Ghergich & Co.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the SEO Manager at an online pharmaceutical company and call center in Canada. Americans make up the majority of our customers due to the high prices of prescription drugs in the U.S.

I started at the company 8 years ago with no experience in SEO. The company was in the process of developing an SEO team, as our main source for marketing had been eliminated.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Gherghich & Co.?

The biggest issue we were having was recovering from a Google manual penalty. We were penalized for some of the links we had built and needed help untangling that part of the business. We needed to readjust our thinking and philosophy relating to links.

Since Canadian pharmacies have been banned from advertising on Google, SEO is extremely important. Previously, we spent a significant amount of our budget on Google ads. Our link building program was successful for a while, but we fell behind in terms of Google’s best practices for building links.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In addition to help with SEO and addressing our issues under Google's manual penalty, Gherghich helped us with social media and reorganizing our outdated website.

They've done site audits and provided feedback, while helping us launch a digital magazine and blog. In order to establish our links on healthcare sites relevant to our work, Gherghich has reached out to contacts in the industry on our behalf.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a few contacts, but mostly with A.J. Gherghich (Founder, Gherghich & Co.).

How did you come to work with Gherghich & Co.?

We had been working with A.J. when he worked for a different company that we purchased links from. He seemed to genuinely care about helping clients versus just selling us a service. He helped us identify many of the links we built were poorly created or irrelevant to the nature of our business and provided assistance in the steps to have these links removed.

We knew of many similar vendors, but never found another company that quite fit our niche like Gherghich. Our requirements are very specific and often involve legalities concerning wording.

How much have you invested with them?

We invest around $60,000 annually.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started officially working with Gherghich in December, 2013, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Gherghich's services have been a boon to our business. One of the biggest accomplishments has been guiding us through the process of recovering from a Google manual penalty. In addition, improved keyword research and changes to site content have provided an increase in rankings for key words on a monthly basis.

I believe that our success is a good example of how Gherghich & Co. can assist company with limited SEO experience and budget. They have tailored a program to suit our needs and been flexible enough to adapt as those needs have changed.

How did Gherghich & Co. perform from a project management standpoint?

They've been great! Their team is highly organized, structured, and detail oriented. We're quite demanding in terms of our input, so the way in which they plan ahead and on a regular basis is critical to our line of work.

Typically, we have monthly meetings to discuss the various projects we're working on and what's on the horizon. Those meetings are very productive and cover everything from content strategy to the magazine and other ongoing issues. Our website requires constant updating, so we generally have an I.T. person sit in as well. We're finding that all of their help is reflecting in our search speed and mobility issues. A.J and his team are accessible between regular meeting to answer questions and provide input.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Gherghich & Co has been incredibly understanding and flexible in the way we've approached everything. Their team provides the necessary instruction and support for our staff to complete many of the necessary processes in-house. Our staff worked directly with Gherghich's team at various stages, whether it involved removing links or monitoring content on the website. Their guidance throughout these stages has been invaluable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I'm hard pressed to think of anything. In the beginning, we may have been somewhat skeptical about the changes that needed to be made, but they were patient and guided us through the process on a timetable that we were comfortable with.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ghergich & Co provides a wealth of knowledge, experience and resources for any SEO team, no matter what the level of knowledge or experience. Communication is key. Ghergich & Co. listen to their clients and are responsive to their needs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a corporate catering company, and operate as the middleman between businesses that want to feed their employees and local catering restaurants and vendors. Some of our vendors operate exclusively through us. We handle portioning, dietary restrictions, delivery, setup, cleaning, billing, tipping, invoicing, etc.

We’re the catering logistics company for a lot of organizations around the nation, and we’re launching a snacks and kitchen services in the San Francisco area that we hope to expand to other markets in 2018. I’m the digital marketing manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ghergich & Co.?

Some of our channels weren’t performing very well in organic search results. Our blog wasn’t great, and people weren’t finding us for some of the key terms we wanted to be ranked for. I was spending a lot of money on Google AdWords that wasn’t producing leads. We were working with an agency, but weren’t happy with the quality of the content or the results in organic search rankings and wanted to partner with someone else.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Most of their work is content generation for us. They also provide technical recommendations to make sure Google can easily digest and find our content. They generally deliver at least one piece of content to post each week on our blog, including infographics, jpegs, and shareable content. In 2018, we’re getting into more interactive pieces, including maps of the best catering cities in the United States. Users can hover over each city to display content. We want to incorporate elements beyond static blog posts.

What is the team composition?

Our account manager is my main point of contact. Any time we need to have a bigger discussion, A.J. Ghergich [Founder, Ghergich & Co.] will join the call. I can always get ahold of my account manager, and A.J. is available to discuss bigger issues like direction or contract renewals.

How did you come to work with Ghergich & Co.?

Our new VP of marketing used them at a previous company. We spoke with three other vendors, and Ghergich seemed like the best fit.

How much have you invested with them?

Our expenses average at about $15,000 a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2017. The collaboration is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our top-interest keywords are ranking much higher. In some places, we’ve moved from non-existent to above the fold on the first page of results.

How did Ghergich & Co. perform from a project management standpoint?

They do really well. We have a strictly minimalist design, and the first piece they delivered didn’t fit our guidelines. We had a heavy call with our head of design, and since then everything they’ve delivered aligns perfectly with our specifications.  Every piece they send us gets better.

I speak with our account manager daily, mostly through email and occasionally by phone. She sends updates for pieces in the works and makes sure we don’t have any gaps in our content.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of their content is great. There are a lot of grey areas in SEO, and tactics have to be flexible. Search engines can release new algorithms that penalize you for taking the easy way out. Ghergich recognizes that, and strategizes for long-term success. There’s no quick way to get all our rankings at #1, so they’re more focused on consistently producing great shareable, consumable content. Their promises are realistic.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They focus on content generation over analytics and reporting. That puts proving their worth back on our team. They have access to our Google Analytics account, and it would be helpful if they could provide weekly, monthly, or quarterly reports on results like traffic improvements.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear direction for the content you want on your site. They’re good at ideation, and will come up with options for you, but it helps if you can provide them with your guidelines without making them guess. It will save you time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I head the SEO team at a large CRM firm. We provide a range of services in the software space, including marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ghergich & Co.?

As a long-term partner, they generate and promote top-of-funnel education content for certain keywords, improving our clients’ online visibility. We work with several agencies that provide similar services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They help identify keywords, but the bulk of their duties involve content creation. In addition to written material, they work with designers to create infographics to visually convey more difficult topics.

Ghergich also engages in link-building opportunities and, depending on the content, runs promotions through social media or native advertising.

What is the team composition?

They assign a project manager for each project. They employ with a team of designers and freelancers, but I typically communicate directly with Janel [Crisp, Project Manager, Ghergich & Co.].

How did you come to work with Ghergich & Co.?

We’ve worked with Ghergich since before my time with the company. I believe my boss met A.J. [Ghergich, Founder, Ghergich & Co.] during SEO conferences they both attended.

How much have you invested with them?

My department spent between $50,000–$75,000 last year, though in total, our company invested between $150,000–$200,000. Over the course of our partnership, my company has probably spent close to $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2015 and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We work with several agencies, but Ghergich’s content receives the most traffic and achieves the best rankings. They put more effort into their designs. According to feedback from our internal writers, Ghergich’s content is also the easiest to edit, usually requiring minimal adjustments.

How did Ghergich & Co. perform from a project management standpoint?

We maintain a thorough internal review process, so tasks are sometimes backlogged due to delays on our end. Janel does a fantastic job of reaching out each week to coordinate with different project managers to ensure work moves forward.

We primarily communicate through email, though we also sometimes jump on the phone to make sure we're all on the same page.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Because they work with teams of freelancers, it's easier for them to find specialists for difficult, niche topics. While the other agencies we work with tend to rely on in-house writers with more generalized knowledge, Ghergich’s flexibility allows them to deliver very focused pieces.

Of all the agencies we work with, Ghergich is the best. They work well with our company and produce high-quality products.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not really. I constantly remind our content providers to be as detailed as possible during handoffs so that I can easily forward their work onto other teams who may be unfamiliar with SEO terminology, but this isn’t an issue that’s specific to Ghergich.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Identify which internal team members will be involved with any given project and engage them at every stage, from beginning to end. In this way, you can avoid unnecessary revisions and change requests from other departments. These type of late-stage changes can be difficult for Ghergich since they work with freelancers and can’t make continuous, indefinite edits.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Quill.com is a Staples subsidiary and an office supply company. I am the SEO program manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ghergich & Co.?

We reached out to them because we had an issue with backlinks where we needed to clean up our backlink profile but on a very large scale. To do that clean up without a strategy of link building or content building was challenging. We reached out to them to see if they could take care of it for us while creating content at the same time to balance everything out.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They develop enticing content on really great topics and do a fantastic job with their topic ideation. I push them all the time to think outside the box and think about how we can time a piece of content so that it can get a good pick up on different links. They look at the feedback to previous content and try to use that insight to develop better information for our customers so that we can get more links, more traction, and more SEO traffic.

We’ve done some testing with them where we’ve asked them to push more aggressively on social media or promote more aggressively with emails to different publications. They’ve done quite a bit on that front.

What is the team dynamic?

They have one account person who we work with at all times. We talk to them at least a few times a week and then she has a team of illustrators and editors and designer. Once in a while, we’ll speak with the owner. It’s more efficient this way because we don’t have to figure out who’s working on what.

How did you come to work with Ghergich & Co.?

One of our team members saw them at a conference and did a pilot run with them. After 3–4 months of little projects, we decided to put together a long-term plan that tested their limits.

We had worked with several different companies before them. The main issue that we would run into was that the work was expensive and the outcome really wasn’t that great. With Ghergich we have the complete package of fun content, consistently good backlinks, and at the same time a really good team to work with.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent between $300,000 and $400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2015. We still have an existing contract and are looking at how to grow our backlink profile.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re seeing a lot of traction on the visits we’re getting to the site due to organic growth, from the content they’re producing to the general traffic that they push through social media. 

Many companies have a challenge in trying to figure out how to get the revenue out of content, but we have a platform where we have a lot more functionality than most organizations. We also have an interesting content strategy where we’re now going to be looking at how much attribution revenue can we contribute to this project.

How did Ghergich & Co. perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re really good. They get back to us really quickly and I’ve never had issues. If I have to speak with them, I send them an email and we get on a call pretty quickly. We keep everything in Google Docs so we can keep track of where everything is and the timelines. We usually have a call once a month with them where they discuss trends across all customers and how we should be addressing these scenarios moving forward.

The support they provide is fantastic because the SEO industry is challenging. A lot of things that are constantly moving for us and they provide us with insight into the search landscape and how it’s evolving.

We use a system to make comments on the content they’re producing. I provide as much feedback as possible, then from there, they take that, produce it, and upload it. They take care of the entire process for me. They have full access to our CMS [content management system] so they just upload it for us and all I have to do is schedule it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The topic ideation and the actual links that we’re getting from them. Their team is always ready, and they deliver every single time. Even if it doesn’t cost us anything they will still push to make sure we get the most out of the work because they care about our site.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish we had more time with them to talk about the SEO landscape and consulting services that are outside of our initial agreement, but that’s something that we will be looking at for 2018.

Do you have any advice for potential clients?

Whoever is going to work with them should at least have some kind of strategy of how they’re going to measure their success or what their goals are. If you don’t have goals set up or any content strategy in place, it’s going to be challenging over time to say we need to continue doing this. For a large site, it takes time and can be 6 months to a year to see any lift. If you don’t have goals set up, you are setting them up to fail. That’s going to be the case with any vendor.