Turning Testimonials Into Case Study Marketing Content with Brittany Herzberg

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. SPEAKERS Brittany Herzberg, Erin Ollila Erin Ollila 00:00 Today we are here with Brittany Hertzberg, who is also an SEO copywriter, and I am so thrilled to have her join me so we can share some of the ways that we do things similarly, and differently. You know, so many of these episodes, I’ve talked about how strategy plays such a large role in things. And that’s especially true when it comes to who’s doing your copywriting for you. A lot of the times I don’t feel like there’s one right answer. I’m glad I’m jumping to those right at the beginning of the episode, but I’m pretty positive that every single one of these episodes has had the words, it depends in the episode, which is why I love the fact that you’re gonna get some very similar opinions, some different opinions. But let me tell you a little bit more about Brittany, if you don’t know her, when she was in school, she was the good straight A student, which I adore girl after my own heart, but she was also always the new kid in school. So in an attempt to make friends, she would let her classmates copy her homework. But there was a catch, right? There was no just regular old copying, they had to deal with Brittany telling them how she got the answers. So it worked out beautifully. They got homework to turn in, she got an opportunity to teach and everyone became friends. Brittany, I love that for you. What a way to make friends. Brittany Herzberg 01:25 I mean, I’m trying over here. Erin Ollila 01:28 Kind of feel like this works in the online business world to right, it’s like, Hey, can be my friend. And this is podcasting in a nutshell, and be my friend. I’ll tell you how to do some things. Let’s just hang out. Brittany Herzberg 01:40 No, totally. It’s served me well being an adult in the online entrepreneurship space for sure. Erin Ollila 01:44 Is this wrong? I’m not sure. Like maybe we’ll just put like, that’s the first question for the show notes like viewers, people, listeners, anyone who’s tuning in? Did what print need do? Was it right? Was it wrong? I love that. So let’s talk about or what we’re here for today, testimonials, the importance of testimonials. And how you don’t have to stop with just one single sentence, there is a lot more that you can do from testimonials. Before we begin, I think it would be awesome for you to explain about your store five case studies. Because really what I want the listeners from this episode to take away is, we want you to build out those testimonials to more than just what what those sentences are. We want you to be able to use your clients social proof, as a way to show you as an expert to build the trust, and what I loved about you, among many other things. But one of the things that I loved is that you were taking testimonials and doing this work with your own clients, in order to get them more valuable results in the form of things like case studies and blog post these client Brittany Herzberg 02:53 story pages is what I call them, but they are Storify case studies, like you said, it really gives more of a glimpse into the my client. So the business owners personality, it gives you an opportunity to connect with them. And the faster that you can create that connection, whether it’s with the business owner, or their client, the faster that connection is created. Trust is built faster. Yeah. And it could be over something as silly. I mean, we were just talking about like stupid questions and silly things, you know, it could be over the fact that someone likes jelly beans, or someone who eats coffee, or someone loves cats, or someone you know, has like a dog farm, I don’t even know what that would be. But just having those connections really builds that trust very quickly. Among those other things that that I listed. So I don’t know what direction you want to go from there. But there’s so many places perfect, Erin Ollila 03:39 but let’s jump back for like three seconds here. Because, you know, you and I are in the marketing space, we’re very familiar with what case studies are. But for the small business owners that are listening to this, that maybe get what they are, but wouldn’t know what to say in a case study or the full purpose of them. Could you describe a little bit more about what a case study is Brittany Herzberg 03:58 totally so I look at it, I mean, everybody’s gonna have their their vision of it. But the way I look at it is more of getting an insight into that client, where they were at before what their life was like, what got them into business. So I kind of think of that as the introduction section, like, meet Britany or meet Aaron, like, here’s who they are. And then you have the typical before, during and after. So the before is, you know, that really gives you an opportunity to highlight the problem, the pain points, that’s going to be shared with several other clients, several other people who are going to, you know, come to your website and read this story. So maybe they connect with that problem. Then we’ve got the during where you get to showcase a bit more about the experience. And you know, if I think about that with my business, maybe I want to talk about how I did some client interviews for my recent client to get their sales page written. I could talk about, you know, the SEO strategy, how I came up with it. So there’s different things you can highlight. You could even highlight like, I love sending my clients gifts at the beginning of our working process. So So you get to see it in all of these things. Without being like, I’m so cool, I get my clients. Erin Ollila 05:04 Yes, 100%. And then Brittany Herzberg 05:07 the end of it the after is where you get to highlight their transformation and the wins, which is critical. And again, another opportunity for connection. Erin Ollila 05:16 So when I’ve talked about case studies on previous and actually some future episodes that have not published yet, we discussed for the fact that like the new mention this, this is me just kind of driving home your point a little, we can be experts, in our case studies in a very easygoing, calm, trustworthy way, right? You know, you joke about like, you can bring in the fact that you do client gifts throughout your case study. But that’s good, right, like, so I know that sounds silly. And like you do client gifts as a fact that you really want to build that relationship with them, you want to thank them for giving you their work, show them that you honor the relationship that you’re building professionally. And just a little token for their client experience. Right? So gift client gifts are a great thing. There’s nothing negative about them. But how awkward is it like if you had a process page, and you like process meat for kickoff call, process number two client gets a client gift, like it’s just not something that feels right, it’s not something that needs to be shared. And that part of the marketing message, the reason you’re doing it is for a little bit of surprise and delight, right? And so it’s like, you don’t want to share that. Yeah, if in a case study of potential lead is reading what it’s like for you to work with that particular client. And in there is just this one small nugget of like the fact that you took something from their personality, like let’s say, you know, all these tiny facts, they love those jelly beans you mentioned, maybe order them gourmet jelly beans, like that’s nothing, you’re not trying to break the bank in order to impress them, you’re just trying to say like, Hey, let me work on this for you. Enjoy some of these jelly beans, do what you like to do. And I will do this work that I like to do. So if a lead reads that in a case study, it’s like, oh, wow, that was such a nice touch that Aaron did that Britney did right. It’s not show offy. Right. So the bringing it back to the expert point is, when you’re creating the case studies, or you’re hiring someone like us to do the case studies for you, we can showcase that you have specific skills that don’t easily go on sales pages that you are strategically doing making choices. Like it’s easy for, you know, just using a website copy service page as an example. It’s easy for one of us to say like X number of pages included, and X number of phone calls, but how do we convince you the importance of strategy until we show the strategic work, right? So when it comes to being an expert in a non bursty? Way, boy do case studies deliver for you? They sure Brittany Herzberg 07:53 do. And it’s it’s so much of the stuff that we don’t think about and even as you were driving that point home, which I loved, you know, we it’s hard for us to do that ourselves. That’s another thing that’s awkward is writing your own case study. I even felt that, you know, writing one of my case studies recently, I was like, do I really want to say that is that you know, is that going to come across as whatever, fill in the blank. So it can be awkward to write your own case studies and maybe even just hearing us talk about it is like, Whoa, I don’t I don’t know that I could do this. So it’s it’s nice to know that there is you know, a helpful resource for doing something like that. Erin Ollila 08:28 And you know, I can’t speak for Britney, I know she you just mentioned this, but for myself, like yes, I do feel that nervousness, right. Sometimes it’s like, oh, this is a little much like, let me tell you one thing I have learned I have been in business for six years at this point, it is never too much. It is only the people who worry about it being too much that are worrying, right? Every time that I’ve really pushed myself past the boundary of sharing more, or actually sharing things when I when I wasn’t sharing them before I have always been quote unquote, rewarded, and from the people that I want to pay attention to me, whether that be peers that I want to get to know better build a build a bigger network with or whether it’d be clients or past clients who were like, Oh my gosh, Sharon, you did that that’s so lovely. I didn’t know you were available for those things. Can we talk about doing this with me in the future? So from someone who still has trouble writing about herself, even though I do this day in and out for clients, let me tell you, you just need to do it, the more and more you practice it, whether you’re practicing it yourself and a DIY approach, or you are hiring which is honestly the easier route the more and more you do it the more comfortable you get with it. Yeah, Brittany Herzberg 09:42 yeah, I would agree about that. And it is it’s so much just like with everything else, you just have to do it. You just have to get started you just have to get through one. I find that working from the template just having that you know even knowing Okay, I have to introduce this client. I have to have a beginning, a middle and an end and these are the things I really need to communicate even just Having that template is like, Okay, this is what I need to plug in here. Erin Ollila 10:02 No, I love that. So are there any types of clients that are better served for case studies? Oh, Brittany Herzberg 10:09 this is a good question. And I don’t know that this is really like the answer you were looking for. But this is the thing that jumped to mind is talking about the different kinds of transformations, the different kinds of wins. So you know, something that we all see, I think, ad nauseam at this point, and that everyone’s really frankly, getting turned off by is I had $100,000 launch. I hadn’t yet I mean, in Erin Ollila 10:31 case you didn’t hear that on the audio, like, I totally just stuck up my tongue like a three year old and, and made a lot of noise, because I’m also so sick of it. Brittany Herzberg 10:38 I’m glad one of us did, that. It’s not relatable. And that’s probably like the biggest and maybe the only factor that’s just like, please stop. Because yes, the money that you bring in from a launcher from anything is great. But it’s not the only one that you’re having. You can have internal winds, you can have I mean, you know, just feeling more empowered, feeling more confident, feeling prepared, you know, find any positive word and shove it in there. If you can get that more of those internal wins. That’s really what people are going to connect with. And I think that’s the charm. And the beauty. And the magic of having these clients story pages or the case studies is that you really get to see something that you can relate to something that you can picture for yourself. Maybe you can’t picture yourself having $100,000 month I sure can’t right now. So you know, feeling confident and empowered is much more tangible, for me at least. Erin Ollila 11:27 And I think that is so well spoken. In the episode that we did specifically about testimonials, we talk about the fact that like, and I am going to forget his name, but I’ll make sure I’ll put it in the show notes. But the psychologist or social psychologist mentioned, when you see a case study, excuse me, we’re going to say when you see a testimonial or a product review, it gives you as the consumer the opportunity to put yourself inside of that story. And that’s what we want, right. So when we are only bombarded with test, testimonials that say things like, you know, my business guy, my business income skyrocketed by 422% in 15 minutes, like, it’s very hard for the audience or consumer or lead to look at that figure and put themselves into that. Then think about the breakdown of the last thing you said, What would you do if you had $100,000 month when you weren’t prepared for it? Those faults fancy testimonials can also stir up a lot of uncomfortable feelings for people, right? Never mind the fact that you might put them off because we’re noticing this we’re becoming a lot smarter consumers. We’re seeing marketing things that are just so ever present that we’re like, I’m so tired of this. But it can bring up those things for your own self to say like, I don’t know, if I’m ready for this. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this is this the type of marketer I want to be like, all of those things happen from some of those two fancy testimonials. And the point that you made that I thought was just beautiful is when you said insert here, like any adjective, that is what you want from testimonials. Like my clients will say, Oh my gosh, like, what do I ask or what goes on each page of my website? And I’m like, let’s get everything. And I don’t mean to be flippant when I say that. But it’s like, Do you have a client that was very nervous, very nervous. And like the big win of this project was not the deliverable, but it is the use and like comfort you gave them throughout or even when the deliverable to know that like in the future, they’re like prepared that right there is a testimonial and a half, do you have a client who was working so hard, but not seeing results? And then you were able to shift something for them. So those results can came in? Even if those results were like $20 products being purchased? Yes, that is a testimonial. So when it comes to quote unquote insert adjective here thinks about that, like, think of that to be your main goal. For every new testimonial you ask for? What exact result can I share that’s different from other results that might have played smaller parts in this overall project. But were really impactful for this individual that I worked with. Because once you start collecting them and really looking at them, I think from a case by case basis, the end result is going to be so good as a complete whole, like of all of the good, juicy details you get at that point. Brittany Herzberg 14:24 Yeah, totally. And you’re even making me think of, you know, the client work that I’m doing right now I’m writing three different client stories. And I just got through all the interviews and making the notes and filling in my little story arc template. And I noticed that with one of them, there really wasn’t much meat to the middle. But there was a ton of meat to the end of it to the after to the results in the transformation. So I went through each of these stories and to your point I was thinking through okay, what piece of the puzzle does this one so what piece of the puzzle does this one demonstrate? And I went through and I made notes I’m like, okay, focus here because this is going to expand on the process. This is really going to highlight like, why her program is so great. And then the one that really didn’t have a ton for the middle, it’s like, this is what’s possible. These are the things and they are really approachable wins, they are very much wins that you can put yourself in that seat and go, Oh, okay, I could see myself doing this. So yeah, I mean, don’t shy away if you’re missing certain pockets of that story arc. Erin Ollila 15:21 Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And in case studies, specifically, I love your story or approach. In some ways, I will shift it slightly. And it’s so funny that I’m doing this because it’s actually opposite of the majority of the writing that I do. But I will do chronological. I mean, yes, you said beginning, middle, middle and end. But I mean, like this happened, and then that happened, and this happened. And then that happened. And I do that for like the multi part hard to show one when type of client work. One that I have on my website right now is a client that I work with over the course of a few years. And what I did for her was just touch a lot of stuff, right? So until the end project, which was a website, rewrite all of those things before, we’re like editing work that has previously been done filling in if we knew there were gaps in specific pages. So it was hard for me to showcase a beginning, middle and end and I bring this up, because what I loved about the end result of this case study is it shows the wide range of expertise, right? So there’s like I’m saying this, if you’re listening, and you’re like, Oh, well, I’m still working with someone on a retainer, like what would I say, or any of these types of things, just remember, absolutely follow a story arc, I think that is the cleanest, easiest way to make sure you’re getting great results over time. But if your specific like when or your specific, overall testimonial doesn’t fit into that, know that there are different ways you can tell this story, you can also do a case study with a and more to come right like, especially for those retainer like clients don’t feel like you need to wait for a retainer client to completely end. In order to share case study for them. You can write multiple case studies about the same client if you do a large amount of work together. Or you can maybe just turn those multiple sections into one larger more Cornerstone piece of content if you’re doing some repurposing so you know, what we’re sharing with you are some of the best tips for us to like, outline it ourselves. But you know, there are more possibilities. And you can get those same type of results. Again, just by putting part of the story out there in a way that’s helpful for your audience. Brittany Herzberg 17:28 Totally. And that just goes back to what we said toward the beginning with just like just get started. Because these things as we all know, with website, copy, especially you’re not married to it, you’re kind of dating, you’re just like hanging out, and it’s okay, you can go back and revisit it, you can go backwards, you know, to take this analogy further, you can go back to the same restaurant for another date, you can go back, you know, you go out for dessert after that one. So you’re not married to it. And I think that’s one mental hang up that I see a lot. I noticed it with myself with my own work. And then I also noticed it with my clients with their work. And it’s okay, let’s just put that out there. Yeah, we’ll roll with it. And then we can always revisit it, Erin Ollila 18:04 right? I mean, if it’s momentum that you need, like, you know, post a three paragraph case study, tiny little thing, okay, this project ended, I worked with her like she, this client came to me for this. We worked on that. And the end result is still being proven. But what some of the small wins we found were this. Well, now, let’s say six months from now you are looking at, oh, maybe I should write a blog post. Why not go back to that original client and say like, Hey, six months have gone by? Have you seen anything specific or if you are already monitoring like Google Analytics or anything like that for them, you review their content, ask them to do some interviews, ask them to fill out a new testimonial form, like don’t throw away the content you’ve already worked hard on even if it’s tiny build upon build upon built upon, it’s only going to help you with things like SEO potential like interlinking within your own website, proof for clients who just want to see some of the work you’ve done portfolio wise. So yes, getting momentum is sometimes some of the hardest part and the easiest to just kind of build upon. So we’ve talked about what they are. We’ve talked about how they can help you but now how do people go about getting them testimonial wise, the advice that I shared in the first episode was that we need to make this a systematic thing in our own business. And in some ways, yes, the answer is the same thing for case studies. But I think that in other ways it might not be as let’s just ask these questions throughout the project and fingers crossed I have something I think you do need to be a little more strategic when it comes to storytelling. So what advice do you have for isn’t there? Brittany Herzberg 19:39 It’s interesting because it’s almost like a two part answer. So the first part is just what I noticed with myself. So I started out as a massage therapist. I still have that practice, but then I also added on the SEO copywriting one thing that I’ve done in my massage practice that I’m trying to continue to do with my SEO copywriting business is paying attention is jotting down notes is stay getting text messages, emails, and really just noticing things that are said on calls, maybe I don’t record the zoom or something like that. And I just make a note to myself. So in the moment, I can remember what stood out to me. And I can make sure to highlight that. So that is one thing. And maybe you’re like me, and you do that. And you make sure to listen between the lines almost, and make those notes. So if you do that, that’s great. Lean into that, that is a good thing that is not weird. It took me a while to remember that or to learn that that’s not weird. But then additionally, I tend to leave the client interview toward the end, and even maybe a little bit beyond the project. But maybe you suggest a client interview at the end of the project and say, I’m going to follow up with you in the next 234, whatever months. What I love to do, especially when I’m writing these clients stories for other clients, is I love to watch, I love to watch the zooms, I love to watch the Facebook interviews, listening to an audio like a podcast. So it doesn’t have to be visual, it could be audio. And the reason I really like the visual in the video is because you get to see the body language, you get to see when they light up, you get to see both by they both the business owner and their client. So you get to visit visibly see what was important to each person and go, Okay, I know that I need to make sure I highlight these things. By bumping those interviews out a little bit, it gives you time and it gives the client time to see what their wins might be. Maybe they did have that massive income that one month after the launch. But maybe they’ve had things trickle in since then, maybe they have shifted their program because of something they learned there. I mean, the possibilities are endless. So I love paying attention during the process for my own stuff. And if I have the possibility, where I’m working with someone, and I get to see what’s happening with them and their clients throughout the process. It’s great, but at least at the end, I like to see that interview, maybe like, you know, a few months down the road. Erin Ollila 21:47 Yeah, no, that’s so helpful. And honestly, I mean, that’s really just echoing the main point needs to be part of systems. However, you systemize this, it’s going to be different for businesses, you know, and I liked in in my course, I pointed out product based businesses and service based businesses or those that interlab both worlds really need to approach this differently. You know, if you’re a product based business, and you sell, let’s say, the jelly beans, we’re going back to them. So you’re a jelly beans seller, and someone purchases from you, you mail them out, you cannot send them a form of 15 questions, the moment that they order comes through one, they have not received those jelly beans, which also means they cannot taste them and make a decision on them. Right. So I mean, that seems silly. That seems obvious. But the big question is when I when do I do this? Well, for product based businesses, you need to let the person receive the product, if it is a physical product, test the product, and then it really goes down to the individual product. Well, what kind of product do you have? Is it like a facemask that’s going to help your skin in 30 days, you’re gonna have to wait at least 30 days to touch base with those people. Or I mean sure, maybe a check in to just say, you know, you’re thinking of them, you’re going to touch base soon, whatever the case is. But if you’re telling someone it takes a certain amount of time to do something, you need to wait that length of time. Now let’s rewind a bit to the service providers. If they’re setting up systems where they’re listening, like you’re doing, or they’re setting up systems, where they’re having like secondary contracts kind of go through to say like, how are we doing, you know, like, fill out this scale? Or like, here’s one question for you. Like, can you answer if there’s anything you need for improvement? Whatever those types of questions are, it’s systemized in your business. Additionally, I think it’s helpful to make it a standard type of questions. Because then if you I hate to the template ties this because I don’t think it is template ties of bull. But if you’re especially if you’re doing this on your own, if you’re asking the same questions every time, you then have the same type of expectations of what you’ll see for results, which if you follow Britney’s suggestion of, you know, like the beginning, middle end for the story arc, you can plug the answers in in those parts. How did you feel before working with me? How did the process work? What were the end results? How did you feel at the end, right? So you see how even though like, no case study can be complete a complete template. But just knowing what to ask helps you do the end work? Brittany Herzberg 24:19 Yeah, I think so. And it goes back as well to just getting that momentum, it helps you, you’ll figure out what works for you, you’ll find the strategy, you’ll find if there is a template that you want to use that you want to work from, you’ll figure that out but at least getting started with something and figuring out what to plug in where that can just help you get the ball rolling. Erin Ollila 24:39 Now let’s say we’ve convinced everyone that this is important they need to do this how to get started slightly. Where do you use the case studies on your website because we’ve talked about it but we haven’t directly shown people where they should house them on the site. Brittany Herzberg 24:55 I’m curious if our answers are going to be similar or different here. I love to have these ads is a hidden pages meaning it’s not in your navigation bar at the top. It’s not something that someone is obviously going to be able to click on the way that I’ve used them and suggested to my clients that they use them, I will make the testimonials of standalone quotes that you might see on an about page, I will make that quote clickable, I will make that person’s face click, because I love getting headshots. I will also put a button and say something like read more about Meg’s story here, I have also kind of made my services page almost a little bit of a, I’ve made it a little bit more like a portfolio where I write sales pages, go look at these three sales pages, I write client story pages, go look at these clients, story pages, and maybe the biggest driver to these clients story pages that I do. I live on Instagram, pretty much. And I have a links page. So I will put the links in there and they get to meet quote unquote, these different clients that I have, you know, with the hope that they’ll either connect with them or with me, Erin Ollila 26:00 no, I love that. And I would say I don’t disagree with that. But I will share some other obvious places to put them. Some of my clients will literally just treat them as blogs, meaning that they are housed under their main blog page. In this instance, sometimes you’ll see him on a homepage, like you know how some people have the like, listen to these three podcast episodes on their homepage, will they’d have the like, click to learn the stories of our favorite clients or whatever. But they’re being housed in the blog living in the blog existing in the blog can be seen throughout the course of time. But eventually they will kind of bump down in the order of priority via time. Another place I put I have clients do this a lot. And this is more of I’d say for service based businesses than product based businesses, but is to put them in a portfolio. Yes, the case studies themselves are not going to be in the top navbar. But there might be a button for a portfolio page on that page is information in general about working with you like not a, you know, a reminder of the Services page or anything but just the like, here’s the results. And they’re all clickable onto their own page. So technically, that’s also like a blog post. But they’re still segmented away from the rest of the content that’s being created on the site. And secretly hidden under that one nav bar. I say that there are more places, of course. But I say that because you’ve already mentioned the hidden and I love that. The final thing I want to talk about is that there are so many opportunities to use this not on your website. I know you mentioned Instagram, but some practical ones that I love are inside of your portfolio. I sounds so silly, but like, why not remind them right then in there when they’re about a click like buy or like sign that contract. Sally had this wonderful experience come learn about Sally’s experience, right? It’s a great place to have at least give them access to the case study. And maybe you do what Brittany suggested and say, here’s the quote, If you want to learn more, you can click and they can click off of that proposal. One big huge caveat I want to throw here is if that is the case, make sure you make it open in a new tab. So you do not lose them from your proposal page. But I don’t know Are there any more fun places that you can think that are not website related where you could share them. Brittany Herzberg 28:21 I mean, you know, if you are someone who is savvy with Pinterest and LinkedIn, of course you can make posts about them, they’re putting on something like LinkedIn, or if you have a Facebook group where you are sort of driving people to work with you dropping that in there with some regularity, again, with the system’s write that just the more places you can put it and use it, the better. I send out like a pricing guide, you can drop it in there just reminding them that hey, other people trust me, other people have worked with me. And here’s what we’ve been able to accomplish. So yeah, I mean, so many possibilities. Erin Ollila 28:53 And when you’re talking one thing I’ve thought of is for people who regularly have webinars in their business, whether they are standalone, or maybe let’s say it’s part of a summit, like that type of a presentation. We also are all very comfortable with like, here’s what we’re going to expect from a webinar, people are going to share like their favorite food and favorite color, then we’re jumping into a small introduction of what we can learn, followed by a sales pitch, right? But imagine if instead of jumping so hard away from the learning into the sales pitch, we shift there by saying like, Alright, you’ve learned how to do this. Now, let me show you what it was like for this client. And you walk through the case study right there in the middle of the webinar. And another simple thing is everyone’s always saying to me, like all my clients, especially if they stay on for some content work after the websites ready. What do I say my email newsletters, case studies are great. It could be one standalone email that’s like, hey, I want to tell you about the results so and so good. Or it could be like a PS. Let’s say you’re promoting a training that you’re going to be doing in someone’s community and people can come to it. So you want to invite your email list to come and join you. Maybe the PS is as simple as read about my work with clients, so and so. So there are a lot of ways you can use it. And I don’t think Britney and I hit all of them here. I think it’s be creative, and you’ll feel good wherever you use it. But there are a lot of ways you can use them. Yeah, definitely, Brittany Herzberg 30:21 there was even something else that I thought of I get into like the DISC personality profiles, the D and the AI are fast action takers, the S and the C personalities are slower, more thoughtful and methodical action takers. So even if you want to really geek out on all of this stuff, put those case studies or the case or the client stories a little bit further down the page a little bit more where someone is, if someone’s dedicated to reading your page, put that down, seated further down the page, because the things that you need up top are a little bit more flashy, the things that really hook them get those claws and a little bit deeper, you know, more of the personal things, personable things like the quotes or the headshots. So yeah, be if you really wanted to get nerdy with this stuff, you could be a little bit more thoughtful with where you put it. Yeah, any action is good. Erin Ollila 31:10 I love that. And honestly, again, this is where testing sometimes comes in, right? So maybe you do you do a little trial and error, say like, this is how I’d like to template eyes, my case studies, but maybe for this client, you have something really different. So you’re going to adjust that and say, let’s see how this performs. Right? Like, I’m going to share the same ways I’ve been sharing like, I’m not going to change much except how I’ve written it. And that will give you information on you know, where people are spending more time on the page, you can do heat maps for your your posts, in your case studies to see what are people reading, like, what do they care about. And that will help you but it’s really getting that momentum. And I think, in addition to momentum, because we’ve said that a few times, it’s telling a story, I’ll let you take that there to kind of sum up this episode that we’re doing. But please tell everyone about the importance of actually sharing a story. In your case studies. Brittany Herzberg 32:06 That is the number one thing that I saw missing. And the entire reason really why I wanted to jump in because you can give the raw data, you can just say, Jane did this. This is who she is, this is how we work together and it would be so boring and dry. Would it help your SEO? Totally? Would it help the humans reading your stuff? Probably not. And certainly not all of them. So really, if we’re looking to build that trust faster, especially with strangers, they don’t they don’t know who I am, you know, people on Instagram do but they still might not know exactly what I do or why they should call me. And that’s on me to inform them. And I use the client stories to do so. So telling it in more of a story telling way. That’s how humans learn. That’s what we are looking for. It makes sense to our brains, whether that’s an audio stories story that’s told to us verbally, or if it’s one that we’re reading, we need something to follow so that it can make sense in our brain. And then as we’re reading, we’ll make those connection points again, whether it’s with that client or you the business owner. So I mean, I cannot overstate the importance of storytelling. Erin Ollila 33:15 I know I said that was going to be the final question, but I can never help myself. So I really want to drive home that Brittany mentioned how important like even a standard old boring case study can be for SEO? Can you talk more about like, if you spend some time telling story, how that could actually really help you SEO wise, Brittany Herzberg 33:33 our clients are geniuses, they’re gonna say things in ways that we never would have imagined. I mean, I could stare at my computer all day long, trying to come up with this stuff that these people come up with instantly, because they lived it. And this is how it helped them. And this is the lens that they see this stuff through. So I don’t even try. That’s why I love talking to clients so much, because they have the word gold, I just organize it. Erin Ollila 33:56 Yes, absolutely. They have the word gold. And then in that word gold, like you have the space to say more. So I mean, that I don’t want to oversimplify the message that you’re saying. But like, if you have more space to say more things, that’s just giving Google the chance to read more, and digest what it is that you’re saying. So that way, like you know, let’s say you pick one main keyword phrase, but you have a couple keyword synonyms or similar ish phrases that do relate. You can say them, you’re not like keyword stuffing. No, you’re actually using these phrases in an unnatural way that taps the little Google robot to be like, Hey, pay attention to me. But then when our clients or our leads, I guess our audience read those case studies. Not that we want to trick them, but it reminds them as well. It’s, oh, yes, this person does do that. Oh, they can give me this and those are all keywords that we’re using in order to show them and I think you only have the opportunity to do that and a longer more store FIDE case study than a quick like two row website page that just says beginning and results right, or even Brittany Herzberg 34:57 just the testimonial that we add into the system. Is this page are they about? I mean, we know Google loves the words. So the more words it’s, you know, those old kitty little ride machines outside Walmart in the nine. Yes. Okay. So SEO key words and phrases are the coins that we put in this machine. The machine is your website. And then Google is like, oh, okay, here’s the ride. Oh, and here’s a human to go on it. Yes, yes, Erin Ollila 35:20 exactly. I love that. Anyway, to bring it back to 90s kids rides at some point in this episode in the whole podcast is cool with me. I feel like those are like the dying arts that like, will my kids even know like, if I told them that I was outside of a department store. And I put a coin in a like little animal that gave me a ride, they would be like, like, what is she talking about? Because it’s so rare that we see things from the past. But I think that when you lived it, and you can visually see that as a concrete example, like you imagine the coin going in the slot, you know, that weird jerky ride that you got, you know that putting them together, there was the end result of having the ride, right. So I won’t keep you too much longer. Let me ask you one question I asked everyone is based on what we talked about. If you had to give a homework assignment to the audience and nothing crazy, we don’t want them to, you know, cry, because we’re taskmasters here, right? Just as simple. Let’s get you started homework assignment, what would you give them Brittany Herzberg 36:21 and maybe brain dump, a list of clients that you enjoyed working with? Maybe some who had some really good external wins, like the money or you know, bringing in a certain amount of clients and people who commented on those internal wins things that were more emotionally, you know, feeling empowered, feeling confident, just make a list of these people, and then you can go from there. Erin Ollila 36:40 Okay, so next question is a connection question because I really want you to be able to be connected to people that serve you. Because, you know, people could be listening right now and be like, Oh, my gosh, Brittany, that was so helpful. So how can we build Brittany’s network, if there’s anyone or any type of person that we could connect you to? Who would it be? Brittany Herzberg 36:59 It’s funny, I figured out my niche first, yes. And then I figured out what I wanted to do for people, which is like, go backwards. It’s great that it’s backwards. I love working with anyone who’s like a host, holistic health care provider, someone in the wellness space, I end up helping a lot of health care providers, like nurses or doctors who may still be practicing, but typically are not. And they’ve gone online. So they have online businesses that they’ve built up. And I don’t quite know how to phrase that is my niche, but those people if you know, those people call me. Erin Ollila 37:33 My final question. And this is the one that I always just completely create on the spot. And he you’re gonna laugh at me for this. But yes, let’s bring it back to the jelly beans. If you could eat any flavor Jelly Bean and you had to eat this flavor Jelly Bean for the rest of your life regularly. What jelly bean flavor would it be? Brittany Herzberg 37:54 Okay, I have a question as my answer, please. Is there a coffee one? Of course. Okay, so we’ll go with that. All right. Jelly. Jelly Bean. Erin Ollila 38:02 Yeah, I feel like when I was a kid, maybe I was like, Yeah, Jelly Beans are great. And now as an adult, I’m like, if you want me to eat them, I will eat them for you. But like, Man, how the two of us got this as part of our conversation throughout this episode to non Jelly Bean lovers who just kept talking about them. Brittany, I will put all of the ways that people can contact you in the show notes and the podcast description. I really want to thank you for showing up today and providing so much value for these listeners. Brittany Herzberg 38:31 Yeah, I was just excited to talk with you. I’ll jump at any chance to do that.