Victorious

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Rise Up 2 Marketing. We help small- to medium-sized businesses with their marketing approach. Our organization specializes in law firms but has helped others such as medical practices as well. We analyze what they’re doing and then help with their marketing, SEO, implementation, and more, giving them a full approach in one place.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Victorious?

We were looking for an SEO team to work on projects, as we outsource that portion of the work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We looked at our client’s business goals, ideal areas to focus on, etc. They did an analysis of the client’s website and provided an in-depth report regarding where to expect the fastest growth and where the client should focus. Victorious found several technical issues for us to tackle, in collaboration with third-party developers.

They provide a monthly report of which topics have the most volume, which brings the largest ROI, and tell us which topics we should focus on. For example, Victorious may tell us we should write about the difference between divorce and annulment, which keywords to use, how many words to use, etc. We write the content, they review it, make suggestions, and then we post it.

What is the team composition?

There are 4–5 people who work on our projects. I have a main contact who interacts with her team which varies slightly in size depending on the need.

How did you come to work with Victorious?

I was researching SEO companies online as well as looking at national ranks and reviews. I narrowed it down to four companies to interview. We found Victorious presented themselves the best, provided the best responses, and had great reviews.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around July 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There has been an increase in traffic and placement of our client on Google since we started working with Victorious. After six months, there was an 86% increase of ranked keywords, 1,607 keyword position additions, 174% increase of top 10 keywords, 147% increase in clicks, 85% increase in impressions, and a 132% increase in sessions.

We also moved up from 49 to 73 keywords in the top three keyword positions, and from 79 to 277 keywords in positions 4–10. Feedback from the third-party developers is quite positive, saying that Victorious is the best SEO team they’ve experienced.

How did Victorious perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team does an excellent job. They’re extremely responsive and communicative, usually replying within 24 hours. We have Zoom meetings each month and communicate via email for everything else. We use Asana boards and Google for reports. They provide detailed reports that present all the necessary information needed to make decisions, without having to ask them a ton of questions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate the high visibility they have, allowing us to see the progress of projects, who is working on different tasks, etc. I’ve not experienced this with other companies. They’re impressive and the cooperation is exactly how one would hope it would be with an SEO team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t know of anything. I’ve been extremely happy with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure they’re the right fit. There are a lot of requirements on the part of the client in order to be successful. Cooperate with their suggestions and provide everything they request from you.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CocuSocial is a marketplace for unique food experiences like cooking, baking, wine tasting and mixology classes. I am the co-founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Victorious for its SEO service due to its reputation and reviews in the field. We did't have much presence on organic google search although we tried to improve SEO by ourselves before.

We hope Victorious could help us achieve our SEO goal by increasing our keywords ranking and drive more organic traffic eventually.

SOLUTION

How did you select Victorious and what were the deciding factors?

We did a comprehensive market research and we found Victorious, along with a few others, as a very reputable SEO agency that won many awards and received very good customer reviews.

But the decision to choose Victorious is made after a few calls with their team members. It become very apparent after the few calls that not only their team members are very capable but also they have a systemic way to achieve results proving to be effective by helping many companies succeed in SEO.

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

The initial project lasts for a year. We identified a few key geographic market to target including NYC, DC, LA and San Francisco. There are many components of the project with detailed timeline on what needs to be done each month.

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

Mainly two people from their team, one is the customer success manager and the other one is the sales person. But there are a larger team behind the scene that is working together on our project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are very happy with the results. Our total keyword ranking on Google changed from 2569 to 7390 over a year and total keywords on page 1 changed from 49 to 659.

Total sessions driven by the keyword changes increased from 2000 when pandemic hits to 10,000 this month. This is beyond the goal and metric we set at the beginning of the partnership.

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

Project management is amazing primarily due to their customer success manager, Sydney! Everything, big or small, is managed and communicated well and nothing is forgotten. Timeline is clear with monthly report.

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

The result is fantastic and I think the reason for such good result is due to a standard workflow structure and the quality of their team. Their systematic SEO workflow is state-of-the-art. Everyone I spoke with on their team is highly qualified.

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

Backlinks could be explained more with the client in the future so that clients can appreciate more the value of those backlinks.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I manage both the marketing and ecommerce business for a B2C e-commerce clothing retailer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Victorious to help increase our total organic rankings by creating more on-site content and backend SEO auditing.

SOLUTION

How did you select Victorious and what were the deciding factors?

In the past, we were working with a SEO self-service platform that was not giving us the results that we were paying for. We decided to move over to Victorious for more hands-on approach to improve our SEO strategy.

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

Each month, Victorious has a set of deliverables that they implement such as backlinks, blog posts, social signals, syndicated content and quarterly site audits. We also have monthly calls to go over the previous months SEO performance.

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

So far I have worked with two Customer Success Managers who have been both knowledgeable and helpful. If we have a new keyword that we are trying to go after, they help facilitate an action plan with their team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since the start of our partnership, we have had a total keyword position change of 9,493. We are also ranking on the top page for one of our main product categories.

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

Victorious has a very clear year plan when it comes to deliverables and my customer success manager is always pro-active about getting these done in a timely manner.

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

They produce really great content that also performs well when it comes to SEO. Plus, they are willing to work with me when it comes to blog revisions to ensure the companies voice is heard.

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

At times time, we are very happy with our partnership with Victorious.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We were looking to begin ranking on Google as our company growth was stagnating without a strong focus on SEO.

SOLUTION

How did you select Victorious and what were the deciding factors?

We found them on Clutch along with a few other companies. However, Victorious's introductory call after a brief site audit was the most technical. They gave the most concrete issues we would be tackling during the campaign.

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

We began with a large-scale technical audit of our site. Then, they added us to an Asana project with clear steps for each month that they would be working on to improve our SEO. The audit gave us a list of issues to fix on-site on our end, while they focused on backlinks and writing up blog posts and content briefs for us.

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

We were assigned a campaign manager who has been our main point of contact.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are now ranking first for several of our high volume target keywords and have noticed a definite increase in impressions and traffic from organic search.

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

We have monthly calls for status updates and performance summaries. We also have access to an Asana project with up-to-date task statuses on a month-by-month breakdown. We also use email to communicate and Victorious is always quick to respond.

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

We appreciate how in-depth Victorious has been with the technical details. We are able to ask any specific technical questions and they always have a solid answer at hand. The number of backlinks they are able to get are also impressive along with the detailed content briefs.

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

Sometimes, the Asana project does get out of date but it's always easy to shoot Victorious an email and have any questions resolved same day.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work as an SEO Strategist at Raken. Raken is a construction management software/app solution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Initially, we hired Victorious for backlinking and then progressed to use them for some keyword research, metadata recommendations, technical SEO recommendations, and strategic content recommendations.

SOLUTION

How did you select Victorious and what were the deciding factors?

Victorious reached out to us in Summer 2019 and we had a bad SEO agency working with us at the time. It was a no brainer. Their presentations, their professionalism, their responsiveness... it was all spot on.

And after beginning the partnership, that didn't stop. They were always on top of it and always delivered on their promises.

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

Backlinking, keyword research, metadata optimizations, technical SEO optimizations, and strategic content optimizations.

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

3-4 members. One was a salesperson and three were account managers/CSM's. Occasionally we had a meeting with their SEO strategy team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were able to guide us through month-over-month growth in website sessions and keyword ranking improvements.

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

They use their own analytics system which as a client, you have access to. They pull all their data from the best SEO tools including GA, GSC, Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and more. We had monthly reporting where they would send us a deck with all of our backlinks for the month, a review on month-over-month traffic metrics, and more.

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

Their communication is the best, they never skip a beat and follow through on everything they say they will do.

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

Nope, I really enjoyed everything about working with Victorious SEO. Keep up the great work guys.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Over the last 4+ months, Victorious offered to extend the relationship at no additional cost to us in order to deliver a successful project. They were able to do that. For the additional work provided at the end of the project they brought on their SEO Director to provide additional insight and guidance. The additional time and resources were integral in shifting the relationship from negative to positive.

What is the team dynamic?

The team worked very well together. Victorious was focused and knowledgeable. They were happy to share that knowledge with our team and we learned a great deal from them. The working relationship was very productive.

What is the status of this engagement?

It has ended as of December.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

The relationship started off strong and then we went through a period of challenges as our business is more complicated than most and we disagreed on some strategic decisions. Eventually we were able to work through those differences to come up with the best strategy to move forward. Honestly, the additional time working together allowed for our companies to get a better understanding of goals and objectives which resulted in a more productive relationship towards the end.

How did Victorious address the challenges that arose?

They focused on areas we agreed on and made significant improvements in communications. They also added resources, specifically their SEO lead, which was helpful.

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

Our traffic has stabilized and we are seeing growth in key areas of our site – most importantly the pages that are the most valuable to us.

How was project management handled?

It was very good.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

They have a very knowledgeable team and they were willing to share their knowledge with us so our team got better along the way. 

In what specific areas can they improve?

We shared some of our ideas for improvement with them and they made them to benefit the relationship and the success of the project.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on November 14, 2020.

President, Expatriate Resource Company

Financial Services

1-10 Employees

Boston, Massachussets

$50,000 to $199,999

Feb. - July 2020

Project summary: 

An expatriate resource company partnered with Victorious to review its SEO rankings and provide guidance on generating traffic and content marketing.

Feedback summary: 

The Victorious team was helpful but there was a disconnect between what the team thought they needed to do and what the company's goals were. The team was very knowledgeable on SEO but they were not fully informed regarding the company's standing or objectives.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the President and in charge of marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Victorious?

We signed on with them to review SEO and provide guidance on generating additional traffic and general content marketing.

What were your goals for this project?

Traffic increase.

SOLUTION

How did you select Victorious?

We have used other agencies in the past. We reached out to several companies and Victorious provided a nice overall package of services that met our specific needs. They were expensive but offered a range of services that met our needs.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

They provided SEO analysis and then we worked with them on a monthly basis to address issues that were found during an SEO audit. They helped with content planning, content marketing, and strategic planning.

What was the team composition?

We worked primarily with a project manager who then brought any needs we identified back to the team behind the scenes to recommend changes or do the work required.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We did not see the progress towards the goals that we had set. In some cases, there was minimal improvement but we saw other areas that we missed on.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project manager was helpful and managed the process well. However, there was a disconnect between what we discussed and the results suggested after our calls.

The team working behind the scenes was not fully informed on our goals and our business. In some cases, the team made suggestions to do things that had already been done or that were not in line with our business objectives.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The company has a great team of very knowledgeable SEO strategist and marketers. The challenge was the disconnect between what they were recommending and our business goals.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The agency model is good for companies that have little SEO knowledge or experience. We are an established business and knowledgeable on SEO so the services provided were not as valuable to us.

Ratings

Overall rating: 2.5

Quality: 3

Schedule: 3

Cost: 1.5

Willing to refer: 1.5

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Digital Marketing Manager for KIOSK Information Systems - a self-service solution provider and kiosk manufacturer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed to improve our digital presence by drawing the right traffic to our website. We needed to know more about out competition, and understand how to move to the top of the list in Google web searches.

SOLUTION

How did you select Victorious and what were the deciding factors?

We compared a number of different SEO Agencies and were impressed with the customer service Victorious provides as well as the technical tools they use to make meeting our goals more reliable and predictable.

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

Victorious began by sitting down with us to understand our goals at a high level. They provided us with direction about how we can use backlinking to our advantage. Victorious advised us on where to start - giving us clear instruction about how to improve our website content by providing clear page optimization strategies.

Next, based on their expert advice, we proceeded on a monthly basis to discuss our areas of focus and Victorious continually provided relevant and timely keyword research, website recommendations and reporting to show what was working and where we needed to focus our attention.

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

2 - Senior Customer Success Manager & Partnerships Director

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Victorious provides us with 24/7 access to the dashboard where we can get immediate feedback about our efforts. The dashboard shows current rankings and change over time as well as the trend of visitors to our site. We are happy with the insight because we can always get near real-time feedback and see the results of our efforts.

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

They are always great at meeting deadlines and giving us realistic expectations. Our success manager always gets back to us quickly and communicates clearly.

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

We have been very impressed with their ever growing knowledge and keeping up with changing technology so that we can rely on them!

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

For the longer term - it would be nice if they came up with some more new ideas once our improvement started to plateau.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing director for an e-discovery software company focusing on the legal market. So, we sell software to lawyers, attorneys, paralegals, and litigation support professionals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Victorious?

We were optimizing our website, but we were missing some critical skills that were needed to optimizing our position in search. We needed support and expertise to boost our rankings for certain keywords.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They audited at the beginning of the project. They then developed a strategy for the duration of the project. They optimized our content every month and did something called social signals. Then they created three backlinks every month. Over time, they increased the number of backlinks we received.

Mid-year, they conducted another audit to determine how they could improve the site again. They used their own platform and ahrefs an alternative to Google Analytics to track keywords and growth. They shared the info from Surfer with me as well to optimize content. We also experimented a bit when traffic dipped and discovered that backlinks were really important to grow our domain rating.  

What is the team composition?

We worked with about three people. I worked primarily with the customer relations manager, but that shifted throughout the project. The salesperson I worked with originally hopped back on the project the last few months as well. A few times, I was able to work with their technical team directly.

How did you come to work with Victorious?

They emailed me and I happened to be doing research on SEO vendors at the time. I took calls with several different vendors, but I thought Victorious would be the best fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $33,000–$35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from August 2019–July 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve been super helpful the entire team we worked together. We saw growth on the website almost every month during the campaign. The only month we didn’t see growth was when COVID-19 hit, and Victorious provided us with a bunch of extra backlinks that month. Throughout the campaign, they were accommodating and they explained each of the items on their reports. As a result, I was able to implement a few of the strategies myself. Everything they did was pretty successful. When we started, we had almost no presence on search, and now I’m much more comfortable with how we compare to our competitors.

How did Victorious perform from a project management standpoint?

They used Asana to support project management. I worked closely with the customer success managers. They were very transparent and were always able to deliver by the end of the month. They share everything on a Google Drive, so I could see what they were completing in real-time. It made it very easy to track their progress.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were more accommodating than almost every other vendor I’ve worked with. I would rank them much higher than any other company. They were extremely helpful and personable. I really enjoyed working with them.

On top of that, their expertise was top notch. I was always able to ask questions, and if my account manager couldn’t explain it, they would pass the question to the development team. They always provided an in-depth response to any of my questions. They were responsive and provided excellent advice.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were a few miscommunications because I worked directly with the customer success manager and not with whoever was working on the project. As a result,  sometimes they would deliver items without explaining it ahead of time. I would just prefer to be able to communicate with them directly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Pay attention when you’re establishing expectations at the beginning. Utilize them and ask as many questions as possible. One of the benefits of working with them is that they’re available to offer their expertise.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing at a medical software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Victorious?

I had just launched a new website, so I hired them to help me with keyword strategy and research.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team initially did keyword research and strategy. They then also moved into doing backlinking work. In the beginning, they worked on some of our webpages.

I wanted to make sure that the blog pages were centered around the right keywords, so Victorious helped me with that. After I created the content for those pages, the team optimized them. We’ve built out 25 pages at this point, and each one has its own keyword theme.

What is the team composition?

I work directly with Ben (Senior Customer Success Manager).

How did you come to work with Victorious?

I found them a couple of years ago at my last company when I was searching on the internet, and I saw that they had won several awards. I reached out to three other companies, but I felt that Victorious’ approach was much more customized than the other vendors’ which was much more cookie cutter. 

How much have you invested with them?

We're currently just under $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in January 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we started working with them, we’ve been averaging a 36% monthly increase in organic traffic. Our overall traffic has been averaging a 20% increase every month, which is good. A lot of it has been attributed to creating new pages and content. 

Their on-page optimization is quite spot on. Right now we’re at about 7 backlinks per month, which is great. 

How did Victorious perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is good. They use Asana, which I use to see upcoming deliverables and progress. It also allows me to look back at January or February and see what we did. I never have to wonder what we’ll get each month.

If I have questions beyond Ben’s scope, he takes it to the team and gets back to me pretty quickly, which is very valuable. I can go to them with any questions and usually get an answer pretty quickly. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The number of backlinks Victorious is able to deliver per month is impressive. If you want 50 backlinks per month, they can do that, and I don’t know anyone else who can do that. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing major comes to mind. It would always be great to get work and responses quicker and to have higher authority backlinks. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Always set benchmarks in the contract for Victorious to shoot for, and have an option to pull out the contract if they don’t hit them. A lot of the benchmarks also depend on you as the client.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a Canadian based Corporate Housing provider. I am the Marketing Manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Victorious?

Organic rankings for our top keywords - SEO, both technical and content-driven.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve helped us improve our Google rankings for major keywords.  
They executed an entire SEO strategy for our business: technical/structural obstacles, optimization opportunities, backlinking strategy, social signaling, and content delivery.

What is the team composition?

We worked with one assigned customer success manager.

How did you come to work with Victorious?

Google search and Clutch reviews. Extensive research with other SEO companies (Canadian based too). Victorious were very polished, straightforth and everything was seamless from the beginning.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent about $72,000 CAD (approximately $52,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

It was a 1-year contract — ended June 2020. We would have loved to keep working with them, but business and incoming revenue changed drastically due to COVID-19.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Numerous voluminous target keywords made it to page one and two from our 12-month partnership. Keyword position growth was over 1400 and organic traffic increase by 10% resulting in an increase in the number of quality leads captured from the website.
Made it to page one of Google for most important keyword.

How did Victorious perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re amazing. They were extremely effective, very responsive, engaged, and dedicated to our partnership. Any time I messaged my contact, he was there. They met all of our deliverables, and when our contact needed to, he would go to his tech team and come back with information a day or two later and I almost never had to follow up with them. We had phone calls every two weeks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We achieved everything we set out to do. I’ve worked with other SEO companies in the past, but they never carried out proper business practices. In contrast, Victorious is up to date with trends and are aware of Google updates. I trust them to facilitate all the changes we need.

Again, they’re very personable, friendly, and focused on making sure we achieve our goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re a US-based company, and we’re a Canadian-based company, so the exchange rate wasn’t in our favor. The costs are high. We tried to extend the contract and negotiate a shorter-term contract with a lower rate, but despite reducing the price, they weren’t able to meet our budget.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Really understand what your business needs and lay that out at the beginning of the engagement.  Make sure you do your research and compare them to other companies, what they can deliver, and if that will help you meet your goals.