoint?

I met with the team every two weeks while we were writing content; they’ve become part of our marketing team, honestly. I like to keep in contact with them. They’re always able to meet our deadlines. Amber and her team are great in that regard.  Deadlines aren’t a problem with this team.

They load all their tasks into Asana, and I’m able to track how they’re proceeding. We communicate over emails; they’re very responsive. We also have Zoom calls and Google Meet calls. These video calls happen at least once a month, if not twice.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Victorious’ work is much more specific to us as a company. The other vendors we’ve worked with are cookie-cutter, but Victorious actually tailors their efforts to our industry and company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Companies provide a range of services, so they could better spell out what they’re going to do during the contracting period.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I definitely recommend working with Victorious. To get the most out of them, stay in contact and work to understand the things that they’re doing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of marketing at Tivian, a SaaS and software development company specializing in employee experience.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Victorious?

We were going through an acquisition. I originally worked for GuideSpark, which was acquired by Tivian, so we had to migrate our site’s information over to the new Tivian website. In doing so, we also had to migrate important, high-ranking pages from the GuideSpark site. After the migration, our new site wasn’t ranking anywhere on Google for valuable keywords, so we hired Victorious to help us improve our ranking through SEO.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Victorious has basically created a custom SEO strategy for Tivian. Their scope has included optimizing the SEO content, writing and developing original content for us, collaborating and consulting with us on the keywords we want to go after, and creating backlinks to be competitive in the market. 

Initially, Victorious did a comprehensive technical audit of both GuideSpark and Tivian sites. After that, they set a content creation strategy for us, which they’ve been executing.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with two people from Victorious: Taylor (Customer Success Manager) and Chad (Senior Enterprise Account Executive). Still, they have a whole team working for us behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with Victorious?

Victorious was recommended by a colleague who had had a very good experience working with them — it was a very solid recommendation.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2022, and we’re still working together. However, we’ll probably wrap things up by the end of July 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Ours has been a very helpful and successful engagement. Our traffic has increased, as have our rankings for the keywords we’re going after. Additionally, the overall ranking of our website is constantly improving.

How did Victorious perform from a project management standpoint?

Victorious’ project management is very good; they provide us with very helpful reporting and meet with us at least once a week. Taylor is extremely responsive and smart. Overall, we’ve felt very much taken care of by them. We use Asana to manage the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were in a very complex situation amidst an acquisition between two companies that had been around for a while. Still, Victorious has been able to come up with a strategy to streamline the new company and get the most out of the pre-existing SEO rankings. Their smart redirects, strategic advice, and guidance through the process have been very much appreciated.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I wouldn’t recommend them if I weren’t satisfied with their work. Victorious is extremely professional. We’ve had a great relationship with them and excellent results to back it up.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t pretend to know more than what you do. Let them be the experts, let them guide you, and don’t be afraid to listen to their great advice.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of digital strategy at a nonprofit. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Victorious?

We were trying to expand our web presence via SEO, which is one of our big traffic drivers. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Victorious started off with a fantastic analysis of our search traffic. Then, they proposed ways we could create new content, amend our current pages, and update the H1 tax and meta times to correct the infrastructure on our site. They’ve identified 14 points where we can increase our presence. Because of the specificity of our organization, my team does all the content writing, but Victorious does do backlinking. 

What is the team composition?

We work with three teammates from Victorious, including Herb (Customer Success Manager), an SEO consultant, and a customer success manager.  

How did you come to work with Victorious?

We searched through several online databases and sites that listed SEO companies. We looked for companies with medium-sized clientele and familiarity with legal organizations. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $84,000 with Victorious this year. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Victorious began in October 2021. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve seen huge referrals across our keywords and an increase in traffic. We’ve also seen an increase in the time users spend on our website. 

How did Victorious perform from a project management standpoint?

Victorious is one of the best companies I’ve worked with in terms of project management. The project schedule clearly outlines delivery dates, action items, and follow-up calls. We use Asana to manage the project and communicate through email and our monthly call via Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Personally, Victorious’ project management style and ability to see beyond what we’ve planned for ourselves are amazing. They’ve astounded us with all the ways we can grow as an organization through digital platforms. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no constructive feedback for Victorious.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d advise customers to have the time allotted and technical resources to be able to implement Victorious’ suggestions. It’s also important to understand the scope of work and the project’s main goals before starting a partnership. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the executive director at Save the Music, a national nonprofit focused on music education in public schools. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Victorious?

We needed to increase the foundation's visibility on Google and drive more donors and music teachers to our website. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Victorious provides us with SEO services to help us improve our lead generation. Our goal is to be the number one search result for music foundations in Google — we were originally on the second page of results. They rely on us for subject matter expertise, and Victorious translates that into an SEO strategy. We collaborate with Victorious to develop keywords that appeal to our target audience. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with two search strategists, including Jennifer (Customer Success Team Lead).

How did you come to work with Victorious?

Victorious reached out to us — they were looking for a nonprofit to do pro bono work for. They'd reached out to several charities that were eligible, and we were selected as their nonprofit partner after Jennifer nominated us. 

How much have you invested with them?

Victorious is doing this work pro bono, but I'd roughly estimate the value at $5,000–$10,000 per month. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Victorious began in February 2021, and it's ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have achieved our overall goal: we went from the twelfth search result to the first result for the keyword music foundation. Additionally, we're also number one for the keyword music education. Overall, we doubled the number of terms we were ranking for in Google; our aggregate keyword positioning went up by almost 6,000. 

How did Victorious perform from a project management standpoint?

Victorious is at excellent project management — everything is delivered on time, the team is well organized, and their keyword recommendations are specific to our needs. Typically, we communicate via email and then have monthly Zoom calls. Victorious also has a metrics dashboard that we can log into to see our results. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The results of our partnership with Victorious are awe-inspiring. We have tangible results that have resulted in new donations and partnerships for our organization. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is nothing for Victorious to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I'd advise customers to bring their expertise to the table when working with Victorious. Customers can't expect the strategy to be immediately implemented; collaboration with Victorious is key to developing a great strategy. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am responsible for marketing, technology and analytics as the VP of Marketing at PropertyForce, which is a leading real estate company, helping investors acquire off-market properties, below market value, to generate passive rental income or instant equity with renovations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I hired Victorious to audit our accounts and help to improve our SERP rankings.

SOLUTION

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

We interviewed several leading SEO firms, and found Victorious to be the most organized and communicative. Not to mention that they come recommended in the space.

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

We had Victorious complete an audit of our accounts. That audit created the roadmap for us to complete the work needed to improve results. They provided an excellent PowerPoint presentation of the audit findings, which was put together with excellent quality and I was able to show to our CEO, and they provided the supporting Excel docs that our marketers could use to execute. From all the findings, we were able to easily distribute the workload across Victorious, internal staff and our website vendor.

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

There were several experts that worked on our account, but I had one point of contact for customer success and one point of contact for the contractual part of our account. That structure worked great for me, because I didn't have to negotiate contract terms with the person who I communicated with the most.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our website was newer, so that's a caveat, but we've seen a 15x improvement in the number of weekly organic impressions. We're ahead of pace with our results, and I'm thrilled about it.

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

The entire Victorious team was very professional. It was a seamless relationship. Their meetings were productive and their deliverables were outstanding.

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

I liked the fact that they provided actionable recommendations. They limited the speculation that's often provided by marketing agencies, and they provided a roadmap that we followed, and it paid off tremendously. I also like the fact that they have "flex credits" that can be used on any number of things based on the client's goals (which, in our case, was regularly changing).

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

I would have liked to have had a little more time with their technical team. Every time I interacted with them they impressed me.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the marketing coordinator at Eden Health. Our company works with employers all across the United States providing integrated, virtual and in-person primary care, mental health, physical therapy, benefit navigation and care coordination. My manager and I are responsible for our organic and paid search efforts.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We were growing our company and marketing department and wanted to expand our reach but we didn’t have the resources. We hired them to provide full-scale SEO services to improve our rankings, create new content and grow traffic to our existing pages. They have absolutely exceeded our expectations!

SOLUTION

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

Referral

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

Our engagement began with a discovery phase and we laid out our goals. They helped us with keyword research and performed analysis of our competitors. From there, they conducted a full site audit and afterwards they recommended changes to our site and blog. Victorious created new collateral with our updated tactics and keywords. Their team writes content pieces and content optimizations along with building backlinks. They plan on conducting another site audit, specifically for our blog in the next few weeks. Mandi and her team have really brought our SEO efforts to the next level. We have already seen such incredible and tangible results, we cannot wait to see what the next few months will bring!

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

They assigned a project manager (Mandi) who distributed work amongst their team. Mandi has been such an incredible partner to work with. She has been incredibly insightful and accommodating. Meeting with her every other week reaffirms that we are working with the best of the best when it comes to SEO!

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since implementing the SEO efforts, we are ranking on the 1st page for several keywords, we acquired a feature snippet and our site traffic is steadily growing. It's so exciting to see how far we've come when Mandi presents our YoY performance!

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

They’ve been great at managing our expectations and are very accommodating with our evolving requests and priorities. We have a biweekly call with Mandi to make sure we are aligned with these priorities and to make sure everything is moving along. Every month we are presented a formal monthly report of our progress. Mandi is extremely communicative of her teams progress in between these meetings so we always feel up-to-date.

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

Their overall knowledge within the industry stands out. Mandi has kept us fully up-to-date with our performance and it’s ensured we’ve had a smooth project. I really appreciate their willingness to deliver. Beyond that, Mandi's enthusiasm and positive attitude have made working with her an absolute pleasure. We get the sense that she is extremely invested in our success!

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

Due solely to bandwidth, they were a little delayed in getting some content pieces sent back to us, but ever since they’ve hired more content strategists they have been excellent!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the manager at Sterling; we specialize in background checks. We’re a B2B company, but we’re also vertically integrated. We do a lot of other work in the medical field and gig economy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Victorious?

With Victorious, we’re primarily focusing on overall SEO and digital marketing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The onboarding process was very easy. Once we got our budget approved, we basically started with a few welcome calls. Then, Victorious asked us what our main goal was. At first, it was a backlinking process, but then we got more budget because Sterling performed better due to COVID-19.

Therefore, we were able to add more services, and they actually let us choose the ones we wanted to move forward with. They pretty much just laid out all their services, and we were able to pick and choose. Once we picked, we set up another meeting. We really got into it, and then after that, it was probably just one more week of research.

For on-site SEO, Victorious changes around meta descriptions and page titles. For off-site SEO, they’ve researched our competitors, their keywords, blog topics, and even the services they offer. In fact, a lot of the strategies that Victorious has done involve assessing the competition. They inform us on what’s out there and what keywords or movements to follow. This is really helpful because it has allowed us to put ourselves in the same playing field as our competitors.

They’ve done technical audits. They give us the information and recommendations for the website, and then we just implement them.

Additionally, they actually wrote two service pages for us, which were very well-written and fully-optimized for SEO. They hit the right word counts, and they’ve given us a lot of the syndicated content topics, as well as keyword-jacking topics.

What is the team composition?

In total, four people are involved. It’s mostly me, my contact, my boss, and one of their sales people.

How did you come to work with Victorious?

They actually reached out to us. At Sterling, we get dozens of agencies asking to help us out because our company is quite big. I usually get something in my inbox, look it up, and I put it in my own SEO tool. I see if their domain rating is low or if they have any reviews. Victorious stuck out; they actually had some impressive clients. Once they reached out, I was definitely interested to set up a meeting and just learn more about them.

How much have you invested with them?

Right now, we have a yearly investment of $10,000, but we’ll probably invest a little more, so it’s subject to change.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2020. The project that we initially started with them is done, but we’re on to the next projects. The type of marketing that we’re dealing with is a never-ending race, so we’re expanding the services we use.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we started with Victorious our ROI has been in the thousands. I’d say we’ve had a 1,100% increase in organic traffic. One of our biggest accomplishments with Victorious has been targeting the keyword “background check” in all of America. Before, we were probably in the 50th–60th position. After a couple of months with Victorious, we were ranking number one, and now we’re fighting between the first and fifth spot.

In general, that has increased our traffic to 15,000–17,000 users per month. We’ve also increased our top three keywords and pushed them all to the first page of Google, which has increased our traffic by 5,000–10,000 users per month just with those terms alone. In summary, we’ve had some pretty big wins with them.

How did Victorious perform from a project management standpoint?

I work with Janay (Customer Success Manager), and she is very quick. In the corporate world, things don’t move as fast because they have to go through so many people.

With Victorious, we would talk about something and either that day or the next one, I would get an email with an update. There’s always follow-up at the end of the week or the next Monday, and I definitely feel like our projects are always a priority. They get it done, and when there are delays, they keep working on it, giving us updates every other day, and reassuring us.

To communicate with them, we have a meeting every other week on Wednesday. If a project needs more attention, we’ll just make more meetings throughout the week, and we always find time for it. We use Excel or Word documents because our work focuses mostly on strategic planning and the overall digital marketing of the website.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Honestly, I would say it's their strategies. With digital marketing and SEO, there isn’t a certain right way to do it, it just depends on the people doing it.

I agree with their strategies and research, and we’ve seen the results. That’s what separates them from other agencies out there.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They have family services, but all of them are branched off into different packages. For example, if we want to add social media or PPC, we would need to add another package to the one we already have, and that can get pricey. I think it would be good for them to expand their packages a bit more.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would say the reason why Victorious has worked so well for us is because we definitely knew what we wanted to work and what we wanted to get, so we’ve been able to point them in the right direction.

If anyone wants to work with Victorious, they need to make sure that they know their goal before communicating with them. They’ll perform very well nonetheless, but if you don’t do that, you won’t be able to get the outstanding results that we’ve gotten at Sterling.