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256: SEO Strategies That Actually Work for Small Business with Lauren Gaggioli · Imperfect Marketing

• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Kendra Korman, and today I'm really excited to be joined by Lauren Gaggioli, right.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Gaggioli like ravioli.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: All right, I want to make sure I got that right.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for joining me.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited to have you today.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Just to give all of our listeners and watchers a little bit of your background, lauren is an online entrepreneur who loves building online businesses and supporting her fellow digital solopreneurs as they share their gifts with the world.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: She's a big believer in intentional living.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: She created the online course Big why Life, which you can.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Big why lifecom, to help folks from all walks of life create their personal mission statement and support healthy habits to support living a life of purpose.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: She is also and what we're going to be mostly talking about today and organic content marketing expert, having leveraged SEO and organic marketing to grow and sell her first business higher scores test prep which is very cool which was an online ACT ACT prep company.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: So she is also the host of a new pop, newer podcast, cause it's been out for a little while now Um, the digital entrepreneurs toolkit, so be sure to check.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I am thrilled to be here, Kendra.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm really excited for our conversation.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So let's just kick off with the obvious thing.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Right, you are busy and have a purpose-driven life, right, but you're focusing on SEO.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, seo is more of a long game, it is Right.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: So, talk to me about why you choose that over other tactics to focus on.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: So it's not that I would never leverage social or that I wouldn't have a podcast, which is decidedly difficult to rank for for SEO purposes rank for for SEO purposes.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: So the reason that I started there with my second company was that when I back solved for the success of my first one, I realized that I threw a lot of spaghetti at the walls I was flinging constantly and that consistently drew people in and converted them for the pages where I had keyword research to back me.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: I had written a really helpful article that was in front of a paywall right.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Like nobody had to enter their email.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: They could ask a question and get an answer from me.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Since you're asking questions about when to take the ACT, would you like me to also share this amazing lead magnet of 35 strategies to help you get a higher score?
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: And a lot of people said yes, and then they were in my email list and then I could draw them through and teach them all the things such that they could make a wise choice when it came to who to prepare with.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: And so it's this really lovely thing where, if you're standing there feeling like you're screaming into the void on the internet, there's data to support what you should make next.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: You can know exactly how many people are searching in a month, as well as how hard it's going to be for that piece of content to rank, and then you can take that piece that's going to take a while to get off the blocks, chunk it up, toss it out into social in different ways, leverage it on a podcast you can do so many different things but I believe that if you're going to feed someone, you should feed Google first, not Zuck, not Elon Musk.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Take a step back and think about who you're creating content for.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Do it on a platform you own first.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: So I love so much that you're talking about there that I do want to emphasize a few things.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, notice everybody that Lauren talked about getting people to her page to get familiar with her content, where they got a lead magnet and then she nurtured them.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, right, so you know, I I talk about how social media is rented land and that if you want to seriously grow your business, especially if you're in a relationship driven business, social media is not the place to do it.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, it helps you get some reach.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Google and SEO even more targeted reach right, because people are in market or in market searching right or at that point in the funnel that they're searching.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And again, it's about getting them off of those platforms and keeping them on a platform you own, which is email marketing, and I think that that is huge.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan, but I think that that's really important to highlight and stress and pull out of there is that SEO is the reach tool there in your example, right?
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: So I think that that's fantastic say, if I may, that getting people to stay with you is such a win, but the thing that if you're writing really quality content, the ultimate underlying piece of it is that you are reaching out human to human.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: You're using a computer screen to do it, but you can alleviate someone's pain, and I think so many of us who are in marketing sometimes we go I'm marketing and then it feels slimy and salesy because you're like oh, I have to position my stuff, just reach out with heart and connect.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: And I think, too, this is one of the reasons that SEO often feels slimy.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: When you start looking at hoodie bro marketers who are out there selling their wares, you're like OK, I got people to my site, you built my traffic, but I got people to my site.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: You built my traffic, but I didn't increase my bottom line.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: And so SEO is the starting point, but it is about completing the virtuous cycle, and that includes you being compensated fairly for your work.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: So it's a whole thing, and if anyone's like I can get you more traffic, that's not actually the game.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: It's can you get more people to stick with you.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: That will ultimately end up buying from you because you have shown yourself to be someone who is a beacon in your industry and can solve the problem they have.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely absolutely questions, but ultimately like we don't get paid unless you buy something, so just something to keep in mind.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about some seo best practices or principles that people can start doing and working into their site if they're looking to rank higher Absolutely.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: So I think you used kind of a relative term higher.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Well, and again, that was in the name of my test prep company.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I'm very used to looking at data points and so for you to rank higher, it's a really good opportunity right now to take a step back and benchmark your website and go what am I even doing right now?
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: So I have a free audit on my website that I can give you the link for and you can put it in the show notes.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: It is a free, diy website audit.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: You can go through three modules, really quickly get a snapshot of how your site is performing.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: And that's the first step.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: And there's kind of a wrinkle here because sometimes people will look at their site and they'll go, oh, I'm getting traffic.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And when they look at the keywords that they're ranking for which again the tools that are free that I mentioned in this audit they will show you what you're ranking for and how much traffic is coming from them.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: If it's your name, that's actually a problem, because if we want our site to be a tool of discovery, you want people to find you when they have a problem, but they don't yet know your name and they are asking the question, not asking specifically for you, or they're asking for what you do, but not you by name, and so that's like a secondary step, right?
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: You want to look at how much traffic you're getting and then go oh, is it only navigational traffic?
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: People who already know who I am, because we want our websites to be our number one salesperson and for it to like, integrate seamlessly with Google's ecosystem.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Where he goes, this person, if you're asking that question, this person's the one you want to get it from, get that information from.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: So that would be the first step Benchmark your website.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Next, after you've looked at the keywords you're ranking for, you want to think about the things that your ideal client asks right before they buy, and you want to do some keyword research.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: My favorite tool is Ahrefs to do keyword research in, but they recently gutted their free version of their keyword research tool.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, we have lost granularity there.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I use it for my clients.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: I use their paid version.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: It's still great, but SEMrush has a free 10-day trial that you can go in.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Start typing in the queries you think people are asking when they are getting ready or doing the research or identifying that they have the pain point that you saw.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: The thing that is beautiful about Google as compared to social and I'm saying Google instead of search because, let's face it, he owns 97.5% of the market.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: When you are looking at the play, you are looking at a person who has already identified the problem they have.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: You don't have to educate them that they have this problem.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Not only do they have a problem, they have a problem and they are actively seeking some sort of relief from the problem.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Whether it's an actual solution or just tips and tricks, it doesn't matter.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: That is a different mindset than kind of banging into people in the social algorithm and going, hey, do you like this?
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Hey, do you want that Right?
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Or here's some helpful information, and hoping it hits the right person at the right time.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: So I like to think of social as more of that community building platform where you stay connected and stay top of mind, provided the algorithm dishes you up.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: You can be more edutainment, but brass tacks lives on your website and you can really connect with people, but you can only connect with them when you are using the language that they use, and that's where keyword research is really powerful.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: It's like the best avatar exercise ever, yeah.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: It's so important.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's really stressing when you're identifying your target audience, you need to talk to them.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Talk to someone in your target.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: If you don't have a business big enough where you feel comfortable or you want to change your business a little bit and say you want a different target audience, talk to someone who you would love to work with.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Get their wording, their thoughts, their perspective.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I mean that's just huge.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: And this when you do keyword research, you can see how many people are using the exact language and the precise phrasing they're using.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I call it linguistic mirroring.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Like we know that when we're in a room with someone, if we sort of mirror their body language, it creates this no like and trust factor on sort of that deeper level.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: This is a way to do that with your language and you can see.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: I had a friend who went through my course and he said he was always talking about recurring income, recurring income, recurring income.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: And he did the keyword research and he went oh my gosh, everybody's saying recurring revenue, like exponentially more people were using that language.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: And he shifted it.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: And it's not that he's going to rank for that particular term, that would be a hard term to actually rank for.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: However, when he's just kibitzing, it gives him information to allow him to connect on that person's level.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: I think keyword research is a beautiful way to see where the other side of the bridge is that you're trying to build towards your services.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: That's fantastic and it's interesting.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: So we're talking a lot about using the words that they're using.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Convertkit, which is becoming kit, may have already become kit, but they did a state of the creator economy for 2024.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that they did is they actually said.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: They said last year they made the prediction TikTok will be a preferred platform for new creators.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Next year they were wrong and the headline for the section that they have is step aside TikTok.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Written content is the clear winner and written content seems to be a big go-to when you're talking about seo, right?
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Absolutely so.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Um, I'm sorry, so do you have more best practices or things?
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: So we're going to do keyword research.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk in the words that they're using and really searching for.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the next thing is to create written content and it doesn't mean so a lot of people.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: I had a client who has he's been podcasting for years.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: He has 15 different podcasts and he's like we're getting traffic but it's kind of like spotty, no one piece is like the hallmark, the benchmark piece that's driving all the traffic.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: But he said we're sort of like middling in so many pieces that we're actually getting high volume but it's just not concentrated.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: And they were trying to think of how to like reposition stuff.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: And they're like so do we go back and like re-record podcasts?
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Or like what do we do?
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: They were like how do we take all of this content we've created over the last 10 years and do something with it?
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: And I said you can plus up your podcast posts, you can add additional videos, you can have these more multimedia posts, but they have to be in a container of words that, if anybody wants, like the nitty gritty of all the things you can do, search on page SEO best practices.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: So this is like how to use your headers, how to do internal linking, having outbound links, putting embed.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I always do my front-facing content through YouTube and make sure that my description is great and I have backlinks from YouTube.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I'm not building a YouTube channel, but I'm leveraging YouTube as my host, because Google owns YouTube, and so by sort of creating this really dynamic, singular post that's anchored through text but also has other things to keep people on the page and always lands them with an opt-in that makes sense from that piece, then that gives you the ability to really start to elevate yourself.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: So your site's organization is really important.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: I always say your site needs to be three, the three Fs it needs to be functional, fresh and findable.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: And so functional is like the technical piece fresh Podcasts are great for keeping a site fresh, even if they don't drive a ton of traffic themselves.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: And then the findable bit is making sure it's formatted for bots, making sure you have SEO optimization.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: The last thing I will say is that, while the on-page SEO tools or strategies there's so many of them and they are timeless and they will help you write better content because they keep you linear.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: So it's writing for humans first, but bots as well creating some sort of arc and transformation in your piece.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Creating some sort of arc and transformation in your piece.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: The second you hit published.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Please go to Google Search Console and submit the URL that you just published into Google Search Console.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: And if you haven't set up Google Search Console, yes, that's step one, but that will get you indexed faster.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: There are so many sites out there.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I think that last count that Ahrefs did it was like 96% of websites on the internet get zero traffic from Google and like another percent and a half get something like 10 hits a month.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Just do better than that group that's not doing anything and you can start to rank and I'm saying this as someone who ranked against the Kaplans, Princeton Reviews, khan Academies, the revolution preps of the world.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: They are big guys with huge marketing ad spends and I did it organic as a solopreneur, and I got 16,000 hits a month in the heyday for like two years running.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: It's like you can do this.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: You don't have to do everything right, Just a little right and you can rank Okay.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I love your experience because it's real.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with solo.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: How are you able to do that?
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I think that's so, so important.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Let's talk.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: One of the things that we talked about was benchmarking your website.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, so you got to start there.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: How do you really identify your strategy when it comes to SEO?
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Because I'll just give you an example.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, one of my clients is like, well, we don't rank for this word anymore.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, as yet, let me take it out of everything.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Well, the board doesn't like that.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I know the board doesn't like that, but then you can't rank for it, like you're not going to come up for a word that doesn't exist on your site.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: And so, from an SEO strategy standpoint, from a strategic standpoint of the organization, they were moving in the right direction, but from an SEO standpoint, they were totally like hurting themselves and shooting themselves in the foot because the regular people that they need traffic from are using the word.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: They had me take off the site.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: So that was my next question I was going to say is this word still relevant to them and is it what the common right?
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: This totally goes to the curse of knowledge right?
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: You want to seem elevated?
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Well, unless you are pitching to your peers who use your same lingo, get off your high horse.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Like and it's kind of what I was saying before like you need to know the other side of the chasm that you are bridging and you need to know the exact side of the chasm that you are bridging and you need to know the exact point you are landing the bridge so that you can bring the people who are standing over there on a distant shore stranded and need what you have.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: You've got to bring them to you, but that starts by going to them, and so you can write content that actually ranks for both terms by being really clear and clever and creating the transition and saying hey, I saw you ask this question about this thing.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Totally get, why you call it that.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: I just want to clarify something about why it's incorrect and appropriate.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Like, whatever the context is, these pieces are supposed to be educational.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: You can leverage the keyword research to help you be more educational and bring people into your circle of trust, right.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: They come across the barrier and they come in, and now they're part of your community and they're like I'm one of the enlightened ones.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: You taught me something that's amazing.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: I wonder what else you can teach me.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, you have a service for that?
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Great, let me hand you money, like.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: This is the play.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: But if you insist on standing on your soapbox and saying it's not that term, great, you will be preaching to an audience of none.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Such a shame, though.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: What an opportunity missed for them.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think, too, this is where keyword research is really helpful, because you can like put two terms side by side and be like this many people search it a month, and it's this hard to rank for this.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Many people search this other term a month, and it's this hard to rank for this.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Many people search this other term a month, and it's this hard to rank for.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Which would you prefer?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: And then they can decide with data points.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm looking to test it in keyword research.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Definitely test the summarized nature, yeah, so, okay, let's talk about something that I love to talk about all the time, um, and that's AI.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: So, if.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I'm looking to generate content um, or if I'm looking to rank um.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: I'm, you know, maybe I ask chat, gpt or cloudai to help me optimize the page or write the content.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on AI and SEO?
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: So, from a search perspective, I am currently hating the AI generated like blurbs at the top, because what we're seeing is that sites are getting the same number of impressions but fewer click-throughs, because people are coming and they're getting the information from this like aggregate blurb and then they're running away and it's leading to what I've called the beige-ification of information.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: It's like everything's sort of pooling, coming together, coming away from more extremes, and not extremes in like a bad way, but just like disparate opinions, and I think it's kind of going to do the.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: It's going to create an information silo as well, where, if it all looks the same and it all feels the same, and it's all I want writing to have flair and panache and I want, like rigorous examination of things.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: If I want movie times, I don't care, jenny, I had a way.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: But if I want a movie review, understanding the perspective of the person who wrote it and understanding what other movies they like, that helps me understand whether or not I think their opinion is valid for my choice, and so I'm concerned about where that might lead.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Another sort of wrinkle of this I'm a homeschooling mom.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: My kids don't have devices.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: We watch TV we're not that crunchy but they don't have their own individual devices.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: And that is a choice at this stage because I don't love what's happening on social, where we're only seeing things that reinforce our beliefs.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: I want to raise critical thinkers, as Julie Bogart says.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: I want kids who can examine and I think we're losing that so broadly.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: I don't love what it's doing and I think the little guy, I think us solopreneurs are going to get hit hardest at first because they think corporate voices and larger entities have more sway in the AI.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: You know gen AI space.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: That said, I love to write, like I'm writing a novel, like it's one of my favorite things to do.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: I create my own content on my site.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I really genuinely enjoy the process of creation.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: I don't leverage AI yet, but I think if you are going to use it as a tool, that's fine, as long as you are putting your own voice and thoughts in it.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: You're bringing it back more towards you rather than that middle ground of just kind of banal like here are some words, say our words.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Here's some content Like I don't love it from that Like, and I also feel like AI is sort of the tinfoil thing we see on coffee shop walls of like AI helping stupid people stupid people make stupid content faster, like you know.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Like Is it just volume?
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Is that really what we want with our creation?
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: And again, I think some people are using it responsibly.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are not.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: You look at these websites that are out there and you're like this has been entirely created by a bot and it's also wrong.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: So I think we have to.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: If you're putting the human piece back in the mix, if you're bringing your knowledge to bear, great, that is fine, and you won't get dinged.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: If you are making it enough of you In search, though, if it is entirely, the irony is AI is at the top, but if your site leverages AI content exclusively, your site will not show up in search.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I think there's a little like double talk going on there.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: From Google's perspective, I think we really have to like almost step back with these amazing tools and go okay, but why am I doing this?
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: And to my personal value system says I would rather create less and do it better, and wholly personally at the moment it might change.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I'm open to it changing with you.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: I think that the people who are phoning it in, who are one of my friends Brenda Meller is a LinkedIn expert.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: She calls out these people that are using bots to do comments on her LinkedIn posts all the time.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, somebody who was in a foreign country added a comment about how great this association that we're a part of, called Inforum, is for women connecting with other women.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: And we're like you weren't at this event, you're not a member of Inforum, like what do you know about the organization?
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: And then they like rephrase her question again.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Or her question oh my gosh, it's horrible.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: It's horrible, but again, that's not good.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Use of AI, right?
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know again, yes, less is better.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: If you're going to just use AI to generate stuff, yeah, but if it's your content, your experience, your expertise and your voice and you're having AI put it together for you, or that's very different.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: And I think it comes down to those inputs, but I think 100% the basification is real, right.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I mean it is real because people are phoning it in and personally I actually think that smaller organizations will have.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: This is one thing I think I differ with you on is smaller organizations will have a better chance at standing out because the larger organizations are leveraging that out of it to save time.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: They don't have that passion, that energy, that expertise that you have as a solopreneur to really add that content and that flavor and that information.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Because I truly believe that most AI generated content should be penalized for being AI generated content.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I think that there's two different types of content.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: That is AI, there's AI assisted and AI generated, and I think AI assisted is an entirely different ballpark.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: That's where things I think are going to stand out and I think it's really going to create a more even playing field for smaller businesses and solopreneurs to stand out in a crowded space because we care.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: We know our stuff and we're going to make it to share that and if it's AI assisted, because you know I'm a perfectionist and I can't get my blog done.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, great.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: So I will say, the reason I say I think the little guy is going to get hurt is because in the Google docs that were leaked, they did show that websites that were independent were like flagged and everybody went.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: But why and I think you know, knowing Google and understanding who has ad spends, you kind of go well, are we going to get like pushed down?
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: And if nobody can find you, can you stand out?
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Which is where I used to say like I don't really need a social platform.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: In the face of AI, I'm kind of like oh, maybe I do need a social platform, maybe I do need to at least build some presence and diversify.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Even though I don't love playing in social for business I much prefer to just be out there hanging out with my friends sending funny GIFs but I think it is important and with my podcast, I have done that.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: I've created an account for it, even though I hadn't had one for a really long time, and I'm going to be leveraging Pinterest as well, because Pinterest is a search engine.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: I'm keeping it real tight, but I do want to build a presence there, because social search is now becoming a thing, and so I think AI is shaking stuff up.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Does it mean we shouldn't create content and we should change the flavor of our content to appeal?
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: No, I think to your point.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: We should all almost become more stuck to our guns, more just really clear about where we stand.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: And, honestly, I'm always the latest adopter.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: It drives some of my friends in the entrepreneurial space nuts.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: They're like why have you not tried this tool yet?
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: And I'm like because I have children and I teach them and I have a business and I only have bandwidth for what I have bandwidth for and I know my limits.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: And also I remember the Periscope Meerkat days and oh where are they?
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: I had to get on those platforms.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: No thanks, I just waited around and did some Facebook Lives later.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's crazy to watch the turnover and I don't think it's going to get slower in the next few years, and so we just have to buckle up and find our people as best we can in lots of different ways.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah yes, yeah, the link, farming and stuff like that.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my gosh, it was I mean white text on a white background I'm like, okay, guys, if you build good content you won't be penalized.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I remember I fixed a client site who they had.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Um, they had done just like every good practice back in the early 2000s, like all the good ones, and then they're like, well, we're not ranking that much anymore.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I know, because you did all this bad stuff, we need to clean this all up and just add valuable content for real people.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I also think too.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we think we need to create more.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: I think Google loves a glow up.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: One of the things that came out in those leaked papers was that if a page has been updated 20 times, it's more likely to rank.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Now do not go and update your site 20 times within five minutes.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: But one of the pages that ranked so high on my higher scores website was a test dates page that had the ACT and SAT tests on the same page, which was really rare.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: When I launched in 2014, you couldn't find that, but I didn't put dates in the URL, based on my amazing website designer.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: She was like I found this keyword.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: You need to have this page.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: It ended up driving the majority of our traffic and all I would do every year, twice a year I would update the dates and I would kill old content.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: I'd change the header to include dates, include the years, and I would beef up the information on that page.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I would continue to add and elevate what was there.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: But they could find test dates, registration deadlines and scores back dates all in one place for both tests, and I had a PDF they could print that had my URL on it, so they didn't even have to sign up for that.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I probably could have gated that, but I wanted high school counselors to be able to have it, and so that page is responsible for, I would guess, thousands of dollars like that singular page, and it's because it had those updates.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: So it's best practices when you're doing like annual content, go back.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: If you have seasonal content, update it every year.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Give it a glow up.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Google loves it.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Prune, take pages down that are no longer relevant.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Don't be afraid to say this is no longer a thing.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Cut it out and then redirect it somewhere and then submit that URL back to Google so your site is fresh and indexed.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Every single time when you update pages, submit those URLs into Google Search Console again, because it's an update.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Google will crawl it and go oh, this is fresh.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you for taking care of your site, and fresh is one of the Fs.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: So, you got to keep it clean.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: All right, so I know we've been talking forever and we're way over time, but that's okay, I'm sorry.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: No, no, it's been an awesome conversation and there's just so much more I can think to ask you and do, but I know that some people are thinking about when are you going to be done?
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: So, anyway, so we'll be wrapping this up, but so, lauren, there is a question that I ask all of my guests, and that is this show is called imperfect marketing, because marketing is anything but a perfect science.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: So what has been your biggest marketing lesson learned along the way?
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: The things that come easy, go easy and the things that take a little longer to build.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: They stick around longer, and so I can understand why SEO is not the play for everybody.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: But when I back saw for success in my first company, it is the thing that drove the majority of my sales and my visibility, and I was able to do it with imperfect action.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: I used to oh my gosh, I can't even tell you how many mistakes I made on my first site, but 97.3%, or whatever it is, of websites on the internet get less than 10 hits of traffic from Google a month.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Like, oh my goodness friends, like, get in there, get a piece of the pie, and it might be a little ways down the line, but submitting to Google search console makes the biggest difference.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: So just start creating.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Even if it's one piece a month, that's great.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: Just do that.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: That not just imperfect action, but small baby steps that grow and build over time.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: There's compound interest in that, and so don't forget to get started, don't wait till it's perfect, and also don't chuck crud at the wall.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: You know like, make it good and you're probably not gonna go viral, but you can still have a healthy bottom line if you do it right.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: White people Number for your business.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if it's all right, a million people.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: We're never going to buy from you.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: It doesn't really make any sense.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: So this has been fantastic.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Lauren, thank you so much for all of your tips and insights.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Be sure to check out the show notes, wherever you're listening or watching, to get that DIY audit worksheet from Lauren.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: We'll have those links and we'll have a couple other links to stuff that we've talked about in the show notes, so be sure to check it out.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: If you learned something today and I hope that you did it would really help me out if you would rate and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for tuning in and have a great rest of your day.