Don’t Snooze on SEO for Content Marketing with Meg Casebolt

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. [00:00:00] Erin: So from your perspective of working with, um, small business owners, what do you think is like the importance of SEO? And I know that’s like such a large question to answer, but like, why should people care about working on their own. [00:00:17] Meg: Well, I think it’s two-fold the first one is if you want new people to find you, if you want fresh blood coming into your business, then Google is a source that you can use. YouTube is a source that you can use depending on how much time do you want to spend, you know, you do, obviously if you’re going to be editing the videos and doing that, it’s going to be a bigger time commitment. [00:00:38] Um, but figuring out what you want to be found for, and then. Putting a stake in the ground and saying, this is the thing that when people search for it, I want to be in that. Um, and that’s a really good way to have new people find you that aren’t just, you know, Aaron said, I should call you, which is the best way to get new clients, but also not consistent and not something that is always reliable. [00:01:05] whereas with Google people, aren’t going to Google three, four times a day. [00:01:09] Erin: Yeah. Oh, I’m going to. 30 to 300 times a day. [00:01:15] Meg: It’s true. I’m giving you the, the, the industry says that they, that the average person Googles, at least three or four times a day. Um, I am all in there all day. I probably have done three or four times by the time I got out of bed. So before I lose my train of thought, the first thing is that people can find you. The second thing is that when you do meet somebody or they are looking for something showing up in those first Google search results is like an implicit. Endorsement of the fact that you know what you’re doing. Um, you know, if you’re, if you meet someone at a networking event and you forget who they are, you didn’t get their card. You don’t remember their domain. And you’re like, uh, Erin and she lives in this town and she said, she’s a writer. If you show up there and you look really good on Google, that’s going to help people to trust you more. [00:02:03] So there’s a certain authority that comes from being fine. [00:02:07] Erin: Yeah. And I think one thing that I like to find out that you said is, you know, you had mentioned like, even in the case of referrals where someone says like, Hey, Erin suggested I contact you. Like it’s a wonderful place to be, but the more content that you have and like the more, um, like strategic. [00:02:22] At like a strategic action that you’ve taken towards creating that content. You’re not only introducing yourself to people, but you’re helping with the sales process by providing them that value. And like, proving, like you said that, you know your stuff, but in addition, you’re walking them through that like quote unquote funnel until they get to the point that they’re ready to purchase. [00:02:43] You know, if someone were to come to me as an example and say like, okay, A website like, but I then on a discovery call or through my proposal, have to take them step by step through what that might look like for them. Then it’s like a harder job for me as a business owner. And they’re less convinced when they actually make the effort to talk to me. [00:03:06] Right. Whereas if I have content on my site, you know, podcasts, YouTube shows anything like that. That’s already done all the heavy lifting, then they’re more prime to buy. And then. Excited about the process and it makes for a smoother process when your client actually feels comfortable and they know their experience is going to be good, working with you. [00:03:27] Meg: Yes. I’ve had so many experiences of that since I started creating content consistently of people coming in and buying a consulting call with me or some sort of package and then getting onto zoom and they say, I feel like I already know. [00:03:42] Erin: Oh, yes. That’s, that’s such a, one is an awesome thing to hear too. Right. But like that’s what content does. And I feel like people are afraid of SEO, let’s say so there’s like a big fear to like jump in and just put the effort in to build it. But like how awesome is it to already have formed a relationship with someone. And it’s not just the selling point, right? Like the easy way to look at it is like, okay, these people are prime to buy because you’ve put in that effort, maybe they have a little personality, they know that, you know your stuff, but it, but it’s also really like, you’re getting a good client. [00:04:15] If they like you, you’re going to have an enjoyable experience. It’s not just financials. It’s, it’s the relationship. It really is. [00:04:22] So, you know, a second ago I said that like, people are afraid, especially small businesses, you know, I think medium to large businesses have the budget to be able to test things out. Um, whereas small businesses may not. And I think that’s what creates the fear of. Getting started. So why do you think that people are holding back when it comes to SEO? [00:04:45] Do you think that it’s more about not knowing where to start or it’s like the overwhelm of. Having too many options to start. Like where do you think people come to you to work with you? Like how do they feel? And like where like what’s holding them back. And [00:05:02] Meg: I think you nailed a couple of the key things, which is quite don’t know where to start. This is too technical. I’m never going to be able to understand it. And even if I understand it, it’s going to take too much time and I’m never going to get to the first page of Google. So why. Like there’s a lot of nay-saying that happens in our inner critics. [00:05:19] Erin: Yeah. Which is, you know, I feel like I’m always, when I hear people say that last part, like I’m never going to get to the first page of Google. I’m always like so confused. Cause I’m like, you really can, like, you’ve really, really, and [00:05:31] Meg: you’re not going to get to the first page of Google for like your entire industry. Oh, absolutely. Right. But you’re not going to show up for like writing. [00:05:40] Erin: No, no, no. [00:05:41] Meg: If people are going and Googling. How to write. You don’t want those people anyway. [00:05:48] And, and I think that’s the first piece of the puzzle is figuring out what is the problem that my offer solves. And what are the things that my audience thinks they need? [00:06:01] Erin: Yeah, totally. You just said so much that I want to be like, okay, let us like break these like eight thoughts down. Let’s do it right now. [00:06:09] Okay. So people have all this fear going into the process. And a lot of it is like, let’s just take the example of not being found on page one of Google. Right? The first thing you said is a year, you’re not going to be on page one for like your entire industry. And the, the reason why you’re saying. If you’re brand new to SEO and you’re listening and you’re not understanding is because there’s too much competition. [00:06:31] Right? So Meg saying, if I’m going to like try to rank for writer, well, we’re going to, there’s like hundreds and hundreds of thousands. If not like a million people who have the word writer on their website, that, and it’s not just writers using the word writer, it’s, you know, businesses looking to hire writers. [00:06:49] It’s journals and magazines using the word writer. Right. The competition is too high for a small key phrase like that. However, if I were to take a topic, like she suggest, what problem are you solving? If I were to take a small topic, like. Editing and about page. Let’s just say I could potentially find a keyword phrase that I can use for a blog posts and then end up in like early pages of Google. [00:07:19] Meg: Quickly, because not, not a lot of people are writing about how to edit. [00:07:23] Erin: Right. And there are clients that come to me for that very reason. They might not want to rebrand their entire website, but they, they know that their about page reads like a mini autobiography. You know, they know that they, maybe their competition has something that sounds like really like interesting. [00:07:41] And they’re like, why doesn’t mind sound like that? Mine sounds like what I’ve done from kindergarten until now. And it’s just not working. So how do I edit it? Right. I think it’s important when you’re approaching SEO to take, to take that like mind frame and go with it. They’re like, what are the things that I could rank for on my industry? [00:08:01] Um, which goes back to my next question is like, what problem do I solve? Right. And, and like, I forgot. What was your second follow-up for that? Like at what problem do I solve and how can you answer it? [00:08:11] Meg: What do people think they need? Oh, okay. Yes, because you know, you can say you, you were just saying, like, I can write a website for a real estate agent. Does the real estate agent know that they need a website copywriter? They might not. They might just think, uh, how do I get more leads or how do people find me online or, um, How do I get my, you know, get myself to show up in local directories? Like they might not be thinking, I need somebody to rewrite all of the copy for my website, or I need a, uh, you know, about page refresh. [00:08:43] They might not use those terms. What do, what does that real estate agent think? They know. [00:08:48] Erin: Yeah, super important. And I will tell you just from my industry, and as an example is, most people do not know that they need a website when they work with me. Um, my referrals do, yes, like if I have web designers sending me clients, obviously those people are primed to look for a website copywriter because they’re already investing in their brand, but everyone. [00:09:12] Isn’t sure what they need. They know that they need more clients. They know that they need a way to be more visible. but they’re usually coming to me with a side problem and then realizing one thing that could solve that as building a better foundation to point people back to. So I think that that’s great advice. [00:09:30] Like, especially if you are in the early to medium stages of working on your SEO is to really. You know, whether you have to do audience like questionnaires and ask them like, what problems do you have, or maybe, you know, your audience well enough to know those pain points that people are coming in on and consider, even if it’s not exactly related to what problem you solve, how you can go about answering these issues that your clients are having, [00:09:58] Meg: recognizing that what you are selling and what your audience thinks they need may not be a direct fit. And so it’s up to you to meet your people with what they think they need from you. And they may think that they need 10 different things. So if you are, um, that maintenance January as we’re recording this. So this comes to mind if you’re, um, a personal trainer. You might think I want my clients to feel stronger. I want them to have better bone density. I want them to, uh, have better cardiovascular health and I don’t care what happens on the scale. I want them to be fitter, but it’s January and people are going, I need to lose 20 pounds. Right. So recognizing that what you are offering needs to align with. What people think they need. So maybe you say, you know, lose 20 pounds and increase your cardiovascular health, or you can create a blog post that’s like why losing the last 20 pounds shouldn’t be your goal. But you’re using that phrase that they’re looking for, your loo, you’re using the language of your customers and acknowledging what they think they want in order to meet them at that point. [00:11:17] And when you use the words that they are using. They trust you because even if you’re saying don’t bother with that, at least they know that, you know, oh God, this is going to be really complex. At least they know that, you know what they think they want. [00:11:33] Erin: I love that. I think we need to have like, just clip this right here. That’s the excerpts to this, this episode. I love how you phrased that, but you’re right. You are right. You know, they understand that you’re intelligent enough and they can trust you because you know, their mind frame and you’re explaining to them why their mind frame might need a slight adjustment in a way that they’re still comfortable. Right. [00:11:59] Meg: Uh, a client who, um, if you’re familiar with the idea of an ideal client avatar, the, like you need to figure out who your client is. And, um, the. People are searching like a couple hundred people every month are searching for the phrase, ideal client avatar. And the first thing that shows up is like a Wikipedia page. And then it’s like an Amy Porterfield podcast. And then it’s my client that has a, an SEO optimized posts. Don’t bother or throw out your ideal client avatar and do this instead. So she’s meeting people at this idea of you need an ideal client avatar, and she’s saying, don’t bother, here’s what you can do instead. [00:12:36] Right? So it’s by using what your clients think they need even. And some people might be like, here’s a free, ideal client, avatar, avatar template. Like it doesn’t have to be always be the opposite side of it, but it’s the understanding of. What do they think they need to start from that? [00:12:54] Erin: Yeah. Which brings up the point of like that fear that people have about like the effort that it takes for SEO. Just think just taking the ideal client avatar example with having like what you don’t need. What was the first one, your friend that your client has. [00:13:08] Meg: Um, throw out your ideal. [00:13:10] Erin: So here’s one option throughout your ideal client avatar. Whereas your other example is like everything you need to know about an ideal client avatar, right? [00:13:18] There’s two different perspectives. And those two different perspectives from a writing standpoint can get drilled down into like another 10 different perspectives. Like you could challenge the ideas of ideal client advertise. There’s so many different ways [00:13:31] Meg: you could give a free template. You could say here don’t do. Client avatar. Here’s the three that personas that you need, like buyers personas, and you can use those kinds of like synonyms for the same terms. So that way you show up for more things, right? Like there are so many ways that you can take an idea, take a phrase and make it your own. Right. So that people who are searching through those search results and they see you, they’re like, oh, that’s the one I want to click on because they have the perspective that aligns with my values or their approach. Sounds interesting to me. [00:14:03] Erin: One thing we always talk about in writing, or at least we did when I was in my graduate program is the idea of like, everyone has their own story or their own perspective. And I really try to remind my clients of this, even if they’re not writing for themselves, but they’re hiring me to do it all for them is I think people think like, well, it’s been done before. [00:14:20] I mean, how many ideal client persona blogs out there? Hundreds, probably thousands. But you still have a valuable take on the topic and that goes for every industry, right? Like your own experience and your own education will, will bring that. Um, new and fresh perspective to the topic. [00:14:42] So I think like, you know, when, if people are nervous about investing in their SEO, whether it’s written SEO, you know, video or audio, because they’re worried that it’s already been said before and said, well, then I, I would just encourage them to, to do it anyway. Like, like jump past that fear because you really do have. The experience or the, um, the special perspective to give your own take on that. [00:15:09] Meg: And I think you can figure out what’s already out there and how you can specialize within that. Oh, so, you know, instead of just saying, okay, To be found for website copywriting, which there’s so many people out there who are website copywriters, you can specialize by the industry that you’re working with, uh, you know, website copywriting for real estate websites, or if you are working in a specific location, um, you know, wedding photography in Charlotte, North Carolina, you know, there’s a lot of wedding photographers out there, but you are the one in Charlotte, North Carolina, or the audience that you work with, maybe it’s, um, Wedding photographers for elopements or, you know, what, what is the audience that you’re working with? And the more. Tight, you can get, whether it’s an industry or an outcome or a tool that you’re working with. You know, I have clients that are like, I just want to be found for click up. Cool. Let’s just talk about click up forever. Let’s talk about notion. Let’s talk about them, SATA, whatever your tool is, you don’t just need to be the productivity person. [00:16:14] You can say. Here’s how you use notion to do X, Y, and Z. And so it doesn’t have to be, I just work with. Target population. I just, you know, thinking about what’s the outcome that you help people get what’s if you can get specific about maybe, maybe go Google the term that you’re thinking would be good for you look at who shows up there and go, how am I different from these people? [00:16:37] Erin: Yeah, totally. And like it, I mean, that Googling the terms that you would like to be present for is helpful for learning about what your competition is already doing. Yeah. Ideating ideas for yourself. Like you might find that everyone is saying, like, for example, the ideal client avatar, like here’s how to find your avatar, whereas you might be like, yeah, avatars are just crap guys. [00:17:00] Like, you know, like there’s no need, right? Like your, like your client does. So if everyone is saying one thing, your. Immensely refreshing. Even if everyone in the world doesn’t feel that same way, your particular clients will be like, oh, this person gets me. Right. Which goes back to building the trust, you know? [00:17:20] And you can do that by the time investment or money investment that you put into SEO. [00:17:27] Meg: And when you go Google that search term, that results page gives you so much information. So don’t just go, oh, who’s showing up. Number one, I can never beat them. I want you to go look at the search engine results page and look at the little section at the top that says people also ask notice what are the related questions that Google sees correlated to that scroll all the way down to the bottom and look at the related search terms and see if there’s something in those related terms. That’s actually maybe. Closer to what you want to be found for. Look at the auto-complete box. When you type that term in, before you hit the enter button, what else shows up there? There there’s so much value in just kind of knowing correlational. What’s like one point of contact away from this in Google’s perspective. [00:18:14] Sometimes that gives you a totally different term that you’re like, oh, I didn’t even know people would be searching for that, that I like. That’s the thing that I want to be found for. You know, website copywriting. I want to be found for, uh, just about pages. Yeah. I didn’t know that I could be found for just writing about pages and being really good at that.

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. [00:14:20] I mean, how many ideal client persona blogs out there? Hundreds, probably thousands. But you still have a valuable take on the topic and that goes for every industry, right? Like your own experience and your own education will, will bring that. Um, new and fresh perspective to the topic. [00:14:42] So I think like, you know, when, if people are nervous about investing in their SEO, whether it’s written SEO, you know, video or audio, because they’re worried that it’s already been said before and said, well, then I, I would just encourage them to, to do it anyway. Like, like jump past that fear because you really do have. The experience or the, um, the special perspective to give your own take on that. [00:15:09] Meg: And I think you can figure out what’s already out there and how you can specialize within that. Oh, so, you know, instead of just saying, okay, To be found for website copywriting, which there’s so many people out there who are website copywriters, you can specialize by the industry that you’re working with, uh, you know, website copywriting for real estate websites, or if you are working in a specific location, um, you know, wedding photography in Charlotte, North Carolina, you know, there’s a lot of wedding photographers out there, but you are the one in Charlotte, North Carolina, or the audience that you work with, maybe it’s, um, Wedding photographers for elopements or, you know, what, what is the audience that you’re working with? And the more. Tight, you can get, whether it’s an industry or an outcome or a tool that you’re working with. You know, I have clients that are like, I just want to be found for click up. Cool. Let’s just talk about click up forever. Let’s talk about notion. Let’s talk about them, SATA, whatever your tool is, you don’t just need to be the productivity person. [00:16:14] You can say. Here’s how you use notion to do X, Y, and Z. And so it doesn’t have to be, I just work with. Target population. I just, you know, thinking about what’s the outcome that you help people get what’s if you can get specific about maybe, maybe go Google the term that you’re thinking would be good for you look at who shows up there and go, how am I different from these people? [00:16:37] Erin: Yeah, totally. And like it, I mean, that Googling the terms that you would like to be present for is helpful for learning about what your competition is already doing. Yeah. Ideating ideas for yourself. Like you might find that everyone is saying, like, for example, the ideal client avatar, like here’s how to find your avatar, whereas you might be like, yeah, avatars are just crap guys. [00:17:00] Like, you know, like there’s no need, right? Like your, like your client does. So if everyone is saying one thing, your. Immensely refreshing. Even if everyone in the world doesn’t feel that same way, your particular clients will be like, oh, this person gets me. Right. Which goes back to building the trust, you know? [00:17:20] And you can do that by the time investment or money investment that you put into SEO. [00:17:27] Meg: And when you go Google that search term, that results page gives you so much information. So don’t just go, oh, who’s showing up. Number one, I can never beat them. I want you to go look at the search engine results page and look at the little section at the top that says people also ask notice what are the related questions that Google sees correlated to that scroll all the way down to the bottom and look at the related search terms and see if there’s something in those related terms. That’s actually maybe. Closer to what you want to be found for. Look at the auto-complete box. When you type that term in, before you hit the enter button, what else shows up there? There there’s so much value in just kind of knowing correlational. What’s like one point of contact away from this in Google’s perspective. [00:18:14] Sometimes that gives you a totally different term that you’re like, oh, I didn’t even know people would be searching for that, that I like. That’s the thing that I want to be found for. You know, website copywriting. I want to be found for, uh, just about pages. Yeah. I didn’t know that I could be found for just writing about pages and being really good at that. [00:18:34] I have a client who, um, wrote a big blog post about just intake forms and how to set up your intake form correctly. And she gets so much traffic. It was part of a larger series. It was just like a section of a blog post that she was talking about how to do onboarding and how to help people find you and how to get information from that. [00:18:55] And then. Brie and just wrote, like, here are the questions you should ask in your intake forms and here’s, uh, the best tools for your intake forms. And now she’s got a pretty thriving amount of people who are finding her, who are like in that onboarding phase and want to make it really smooth for their clients. [00:19:10] And they just want to know the intake form questions. It can get that specific because if, especially if you’re a small business, you don’t need a million hits to your website. [00:19:22] Erin: Not at all. You need the like, uh, like a small number of hits is fine. If they’re the right type of hymns. Um, this brings me to, like, I don’t think this word is going to be the right word for everything that I want to say right now. So bear with me here, but it brings me to like, the intention was. When you are creating content slash, and I don’t, this is where I think intention doesn’t work, what people are assuming the keywords will be for. Uh, so let me explain here. Um, when we talk about like, we use me as an example, website copywriter. [00:19:55] If I were to search website copywriter right now, what will come back is nothing that my clients would search. It would be a lot of like, how do I become a website copywriter? Um, how much money can I make from being a website copywriter? Website, copywriters. That are making big bucks, like there for people who are looking to break into the field of website copywriting. [00:20:16] So I know as an example, that while it is helpful to still use phrases like that, so my clients can identify they’re in the right space and they’re talking to the right person. Their intended search is not going to find me that way. So that’s one side of the intent and then the, like the client searching intent. [00:20:36] And then the other side is the content creation intent. Right? So when we sit down and we create content, we want to know that, the people that we want to read are our content are finding us. Right. So in your client’s case of like the onboarding, um, content that they’re creating. They know that like the only people who are going to be reading that are people who want to improve their onboarding. Right. And that’s their ideal clients. So for me, as an example, if I were to just not put like the strategy and do it and just start writing content about website, copyright. I’m going to then attract people who want to be website copywriters, and that’s not who I want. So I don’t want those hits on my websites. [00:21:19] I don’t care how many people came. And they were like, oh, Aaron’s a website copywriter. Let me learn how she does it. Well, that’s not serving my business and it’s also not serving my clients because my clients wouldn’t be interested in that type of content for their own. [00:21:32] Meg: Exactly. I have a client who ranks really well for how much should a blog post cost. [00:21:36] And she wrote it when she was starting as a content writer to explain why it shouldn’t be something that you pay five bucks for or why it should be valued. But the people who are finding that are either people who are going to nickel and dime her as a client, or they are people who are trying to break into being a blog right here. [00:21:56] And they’re like, how much should I be charging for this? And neither of those are good clients for her. So we adjusted the blog post. So she still has it on her site. How much should a blog post costs, but it really, it positions her to. It shouldn’t, you shouldn’t just be paying for one blog post. You should be thinking about your entire content strategy and here’s the things you need to know for a content strategy. [00:22:17] And so she’s still ranking for that term, but once she realized that it was bringing in the wrong people, she rewrote the blog posts because nothing on your website is forever. [00:22:28] Erin: Totally. I say that to my website clients when they launched all the time, like I’m sorry to burst your bubble. I know you’re so excited about this launch and I’m so happy for you, but this is a foundation that, that can, and will shift and change as your business grows. [00:22:44] Same thing for your content. You know, like I think sometimes people who might have perfectionist tendencies and want to do it right, right off the bat, BA. Things change. Right? So like you might do it right. You might have the benefits of like getting that immediacy of the correct way to do things. [00:23:01] Whereas if your business grows, the internet changes, the world changes, things will adjust your efforts, so you then can take the step to adjust it back, right? Like on how it works best for you using the case of that client. I think it’s like really interesting because our conversation has mainly been about like, why you should invest in SEO, but there are a ton of people out there who already created the content. [00:23:26] They are, they know the value of SEO, but they’re stuck, let’s say so they’re like, well, I’m getting people coming to me, but maybe it’s not the right people or like the case of this blog post is bringing in the wrong people, but it’s highly trafficked. Well, all you have to do is adjust, right? Like keep that URL the same and adjust the content in the post so that it better serves you. [00:23:50] Instead of creating new content, audit, what you already have, see what’s working. See what’s not, and see how you can adjust those two things. Even the posts that are like working and maybe bringing in the right clients. Maybe you can do something more for like a call to action to like convert them better into clients. [00:24:09] What would you suggest to people who are in that phase? Like, because there is a big overwhelm, like, it’s easy for me to say like, Hey, audit your blog post and just like, go for it. But then you’re staring down the barrel of many pages of posts on your website. So it’s a little, it’s a little scary. [00:24:24] Meg: Yeah. So I would say if you have traffic coming into your site and you’re not exactly sure what they’re searching for, how long they’re spending on the page, anything like that. [00:24:34] There’s a free tool that Google has. It’s called Google search console. Um, if you have Google analytics and you’re familiar with Google analytics, think of Google search console as like a stepchild to Google analytics. [00:24:45] And what it will tell you is every single term. That people have searched for and seen your website show up in search results, whether or not they clicked on your website. And that’s really helpful insight for what does Google think? I should. Showing up for. Yeah. Um, and if you have traffic coming in, you can actually take a look at that and see which pages of my website are showing up on Google search console consistently and drill down and take a look at what are the top three pages that are showing up in search results and just click on one of them and go over and look at all of those terms that people are searching for. [00:25:32] Are those the right. What percentage of people are clicking on? Blog post or this page on my site or this product that I’m selling. And then you can take that information and go update the actual content on the page or update just what shows up in the search engine results, you know, rewrite your SEO title, rewrite your meta-description so that people are. Click on it. And sometimes I’ve had people get, you know, 30% more traffic in a month just by updating their SEO title. And just by saying, oh, people are looking for this phrase, not that phrase. So I’ll just rewrite this and then they jump up in position for a specific term. So if you already have content that you’ve created, then you can refer. you can go through and just make some adjustments and that can make a huge difference in bringing in the right people to your site without needing to create anything new. [00:26:24] Erin: Yeah. I, I think the whole time that you just said all of that stuff, I just like consistently nodded my head up. Like, I don’t think my head stopped nodding. I was in complete agreement of everything you said. Um, one thing. Super easy. And that people never consider is that meta-description because like, I always see people put so much effort into writing that post, right. Like, and I’m like, well, my clients, especially the bigger brand clients, they’ll always like, you have to use this keyword phrase X number of times in the article. [00:26:55] And I’m like, okay guys, All right. Like we’re not in 2011 at this point, right? Like there’s no gaming Google, like Google is intelligent and let’s just create really good content. And in doing that, that’s when Google will move you up the ranks, not by trying to like, you know, sneak your way into the algorithm, but let’s talk about what the audience sees when they’re Googling, right? It’s the, meta-description that you’re that you have on your site, because if you don’t like determine your own, meta-description, Google’s just going to throw on there for you. [00:27:29] Meg: So I do want to point that out, but sometimes Google will swap out your meta-description and that’s out of your control, but. You still want to write one? [00:27:36] Erin: Yes, exactly. So Google changes that you can’t do anything except up deal with what they’ve changed it. But you can put in the effort to at least start trying to show Google what you’d like them to see. Right. So if you have, if you haven’t paid attention to your meta descriptions, jump in there. Now that helps with, like the whole intent thing that I brought up is showing them like, yes, I’m writing about ideal client avatars, but what’s different about my post is I’m going to maybe in this, as an example, give you a template in this article with my ideal client appetite, or another example might be, is like, I’m going to show you like the types of ideal client avatars that you should have. [00:28:16] Just having a, like a title that says, like, here’s what you need to know about ideal client advertise will be like an addition, like a starting place for people to understand what, what the article is, but that meta-description explains what to expect. And, and that’s why when people are like looking on those like 10 options, or actually, I know it’s more than 10 now for Google, but like when they’re looking on those options, they’re going to choose your post over someone. Else’s because you’ve taken that effort to describe what’s in the article already. [00:28:45] Meg: Yeah. It’s like giving people a sneak preview and then like an invitation. [00:28:49] Erin: Yeah, I love how you said that. That’s great. [00:28:51] Meg: And if you have, uh, if you have fun there, then people who want to be a little bit more. If you have a fun brand, then you can be a little bit more fun in your meta description of you have a very educational brands and you can do a little bit of teaching in your meta-description by giving people a sneak preview. There, you can set the expectations for what they’re going to see when they get to that. [00:29:14] Erin: Yes, I love it. Oh, that’s great. So this is jumping, but I’m just, you said the word set expectations and then my mind went elsewhere that I think is so important to discuss though, with anyone who’s thinking about SEO. SEO is a longer game. It is not an immediate result game. And I want to drill this into people, but without scaring them away. Let’s say, you know, someone decided they were really like, they, they heard this episode and they were like, oh my gosh, I’m going to listen to everything that Megan Aaron said, I’m going to spend the next two months of my life living in SCO land. [00:29:51] Well, that does not mean at the end of two months, you are going to be on page one of Google for everything that you’ve created. It takes a while to rank. That being said, what you rank for, you may like improve over time. [00:30:05] But I think like, it would be helpful to hear from you, like what to expect when it comes to how long it will take to rank. Um, I know that. You can’t give people an exact number here, but I think is helpful to hear from an SEO specialist that isn’t immediate. [00:30:21] Meg: I will share a blog post and YouTube video with you that you can put in the show notes that breaks this down. I would say that if you’re starting a website from scratch, if you haven’t, you just bought the domain, it does not exist. You’re setting it live today. I would say that, you know, you can rank for the brand name. If it’s not a particularly well-known brand, you know, if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna try to rank for Nike, you’re not going to do it. [00:30:46] Right. But if you, if you want to rank for your name, I’d say you’d probably show up in the first page of search results within about three months for your brand. And it would take about a year to start ranking for. Any major traffic. but if you already have a website and I’m assuming that since we’re talking to small business owners, we at least have bought the domain and it exists already. Um, probably more like six to nine months. [00:31:10] Now, the more specific you get, the faster you will rank. So my website does not rank in the top 1000 for the phrase. Because turns out people who talk about SEO, know how to do SEO, right? Like it’s this super competitive term, but I write about SEO for podcasters. And I rank really well for very specific things that podcasters are looking for. So I’m like number eight for SEO, for podcasts, and, you know, people have questions about, do I need a transcript for SEO? Or how do I write my, my episode title for SEO? Like getting that specific. I’m getting into a place where I’m talking to the things that only podcasters are thinking about. [00:31:52] And most SEL people don’t talk to podcasters. So by getting that specific, I’m able to rank for those. I would rank for them very quickly after writing those blog posts. Um, and so if you already have content on your website, if you improve or refresh or optimize or whatever verb we want to use here, if you update what you already have. [00:32:12] I would say that you can start to see traction from that in four to six weeks. If you’re creating something new and you haven’t done any blogging or video or audio or anything like that, I would say probably more like three to six months, four to six months. Um, You can start to see traction pretty quickly. [00:32:33] If you have a strong the strategy. [00:32:35] Erin: That makes perfect sense, right? If you put effort into it and you’re actually being consistent and working toward it, you’re going to get results quicker. Um, but at the same time, let’s keep the mind frame that this is something that you’re working toward and that will serve you. [00:32:52] Meg: And then I think the time that you’re spending on it, doesn’t have to be. I wrote a blog post, and now I’m going to sit on my ass and wait a year for Google to notice it. Like, you can take the blog post and repurpose it. You can send it out to social. You can share it with your email list. [00:33:07] But you know, there are ways that you can take the assets that you are creating with the Google and this long-term strategy in mind and get traction for. Right now through other marketing channels, everything that you are creating that Google can eventually find for you is an asset that your ideal clients can find in different ways. [00:33:27] So this podcast episode that we’re recording right now, you’re going to take, and you’re going to put it onto apple podcasts and people who find it can go back and they can listen to the archives. And, you know, maybe they don’t find this episode until you’ve created episode 100, but they can then go back and listen to the back catalog. [00:33:45] so knowing that what you’re creating now is a long term benefit to your business and. Everything that you’re creating could potentially be the entry point for someone to your business. Not everything has to be, you know, the, the thing that people find, but everything can be an entry point. [00:34:08] Erin: That is such a good point. Um, years and years ago, I. When I was actually traditionally employed, we had a client come to us for content because they had just, for the first time started the value of SEO. They had actually created some blog posts on their own. And two years after the blog post was written, they had a massive amount of traction to that blog post because whatever was timely at that time, drew people in and it drew them. [00:34:34] Deal clients in at that time. Um, an easy example for this is how, how quickly, like how to make bread rose during the pandemic. Right? Like, [00:34:47] Meg: think about that as an example, [00:34:49] Erin: I think it is like the most fascinating thing and such a convincing point for people who are nervous about SEO, right? You have these Breadmakers like these people who just love bread and, and they’re so invested, they’re writing their own blog posts about either their journey or like how to guides. They might not even have a business around. It’s just a personal love. [00:35:11] And then the pandemic comes and bread making becomes something people start trying to do at home. And the increase in views to, to the search terms that are similar to that were ginormous, that they got the right people looking at their site. Like it was could potentially even be life-changing for some of these people. [00:35:32] Meg: And baking bread. Isn’t the only example of here, you know, the, the trends and the seasonal adjustments and the ways that searches change. They, um, they are beneficial to people who already have been talking about these topics. So the folks who already had content about baking bread, these weren’t people who started this in March, 2020, these were websites that had created this content. [00:35:57] And. 15 and same with, you know, what’s the best ergonomic equipment for your home office. These weren’t people who had just set up their home offices. These were people that had been writing about it forever, and it was just starting to pop up. [00:36:11] Even with has happening, like the archives of what you’re creating can continue to bring people in. Consistently. [00:36:20] Erin: No, that is right. Life will happen, but behind the scenes of all of those things, the ways that affect marketing that are out of our control, the only thing in our control are the efforts we’ve already put in. Or it can continue to do so. Um, and that’s where I see O is serving people you really have to like, take that and take what’s in your control and go with that. When other things are outside of your control [00:36:45] Meg: and other things that can be outside of your control in your life too, you know, you were telling me before this, that like, you had been planning to watch this a little bit earlier, but your family got sick and it’s like, if there are things that change. [00:36:59] Yeah, exactly. You can get sick. Your kids might be home for awhile. And if you already have a backlog of, here are the things that I want to be found for. You can coast on that for awhile. You don’t have to, like, I am in bed with a cough and I can’t do these lives and I can’t record this thing, but people can still find that I can’t get online. [00:37:21] I can’t do IETV today. I just. I cannot make the time to market my business right now. But if you have this like hum of people just finding you consistently, you can take some time off. You can stop. Yes. [00:37:36] Erin: And that’s why it’s so important to actually invest in marketing efforts that are not social media, right? The efforts that you actually put into things that are, um, always live with. For you while your doing whatever it is that happens in your life will change the outcome that you have. If things happen such as being sick, pandemics things like [00:37:59] Meg: yeah. Things that directly impact your ability to be at your computer. [00:38:03] Erin: Yeah. [00:38:04] Meg: So I just want to take a damn vacation and you don’t want to have to hire somebody to babysit your social and you don’t want to have to batch the whole thing ahead. And you don’t like, maybe you just want to slow down. [00:38:16] Erin: Yes. Yes, absolutely. I think that’s like, you’re right. Because if you are, if you’ve already created this like pool of content that is serving you, like working for you, you can focus on the actual work that you do, or the actual self-care that you practice when you’re not working. [00:38:39] So I think we’ve covered so much when it comes to SEO, but the one last potential thing I would like to say is like, what do you do after you’ve created a batch of SEO I worked with a client who was a remote working company. Prior to the pandemic. And they had, we had created a ton of blog content for, um, other companies on things about remote work. So they could, you know, like incorporate it into their own businesses or created content for remote workers who are looking to find remote jobs and stuff like that. [00:39:11] My client ended up having a huge pool of content already. And the question, especially during the pandemic is okay, well, what do we do with this content now, obviously it’s helping the audience that’s coming in, but how could. How can we better serve them or how can we transition our marketing to better serve ourselves? [00:39:30] Because we’ve already written all this stuff down. There’s nothing new that we have to add to the conversation. So I think that one thing I’d love to point out, and I don’t know if you have any other examples of how people have done this is you can take content you’ve already created and make it into something new. [00:39:46] So for that client, as an example, we had a, like a massive amount of blog posts that we took them and use them as inspiration for actual. Books on the topic. You know, your audience consumes content in different ways, which is why you can have things like podcasts and YouTube channels and, and blog posts. [00:40:06] Use whatever serves you best as the business owner, like wherever your comfort level is, but you can take this content you’ve created and do something else with it. So for the people who are now past the entry level, past the medium level, and they’re like, they’ve invested. What advice do you have for them? If in regard to this like massive collection of SEO content that they’ve already created? [00:40:28] Meg: I think you’re absolutely right to say repurpose the hell out of whatever you’ve created already. You do not always need to be in creation mode. Once you have this like safety net really then lean on it and give yourself a little bit of a break, and set it to go off on a schedule or, and take these blog posts and turn them into cornerstone posts and turn them into eBooks or white papers and, and take the assets that you have. That are really performing for you and leverage them. [00:40:58] and then also maybe if you’re at this point where you’re like, I think we’ve exhausted this topic, first of all, pat yourself on the back. Cause that’s awesome. Second of all, call me and I’ll audit your content and I guarantee I can find you another 20 blog posts, but you know, figuring out if you want to. Rest. Yeah, that’s okay. If you want to expand, you know, pivot 10% and find new people that’s okay too, but recognize and congratulate yourself that things are working. Yeah, you don’t always need to do more. And doing okay with that and, and not feeling like you need to always be doing more and more and more. [00:41:41] Erin: Nope, absolutely. I totally agree with that. Um, you like, if you’re in need of more content, do like your client did and like take the, um, I think he said the lead capture and the onboarding sequence and like there’s 10 more posts right. About that in 10 different ways. And if you don’t need more content, just enjoy the fruits of your labor. Right? Like you’ve done the hard work now, sit back and let it just enjoy it. [00:42:03] Meg: Yeah. And I have clients who are like, you know, I’ll be working with them for a couple months. So we’ll come up with a plan and they’ll be like, can we want to take the summer off? Cool. Yeah, you don’t need to create anything else this summer. Maybe this is a time where you are nurturing your existing audience and you don’t need to get more people. You don’t need to be discovered by anybody new, great. Take a break. [00:42:22] Erin: I think that’s great. Oh, thank you so much. It’s been such a great conversation. I feel like I could probably just continue to talk about SEO with you for a long time, but this is already going to be a, quite a, even when I edit it down. [00:42:35] Meg: I will happily come back for a part, two of you. [00:42:40] Erin: Okay, let’s do it. All right. If you’re listening and you want to get started with SEO and you’re at that place where you don’t really even know what to do, I would highly recommend Meg’s SEO starter kit. [00:42:51] I will link to that below. [00:42:52] it was so nice talking with you today, Meg. Thank you so much for showing up here. And I am sure I will think of more SEO things to talk about because I’m an SEO geek. So my pleasure, and I will see you on our next episode, whenever that is.