July 10, 2024 • 22 mins
SEO can get a little overwhelming for beginners. In this episode of Website Success, Chrissy Rey covers the essentials of SEO and breaks it down into simple, actionable steps. This episode is perfect for anyone looking to improve their website's visibility and attract more customers through search engines, all while keeping SEO stress at bay.
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(00:09):
Hey, there website warriors!
Welcome back to Website Success.
I'm Chrissy Rey, and today we aretackling a topic that I know makes a
lot of you want to run for the hills.
It's SEO, but don't worry.
We're not just diving off the deep end!
Today's episode is all aboutovercoming SEO overwhelm because
(00:30):
let's face it, SEO can feel likea big, scary monster sometimes.
I do SEO all the time and Istill feel a little overwhelmed
by it from time to time.
So trust me, I've been there.
Now, before we jump in, I dowant you to take a deep breath.
Seriously, do it with me.
Breathe in.
(00:50):
And breathe out.
All right.
There you go.
Ready to start?
Well, let's go.
So what exactly is SEO?
What does it stand for?
You probably already know, but just incase you don't, it stands for search
engine optimization and in simple terms,It's all about making your website
more visible and more attractive tosearch engines like Google and Bing,
(01:13):
and the other ones that are out there.
There are lots of searchengines out there.
And the goal is going to be when someonesearches for something related to your
business or whatever your website isabout, that your website is going to
pop up near the top of the results.
Now, I know some of you might bethinking, "Chrissy, I am not a tech wiz!
I can barely update my website.
Don't even ask me to do SEO!"
(01:34):
But trust me, I get it.
I used to be in your position.
I have been doing websites for a verylong time, but SEO is a little bit newer.
It can be a big maze of technical jargonand having to figure out all of these
different moving parts, but you don't needto be a tech genius to do some basic SEO.
(01:55):
And in fact, a lot of really goodSEO practices are just about creating
great content that's good forhumans and a user-friendly website.
These are things that you'reprobably already working on.
Now I'm going to break it down into10 simple steps that you can take
to start improving your SEO withoutgetting completely overwhelmed.
(02:18):
Step one is going to be to makeyour website user-friendly.
Something that might surpriseyou, is that a lot of SEO is about
making your website easy to use.
Google wants to send users towebsites that are going to provide
them with a good user experience.
And it needs to be able to measure that.
So it's going to check for thingslike whether or not the website is
(02:40):
mobile friendly, how fast the pageloads, if there are links between the
different pages in the website andwhether or not you have broken links.
So if you've got issues with any of those,then Google might say, well, that might
not be the best website for the job.
And a lot of those things are oftengoing to be referred to as technical
SEO, which as the name implies, isa little bit technical, but don't
(03:03):
get totally overwhelmed cause I'mnot going to dive too deep into it.
But there are two things that I want youto check as far as the technical SEO.
And the first one is (03:12):
is your website mobile friendly?
Check the website on a fewdifferent mobile devices.
So check it on your phone, check it on afriend's phone, check it on a tablet or
check it on a few different mobile devicesand really consider: does it look good?
Can you read the text withouthaving to pinch and zoom?
Can you tap on the buttons withouthaving to, again, pinch and zoom?
(03:34):
Can you navigate the site easily?
Does the menu work?
Sometimes menus don'twork on mobile devices.
Now, if you answered yes to all ofthose questions, then your website
is probably mobile friendly.
And if it's not, you might need tofix that, which again, can be a little
bit technical or you might want tohire somebody to fix it for you.
Now, the second thing I want you to checkis whether or not the page loads quickly.
(03:57):
And there's a free tool that you canuse the check that it's going to be.
Google's PageSpeed Insights, whichyou can find at pagespeed.web.dev.
And it's really good tool that'llgive you a mobile and a desktop
score between zero and 100.
So it's sort of like a grade.
I try to get all of my clients ascore, at least a 70 on mobile.
(04:17):
My personal clients, I usually try toget into the eighties and nineties,
but not everybody can get there.
It just depends on what you've got withyour website, but it can be kind of tricky
because it does require knowing some ofthe underlying tech and being able to
tweak things with the underlying tech.
And there are some website builderswhere you just can't do that.
You can do it with WordPress, andsome other website builders, but some
(04:40):
website builders like Squarespace andWix, you can't really do much with the
underlying tech because it is what it is.
One thing I want you to check withthis, that's not super technical is that
you can probably increase your score.
So if your score is like a 60 or 70,you can probably bump it up a little
bit just by optimizing your images.
(05:00):
And I did an entireepisode on that very topic.
So if you want to learn more aboutit, go back and listen to episode
29 and then have a go at optimizingsome of the images for your website
to make it a little bit faster.
All right.
Let's move on to step number two,which is to know your keywords.
Keywords are one of the foundationsof SEO and keywords are words
(05:24):
and phrases that people are goingto type into the search engines.
When they're looking for abusiness or a website like yours.
If you want to know the best wayto figure out what your keywords
are, I'll tell you the secret.
It is to ask your target audience.
So you probably know at leasta few people in your target
audience, at least I hope you do.
Go straight to the sourceand ask them what they.
(05:46):
Are using to find a businesslike yours or what they would use
to find a business like yours.
Now if for some reason youcan't or if you're an introvert
and you just don't want to askyour target audience for input.
Trust me, I've been there.
I'm an introvert myself.
Then you just have to kind of putyourself in their shoes and try to come
up with some of those keywords yourself.
Or you can try asking AIto give you some ideas.
(06:09):
Before you do that, though, youdo need to let the AI know as much
as possible about your business.
And your target audience, includingtheir wants, needs, challenges,
pain points, buying behaviors.
All of those things.
And then you can ask it for a list ofkeywords that, that target audience
might use to find a business like yours.
Now use your target audience, or yourself,or AI, or some combination of those
(06:32):
three things and find some keywords.
Start small, for example, if youhave a women's clothing boutique,
one of your keywords might be verysimply "women's clothing boutique."
Start with a couple of keywordsand then try to come up with a
list of about 10 or 20 keywords.
Before you move on to step three.
Which is going to be toresearch your keywords.
(06:55):
So once you have a list of goodkeywords, then you should try to make
sure that they're actually good keywordsthat people are probably going to be
using to find a website like yours.
And you can use a tool likeGoogle's free Keyword Planner to
give you some sense of how manysearches those keywords are getting.
You can go in and research eachof the different keywords, and
(07:16):
it'll give you an idea of how manysearches there have been in the past
month for that particular keyword.
It's a free tool and it'savailable if you have a Google
Ads account, which is also free.
You don't have to pay for an actualGoogle ad to get the keyword planner.
When you're doing your researchon your keywords, you do want to
make sure that the keywords aregetting at least a few searches.
(07:38):
I usually look for keywords thatare getting at least 10 searches.
For a lot of my clients, I usuallymake my minimum 50 to a hundred.
It really just depends on who theirtarget audience is and what their
services are and what the relativetraffic might be for something like that.
Another really cool feature of it is thatit's also going to give you suggestions
for additional keywords that you can use.
(07:59):
If you put in women's clothingboutique, it might also suggest.
Things like dresses for women or jeansfor women or other words like that.
So it's going to give yousuggestions that you can use.
So if you're really stuck On yourkeywords and you've, you've only
got a list of like three to five,pop them into the keyword planner.
And it'll give you a list ofother keywords that you can
use, that you can also research.
(08:22):
There are other tools outthere that you can use.
I use a tool called Moz,which is at moz.com.
And if you're looking for something reallyinexpensive, cause you're just getting
started, you don't really want to investa lot in the SEO tools that are out there.
A really good tool that I likeis called Keywords Everywhere.
It has a Chrome extension.
I think it's got extensions for otherbrowsers as well, but I use it as a Chrome
(08:46):
extension and it's, it's super helpful.
It gives you all kinds of informationabout keyword difficulty and more
insights into the amount of searchesthat you're getting for a keyword.
But it's only $27 a year fortheir least expensive plan.
So definitely check it out.
All right.
Let's move on to step four, which isgoing to be to use your keywords wisely.
(09:07):
Once you've got your keywordsand you've made sure that they're
actually good keywords, the nextthing is to actually use them.
And this is where alot of people go wrong.
They try to just kind of stuff,their keywords in everywhere.
They just keywords, keywords, keywords.
They just throw them all in there, all onthe same page they take, you know, they've
got 20 keywords and they just throwthem all together on one page and try
(09:28):
to use the keywords like every sentence.
Don't do that because it makesyour content sound robotic.
It makes it sound like AI wrote it andwas trying to stuff the keywords in there.
And it doesn't work.
And a lot of the search enginesknow what you're trying to do.
They don't like it.
They know when you're keywordstuffing, they don't like it.
And you're probably going to rank lower ifyou're stuffing those keywords in there.
(09:50):
So you want to use them naturally instead.
Try to use those keywords within yourpage titles, your headings, throughout
your text, but only where they make sense.
Don't just stuff them in there justto have those keywords in there.
Always, always, always prioritize writingfor humans over writing for search engine.
If you can't get the keyword in therenaturally, then you might want to
(10:11):
rethink which keyword you're using.
Because the content that you're writingshould be able to use those keywords.
All right now, step five isto create quality content.
And so again, you want to write contentfor humans, not for the search engines.
So let's talk a little bit moreabout that, because good SEO
is not just about the keywords.
It's going to be about creatingvaluable, relevant content that
(10:35):
your audience actually wants to reador watch if you're making videos.
You need to think about the questionsthat your ideal clients often ask you.
So again, go back to talk toyour target audience and you can
get some of this information.
Once you know what they want to askyou, can you write a blog post or
a video answering that question?
So for our women's clothing boutiqueexample, you might want to create content
(11:00):
like "This Summer's Bathing Suit Trends"or "Wardrobe Staples for Women Over
50" or something along those lines.
Just remember that qualitytrumps quantity every time.
It's going to be better to publishone really, really good in depth blog
post a month then four mediocre ones.
Google really loves detailedand helpful content that really
(11:21):
addresses the user's needs.
All right.
Let's move on to step six,which is to optimize your page
titles and meta descriptions.
And I know that sounds verytechnical, but it's not, it's not
super technical, especially ifyou are using a website builder.
So your page title and yourmeta description, those are
(11:41):
usually going to be what actuallyshows up in the search results.
And they're sort of like your,your websites, elevator pitch
to the potential visitors.
Your page title should include yourmain keyword if possible, if it, if
it fits naturally, usually near thebeginning of the title of possible.
And it should also clearlydescribe what the page is about.
(12:02):
You do want to try to keep itshort, so under about 60 characters,
because otherwise it's going toget cut off in the search results.
Now the meta description is usually goingto be a brief summary of the page content.
It's going to be maybea couple of sentences.
And it should be compelling and it shouldinclude your keyword and it should also
(12:22):
encourage an action specifically gettingpeople to click through to your website.
As far as length again, you don't wantit to get cut off, so I usually aim for
about 140 to 160 characters, and really,I try to get mine under 145 characters but
you don't want to go too far below thatbecause you don't want it to be too short.
You want it to be just right.
(12:43):
Most website builders like WordPressSquarespace, Wix they have tools that
allow you to edit those elements.
So you don't need to learnhow to code to change the page
title or the meta description.
All right.
Step seven is going to beto start building backlinks.
And if you're wondering what the heck isa backlink, it is SEO speak for links from
(13:04):
other websites that point to your website.
A link to your website lets searchengines know that your content is valuable
because other websites are linking to it.
But one potential downfall with backlinksis that they are not all created equal.
A link from a reputable andrelevant website in your industry
is worth all kinds of SEO points.
(13:27):
And it's much better than a link froma random, low quality spammy website.
How do you get good backlinks?
This is a very frequentlyasked question for me.
How do you get those links?
There are a few ways that you can start.
And number one is to createshare-worthy content.
So if you create content, that'ssuper helpful, very interesting, a
(13:49):
good read for humans, then peopleare going to want to share it.
They're going to want to link to it.
They're going to want to let otherpeople in your target audience
know about that content, sothey're going to share that link.
Another good way to getbacklinks is with guest posting.
Offer to write articles for otherblogs in your industry, or other
websites , but most are usually goingto allow you to include a link back
(14:11):
to your website in your author bioor somewhere else in the blog post.
Another good way to get backlinksis with local business directories.
So make sure that your business islisted in relevant online directories
for your area or for your industry.
Partnerships and collaborationsis another way to get backlinks.
So if you work with other businesses orinfluencers in your niche, a lot of times,
(14:35):
those relationships are going to leadto natural link sharing opportunities.
You're going to share their links.
They're going to share your links.
And everybody will be better for it.
Another way to get backlinksis to ask your network.
Ask your friends, ask yourcolleagues, ask your neighbors.
Ask them to share it.
Don't be afraid to ask those peopleif they'd be willing to link to
(14:55):
your website when it's relevant.
Now, one thing to rememberabout backlinks is that building
them is a gradual process.
It's not going to be overnight.
You're not going to have thousands oflinks back to your website in a day.
It does take time.
So focus on creating that greatcontent and then building those
genuine relationships in yourindustry and with your community.
And then those links are goingto naturally follow over time.
(15:17):
All right.
Step 8 is don't forget about local SEO.
Don't do not forget about it.
If you have a physical locationor you serve a specific geographic
area, this is really important.
If you don't.
You still want to listen.
But local SEO is going to be your new bestfriend if you serve a local population,
(15:37):
if you have a local target audience.
It's going to help you show up insearches like "women's clothing
boutique near me," or "women's clothingboutique in Annapolis, Maryland."
To optimize for local SEO thereare a few things that you can do.
But the biggest thing is to claimyour Google business profile.
It's free.
There's really no reason not to do it.
(15:58):
So make sure you do that first.
Another thing that you want to dois make sure that your business's
name, address, and phone number,which the SEO folks refer to as NAP.
Make sure that those are consistent acrossyour website and all online directories.
So if you're showing up in Yelp oranything like that, make sure your
businesses name, address, and phonenumber is consistent for all of them.
(16:20):
And then you also want to encourage yoursatisfied clients to leave you reviews on
Google, but one caution with that (16:25):
don't offer them something in exchange, because
that is against Google's terms of service.
And it is also against the law.
The federal trade commission, if you'rein the United States, the FTC could
come after you if you're offeringincentives or money or free services
(16:46):
or whatever it is that you've got.
If you're offering stuff inexchange for a good review.
That is an issue . So thereviews need to be authentic.
All right.
So step nine is to bepatient and consistent.
One thing I always let myclients know about SEO is that
it is not an overnight fix.
If you need an overnight fix,you need really quick results,
(17:07):
then you need to do paid SEO.
So you need to do Google ads orFacebook ads . But SEO is organic.
It takes time for those searchengines to know about your content.
And then to be able to recognizeand reward your content for
being good, quality content.
Just don't let that discourage you.
(17:29):
I want you to think of SEO asa sort of longterm investment.
It's a marathon, not a sprint.
So if you keep that in mind, then it,hopefully it won't overwhelm you as much.
Now step number 10 is going tobe to learn to love analytics.
And I know analytics soundsabout as fun as doing your taxes.
Although, some people love analytics.
(17:49):
If you're a data nerd, youprobably love your analytics.
No judging here.
But I do want you to hear me out ifyou're not a big fan of analytics.
Understanding your website'sperformance is absolutely critical
for improving your search engine game.
Google analytics is a free tooland there are other analytics tools
out there, but I personally useGoogle analytics on most websites.
(18:10):
It's going to tell you things like howmany people are visiting your website,
which pages they're spending the mosttime on and how much time they're spending
on it, and what kind of interactionsthey're making to the website.
Also where they're coming from.
So if they're coming from othersearch engines, or social media,
or emails, or anything like that.
And when it comes time to redesignyour website, it'll tell you things
(18:33):
like if your website visitors are onmobile devices or desktops or even
what operating system they're using.
So it's really helpful information.
But the whole point of this is theanalytics are going to help you figure
out what kind of things are working.
What's not working and that'll letyou focus your efforts where they're
going to have the biggest impact.
(18:54):
Don't worry too much about understandingevery single metric in your analytics.
Just start with the basics, so yournumbers of your visitors, your popular
pages, traffic sources, and as youget more comfortable with it, then
you can dive deeper into the data.
All right.
So those are the 10 steps.
There are other things that canhelp, but I do want you to remember
(19:16):
that it is okay to ask for help.
Get help if you need it.
There are plenty of SEOprofessionals out there.
I just happen to be one of them.
And they will be happy togive your website a look.
I do free SEO audits.
So if you are interested in that,I'll put a link in the show notes.
If you want to get a free SEO audit,happy to do it, it's automated, so
(19:37):
it doesn't even take me any time.
I just pay for a service thatdoes the automated audits.
It'll give you sort of anoverview of what things might
need to be done to your website.
One thing I do want to say whenit comes to getting help for your
website, if you are overwhelmed byit, and you do seek somebody out to
help you with it (19:53):
be very wary of anyone promising overnight results.
Because again, SEO is amarathon, not a sprint.
And also be very, very wary of anybodythat is guaranteeing first page rankings.
It takes time, as I've mentioned before,and there are absolutely no guarantees.
Because Google does what it does.
(20:15):
You can't guarantee that they'reeven going to show up at all.
So if somebody guaranteesthat, tell them they're wrong.
Now if hiring a professional is notin your budget right now, and that's
okay, consider taking an online course.
I happen to know a gal thathas online courses for that.
Or take a workshop.
I actually have a SEO Crash Coursecoming up later this month in July.
(20:38):
So if you're listening to this,now, it should be middle of July.
The SEO crash course iscoming up on July 22nd.
It's geared towards beginners andthere are some practical, actionable
steps that you're going to be ableto take after you take that course.
All right, let's wrap this up.
I've got some final thoughts here.
I just, again, want you to rememberSEO is not about being perfect.
(21:00):
It's going to be about makingsteady improvements over time.
Because every blog post you write,every page that you optimize, and
every change that you make to yourwebsite to make it more user-friendly.
All of those things add up.
Don't let SEO overwhelmstop you from taking action.
Start small.
Maybe this week you'll focus on makingyour website more mobile friendly.
(21:23):
Or optimizing your images to makeit load faster and next week, maybe
you'll do some keyword research.
The week after that, you canstart writing some blog posts
and doing your on-page SEO.
You don't have to do everything at once.
Take your time with it.
But before, you know it over time,you are going to have made some
significant improvements to your website.
(21:44):
And the best part is that not onlydoes it make your website better for
search engines, it's going to make thewebsite better for your human visitors.
Take a deep breath.
You've got this.
SEO might seem like a big, scarymonster, but with all of these 10
steps that I've talked about in thisepisode, you can completely tame it.
Your future clients are going tobe out there searching for you.
(22:06):
And with a little bit of SEOmagic, you can help them find you.
That's all for today's episodeon overcoming sEO overwhelm.
I hope you're feeling a littlebit more confident about tackling
the SEO for your website and justremember: progress over perfection.
If you found this episode helpful, don'tforget to subscribe to the podcast.
(22:27):
You're going to get more tipson all things website related.
And if you do have a question aboutanything SEO, feel free to reach out.
Until then, happy optimizing.
Hey, there website warriors!
Welcome back to Website Success.
I'm Chrissy Rey, and today we aretackling a topic that I know makes a
lot of you want to run for the hills.
It's SEO, but don't worry.
We're not just diving off the deep end!
Today's episode is all aboutovercoming SEO overwhelm because
(00:30):
let's face it, SEO can feel likea big, scary monster sometimes.
I do SEO all the time and Istill feel a little overwhelmed
by it from time to time.
So trust me, I've been there.
Now, before we jump in, I dowant you to take a deep breath.
Seriously, do it with me.
Breathe in.
(00:50):
And breathe out.
All right.
There you go.
Ready to start?
Well, let's go.
So what exactly is SEO?
What does it stand for?
You probably already know, but just incase you don't, it stands for search
engine optimization and in simple terms,It's all about making your website
more visible and more attractive tosearch engines like Google and Bing,
(01:13):
and the other ones that are out there.
There are lots of searchengines out there.
And the goal is going to be when someonesearches for something related to your
business or whatever your website isabout, that your website is going to
pop up near the top of the results.
Now, I know some of you might bethinking, "Chrissy, I am not a tech wiz!
I can barely update my website.
Don't even ask me to do SEO!"
(01:34):
But trust me, I get it.
I used to be in your position.
I have been doing websites for a verylong time, but SEO is a little bit newer.
It can be a big maze of technical jargonand having to figure out all of these
different moving parts, but you don't needto be a tech genius to do some basic SEO.
(01:55):
And in fact, a lot of really goodSEO practices are just about creating
great content that's good forhumans and a user-friendly website.
These are things that you'reprobably already working on.
Now I'm going to break it down into10 simple steps that you can take
to start improving your SEO withoutgetting completely overwhelmed.
(02:18):
Step one is going to be to makeyour website user-friendly.
Something that might surpriseyou, is that a lot of SEO is about
making your website easy to use.
Google wants to send users towebsites that are going to provide
them with a good user experience.
And it needs to be able to measure that.
So it's going to check for thingslike whether or not the website is
(02:40):
mobile friendly, how fast the pageloads, if there are links between the
different pages in the website andwhether or not you have broken links.
So if you've got issues with any of those,then Google might say, well, that might
not be the best website for the job.
And a lot of those things are oftengoing to be referred to as technical
SEO, which as the name implies, isa little bit technical, but don't
(03:03):
get totally overwhelmed cause I'mnot going to dive too deep into it.
But there are two things that I want youto check as far as the technical SEO.
And the first one is (03:12):
is your website mobile friendly?
Check the website on a fewdifferent mobile devices.
So check it on your phone, check it on afriend's phone, check it on a tablet or
check it on a few different mobile devicesand really consider: does it look good?
Can you read the text withouthaving to pinch and zoom?
Can you tap on the buttons withouthaving to, again, pinch and zoom?
(03:34):
Can you navigate the site easily?
Does the menu work?
Sometimes menus don'twork on mobile devices.
Now, if you answered yes to all ofthose questions, then your website
is probably mobile friendly.
And if it's not, you might need tofix that, which again, can be a little
bit technical or you might want tohire somebody to fix it for you.
Now, the second thing I want you to checkis whether or not the page loads quickly.
(03:57):
And there's a free tool that you canuse the check that it's going to be.
Google's PageSpeed Insights, whichyou can find at pagespeed.web.dev.
And it's really good tool that'llgive you a mobile and a desktop
score between zero and 100.
So it's sort of like a grade.
I try to get all of my clients ascore, at least a 70 on mobile.
(04:17):
My personal clients, I usually try toget into the eighties and nineties,
but not everybody can get there.
It just depends on what you've got withyour website, but it can be kind of tricky
because it does require knowing some ofthe underlying tech and being able to
tweak things with the underlying tech.
And there are some website builderswhere you just can't do that.
You can do it with WordPress, andsome other website builders, but some
(04:40):
website builders like Squarespace andWix, you can't really do much with the
underlying tech because it is what it is.
One thing I want you to check withthis, that's not super technical is that
you can probably increase your score.
So if your score is like a 60 or 70,you can probably bump it up a little
bit just by optimizing your images.
(05:00):
And I did an entireepisode on that very topic.
So if you want to learn more aboutit, go back and listen to episode
29 and then have a go at optimizingsome of the images for your website
to make it a little bit faster.
All right.
Let's move on to step number two,which is to know your keywords.
Keywords are one of the foundationsof SEO and keywords are words
(05:24):
and phrases that people are goingto type into the search engines.
When they're looking for abusiness or a website like yours.
If you want to know the best wayto figure out what your keywords
are, I'll tell you the secret.
It is to ask your target audience.
So you probably know at leasta few people in your target
audience, at least I hope you do.
Go straight to the sourceand ask them what they.
(05:46):
Are using to find a businesslike yours or what they would use
to find a business like yours.
Now if for some reason youcan't or if you're an introvert
and you just don't want to askyour target audience for input.
Trust me, I've been there.
I'm an introvert myself.
Then you just have to kind of putyourself in their shoes and try to come
up with some of those keywords yourself.
Or you can try asking AIto give you some ideas.
(06:09):
Before you do that, though, youdo need to let the AI know as much
as possible about your business.
And your target audience, includingtheir wants, needs, challenges,
pain points, buying behaviors.
All of those things.
And then you can ask it for a list ofkeywords that, that target audience
might use to find a business like yours.
Now use your target audience, or yourself,or AI, or some combination of those
(06:32):
three things and find some keywords.
Start small, for example, if youhave a women's clothing boutique,
one of your keywords might be verysimply "women's clothing boutique."
Start with a couple of keywordsand then try to come up with a
list of about 10 or 20 keywords.
Before you move on to step three.
Which is going to be toresearch your keywords.
(06:55):
So once you have a list of goodkeywords, then you should try to make
sure that they're actually good keywordsthat people are probably going to be
using to find a website like yours.
And you can use a tool likeGoogle's free Keyword Planner to
give you some sense of how manysearches those keywords are getting.
You can go in and research eachof the different keywords, and
(07:16):
it'll give you an idea of how manysearches there have been in the past
month for that particular keyword.
It's a free tool and it'savailable if you have a Google
Ads account, which is also free.
You don't have to pay for an actualGoogle ad to get the keyword planner.
When you're doing your researchon your keywords, you do want to
make sure that the keywords aregetting at least a few searches.
(07:38):
I usually look for keywords thatare getting at least 10 searches.
For a lot of my clients, I usuallymake my minimum 50 to a hundred.
It really just depends on who theirtarget audience is and what their
services are and what the relativetraffic might be for something like that.
Another really cool feature of it is thatit's also going to give you suggestions
for additional keywords that you can use.
(07:59):
If you put in women's clothingboutique, it might also suggest.
Things like dresses for women or jeansfor women or other words like that.
So it's going to give yousuggestions that you can use.
So if you're really stuck On yourkeywords and you've, you've only
got a list of like three to five,pop them into the keyword planner.
And it'll give you a list ofother keywords that you can
use, that you can also research.
(08:22):
There are other tools outthere that you can use.
I use a tool called Moz,which is at moz.com.
And if you're looking for something reallyinexpensive, cause you're just getting
started, you don't really want to investa lot in the SEO tools that are out there.
A really good tool that I likeis called Keywords Everywhere.
It has a Chrome extension.
I think it's got extensions for otherbrowsers as well, but I use it as a Chrome
(08:46):
extension and it's, it's super helpful.
It gives you all kinds of informationabout keyword difficulty and more
insights into the amount of searchesthat you're getting for a keyword.
But it's only $27 a year fortheir least expensive plan.
So definitely check it out.
All right.
Let's move on to step four, which isgoing to be to use your keywords wisely.
(09:07):
Once you've got your keywordsand you've made sure that they're
actually good keywords, the nextthing is to actually use them.
And this is where alot of people go wrong.
They try to just kind of stuff,their keywords in everywhere.
They just keywords, keywords, keywords.
They just throw them all in there, all onthe same page they take, you know, they've
got 20 keywords and they just throwthem all together on one page and try
(09:28):
to use the keywords like every sentence.
Don't do that because it makesyour content sound robotic.
It makes it sound like AI wrote it andwas trying to stuff the keywords in there.
And it doesn't work.
And a lot of the search enginesknow what you're trying to do.
They don't like it.
They know when you're keywordstuffing, they don't like it.
And you're probably going to rank lower ifyou're stuffing those keywords in there.
(09:50):
So you want to use them naturally instead.
Try to use those keywords within yourpage titles, your headings, throughout
your text, but only where they make sense.
Don't just stuff them in there justto have those keywords in there.
Always, always, always prioritize writingfor humans over writing for search engine.
If you can't get the keyword in therenaturally, then you might want to
(10:11):
rethink which keyword you're using.
Because the content that you're writingshould be able to use those keywords.
All right now, step five isto create quality content.
And so again, you want to write contentfor humans, not for the search engines.
So let's talk a little bit moreabout that, because good SEO
is not just about the keywords.
It's going to be about creatingvaluable, relevant content that
(10:35):
your audience actually wants to reador watch if you're making videos.
You need to think about the questionsthat your ideal clients often ask you.
So again, go back to talk toyour target audience and you can
get some of this information.
Once you know what they want to askyou, can you write a blog post or
a video answering that question?
So for our women's clothing boutiqueexample, you might want to create content
(11:00):
like "This Summer's Bathing Suit Trends"or "Wardrobe Staples for Women Over
50" or something along those lines.
Just remember that qualitytrumps quantity every time.
It's going to be better to publishone really, really good in depth blog
post a month then four mediocre ones.
Google really loves detailedand helpful content that really
(11:21):
addresses the user's needs.
All right.
Let's move on to step six,which is to optimize your page
titles and meta descriptions.
And I know that sounds verytechnical, but it's not, it's not
super technical, especially ifyou are using a website builder.
So your page title and yourmeta description, those are
(11:41):
usually going to be what actuallyshows up in the search results.
And they're sort of like your,your websites, elevator pitch
to the potential visitors.
Your page title should include yourmain keyword if possible, if it, if
it fits naturally, usually near thebeginning of the title of possible.
And it should also clearlydescribe what the page is about.
(12:02):
You do want to try to keep itshort, so under about 60 characters,
because otherwise it's going toget cut off in the search results.
Now the meta description is usually goingto be a brief summary of the page content.
It's going to be maybea couple of sentences.
And it should be compelling and it shouldinclude your keyword and it should also
(12:22):
encourage an action specifically gettingpeople to click through to your website.
As far as length again, you don't wantit to get cut off, so I usually aim for
about 140 to 160 characters, and really,I try to get mine under 145 characters but
you don't want to go too far below thatbecause you don't want it to be too short.
You want it to be just right.
(12:43):
Most website builders like WordPressSquarespace, Wix they have tools that
allow you to edit those elements.
So you don't need to learnhow to code to change the page
title or the meta description.
All right.
Step seven is going to beto start building backlinks.
And if you're wondering what the heck isa backlink, it is SEO speak for links from
(13:04):
other websites that point to your website.
A link to your website lets searchengines know that your content is valuable
because other websites are linking to it.
But one potential downfall with backlinksis that they are not all created equal.
A link from a reputable andrelevant website in your industry
is worth all kinds of SEO points.
(13:27):
And it's much better than a link froma random, low quality spammy website.
How do you get good backlinks?
This is a very frequentlyasked question for me.
How do you get those links?
There are a few ways that you can start.
And number one is to createshare-worthy content.
So if you create content, that'ssuper helpful, very interesting, a
(13:49):
good read for humans, then peopleare going to want to share it.
They're going to want to link to it.
They're going to want to let otherpeople in your target audience
know about that content, sothey're going to share that link.
Another good way to getbacklinks is with guest posting.
Offer to write articles for otherblogs in your industry, or other
websites , but most are usually goingto allow you to include a link back
(14:11):
to your website in your author bioor somewhere else in the blog post.
Another good way to get backlinksis with local business directories.
So make sure that your business islisted in relevant online directories
for your area or for your industry.
Partnerships and collaborationsis another way to get backlinks.
So if you work with other businesses orinfluencers in your niche, a lot of times,
(14:35):
those relationships are going to leadto natural link sharing opportunities.
You're going to share their links.
They're going to share your links.
And everybody will be better for it.
Another way to get backlinksis to ask your network.
Ask your friends, ask yourcolleagues, ask your neighbors.
Ask them to share it.
Don't be afraid to ask those peopleif they'd be willing to link to
(14:55):
your website when it's relevant.
Now, one thing to rememberabout backlinks is that building
them is a gradual process.
It's not going to be overnight.
You're not going to have thousands oflinks back to your website in a day.
It does take time.
So focus on creating that greatcontent and then building those
genuine relationships in yourindustry and with your community.
And then those links are goingto naturally follow over time.
(15:17):
All right.
Step 8 is don't forget about local SEO.
Don't do not forget about it.
If you have a physical locationor you serve a specific geographic
area, this is really important.
If you don't.
You still want to listen.
But local SEO is going to be your new bestfriend if you serve a local population,
(15:37):
if you have a local target audience.
It's going to help you show up insearches like "women's clothing
boutique near me," or "women's clothingboutique in Annapolis, Maryland."
To optimize for local SEO thereare a few things that you can do.
But the biggest thing is to claimyour Google business profile.
It's free.
There's really no reason not to do it.
(15:58):
So make sure you do that first.
Another thing that you want to dois make sure that your business's
name, address, and phone number,which the SEO folks refer to as NAP.
Make sure that those are consistent acrossyour website and all online directories.
So if you're showing up in Yelp oranything like that, make sure your
businesses name, address, and phonenumber is consistent for all of them.
(16:20):
And then you also want to encourage yoursatisfied clients to leave you reviews on
Google, but one caution with that (16:25):
don't offer them something in exchange, because
that is against Google's terms of service.
And it is also against the law.
The federal trade commission, if you'rein the United States, the FTC could
come after you if you're offeringincentives or money or free services
(16:46):
or whatever it is that you've got.
If you're offering stuff inexchange for a good review.
That is an issue . So thereviews need to be authentic.
All right.
So step nine is to bepatient and consistent.
One thing I always let myclients know about SEO is that
it is not an overnight fix.
If you need an overnight fix,you need really quick results,
(17:07):
then you need to do paid SEO.
So you need to do Google ads orFacebook ads . But SEO is organic.
It takes time for those searchengines to know about your content.
And then to be able to recognizeand reward your content for
being good, quality content.
Just don't let that discourage you.
(17:29):
I want you to think of SEO asa sort of longterm investment.
It's a marathon, not a sprint.
So if you keep that in mind, then it,hopefully it won't overwhelm you as much.
Now step number 10 is going tobe to learn to love analytics.
And I know analytics soundsabout as fun as doing your taxes.
Although, some people love analytics.
(17:49):
If you're a data nerd, youprobably love your analytics.
No judging here.
But I do want you to hear me out ifyou're not a big fan of analytics.
Understanding your website'sperformance is absolutely critical
for improving your search engine game.
Google analytics is a free tooland there are other analytics tools
out there, but I personally useGoogle analytics on most websites.
(18:10):
It's going to tell you things like howmany people are visiting your website,
which pages they're spending the mosttime on and how much time they're spending
on it, and what kind of interactionsthey're making to the website.
Also where they're coming from.
So if they're coming from othersearch engines, or social media,
or emails, or anything like that.
And when it comes time to redesignyour website, it'll tell you things
(18:33):
like if your website visitors are onmobile devices or desktops or even
what operating system they're using.
So it's really helpful information.
But the whole point of this is theanalytics are going to help you figure
out what kind of things are working.
What's not working and that'll letyou focus your efforts where they're
going to have the biggest impact.
(18:54):
Don't worry too much about understandingevery single metric in your analytics.
Just start with the basics, so yournumbers of your visitors, your popular
pages, traffic sources, and as youget more comfortable with it, then
you can dive deeper into the data.
All right.
So those are the 10 steps.
There are other things that canhelp, but I do want you to remember
(19:16):
that it is okay to ask for help.
Get help if you need it.
There are plenty of SEOprofessionals out there.
I just happen to be one of them.
And they will be happy togive your website a look.
I do free SEO audits.
So if you are interested in that,I'll put a link in the show notes.
If you want to get a free SEO audit,happy to do it, it's automated, so
(19:37):
it doesn't even take me any time.
I just pay for a service thatdoes the automated audits.
It'll give you sort of anoverview of what things might
need to be done to your website.
One thing I do want to say whenit comes to getting help for your
website, if you are overwhelmed byit, and you do seek somebody out to
help you with it (19:53):
be very wary of anyone promising overnight results.
Because again, SEO is amarathon, not a sprint.
And also be very, very wary of anybodythat is guaranteeing first page rankings.
It takes time, as I've mentioned before,and there are absolutely no guarantees.
Because Google does what it does.
(20:15):
You can't guarantee that they'reeven going to show up at all.
So if somebody guaranteesthat, tell them they're wrong.
Now if hiring a professional is notin your budget right now, and that's
okay, consider taking an online course.
I happen to know a gal thathas online courses for that.
Or take a workshop.
I actually have a SEO Crash Coursecoming up later this month in July.
(20:38):
So if you're listening to this,now, it should be middle of July.
The SEO crash course iscoming up on July 22nd.
It's geared towards beginners andthere are some practical, actionable
steps that you're going to be ableto take after you take that course.
All right, let's wrap this up.
I've got some final thoughts here.
I just, again, want you to rememberSEO is not about being perfect.
(21:00):
It's going to be about makingsteady improvements over time.
Because every blog post you write,every page that you optimize, and
every change that you make to yourwebsite to make it more user-friendly.
All of those things add up.
Don't let SEO overwhelmstop you from taking action.
Start small.
Maybe this week you'll focus on makingyour website more mobile friendly.
(21:23):
Or optimizing your images to makeit load faster and next week, maybe
you'll do some keyword research.
The week after that, you canstart writing some blog posts
and doing your on-page SEO.
You don't have to do everything at once.
Take your time with it.
But before, you know it over time,you are going to have made some
significant improvements to your website.
(21:44):
And the best part is that not onlydoes it make your website better for
search engines, it's going to make thewebsite better for your human visitors.
Take a deep breath.
You've got this.
SEO might seem like a big, scarymonster, but with all of these 10
steps that I've talked about in thisepisode, you can completely tame it.
Your future clients are going tobe out there searching for you.
(22:06):
And with a little bit of SEOmagic, you can help them find you.
That's all for today's episodeon overcoming sEO overwhelm.
I hope you're feeling a littlebit more confident about tackling
the SEO for your website and justremember: progress over perfection.
If you found this episode helpful, don'tforget to subscribe to the podcast.
(22:27):
You're going to get more tipson all things website related.
And if you do have a question aboutanything SEO, feel free to reach out.
Until then, happy optimizing.
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