Acodie Interview Series: Jared Bauman – CEO of 201 Creative

We are honoured to have Mr. Jared Bauman share his insights with us. Before taking a leap into his interview, let’s get to know something about him!

Jared Bauman is a seasoned entrepreneur, co-founder, and CEO of 201 Creative, a US-based digital marketing agency, and the host of Niche Pursuits Podcast, a popular and longest-running show for businesses and marketers. 

With his experience in business management and digital marketing for over two decades, Bauman has been a great opinionist in Weekend Growth and is known for his ideas and tips that could be followed in SEO. 

For years, he has been a speaker who has taken his interest in giving advices for creative entrepreneurs. He also has been a part of the multi-day courses on Creative Live. 

Coming to his company, 201 Creative, is an agency that specialises its services in SEO, content writing, website audit, link building, email marketing and building growth strategies. The company itself is very keen on SEO marketing that can be used for both local and national businesses.

➢ How do you approach integrating SEO with content creation to ensure long-term organic growth for clients at 201 Creative?

At 201 Creative, the foundation of integrating SEO with content creation is built on a deep understanding of each client’s brand voice, audience, and unique selling points. The process is thorough:

• Start with a Content Audit: Before planning any content, we perform a comprehensive content audit. This helps identify which existing pieces are performing, which aren’t, and what gaps exist in the content landscape. This audit guides us on where to focus our efforts.
• Keyword Mapping and Intent Research: We then do extensive keyword research, but not just to find high-volume terms—we focus on understanding search intent. We map keywords across different stages of the funnel, ensuring that content not only drives traffic but also nurtures leads through to conversion.
• Content Strategy Alignment: Every content piece aligns with broader business goals and target audience needs. For instance, a series of blog posts might be strategically designed to support a pillar content piece, which drives authority and attracts high-quality links.
• Consistent Content Updates: For sustained growth, content is treated as a living asset. We regularly revisit and refresh existing content to keep it current, add value, and maintain rankings. We aim for a mix of evergreen and timely content to strike a balance between consistent traffic and capturing current trends.

➢ What are the most common SEO mistakes you see in creative businesses, and how do you recommend addressing them?

Creative businesses often have unique challenges with SEO. Here are some of the most common mistakes:

• Lack of Keyword Integration: Creative brands often produce amazing content that lacks keyword focus. We address this by making sure that every piece of content has a target focus that people are interested in.
• Poor Site Architecture: Creative sites often have complex designs that can harm crawlability and UX. We help these brands restructure their sites, ensuring intuitive navigation, strategic internal linking, and a simple URL structure.
• Ignoring Technical SEO: Technical issues like slow load times, missing XML sitemaps, or unoptimized mobile experiences are common pitfalls. No, these are typically not the signular reason why a site will rank. But creative sites often have larger media and so the technical side is important. We prioritize technical audits and fixes to ensure the website is well-crawled and indexed.

➢ How has your approach to email marketing, particularly with newsletters, contributed to building a loyal audience and increasing client visibility?

Our approach to email marketing focuses on delivering value consistently, ensuring it’s something subscribers look forward to. With my Weekend Growth newsletter, here are some more details: 

• Educational and Actionable Content: The newsletter’s focus on sharing deep insights, case studies, and actionable advice. This positions me/us as a trusted resource, not just a service provider.
• Consistency in Delivery: Consistency is key. The frequency and timing of newsletters are carefully planned, making sure they add value without overwhelming subscribers.
• Highlighting Client Wins: I regularly share my “wins” along with client success stories to reinforce credibility and expertise, which not only builds loyalty among subscribers but also increases visibility for featured clients.
• Segmentation and Personalization: I segment the audience based on their interests and engagement levels, ensuring that each group receives content tailored to their preferences. This boosts open rates, engagement, and conversions.

➢ Could you share a recent success story where a specific SEO strategy dramatically improved a client’s digital presence?

One of our recent successes involved working with a national service business to optimize their website’s performance. The site faced several technical issues that were hindering Google’s ability to crawl and index content effectively. Here’s how we helped them achieve dramatic improvements:

• Comprehensive Site Audit: We started with a thorough audit, uncovering issues with crawl depth, inconsistent redirects, and missing structured data. Based on the audit, we prioritized fixes that would have the biggest impact on crawlability, indexing, and user experience.
• Fixing Technical Issues: We resolved problems like inconsistent domain formats and incorrect redirects, increasing the site’s average crawl rate from around 1,000 requests per day to about 7,000 within weeks of finishing our work. This improvement allowed Googlebot to index more pages quickly, resulting in a 66% increase in indexed pages.
• Improving Link Depth: Key content was buried too deep within the site, making it hard for users and search engines to find. By restructuring internal links, we reduced crawl depth to ensure critical pages were within three clicks of the homepage, boosting both SEO and user experience.
• Content Enhancement and Schema Implementation: We added more descriptive content to thin pages, improving relevance, and incorporated schema markup to boost indexability and visibility in image search results.
• Optimizing Titles and Meta Descriptions: We refined vague titles to better reflect the content, which significantly increased click-through rates (CTR) from search results.

As a result, this brand saw a rapid rise in organic traffic, a significant improvement in crawl rates, reduced bounce rates, and better engagement across key pages. The client praised the collaboration, noting that these changes made their site more user-friendly and SEO-friendly, setting a strong foundation for long-term growth.

➢ How do you adapt SEO strategies for brands with highly visual content, like photography or design agencies?

For visually-driven brands, our SEO approach emphasizes visual search optimization and engaging content that complements the visuals:

• Image SEO: We prioritize optimizing images with descriptive alt tags, captions, and appropriate file names. We also recommend using WebP formats for faster loading times.
• Content + Visual Pairing: We create content that tells the story behind the visuals, offering educational or behind-the-scenes insights that add context and drive engagement. This boosts on-page time and signals relevance to Google.
• Utilizing Visual Platforms: We leverage visual platforms like Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram to drive traffic back to the website, using keyword-rich descriptions, video transcriptions, and optimized profiles.

➢ With constant changes in Google’s algorithms, how do you ensure that your SEO strategies remain agile and future-proof?

At 201 Creative, our SEO strategies are rooted in principles that remain pretty stable despite algorithm changes:

• User Experience First: Google’s algorithms consistently prioritize user experience, so we focus on fast load times, mobile responsiveness, intuitive navigation, and quality content.
• Structured Data & Schema Markup: We leverage structured data to improve SERP visibility and keep clients’ content relevant across different search features, like featured snippets and knowledge panels.
• Content Depth and Authority: We create authoritative, in-depth content that’s backed by data, expert insights, and supporting visuals. This ensures it remains valuable regardless of algorithmic shifts.
• Regular Testing and Iteration: We constantly test new ideas—whether it’s a tweak to title tags, a shift in content structure, or A/B testing meta descriptions. This allows us to pivot quickly when needed.

➢ What are some creative link-building tactics you’ve used to grow your clients’ domain authority without relying on traditional guest posts?

Here’s how we approach link-building creatively:

• Data-Driven Assets: We create unique research reports, infographics, or interactive tools that naturally attract links from industry sites and journalists seeking valuable data.
• Ego Bait Content: Lists like “Top 10 [Industry] Experts” or awards for notable achievements prompt featured individuals to share and link back to the content.
• Resource Page Outreach: We identify and pitch our clients’ content to relevant resource pages, positioning it as a helpful addition.
• HARO Responses: Consistently providing expert insights to journalists via HARO has led to high-quality backlinks from reputable publications.
• Link Reclamation: We find broken links on relevant sites and suggest our clients’ content as replacements, adding value while earning links.

This streamlined approach ensures our clients build domain authority without traditional guest posting. 

➢ How do you measure the effectiveness of the SEO strategies implemented by your agency, and which KPIs do you prioritize?

The effectiveness of SEO strategies is measured through a mix of foundational and conversion-focused KPIs:

• Organic Traffic and SERP Rankings: We track changes in organic traffic and improvements in keyword rankings. These are primary indicators of increased visibility.
• Conversions and Revenue: We monitor conversions (leads or sales) from organic traffic, with revenue being the ultimate KPI.
• Engagement Metrics: Metrics like time on page, bounce rate, and scroll depth help assess how well the content resonates with users.
• Domain Authority and Backlink Growth: Tracking the growth in high-quality backlinks and overall domain authority ensures we’re making progress in boosting authority and credibility.

If you like to feature your story through an interview with Acodie, feel free to contact us. For more information and queries, visit our website.

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