What to Do When a Google Algorithm Update Kills Your Inbound Traffic with Chris Raulf | Ep #831

Smart Agency Masterclass with Jason Swenk: Podcast for Digital Marketing Agencies

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Is your agency’s strategy diversified enough to withstand sudden algorithm changes? Today’s featured guest—an SEO veteran—learned this the hard way. While he focused on client work, his own website grew outdated. Then one Google update hit and overnight his agency lost 80% of its organic traffic, its main source of leads.

The agency eventually recovered, but not without leaving him with a powerful lesson: always invest in the three pillars of growth. In this episode, he shares his chaotic first encounter with SEO, the biggest lessons from a long career in the industry, and the “superpower” that helps him better understand and adapt to algorithm shifts.

Chris Raulf is the founder of Boulder SEO Marketing and Chris Raulf SEO & AI Consulting. With decades of experience in SEO, dating back to before Google was even called Google, Chris specializes in hyper-focused SEO and content marketing strategies. He’s worked with clients from local startups to major national brands, helping them dominate organic search. Fun fact: Chris is dyslexic and considers it his SEO superpower.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• The big mistake that led him to a career in SEO.

• The day 80% of his organic traffic disappeared.

• Why he now invests in the three pillars of growth.

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Sponsors and Resources

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From Big Mistake to a Full-Blown Career in SEO

Chris has been in the SEO game since before most of us knew it was a thing. Back in 1995, while working in Switzerland for an American company, he watched the birth of the search engine era. The US branch of the company created something called a “website” and hardcoded German text as images on it.

His first “SEO problem” was figuring out how search engines could read that German text. That curiosity grew into a passion, and eventually a full-blown career.

Fast forward to today, Boulder SEO Marketing is a hyper-focused SEO agency specializing in content strategies that win. But even with all that experience, Chris learned the hard way that no one is safe from the wrath of a Google core update.

The Day Organic Traffic Disappeared

In 2021, business was booming. Leads were rolling in purely from organic search. Then, overnight, a Google core algorithm update wiped out about 80% of their organic traffic.

Why did this happen? Outdated content. Their own site had gone stale while they focused on client work. For an agency that relied almost entirely on inbound search leads, it was like someone padlocked the front door.

Chris could have panicked, but after the initial shock, he collected himself and treated this crisis as an opportunity. He gave himself one weekend to create a comeback plan. The result was a proprietary approach he calls Micro SEO Strategies—laser-targeted content plays designed to quickly recover rankings and leads.

Two Pages That Saved the Agency

Chris rebuilt their inbound engine with just two key pieces of content:

• A location page targeting “Denver SEO” that shot straight to #1 in local search and started generating leads almost immediately.

• An SEO packages guide that became a go-to national resource for that search term, pulling in high-quality leads from across the U.S.

Within 3–4 weeks, the phones were ringing again. Inbound was back. And Chris walked away with a hard-earned reminder—never let your own marketing go stale.

Don’t Put All Your Eggs in Google’s Basket

If you’re getting all your leads from one channel, you’re on borrowed land. Whether it’s Google, Facebook, or any single source, an algorithm tweak or platform change can crush your lead flow overnight. Jason’s advice on this is to build three pillars:

• Inbound (like SEO and content)

• Outbound (targeted outreach and prospecting)

• Strategic partnerships (referrals, collabs, and networks)

That way, if one pillar crumbles, your agency can survive.

Turning Dyslexia into a Superpower

Like anyone who’s struggled with dyslexia (like Jason, for instance) Chris had a hard time in school. Nowadays, however, he no longer sees it as a weakness and instead credits it with his ability to “feel” the algorithm and see patterns others might miss. It’s helped him build a thriving agency, one that makes most of its money from content.

Both agreed, what once felt like a setback in school became an entrepreneurial advantage later in life.

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