March 4, 2025 • 13 mins
Find out what you can do today to help your website or blog's SEO. These are quick wins that you can start working on now and see results.
If you want to show up on Google more often, get more organic website traffic, generate more leads, and make more sales, then you need to get started with SEO today.
Listen in and then get to work making these quick and easy changes to your website.
Register now for the free live SEO class the week of April 28 - Learn what the 3 most common SEO mistakes are that keep you from getting traffic from Google so you can make sure you're not making them.
https://www.etchedmarketing.com/registration-live-seo-class
My free resources, including the Beginner's step-by-step SEO Guide and my free class, are available here.
https://www.etchedmarketing.com/freebies
Join me in Simple SEO Content, my complete SEO and Content Marketing course that teaches you what to do step-by-step. It walks you through the entire process. (complete course)
https://www.etchedmarketing.com/yes
Do you have a question you'd like me to answer on the podcast? Ask it here -
https://forms.gle/Fbrqpmss6gxUnaMj7
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Shure MV7 (00:00):
Hi there and welcome back to the Simple SEO Podcast.
I am your host, Rachel Lentigen,and I'm so glad that you are
here with me today.
Today I want to give you fivequick wins.
Simple, easy things that you cando to help your website start
showing up more often on Googleand hopefully start getting more
(00:22):
organic, that's the free trafficto your site, which should lead
to more leads and more sales.
So let's talk about this.
What can you do?
What can you look at to make achange today?
So the first thing I want you todo is to look at your title tags
and meta descriptions.
If you're not sure where theseare or how you change them or
(00:44):
what they look like, what youcan do is go to Google and just
search your business name.
Now when your listing shows upin the Google search results,
you'll see your title tag andyour meta description.
The title tag should be thefirst one.
first one by the URL, the metadescription should be the
second.
If you're not sure what theseare or what they look like, be
(01:05):
sure to quickly get a copy of myBeginner's Guide to SEO.
It's got pictures of it in thereto make this easier.
That's on the websiteetchedmarketing.
com forward slash freebies.
That link is in the description.
So, you're going to want to lookat your title tags and your meta
descriptions.
The first thing you're going towant to do is to look to see
what do they look like inGoogle.
(01:26):
So that's what we just talkedabout.
You'll go check them out inGoogle.
Now I want you to look and seedo they use a keyword?
Do they have the same keyword ineach one?
Does your message truncate,meaning does Google put a series
of periods, dot, dot, dot,ellipses in there or does Google
(01:46):
change the wording altogether?
What you're going to want to dois go into your website and
you're going to do this on theback end.
So if you're in WordPress,you're probably using the Yoast
SEO plugin.
If you're not yet, that is theone that I recommend.
Um, I know there are otheroptions available.
But Yoast is the one that I'veworked with for years and years,
and the free version of it isgreat.
(02:08):
Um, if you're on Squarespace,you're going to do this in the
marketing section.
If you're on Kajabi or ShowIt,you can also make these changes.
Go into whichever area it isthat you can change your title,
tags and your meta descriptions,and you're going to want to make
sure that they follow bestpractices from an SEO
standpoint.
So that means you want to besure.
(02:31):
That your title tag is a maximumof 60 characters, including
spaces, and that yourmetadescription is a maximum of
160 characters, also includingspaces.
You want to look to make surethat your title tag and
metadescription use the samespace.
Same keyword.
So you want to make sure you'vegot that.
The next step you're going towant to do is to look at the
(02:53):
title tags across your website.
Do you have the same title tagor meta description on multiple
pages?
If so, you're going to want tomake some edits.
Do you have the same title tagor meta description on I just
said that, didn't I?
So it'd be the same title tag ormeta description on multiple
pages.
You want to make sure you editthat because you want to have a
(03:15):
unique one for each page.
Are you using the same keywordin your title text or meta
descriptions across multiplepages of your site?
If you are, you're going to wantto clean that up as well because
Google's only going to show youa maximum of two times for any
given keyword search.
So if you want to have morechances to rank, then you need
to have more.
more keywords that you'retargeting on your website or
(03:37):
your blog.
Are you using keywords that aresuper competitive that maybe if
you actually search the keywordin Google using an incognito
browser window, your site is noteven showing up on page one.
It might not even be on pagetwo.
It's possible you're like onpage five, seven, ten.
(03:57):
In that case, you're going towant to look for a different
keyword because you're not goingto rank for that keyword.
If you're not sure how to figureall of that out, how to
understand it, how to find theright keywords, I highly
recommend that you join me inSimple SEO Content because then
you can learn exactly how to dothis.
You can ask me questions, youknow, in our student group and
you can get a lot of help.
(04:18):
So you're going to want to lookat that.
Look at your title tags and yourmeta descriptions.
Make sure that you're targetingdifferent keywords.
Make sure you're targetingkeywords that you have a good
chance of ranking for.
Then I want you to take anotherlook at the content on your
website.
Like, what pages do you have onyour website?
What keywords are you targeting?
Does it make sense?
Do they align with what somebodywould be searching for?
(04:41):
Like, if I'm targeting aspecific keyword on a page, is
the information on that pagewhat somebody would expect to
see when they land on that page?
You just want to make sure thatfrom a Content or a keyword
targeting strategy standpointthat you're really thinking
about your consumer intent andyou're sending people to the
right page based on the keywordthat you're using to optimize.
(05:03):
So if there's anything that's alittle confusing, you can clean
that up.
The other thing you might wantto look at is if you have any
old content, any old blog poststhat you've had, they've been
there for years, they still gettraffic, they have links built
to them, all of that, but it'snot been.
recently, I would take a look atdoing a refresh and an update on
(05:26):
that.
It doesn't mean you have tochange the keyword, but just
look to make sure is that oldblog post still relevant?
Does it still have the rightinformation?
I do this once a year on mywebsite and I take a look at
everything and I go throughanalytics and I analyze where,
which blog posts are getting themost traffic and I prioritize
from that.
standpoint, the ones getting themost traffic are the first ones
(05:48):
that I work on.
And I go through and I rereadthem and I look to see, is
everything current, is thereanything that I could add, is
there anything I should change,I put a little note at the
bottom that it was, you know,updated on such and such a date
by Rachel so that a reader knowsand so that Google knows,
because I have some blog poststhat I wrote back in 2017 and
(06:10):
2018 that are still ranking thatare still driving great traffic
to the website.
And so that's one of thosethings where you want to make
sure that you are stillproviding really good value and
that it's relevant.
Information you don't want tolose your rankings.
You don't want to lose thattraffic for a really good blog
post So you do want to protectthat by doing a refresh and
(06:31):
taking a look at it now I do geta question once in a while What
happens if when I'm goingthrough this and I'm updating my
SEO and I'm taking a look at myold blog posts And I see that I
have one and it's driving a lotof traffic, but it's not really
relevant to my business anymoreSo I had this situation and I
made the decision to removeSeveral blog posts, one in
(06:56):
particular was driving a ton oftraffic, but the traffic was not
relevant to the business becausethere was no product or service
that it really could tie to.
It ranked in position number onefor, um, a non, like a very
generic query that I did nottruly expect that I would rank
for.
Um, And it drove a lot oftraffic, but the problem was the
(07:19):
people who came only read thatone blog post because it was a
blog post on how to nail yourfirst Facebook Live.
I wrote it back in like 2017 or2018 when Facebook Live was
still really new and people weretrying to understand it.
And I found it amazing that Youknow, seven years later, it was
still driving a lot of traffic,but looking at that page and how
(07:41):
it worked, yes, it was drivingtraffic and it was ranking
really high, but it wasn'tbringing in people who were
interested in learning aboutSEO, it was bringing in people
who were interested in learningabout Facebook Live.
And they weren't really engagingwith other content, even though
I had tried over the years.
I tried to put an opt in onthere that tied to SEO.
(08:02):
I tried to link to other blogposts that might help them with
their overall organic marketingfoundation, all of that.
They just were interested inFacebook Live.
So if you have a situation likethat, you go through and you
look and it's like, Oh my gosh,this post gets so much traffic.
But I don't have anything I cansell.
I don't have anything related toit.
It's not really super helpfulfor my customer today because
(08:24):
maybe you've switched niches oryou've adjusted over the years.
It's okay to remove it.
And I want you to hear me saythat.
It's okay to remove it.
What I would look at is to lookto see are there a bunch of
links to that particular page,that particular blog post.
You can do that by using a toollike Open Site Explorer.
(08:45):
Just Google Open Site Explorer.
And you can take a look at thatand see how many links there
are.
If there are a lot of links thatyou really want to protect, it
may be worth keeping.
that particular post or it maybe worth doing a redirect on it
so that you don't lose thatauthority.
You'd need to do a 301 permanentredirect.
(09:06):
Your problem there is you'reprobably not going to have
something that's super similarto it but you want to redirect
it to the most similar optionthat you have on your blog.
That's a little more advancedstrategy, but if you have a
bunch of links to protect on ablog post that you want to kill
off, you need to protect thoselinks or leave that blog post on
there just because if you takeaway a blog post that's got a
(09:29):
bunch of links, it can actuallyimpact your overall website.
domain authority, which can makeit a little harder for you to
rank for keywords.
Now, if you have a situationlike this and you'd really like
to have me take a look at itwith you and help you and guide
you, just join me in class.
You can find the free class onthe website.
(09:51):
Go through that.
Register then through that linkbecause there is a discount
through the, um, the free classthat you can get to on the
website.
And I want you to make sureyou're a podcast listener.
I want to make sure that you getthat discounted enrollment
option.
There are also some greatbonuses there for you.
So make sure you listen to that.
Register for class and then comein and ask those questions and I
(10:13):
will be happy to help youthrough this because I know
sometimes it can be a littlestressful trying to decide what
to do with an old blog and whatdo I save and what do I get rid
of and all of that and I canhelp you with that.
Alright, so if you are justquick recap some things you can
do to start helping your SEOthat is going to be the main
thing let's focus on will be.
(10:34):
Your title tags and your metadescriptions, making sure you
have a unique one for everypage.
So if you have pages where youdon't have them, go ahead and
write them.
If you have used the samekeyword on all of them, go ahead
and edit them.
You want to use a differentkeyword on each one.
If you are targeting keywordsbut you are not showing up for
those keywords when you searchin Google with an incognito
(10:57):
browser window, you're probablygoing to want to adjust your
keyword targeting because it'sprobably too competitive and
you're probably not going torank for that.
Take a look at your content, seeif there's any edits that you
need to do, anything that youneed to update, any content
that's no longer really superrelevant to your website.
All of those things should startto help you out.
(11:19):
update and help you or start tohelp your SEO program work just
a little bit better.
All right, if you have anyquestions, you can DM me on
Instagram or join me inSimpleSEO content and then we
can talk a whole lot more andget more involved.
Like on Instagram, I can'treally answer a whole lot of
questions.
Like I can give you a little bitof advice, but I can't really
(11:41):
dig in with you the way that Ican when you're one of my
students.
When you're one of my students,I can dig in with you and help
you and review what's going onand really help guide your
strategy.
And that's where you're going toget the most results.
That's going to be the easiestway possible.
So if you're ready, join me inclass.
Otherwise, I will see you backhere next week.
Bye for now.
Hi there and welcome back to the Simple SEO Podcast.
I am your host, Rachel Lentigen,and I'm so glad that you are
here with me today.
Today I want to give you fivequick wins.
Simple, easy things that you cando to help your website start
showing up more often on Googleand hopefully start getting more
(00:22):
organic, that's the free trafficto your site, which should lead
to more leads and more sales.
So let's talk about this.
What can you do?
What can you look at to make achange today?
So the first thing I want you todo is to look at your title tags
and meta descriptions.
If you're not sure where theseare or how you change them or
(00:44):
what they look like, what youcan do is go to Google and just
search your business name.
Now when your listing shows upin the Google search results,
you'll see your title tag andyour meta description.
The title tag should be thefirst one.
first one by the URL, the metadescription should be the
second.
If you're not sure what theseare or what they look like, be
(01:05):
sure to quickly get a copy of myBeginner's Guide to SEO.
It's got pictures of it in thereto make this easier.
That's on the websiteetchedmarketing.
com forward slash freebies.
That link is in the description.
So, you're going to want to lookat your title tags and your meta
descriptions.
The first thing you're going towant to do is to look to see
what do they look like inGoogle.
(01:26):
So that's what we just talkedabout.
You'll go check them out inGoogle.
Now I want you to look and seedo they use a keyword?
Do they have the same keyword ineach one?
Does your message truncate,meaning does Google put a series
of periods, dot, dot, dot,ellipses in there or does Google
(01:46):
change the wording altogether?
What you're going to want to dois go into your website and
you're going to do this on theback end.
So if you're in WordPress,you're probably using the Yoast
SEO plugin.
If you're not yet, that is theone that I recommend.
Um, I know there are otheroptions available.
But Yoast is the one that I'veworked with for years and years,
and the free version of it isgreat.
(02:08):
Um, if you're on Squarespace,you're going to do this in the
marketing section.
If you're on Kajabi or ShowIt,you can also make these changes.
Go into whichever area it isthat you can change your title,
tags and your meta descriptions,and you're going to want to make
sure that they follow bestpractices from an SEO
standpoint.
So that means you want to besure.
(02:31):
That your title tag is a maximumof 60 characters, including
spaces, and that yourmetadescription is a maximum of
160 characters, also includingspaces.
You want to look to make surethat your title tag and
metadescription use the samespace.
Same keyword.
So you want to make sure you'vegot that.
The next step you're going towant to do is to look at the
(02:53):
title tags across your website.
Do you have the same title tagor meta description on multiple
pages?
If so, you're going to want tomake some edits.
Do you have the same title tagor meta description on I just
said that, didn't I?
So it'd be the same title tag ormeta description on multiple
pages.
You want to make sure you editthat because you want to have a
(03:15):
unique one for each page.
Are you using the same keywordin your title text or meta
descriptions across multiplepages of your site?
If you are, you're going to wantto clean that up as well because
Google's only going to show youa maximum of two times for any
given keyword search.
So if you want to have morechances to rank, then you need
to have more.
more keywords that you'retargeting on your website or
(03:37):
your blog.
Are you using keywords that aresuper competitive that maybe if
you actually search the keywordin Google using an incognito
browser window, your site is noteven showing up on page one.
It might not even be on pagetwo.
It's possible you're like onpage five, seven, ten.
(03:57):
In that case, you're going towant to look for a different
keyword because you're not goingto rank for that keyword.
If you're not sure how to figureall of that out, how to
understand it, how to find theright keywords, I highly
recommend that you join me inSimple SEO Content because then
you can learn exactly how to dothis.
You can ask me questions, youknow, in our student group and
you can get a lot of help.
(04:18):
So you're going to want to lookat that.
Look at your title tags and yourmeta descriptions.
Make sure that you're targetingdifferent keywords.
Make sure you're targetingkeywords that you have a good
chance of ranking for.
Then I want you to take anotherlook at the content on your
website.
Like, what pages do you have onyour website?
What keywords are you targeting?
Does it make sense?
Do they align with what somebodywould be searching for?
(04:41):
Like, if I'm targeting aspecific keyword on a page, is
the information on that pagewhat somebody would expect to
see when they land on that page?
You just want to make sure thatfrom a Content or a keyword
targeting strategy standpointthat you're really thinking
about your consumer intent andyou're sending people to the
right page based on the keywordthat you're using to optimize.
(05:03):
So if there's anything that's alittle confusing, you can clean
that up.
The other thing you might wantto look at is if you have any
old content, any old blog poststhat you've had, they've been
there for years, they still gettraffic, they have links built
to them, all of that, but it'snot been.
recently, I would take a look atdoing a refresh and an update on
(05:26):
that.
It doesn't mean you have tochange the keyword, but just
look to make sure is that oldblog post still relevant?
Does it still have the rightinformation?
I do this once a year on mywebsite and I take a look at
everything and I go throughanalytics and I analyze where,
which blog posts are getting themost traffic and I prioritize
from that.
standpoint, the ones getting themost traffic are the first ones
(05:48):
that I work on.
And I go through and I rereadthem and I look to see, is
everything current, is thereanything that I could add, is
there anything I should change,I put a little note at the
bottom that it was, you know,updated on such and such a date
by Rachel so that a reader knowsand so that Google knows,
because I have some blog poststhat I wrote back in 2017 and
(06:10):
2018 that are still ranking thatare still driving great traffic
to the website.
And so that's one of thosethings where you want to make
sure that you are stillproviding really good value and
that it's relevant.
Information you don't want tolose your rankings.
You don't want to lose thattraffic for a really good blog
post So you do want to protectthat by doing a refresh and
(06:31):
taking a look at it now I do geta question once in a while What
happens if when I'm goingthrough this and I'm updating my
SEO and I'm taking a look at myold blog posts And I see that I
have one and it's driving a lotof traffic, but it's not really
relevant to my business anymoreSo I had this situation and I
made the decision to removeSeveral blog posts, one in
(06:56):
particular was driving a ton oftraffic, but the traffic was not
relevant to the business becausethere was no product or service
that it really could tie to.
It ranked in position number onefor, um, a non, like a very
generic query that I did nottruly expect that I would rank
for.
Um, And it drove a lot oftraffic, but the problem was the
(07:19):
people who came only read thatone blog post because it was a
blog post on how to nail yourfirst Facebook Live.
I wrote it back in like 2017 or2018 when Facebook Live was
still really new and people weretrying to understand it.
And I found it amazing that Youknow, seven years later, it was
still driving a lot of traffic,but looking at that page and how
(07:41):
it worked, yes, it was drivingtraffic and it was ranking
really high, but it wasn'tbringing in people who were
interested in learning aboutSEO, it was bringing in people
who were interested in learningabout Facebook Live.
And they weren't really engagingwith other content, even though
I had tried over the years.
I tried to put an opt in onthere that tied to SEO.
(08:02):
I tried to link to other blogposts that might help them with
their overall organic marketingfoundation, all of that.
They just were interested inFacebook Live.
So if you have a situation likethat, you go through and you
look and it's like, Oh my gosh,this post gets so much traffic.
But I don't have anything I cansell.
I don't have anything related toit.
It's not really super helpfulfor my customer today because
(08:24):
maybe you've switched niches oryou've adjusted over the years.
It's okay to remove it.
And I want you to hear me saythat.
It's okay to remove it.
What I would look at is to lookto see are there a bunch of
links to that particular page,that particular blog post.
You can do that by using a toollike Open Site Explorer.
(08:45):
Just Google Open Site Explorer.
And you can take a look at thatand see how many links there
are.
If there are a lot of links thatyou really want to protect, it
may be worth keeping.
that particular post or it maybe worth doing a redirect on it
so that you don't lose thatauthority.
You'd need to do a 301 permanentredirect.
(09:06):
Your problem there is you'reprobably not going to have
something that's super similarto it but you want to redirect
it to the most similar optionthat you have on your blog.
That's a little more advancedstrategy, but if you have a
bunch of links to protect on ablog post that you want to kill
off, you need to protect thoselinks or leave that blog post on
there just because if you takeaway a blog post that's got a
(09:29):
bunch of links, it can actuallyimpact your overall website.
domain authority, which can makeit a little harder for you to
rank for keywords.
Now, if you have a situationlike this and you'd really like
to have me take a look at itwith you and help you and guide
you, just join me in class.
You can find the free class onthe website.
(09:51):
Go through that.
Register then through that linkbecause there is a discount
through the, um, the free classthat you can get to on the
website.
And I want you to make sureyou're a podcast listener.
I want to make sure that you getthat discounted enrollment
option.
There are also some greatbonuses there for you.
So make sure you listen to that.
Register for class and then comein and ask those questions and I
(10:13):
will be happy to help youthrough this because I know
sometimes it can be a littlestressful trying to decide what
to do with an old blog and whatdo I save and what do I get rid
of and all of that and I canhelp you with that.
Alright, so if you are justquick recap some things you can
do to start helping your SEOthat is going to be the main
thing let's focus on will be.
(10:34):
Your title tags and your metadescriptions, making sure you
have a unique one for everypage.
So if you have pages where youdon't have them, go ahead and
write them.
If you have used the samekeyword on all of them, go ahead
and edit them.
You want to use a differentkeyword on each one.
If you are targeting keywordsbut you are not showing up for
those keywords when you searchin Google with an incognito
(10:57):
browser window, you're probablygoing to want to adjust your
keyword targeting because it'sprobably too competitive and
you're probably not going torank for that.
Take a look at your content, seeif there's any edits that you
need to do, anything that youneed to update, any content
that's no longer really superrelevant to your website.
All of those things should startto help you out.
(11:19):
update and help you or start tohelp your SEO program work just
a little bit better.
All right, if you have anyquestions, you can DM me on
Instagram or join me inSimpleSEO content and then we
can talk a whole lot more andget more involved.
Like on Instagram, I can'treally answer a whole lot of
questions.
Like I can give you a little bitof advice, but I can't really
(11:41):
dig in with you the way that Ican when you're one of my
students.
When you're one of my students,I can dig in with you and help
you and review what's going onand really help guide your
strategy.
And that's where you're going toget the most results.
That's going to be the easiestway possible.
So if you're ready, join me inclass.
Otherwise, I will see you backhere next week.
Bye for now.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com