“There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.“
— Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich
—
You’ve probably heard it all from SEO agencies: “We need to build your topical authority.” “Let’s create a content hub strategy.” “Your domain authority needs work.” “We should focus on E-E-A-T signals.”
And look — none of that is wrong. Not at all. We’ve said it ourselves… those tactics absolutely have their place.
But here’s what happens in practice: you end up 18 months into an SEO engagement with 47 new blog posts and exactly zero movement on the keywords that actually drive revenue.
Meanwhile, your competitor is sitting pretty at position #2 for “insert relevant keyword related to your business here” and closing deals you never even knew existed.
The problem isn’t SEO.
The problem is unfocused SEO.
The ProfitPaths® Approach to SEO
At 5K, we think about SEO the same way we think about every marketing channel: through the lens of profit, not activity.
Our ProfitPaths® methodology starts with a simple question: What’s your IMPACT Offering? The product or service with the best margins, the most growth potential, and the longest customer lifetime value. This might be the thing your business is built around. It might be a product or service you offer with the highest profit margin that puts the most amount of money in your bank account.
The strategy stands regardless.
Once we know that, SEO becomes remarkably straightforward.
We’re not trying to rank for everything. We’re trying to rank for the terms that put money in your pocket.
The Three Things That Actually Matter
Strip away all the complexity, and SEO success comes down to three objectives:
1. Outrank your competitors for the head term.
Every industry has them — the 2-3 word searches with serious buying intent. “Commercial HVAC repair.” “Custom conveyor systems.” “B2B lead generation agency.”
These aren’t glamorous. They’re not long-tail. They’re probably competitive as hell.
But they’re where the money is.
If you’re not on page one for your core head term, everything else is a distraction. Full stop.
2. Capture the relevant long-tail variations.
Once you own the head term, you expand. “Commercial HVAC repair for warehouses.” “Food-grade conveyor belt systems.” “B2B lead generation for manufacturing companies.”
These longer searches have lower volume but higher intent. In fact, with our PowerPage™ strategy, they’re often the ones you start ranking for first. Someone searching “custom stainless steel conveyor systems for pharmaceutical manufacturing” knows exactly what they need. They’re not browsing. They’re buying.
3. Drive qualified traffic to pages that convert.
Here’s where most SEO strategies fall apart. They’ll celebrate traffic increases while ignoring that 80% of those visits are bouncing off blog posts essentially unrelated to what’s actually going to grow their business.
Traffic means essentially nothing if it’s not landing on pages built to convert — your service pages, your product pages, your quote request forms.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Let’s say you’re a regional commercial roofing company. Here’s the focused approach:
Head term target: “Commercial roofing [your city]”
That’s the prize. Every technical fix, every piece of content, every backlink should ultimately support getting you into the top 3 for that search.
Long-tail expansion:
- “Flat roof repair [your city]”
- “TPO roofing installation [your city]”
- “Commercial roof inspection [your city]”
- “Industrial roofing contractors near me”
Money pages to optimize:
- Your main commercial roofing services page
- Individual service pages (repairs, installations, inspections)
- Location pages if you serve multiple areas
- Your contact/quote request page
That’s it. That’s the strategy.
Not 50 blog posts about roofing trends. Not a podcast because everyone has a podcast and we should have one too. Not an infographic about “10 signs your roof needs attention” (could be a good link bait piece… but that’s for another time).
Just relentless focus on ranking the pages that generate leads for the terms that indicate buying intent.
The Uncomfortable Truth About “Comprehensive” SEO
A lot of agencies love complexity because complexity justifies retainers.
“We’re building your topical authority” sounds impressive. It also conveniently requires 12+ months of content production before you see meaningful results.
We’re not saying content doesn’t matter. We’re not saying backlinks don’t matter. They really do. We’re saying everything should ladder up to ranking your money pages for money keywords.
If an activity doesn’t directly support that goal, question why you’re doing it.
That blog post about industry trends? It’s valuable if it’s internally linking to your services page and targeting a keyword your prospects actually search and aimed at earning your organic backlinks. But don’t think that’s the thing that is going to boost your profit.
That technical SEO audit? Only valuable if the fixes prioritize the pages that generate revenue.
How We Measure Success
Here’s what we track for our SEO clients:
- Rankings for head terms — Are you moving up for the searches that matter most?
- Rankings for money-page keywords — Are your service/product pages gaining visibility?
- Organic traffic to money pages — Not total traffic. Traffic to pages that convert.
- Leads/sales from organic search — The only metric that actually hits your bottom line.
Notice what’s not on that list: total keyword rankings, domain authority score, number of backlinks, blog traffic.
Those are inputs. We care about outputs.
“The growth just continued to happen.” – Steve Foley, Bulk Memory Cards
The Bottom Line
SEO isn’t complicated. Agencies make it complicated because complicated sells.
We do simple, because we do profit. And we do it all with out any long-term contracts. Our clients are with us because we perform.
The path to organic search success is the same path to success in any marketing channel: identify what makes you money, figure out what your best prospects are searching for, and show up when they’re looking.
Head terms. Long-tail variations. Qualified traffic to converting pages.
That’s the game. Everything else is noise.
Ready to stop chasing vanity metrics and start ranking where it counts?
We’ll analyze your current SEO situation, identify your money keywords, and build a focused strategy to get you ranking above your competitors. No fluff. No runaround. Just results.
