mattbentley

About Matt Bentley

Part data scientist and part growth marketer, Matt Bentley has spent 20 years growing internet startup companies in 5 different countries as a Founder, CEO, CMO, and SEO consultant. He is the Founder and Chief Scientist of SEO and content marketing software CanIRank.com, and intelligent marketing assistant GrowthAI.com. Connect with Matt on Twitter or LinkedIn to chat startups, rock climbing, or how best to balance managing a startup company with being a new dad.

SEO for Financial Services: How to get Google clicks at a 97% discount

2021-06-23T16:54:48-07:00 By Matt Bentley | Categories: Case Studies

If you’re a fintech or financial services business, you’re probably accustomed to paying thousands of dollars a month buying traffic from Google AdWords. A single click on a one of the top keywords for financial advisors and related businesses can cost anywhere from a few dollars to well over $100. Now imagine you could get [...]

How Google BERT Changes SEO

2020-11-25T10:49:05-08:00 By Matt Bentley | Categories: SEO Knowledge

When Google releases a new algorithm they describe as "one of the biggest leaps forward in the history of search", SEOs pay attention. Good SEO consultants and their clients will want to know how these changes will impact SEO strategy, and if there are any actions that can be taken to improve rankings under the [...]

11 Questions to Ask an SEO Agency Before You Hire Them

2020-11-25T10:49:07-08:00 By Matt Bentley | Categories: SEO Knowledge

Hiring an SEO agency can be daunting. The SEO industry seems particularly plagued with low-quality service providers (including some that are borderline scams), and it's hard to evaluate their skills and expertise if you're not an SEO expert yourself. In this post, we'll help you avoid getting scammed and improve the likelihood that [...]

[DATA] 100+ Sites Impacted By Google Medic Update Analyzed

2020-11-25T10:49:35-08:00 By Matt Bentley | Categories: Research

Contrary to initial speculation, in the latest Google update, Google's Medic Update has ramifications that go way beyond the health industry and establishing author expertise. A year from now we may look back at August 2018 as a pivotal shift in how SEO works, on par with the introduction of Google Panda and Penguin [...]

What is a “Broad, Core Algorithm Update”?

2020-11-25T10:49:36-08:00 By Matt Bentley | Categories: Research

Note: This is an edited version of research we put together for CanIRank Full Service clients. This is part 1, What is a broad core algorithm update?, part 2 dives into data around What changed in the Google Medic Update?, and part 3 (coming soon!) explains How to Recover from the Google Medic [...]

How to Maximize the ROI of Your SEO Investment

2020-11-25T10:49:43-08:00 By Matt Bentley | Categories: SEO Knowledge

In the early days of CanIRank Full Service, we offered a much more limited service offering at a lower price point. Even though our monthly subscription costs were lower (around $500 - $1500 / month), the ROI was limited because we didn’t have enough hours to address all of a site’s weaknesses. We [...]

[DATA] How Much Does SEO Cost?

2020-11-25T10:49:47-08:00 By Matt Bentley | Categories: SEO Knowledge

The value of your iPhone is the same whether you paid $300 for it or $1,000. Shopping for commodity products teaches us to look for the lowest possible price (hopefully a HUGE discount from the “normal” price!). But the value, and even the definition, of SEO, varies widely. A spammer who clicks one [...]

What is the Best Keyword Difficulty Tool?

2020-11-25T10:49:57-08:00 By Matt Bentley | Categories: Research

Keyword research is arguably the most important step in the SEO process. It's the perfect antidote to Google's recent algorithm updates making it increasingly expensive, complicated, and risky to attempt to "punch above your weight" by manipulating your way to the top of the search engine results. Or at least, where the competition is weak [...]

Data-driven SEO Part 2: Does Long Content Really Rank Better?

2020-11-25T10:50:08-08:00 By Matt Bentley | Categories: Research, SEO Knowledge

Many SEOs have made the claim that long content ranks better, but... Is this yet another example of confusing correlation vs causation? Does longer content just earn more links? Do bigger, more authoritative sites publish longer content? Is longer content just better optimized? Or… will publishing longer content really help you rank better? As one of the [...]

SEO for SaaS: From 0 to $50,000/ month in Free, Organic SEO traffic

2020-11-25T10:50:09-08:00 By Matt Bentley | Categories: Case Studies

In this SEO case study, we'll share how the brand new SaaS startup PDF Pro used CanIRank Full Service to grow their organic traffic from almost nothing to over 150,000 to over 1.5 million visitors per month. PDFPro is a SaaS app offering a completely cloud-based solution for creating, editing, and reviewing PDF files, eliminating the need [...]