The Rule of Small Wins: Transform Your Website One Day at a Time

In this episode, Meredith's husband explains how to effectively measure progress on your website and with SEO. Rather than relying on keyword rankings or competitor comparisons, he emphasizes the power of small, consistent improvements — the "1% gains" rule. He shares practical ways website owners can improve navigation, headings, and call-to-actions to enhance usability, SEO, and AI visibility. The episode offers mindset shifts and actionable tips to help build a stronger site over time.

Chapter Markers

[0:00] Introduction: Why tracking SEO progress is confusing
 [0:24] The wrong way to measure SEO progress
 [1:03] The illusion of consistent competitors
 [2:00] Comparing your site to others vs. comparing to yourself
 [3:04] The 1% gains rule from British cycling
 [4:18] Applying the 1% mindset to SEO and websites
 [5:08] Rule of thumb: Make your website easier to use
 [5:41] Fix your navigation for users, SEO, and AI
 [7:34] Improve your headings and subheadings
 [8:27] Simpler copy and CTAs work better

👉 Become an INSIDER
Join the Waitlist for my upcoming AIO/GEO vs. SEO Guide
https://www.meredithshusband.com/#insiders

VOTE » Help Shape the Future Survey:
https://seiq.meredithshusband.com/c/staging/17ff89-fdb4f63c-7bdb-48b2-aa8e-44bd10d66f7f

Episode Transcript

Meredith's Husband (00:00):
All right.
So we're going to talk todayabout how to measure your
progress, okay, in SEO, but alsojust kind of, with your website
in general.
Okay, because I think this is.
I think it's pretty frustratingfor a lot of people not knowing
kind of what they are.
If they're, what they're doingis the right thing to be doing,
if they're making any progress.
If they're doing the wrongthing, yeah, and what happens

(00:22):
almost all the time is people inorder to see, hey, am I making
progress?
They go and they go to Googleand they type in their keywords
and they see where their websiteis.
Right.
That's a really, really bad wayto do that.
Right.
There's a number of reasons forthat.
There's several reasons whyit's bad.
I don't want to get into all ofit.
I will mention, though, one ofthe biggest problems with this.

(00:42):
When you go to Google and youdo a search for your keywords
and you look to see if yourwebsite is there, you're going
to see your competitors,obviously, yeah, and you're
going to this going to seem.
Even if it's not the case, it'sgoing to seem like you have
certain competitors who arealways there.
They're all over the place.
Yeah, that is a mistake.
It's a mistake.
Yes, it's a mistake, yes, it'san illusion.

(01:04):
Let's say it's an illusionbecause I've seen this happen
dozens, if not hundreds of timesand the competitors who you
think are always there, alwaysat the top, they're not Really.
Yeah, I don't.
I mean, you see themoccasionally and your mind kind
of fills in the gaps, and I'vehad clients do this and they say
, oh, this competitor is alwaysat the top and I said this one,

(01:25):
and they said, yeah, that one,well, that one just switched,
like yesterday.
So it's like an illusion.
It's kind of like yourinsecurities oh, somebody else
is doing it better, somebodyelse is doing it right.
Well, somebody is always doingit better and that's why you
shouldn't compare yourself toothers.
That's what I'm saying.
People do this when they checktheir rankings like this.

(01:48):
I think this happens a lot withsocial media too.
I think this is the biggestproblem with social media is
people compare because you onlyget a glimpse of the 1% or the
0.1% of somebody's life thatthey want to share.
Oh, yes, and it's manicured andit's curated.
Yes, people also tend to dothis with their websites, I

(02:09):
think, especially when you arecreating a website, when you're
designing a website, and you goout and you look oh, what am I
supposed to do with my website?
And you go out and you look atyour competitors yeah, me too, I
do this all the time.
I look at competitors, I'm like, and what happens is you build
up a never ending list in yourhead of all the things that you
need to do because other peopleare doing that or those things,

(02:30):
and your objective really is toshould be, especially in
marketing, when your business isto differentiate yourself,
right, not to look at others andbe just like them.
Oh yeah, definitely.
So that is, I hopefully haveconvinced you a bad way to sort
of try to measure your progress.
Yes, now what I want you to dois do you remember the rule of

(02:51):
1% gains?
Yes, yes, yes.
Remember the story I told aboutthe bicycle coach and the
British cycling team?
I was just saying it the otherday in my swim lesson, oh yeah,
mm-hmm.
And how that team went frombeing like a not even a mediocre

(03:12):
team, like a really kind ofbottom tier cycling team on the
world stage, and by implementingwhat a new coach brought to
that team was like 1% gains.
We want to improve every singlething we do by 1%, right, 1%.
And if we do that, we can gofrom being a bottom tier cycling
team to running the world.
Who has?
Who have never won achampionship, never won a tour
de France, I don't think everwon a gold medal in the Olympics

(03:34):
.
We can become a championshipteam if we just focus on
improving everything we do by 1%.
Now is it 1% per day?
1% trial like 1% by?
Do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I mean, I don't thinkthat they measure it that
carefully.
I think the point is we need totake every single thing we do
and how can we just make it alittle bit better?
Now, I think that this kind oflends itself to a method that

(03:59):
you can use to improve yourwebsite also and your SEO.
Yes, what I mean is, instead ofcomparing yourself to others,
other websites, or looking atGoogle seeing who's ranked
higher yes, instead of doingthat, compare your website to
your website yesterday.
Is your website better than itwas yesterday?
Even if just a tiny little bit,you're on the right track.

(04:21):
If you can just keep that frameof mind, that's a lot more
digestible, and I've tried to dothis myself recently with some
of the things I'm working on.
I feel better about myself and,according to that rule of 1%
gains, if you keep doing that,you're going to end up someday
with a kick-ass website yes,right.
And kick-ass SEO yeah, and akick-ass life Do that in all of

(04:43):
life.
So what I should do, rather thanjust give you some grand ideas,
is probably give you somepractical knowledge about what,
specifically in regards to yourwebsite, could you do.
How could you do that?
Yes, right, yes, yes.
I think the biggest rule ofthumb is you can always make

(05:03):
your website easier to use andunderstand for people visiting.
Yes, okay, you can always makeit easier.
I've learned this through bybuilding courses like I can
always make them easier, alwaysbe simpler, always be more
helpful.
So, specifically, what can you?
What would?
What things would you look atSpecifically?
I would say look at yournavigation.

(05:24):
Is your website navigationclear, intuitive, easily
accessible?
And by easily accessible, whatI mean would be no or limited
use of dropdowns.
Don't have your most importantpages inside a dropdown, because
, why?
Because users have to take anextra click just in order to see
that they exist Right, andtherefore so does Google, and,

(05:45):
and Google knows so it's goodfor SEO.
Also, ai bots AI crawlers arenot good at dropdown menus.
So for AI again, take yourimportant pages.
Take them outside of dropdownmenus.
That's good to know.
That in itself is worth theprice of admission.
Put your I would say your leastimportant pages in a dropdown If

(06:09):
you are going to use it,because often we need to use
dropdowns.
We don't have unlimited spaceto create our navigation, so
something needs to go in adropdown.
Make it like your blog or yourFAQ or your about page.
Wait, isn't about page?
Super important it is, but notfor SEO.
Not for SEO, oh, interesting,okay.

(06:30):
So remember, for your website,people are coming there to hire
you.
You have a service that you arepromoting.
Yes, nobody.
I mean some people might be outthere looking for you
specifically.
No, by name.
They are.
In those cases that search isso specific there is very little
competition for it, so theywill find the about page.

(06:51):
But when you're talking about,oh, I'm a children's
photographer in Brooklyn, yourabout page is not important for
that.
Got it, okay, thank you.
So use that as a kind of metricfor which pages are.
When I say important, I meanyour service pages, your money
pages, your conversion pages,thank you.
So another thing you can do foryour site to continually make it

(07:12):
easier for users is yourheadings, so the headings of
your page and your subheadings.
But specifically, imagine ifsomebody were to land on a page
not necessarily your homepage soyour heading has to explain
where they are, what they'relooking at.
The subheadings need to explainbasically the outline of that
page and ideally would answerthe questions that people might

(07:37):
have what is it, what's theservice, what's the price?
Maybe a little bit about you,some samples of your work, etc.
Work, et cetera.
That helps a user understandwhat is on a page if they land
there and they just glance downat the subheadings, which is the
way people consume a website,also very good for AI
optimization.

(07:57):
So headings and subheadings, inthat order, and the rest of
your content.
I would say simpler is better,simple language it's.
I love being sort of liketongue-in-cheek and using humor,
but with your website copy,guess what?
Ai doesn't understand that.
If you're being cheeky itprobably does, but it works a

(08:22):
whole lot better in Google aswell, to be kind of factual.
Also, your CTAs, your call toactions, yes, as simple as
possible.
Make them really simple.
Simple, easy to do, specific.
Don't make people guess as towhat the next step is.
Make it very clear and makethem consistent, okay.

(08:43):
Okay, there's a few things thatyou can focus on.
You're not going to focus onthose things every single day,
but if you can revisit yourwebsite with those things in
mind, your website is going toget better and better and better
.
Yeah, that makes sense, thankyou.
So compare to yesterday, don'tcompare to others.
Next week, we're going to talkmore about AI optimization.

(09:06):
Yes, a-i-o and G-E GEO peopleare starting to call it yes, and
a lot of the things I justmentioned.
Like I said, they are going tobe good.
They are good.
Help getting your site pickedup and cited as sources in AI.
I can't wait for that.
That'll be next week.
Okay, looking forward to it.
Thank you for this one.