Hey listener, Ed here. You're about to listen to a timeless handpick classic from the SEO Is Not That Hard archive. Whether it's your first time hearing it or you need a refresher, you're gonna get a lot out of this. Here it is. Hello and welcome to episode 77 of Let Hard. I'm your host, Ed Dawson, the founder of KeywidgePeopleuse.com. The solution to finding the questions people ask online. I'm an affiliate marketer, SEO, and I've been building and monetising websites for over 20 years. I've built sites from the ground up, bought sites and sold sites in large exits. I'm here to share with you the SEO knowledge, hints and tips I've built up over the years. Today I'm going to talk about engineering as marketing. Engineering as marketing is a thing you might not have heard before, but it's definitely a strategy that you will have seen. So, what it is is essentially it's a strategy where you create free and useful tools for your target audience. Now these tools will be complementary and will align really well with the product or service that you are trying to sell, and these tools will draw in potential customers. Now, the reason it's called engineering as marketing is because you're going to mainly be using engineering resources, so essentially development, web developers, programmers to build something that is feature-rich, interactive, and not just written flat content. And the key thing with any engineering as marketing product that you create is you're going to want to get people's contact details. You're essentially generating leads for yourself. Now, an example and the most common example that people share is the website grader by HubSpot. And you can just Google, you know, HubSpot website grader, and you'll find a link to it. And what this does is it just asks you for a website address and an email address, and then it will perform some basic checks on your website for things like performance, SEO, how it works on mobile, security, those kind of things. And it will then make some suggestions on things you can fix. And what this is is it's essentially it's a way of for Hubspot to a get your contact details so they can obviously remark it to you, and then B also start making suggestions to you right now for things that you can do, and these things are things that their product can help you do if you choose to go down the that process with them. So this is a great example of a tool that that people will find useful just in its own right. It will also get people to link to it because people will share, it's very shareable because of what it does and how quickly it does it. Um, and it starts to generate inbound leads for HubSpot. Another well-known example is uh Ahref's backlink checker, their free bank backlink checker that anyone can use without having AHRF's account. And obviously, yeah, loads of people are going to link this because it's a great way of finding out what backlinks you've got to your or any other website without making any payment, but it obviously starts to weave in details of further things that you can do if you actually sign up for an actual AHRF's account. Now, AHRFs and usually in this one don't ask for an email address, um, which is more common with many of these tools, but it still works great for them, gives them loads of publicity and loads of backlinks. So if you look at why it's important um to consider engineering as marketing, is because you'll get a few benefits. So you will obviously get your SEO boost by attracting backlinks because a good tool, people will actually um you know be able to the great link magnets, people will link to it. You'll generate leads, um, particularly if you're going to ask people for email addresses so you can follow up with them later. Um, that helps differentiate you from other sites doing the same thing as you. If you've got a great tool that's really useful for people, it really makes you stand out compared to other competitors you might have who are just doing traditional standard marketing and not trying to do anything like this. Um, and yeah, if you're just starting out, it it helps build traction, it helps people get eyeballs on your site. We did it with Q which People Use with um the um product being free to use um for the first few instances, um, and that that in itself works in essence like in this engineering's marketing concept because um you know we built this great tool and allow people to use it for free. Um, obviously, if you want to keep you know use it past a certain amount, then then there are subscription options to choose from. But in the first instance, anyone can use it for free, and that generates loads of backlinks and traction for us. Now, if you're considering this as a tactic you want to try for yourself, um, then you need to consider a few things. Whatever you create, it's got to really be complementary to what your actual product is. There's no point doing a sort of a cake baking calculator if what you're trying to sell is car parts, you know. You you've got to have something that it is at least in the periphery of what you're actually trying to sell, so that you attract the right kind of people who are potential future customers. Um, it should do just one thing, really. You should and it should do it well. So rather than being a massive tool with lots of um different functionality and ways of using it, it really should be dead simple to use, like the um example from HubSpot, where all they need is a URL and an email address, and they can create a report from you just from that. So it's dead simple to use, dead quick to use, and gives you you know output really quickly. Um, yeah, and it's obviously got to add value to the users of the tool. So it's got to be something that actually is that provides some kind of valuable information or useful outcome for them. Um, and yeah, it has to be free to use, obviously. Um, it's fine to ask for an email address, and that's quite normal. You know, there's there's a quid pro quo there, you know. If you want to use this, we obviously want to be able to get back in touch with you. That is quite normal. So, those are the kind of the things you've got to consider when trying to come up with what your engineering's marketing tool is going to be. So, at what point do you target people with um engineering and marketing tools? Well, then in the next podcast episode, I'm gonna be talking about um search intents, um, and this is one this kind of fits in quite neatly with that because basically, people who uh you're gonna attract here are gonna be people who don't know about your brand necessarily. Really, you're trying to get brand awareness with these tools. So you're gonna be sort of hitting people who are only just aware they've got a problem they need to solve and they're trying to find solutions to it, or people who don't know they've got this problem yet, but are just sort of you know researching around the top of a subject area to try and get an understanding of what their options are and what the problems are and how they can solve them. So we call this top of funnel, um, heading towards the middle of the funnel area. So this is the area where you're gonna try and target people. So you've got to imagine that these people aren't aware of you as a brand yet, so you're not gonna be able to rely on any kind of brand information to publicise this, you're not gonna um be in a situation where these people that are looking to buy right now, you're you're pulling people in on a much further up the funnel, which means you've got a bigger audience to aim for and a and a wider audience to aim for, um, because you will pick up plenty of people that won't go on to become customers, but the idea is you'll pick up enough of those that come through will eventually turn into potential customers for you. Now, even when you've built your um tool and you've got some you've got this going and up and live, you're still gonna have to at least initially do some promotional push for it, so that is doing outreach to people to get those first few people to see it and to notice it. Um, so you might want to use um places like Twitter or LinkedIn, um, use your um personal network for any people, any people you know, and sort of just push it a little bit. Um the great thing is once you get your first few links, your first few people using it, the the ball it will sort of become like um a stone that rolls downhill, it will gather traction on its own in time. But you're gonna always are gonna have to give that initial push, so do bear that in mind. And yeah, it's not easy to create these tools because you've A, you've got to have an idea in the first place, and then B, you've got to execute on it, but that very fact that it's not easy is what makes them work so well, because as I've said before in previous podcasts, people will link to content and tools that they can't replicate themselves. So, this is why if you take the time and effort to engineer one of these tools, then done right, it will sort of build a life of its own, and it will generate those links and it will generate those traction because it is you've put something unique out there that is very hard to replicate, and that will set you up as you know, your brand up as an expert in what you do, will get you those links, will get you those customers coming at the top of the funnel, and will set you on a path that is unique compared to all the other sites that are just doing written content, written content, written content to try and attract people. This is something that really, really sets you apart, and yeah, it's it's definitely a strategy. I mean it's a strategy we've used, um, and it's one that we'll continue to use in the future, and it's probably really my favourite strategy of all the different available strategies for um getting links, getting custom rivals, getting leads, and you know moving your flywheel forward. So that's my takeaway for you today. Start thinking about what tools you could start to be building to for your audience that will get your business moved to the next level. Thanks for being a listener, I really appreciate it. Please subscribe and share, it really helps. SEO is not that hard, is brought to you by KeywordspeopleUse.com. Least solutions find the questions people ask online. See where thousands of people use us every day. Try it today for free at Keywordspeopleuse.com. To get an instant hit of more SEO tips, then find the link to download a free copy of my 101 quick SEO tips in the show notes of today's episode. If you want to get in touch, have any questions, I'd love to hear from you and at channel 5 on Twitter, or you can email me at podcast at keywordspeopleuse.com. Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SEO Is Not That Hard.