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.
If you’re just getting started with SEO, sign up for Chrissy’s upcoming SEO Crash Course at 2 pm EDT on July 22, 2024.
Listen to the Episode
Show Notes
In this episode, Chrissy Rey breaks down Search Engine Optimization (SEO) into manageable steps, helping website owners overcome the overwhelming aspects of SEO. Learn practical strategies to improve your website’s visibility in search results without getting lost in technical jargon.
“SEO is not about being perfect. It’s going to be about making steady improvements over time. Because every blog post you write, every page that you optimize, and every change that you make to your website to make it more user-friendly. All of those things add up.”
Key Takeaways
- SEO is about making your website visible and attractive to search engines
- User-friendly websites often perform better in search rankings
- Quality content trumps quantity in SEO efforts
- Building backlinks is a gradual process that requires patience and consistency
- Understanding website analytics is crucial for improving SEO performance
Topics Covered
- [00:01:35] What is SEO and why it matters
- [00:02:57] Making your website user-friendly
- [00:05:23] Knowing and researching your keywords
- [00:09:59] Using keywords wisely in your content
- [00:10:49] Creating quality content for SEO
- [00:11:59] Optimizing page titles and meta descriptions
- [00:13:15] Building backlinks to your website
- [00:15:26] The importance of local SEO
- [00:17:03] Being patient and consistent with SEO efforts
- [00:17:48] Learning to love website analytics
Resources Mentioned
- Google PageSpeed Insights
- Google Keyword Planner
- Keywords Everywhere
- Moz
- Google Analytics
- Google Business Profile
Want to dive deeper into SEO? Check out Chrissy’s upcoming SEO Crash Course on July 22nd, designed for beginners with practical, actionable steps.
Transcript
[00:00:09]
[00:00:09] Hey, there website warriors! Welcome back to Website Success. I’m Chrissy Rey, and today we are tackling 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 about overcoming SEO overwhelm because let’s face it, SEO can feel like a big, scary monster sometimes. I do SEO all the time and I still feel a little overwhelmed by it from time to time. So trust me, I’ve been there.
[00:00:52] Now, before we jump in, I do want you to take a deep breath. Seriously, do it with me. Breathe in. And breathe out. All right. There you go. Ready to start? Well, let’s go.
[00:01:04] So what exactly is SEO? What does it stand for? You probably already know, but just in case 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 to search engines like Google and Bing, and the other ones that are out there. There are lots of search engines out there. And the goal is going to be when someone searches for something related to your business or whatever your website is about, that your website is going to pop up near the top of the results.
[00:01:35] Now, I know some of you might be thinking, “Chrissy, I am not a tech wiz! I can barely update my website. Don’t even ask me to do SEO!” But trust me, I get it. I used to be in your position. I have been doing websites for a very long time, but SEO is a little bit newer. It can be a big maze of technical jargon and having to figure out all of these different moving parts, but you don’t need to be a tech genius to do some basic SEO.
[00:02:04] And in fact, a lot of really good SEO practices are just about creating great content that’s good for humans and a user-friendly website. These are things that you’re probably already working on.
[00:02:17] Now I’m going to break it down into 10 simple steps that you can take to start improving your SEO without getting completely overwhelmed.
[00:02:27] Step one is going to be to make your website user-friendly. Something that might surprise you, is that a lot of SEO is about making your website easy to use. Google wants to send users to websites 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 things like whether or not the website is mobile friendly, how fast the page loads, if there are links between the different pages in the website and whether or not you have broken links.
[00:02:57] 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 often going to be referred to as technical SEO, which as the name implies, is a little bit technical, but don’t get totally overwhelmed cause I’m not going to dive too deep into it. But there are two things that I want you to check as far as the technical SEO.
[00:03:21] And the first one is: is your website mobile friendly? Check the website on a few different mobile devices. So check it on your phone, check it on a friend’s phone, check it on a tablet or check it on a few different mobile devices and really consider: does it look good? Can you read the text without having to pinch and zoom? Can you tap on the buttons without having to, again, pinch and zoom? Can you navigate the site easily? Does the menu work? Sometimes menus don’t work on mobile devices.
[00:03:49] Now, if you answered yes to all of those questions, then your website is probably mobile friendly. And if it’s not, you might need to fix that, which again, can be a little bit technical or you might want to hire somebody to fix it for you.
[00:04:02] Now, the second thing I want you to check is whether or not the page loads quickly. And there’s a free tool that you can use the check that it’s going to be.
[00:04:08] Google’s PageSpeed Insights, which you can find at pagespeed.web.dev. And it’s really good tool that’ll give 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 a score, at least a 70 on mobile. My personal clients, I usually try to get into the eighties and nineties, but not everybody can get there. It just depends on what you’ve got with your website, but it can be kind of tricky because it does require knowing some of the underlying tech and being able to tweak things with the underlying tech. And there are some website builders where you just can’t do that. You can do it with WordPress, and some other website builders, but some website builders like Squarespace and Wix, you can’t really do much with the underlying tech because it is what it is.
[00:04:55] One thing I want you to check with this, 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. And I did an entire episode on that very topic. So if you want to learn more about it, go back and listen to episode 29 and then have a go at optimizing some of the images for your website to make it a little bit faster.
[00:05:23] All right. Let’s move on to step number two, which is to know your keywords. Keywords are one of the foundations of SEO and keywords are words and phrases that people are going to type into the search engines. When they’re looking for a business or a website like yours.
[00:05:40] If you want to know the best way to figure out what your keywords are, I’ll tell you the secret. It is to ask your target audience. So you probably know at least a few people in your target audience, at least I hope you do. Go straight to the source and ask them what they. Are using to find a business like yours or what they would use to find a business like yours.
[00:06:00] Now if for some reason you can’t or if you’re an introvert and you just don’t want to ask your target audience for input. Trust me, I’ve been there. I’m an introvert myself. Then you just have to kind of put yourself in their shoes and try to come up with some of those keywords yourself.
[00:06:14] Or you can try asking AI to give you some ideas. Before you do that, though, you do need to let the AI know as much as possible about your business. And your target audience, including their wants, needs, challenges, pain points, buying behaviors. All of those things. And then you can ask it for a list of keywords that, that target audience might use to find a business like yours.
[00:06:35] Now use your target audience, or yourself, or AI, or some combination of those three things and find some keywords. Start small, for example, if you have a women’s clothing boutique, one of your keywords might be very simply “women’s clothing boutique.” Start with a couple of keywords and then try to come up with a list of about 10 or 20 keywords. Before you move on to step three.
[00:07:00] Which is going to be to research your keywords.
[00:07:04] So once you have a list of good keywords, then you should try to make sure that they’re actually good keywords that people are probably going to be using to find a website like yours. And you can use a tool like Google’s free Keyword Planner to give you some sense of how many searches those keywords are getting. You can go in and research each of the different keywords, and it’ll give you an idea of how many searches there have been in the past month for that particular keyword. It’s a free tool and it’s available if you have a Google Ads account, which is also free. You don’t have to pay for an actual Google ad to get the keyword planner.
[00:07:41] When you’re doing your research on your keywords, you do want to make sure that the keywords are getting at least a few searches. I usually look for keywords that are getting at least 10 searches. For a lot of my clients, I usually make my minimum 50 to a hundred. It really just depends on who their target audience is and what their services are and what the relative traffic might be for something like that.
[00:08:03] Another really cool feature of it is that it’s also going to give you suggestions for additional keywords that you can use. If you put in women’s clothing boutique, it might also suggest. Things like dresses for women or jeans for women or other words like that. So it’s going to give you suggestions that you can use. So if you’re really stuck On your keywords 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 of other keywords that you can use, that you can also research.
[00:08:31] There are other tools out there that you can use. I use a tool called Moz, which is at moz.com.
[00:08:37] And if you’re looking for something really inexpensive, cause you’re just getting started, you don’t really want to invest a lot in the SEO tools that are out there. A really good tool that I like is called Keywords Everywhere. It has a Chrome extension. I think it’s got extensions for other browsers as well, but I use it as a Chrome extension and it’s, it’s super helpful. It gives you all kinds of information about keyword difficulty and more insights into the amount of searches that you’re getting for a keyword. But it’s only $27 a year for their least expensive plan. So definitely check it out.
[00:09:11] All right. Let’s move on to step four, which is going to be to use your keywords wisely. Once you’ve got your keywords and you’ve made sure that they’re actually good keywords, the next thing is to actually use them. And this is where a lot 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 on the same page they take, you know, they’ve got 20 keywords and they just throw them all together on one page and try to use the keywords like every sentence. Don’t do that because it makes your content sound robotic. It makes it sound like AI wrote it and was trying to stuff the keywords in there. And it doesn’t work. And a lot of the search engines know what you’re trying to do. They don’t like it. They know when you’re keyword stuffing, they don’t like it. And you’re probably going to rank lower if you’re stuffing those keywords in there.
[00:09:59] So you want to use them naturally instead. Try to use those keywords within your page titles, your headings, throughout your text, but only where they make sense. Don’t just stuff them in there just to have those keywords in there.
[00:10:12] Always, always, always prioritize writing for humans over writing for search engine. If you can’t get the keyword in there naturally, then you might want to rethink which keyword you’re using. Because the content that you’re writing should be able to use those keywords.
[00:10:27] All right now, step five is to create quality content. And so again, you want to write content for humans, not for the search engines. So let’s talk a little bit more about that, because good SEO is not just about the keywords. It’s going to be about creating valuable, relevant content that your audience actually wants to read or watch if you’re making videos.
[00:10:49] You need to think about the questions that your ideal clients often ask you. So again, go back to talk to your target audience and you can get some of this information. Once you know what they want to ask you, can you write a blog post or a video answering that question? So for our women’s clothing boutique example, you might want to create content like “This Summer’s Bathing Suit Trends” or “Wardrobe Staples for Women Over 50” or something along those lines.
[00:11:15] Just remember that quality trumps quantity every time. It’s going to be better to publish one really, really good in depth blog post a month then four mediocre ones. Google really loves detailed and helpful content that really addresses the user’s needs.
[00:11:32] All right. Let’s move on to step six, which is to optimize your page titles and meta descriptions. And I know that sounds very technical, but it’s not, it’s not super technical, especially if you are using a website builder. So your page title and your meta description, those are usually going to be what actually shows up in the search results. And they’re sort of like your, your websites, elevator pitch to the potential visitors.
[00:11:59] Your page title should include your main keyword if possible, if it, if it fits naturally, usually near the beginning of the title of possible. And it should also clearly describe what the page is about. You do want to try to keep it short, so under about 60 characters, because otherwise it’s going to get cut off in the search results.
[00:12:19] Now the meta description is usually going to be a brief summary of the page content. It’s going to be maybe a couple of sentences. And it should be compelling and it should include your keyword and it should also encourage an action specifically getting people to click through to your website. As far as length again, you don’t want it 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 that because you don’t want it to be too short. You want it to be just right.
[00:12:52] Most website builders like WordPress Squarespace, Wix they have tools that allow you to edit those elements. So you don’t need to learn how to code to change the page title or the meta description.
[00:13:04] All right. Step seven is going to be to start building backlinks. And if you’re wondering what the heck is a backlink, it is SEO speak for links from other websites that point to your website.
[00:13:15] A link to your website lets search engines know that your content is valuable because other websites are linking to it. But one potential downfall with backlinks is that they are not all created equal. A link from a reputable and relevant website in your industry is worth all kinds of SEO points. And it’s much better than a link from a random, low quality spammy website.
[00:13:42] How do you get good backlinks? This is a very frequently asked question for me. How do you get those links? There are a few ways that you can start. And number one is to create share-worthy content. So if you create content, that’s super helpful, very interesting, a good read for humans, then people are going to want to share it. They’re going to want to link to it. They’re going to want to let other people in your target audience know about that content, so they’re going to share that link.
[00:14:09] Another good way to get backlinks is with guest posting. Offer to write articles for other blogs in your industry, or other websites , but most are usually going to allow you to include a link back to your website in your author bio or somewhere else in the blog post.
[00:14:25] Another good way to get backlinks is with local business directories. So make sure that your business is listed in relevant online directories for your area or for your industry.
[00:14:36] Partnerships and collaborations is another way to get backlinks. So if you work with other businesses or influencers in your niche, a lot of times, those relationships are going to lead to 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.
[00:14:53] Another way to get backlinks is to ask your network. Ask your friends, ask your colleagues, ask your neighbors. Ask them to share it. Don’t be afraid to ask those people if they’d be willing to link to your website when it’s relevant.
[00:15:05] Now, one thing to remember about backlinks is that building them is a gradual process. It’s not going to be overnight. You’re not going to have thousands of links back to your website in a day. It does take time. So focus on creating that great content and then building those genuine relationships in your industry and with your community. And then those links are going to naturally follow over time.
[00:15:26] All right. Step 8 is don’t forget about local SEO. Don’t do not forget about it. If you have a physical location or 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 best friend if you serve a local population, if you have a local target audience. It’s going to help you show up in searches like “women’s clothing boutique near me,” or “women’s clothing boutique in Annapolis, Maryland.”
[00:15:55] To optimize for local SEO there are a few things that you can do. But the biggest thing is to claim your Google business profile. It’s free. There’s really no reason not to do it. So make sure you do that first.
[00:16:09] Another thing that you want to do is 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 across your website and all online directories. So if you’re showing up in Yelp or anything like that, make sure your businesses name, address, and phone number is consistent for all of them.
[00:16:29] And then you also want to encourage your satisfied clients to leave you reviews on Google, but one caution with that: 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’re in the United States, the FTC could come after you if you’re offering incentives or money or free services or whatever it is that you’ve got. If you’re offering stuff in exchange for a good review. That is an issue . So the reviews need to be authentic.
[00:17:03] All right. So step nine is to be patient and consistent. One thing I always let my clients know about SEO is that it is not an overnight fix. If you need an overnight fix, you need really quick results, then you need to do paid SEO. So you need to do Google ads or Facebook ads . But SEO is organic. It takes time for those search engines to know about your content. And then to be able to recognize and reward your content for being good, quality content. Just don’t let that discourage you. I want you to think of SEO as a 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.
[00:17:48] Now step number 10 is going to be to learn to love analytics. And I know analytics sounds about as fun as doing your taxes. Although, some people love analytics. If you’re a data nerd, you probably love your analytics. No judging here. But I do want you to hear me out if you’re not a big fan of analytics. Understanding your website’s performance is absolutely critical for improving your search engine game. Google analytics is a free tool and there are other analytics tools out there, but I personally use Google analytics on most websites. It’s going to tell you things like how many people are visiting your website, which pages they’re spending the most time on and how much time they’re spending on it, and what kind of interactions they’re making to the website. Also where they’re coming from. So if they’re coming from other search engines, or social media, or emails, or anything like that. And when it comes time to redesign your website, it’ll tell you things like if your website visitors are on mobile devices or desktops or even what operating system they’re using. So it’s really helpful information.
[00:18:51] But the whole point of this is the analytics are going to help you figure out what kind of things are working. What’s not working and that’ll let you focus your efforts where they’re going to have the biggest impact. Don’t worry too much about understanding every single metric in your analytics. Just start with the basics, so your numbers of your visitors, your popular pages, traffic sources, and as you get more comfortable with it, then you can dive deeper into the data.
[00:19:20] All right. So those are the 10 steps. There are other things that can help, but I do want you to remember that it is okay to ask for help. Get help if you need it. There are plenty of SEO professionals out there. I just happen to be one of them. And they will be happy to give 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 it doesn’t even take me any time. I just pay for a service that does the automated audits. It’ll give you sort of an overview of what things might need to be done to your website.
[00:19:55] One thing I do want to say when it comes to getting help for your website, if you are overwhelmed by it, and you do seek somebody out to help you with it: be very wary of anyone promising overnight results. Because again, SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. And also be very, very wary of anybody that 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. You can’t guarantee that they’re even going to show up at all. So if somebody guarantees that, tell them they’re wrong.
[00:20:30] Now if hiring a professional is not in your budget right now, and that’s okay, consider taking an online course. I happen to know a gal that has online courses for that. Or take a workshop. I actually have a SEO Crash Course coming up later this month in July. So if you’re listening to this, now, it should be middle of July. The SEO crash course is coming up on July 22nd. It’s geared towards beginners and there are some practical, actionable steps that you’re going to be able to take after you take that course.
[00:21:02] All right, let’s wrap this up. I’ve got some final thoughts here. I just, again, want you to remember SEO is not about being perfect. It’s going to be about making steady improvements over time. Because every blog post you write, every page that you optimize, and every change that you make to your website to make it more user-friendly. All of those things add up.
[00:21:24] Don’t let SEO overwhelm stop you from taking action. Start small. Maybe this week you’ll focus on making your website more mobile friendly. Or optimizing your images to make it load faster and next week, maybe you’ll do some keyword research. The week after that, you can start 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. And the best part is that not only does it make your website better for search engines, it’s going to make the website better for your human visitors.
[00:22:01] Take a deep breath. You’ve got this. SEO might seem like a big, scary monster, but with all of these 10 steps that I’ve talked about in this episode, you can completely tame it. Your future clients are going to be out there searching for you. And with a little bit of SEO magic, you can help them find you.
[00:22:19] That’s all for today’s episode on overcoming sEO overwhelm. I hope you’re feeling a little bit more confident about tackling the SEO for your website and just remember: progress over perfection.
[00:22:32] If you found this episode helpful, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast. You’re going to get more tips on all things website related. And if you do have a question about anything SEO, feel free to reach out. Until then, happy optimizing.
[00:22:46]