Enthusiastically Self-Employed: business tips, marketing tips, and LinkedIn tips for coaches, consultants, speakers, authors, solopreneurs & small business owners

SEO Tips for Entrepreneurs with Rachel Lindteigen Ep 118

• Brenda Meller • Season 1 • Episode 118

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Rachel Lindteigen on SEO Tips for Entrepreneurs: Blogs, Websites, Podcasts, Oh My! #enthusiasticallyselfemployed #linkedinlive

Unlock the secrets to a thriving online presence with Rachel Lindteigen, a seasoned SEO and content marketing expert boasting over two decades of experience in digital marketing. Curious about how you can drive traffic to your website without breaking the bank on ads? Rachel shares her journey from the corporate world to independent consultancy, revealing the power of organic marketing and content creation. Whether you're an entrepreneur, blogger, or podcaster, Rachel’s tips are designed to help you boost your traffic and profitability through effective SEO strategies.

We explore the fundamentals of SEO that every entrepreneur should know. Should you invest time or money in SEO? Understanding the basics can protect you from being duped by dishonest providers. Rachel also demystifies the transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), emphasizing its importance for tracking website traffic, marketing effectiveness, and user engagement. These insights are crucial for refining your marketing strategies and enhancing your website’s performance, leading to higher conversions and sales.

Discover the power of long tail keywords and how aligning your content with consumer intent can drastically improve your user experience and reduce bounce rates. Rachel shares her innovative strategies for optimizing content, including the integration of podcast transcripts and focused keywords that cater to Google’s evolving algorithm. We also discuss the best SEO tools and the rise of AI-generated content, ensuring your content remains original and high-quality. Engage with us on social media, share your thoughts, and join the conversation as we equip you with the tools to master SEO.


Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-lindteigen/

Visit her website: https://www.etchedmarketing.com/freebies

Subscribe to her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/Etchedmarketingacademy

Watch the playback on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7168760840874024960/

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  • LinkedIn consulting / coaching, personalized to your needs and focusing on your questions.
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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Visit mellermarketing.com

Let's connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendameller
(click MORE to invite me to connect and mention you listened to my podcast)

Speaker 1:

Hey, hey, good afternoon, good morning or good evening, depending on where in the world you are watching from. My name is Brenda Muller. You're joining us today for our live interview and we're going to be talking about SEO tips for entrepreneurs, blogs, websites, podcasts, oh my. And I'm joined today with a very special guest, rachel, and I should have asked you for pronouncing your name before we started. Let me try.

Speaker 2:

Lynn Teigen, you actually got it. Yes, lynn Teigen, nobody ever gets it, so give yourself a hand. I'm going to give myself a little pat on the chest.

Speaker 1:

When we're just talking in the pre-show. Sometimes last names are a little bit more difficult and you're talking about other social media and handles that you give people. But then I realized I want to introduce you and I forgot to ask you in the pre-show. So if you all are watching me live, you know that I do not make mistakes. I have learning experiences, and today's learning experience for me and for all of you is to make sure that you pronounce your guest names before you go live so you don't have the little awkward moment in the middle there.

Speaker 1:

Rachel, I want to first welcome you and I'm so delighted to have you on, but I also want to welcome our guests. So if anyone is watching this live right now whether you're watching it live on LinkedIn, on YouTube or Instagram could you do me a favor? Could you go into the comments and say hello from and tell us the city that you're watching us from? That does two things. One is it lets us know that the live stream is picking up and that the baton has been properly handed off from StreamYard to the other network and the live stream is going. It also lets us know who is watching and where in the world you're watching from, and it helps us know where our audience is tuning in from. While we are waiting for those comments to come in, rachel, I want to talk about how we met, and we were actually both members of Amy Porterfield's program, digital Course, academy, and then we're now in her Momentum program as well, and you had posted a while back on Instagram talking about your podcast, and remind me the name of your podcast again.

Speaker 2:

Simple Marketing and SEO.

Speaker 1:

That's right, and you were talking about the success and how it's now ranking number one for SEO keywords and you jumped into the comments a lot, because I'm trying testing out too and I'm learning as I'm going here, and we got into a conversation back and forth and I said why don't we come on and talk a bit about this on my live show? So that's what we're here to do today. So, as we're starting to see those comments rolling in we've got Nancy and others that are dropping comments in Rachel why don't you take a few minutes and tell us a bit about what you do, who you help and what you help them with, thank you, and what you help them with.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Thank you for having me today. I'm so excited to be here and I'm excited to see people starting to pop in. I'm in Tucson, arizona, so greetings from Arizona, where it is definitely morning. I am Rachel Lintagen. I am an SEO, content marketing, organic marketing strategist. I've been in digital marketing for about 20 years, since Google had eight fonts that you could use on a website, so it's been a hot minute since we had to even worry about Google fonts. I've focused on the content and SEO side for the past 15 years because I found it absolutely fascinating. My background is a bachelor's in broadcast journalism and I have an MBA with a focus in marketing, so I was able to take a love of storytelling and turn it into this amazing career. That didn't exist when I was in college. Because I'm old enough that Google didn't exist, we still had to wait to use the computers in the computer lab at school. Anyone else have to sign up for computer time because you sure didn't have it on your phone back then.

Speaker 2:

So it's amazing to see how technology has changed and where this has brought us. So that background love of connecting the story and connecting with people, along with the analytical side of it from the MBA program, along with the analytical side of it from the MBA program, I fell in love with organic marketing, and so today I spent many, many, many years in the corporate world. I worked for franchise organizations, the corporate office, I worked for agencies, nonprofits, special events, all sorts of things over about 15 years and in fall of 2016, I left a role as the senior director of SEO and content marketing for a major New York agency. My role was eliminated post-merger. They sold out and a bunch of us who were middle management were laid off.

Speaker 2:

It was a very scary day. It took more than $100,000 out of our family budget that night, so I was a little terrified, but with the blessing of my husband, who said you've wanted to go out on your own for so long, why don't you just do it now? I did and I launched and this is my seventh year in business for myself and today I teach small business owners, coaches, realtors, entrepreneurs, other people like me how to use the websites and how to work with Google and create content that your ideal customer wants, and how to really bring that website traffic in using organic marketing channels. Because, let's be real, ads can be effective, but they can also be expensive. And this building our businesses with free traffic which allows you to keep more of the revenue as profit, so you make more money, and that's what I want to help you do.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome and I know there's going to be folks that are watching us today that are familiar with the phrase SEO and I think you spelled it out already, but at a high level. Let's say, someone is watching and they're like somewhat familiar with what SEO is, but they are an entrepreneur, rachel, and they don't have a marketing department and they're not, you know, outsourcing things. Yet Could you just say, like at a high level, what is SEO and why is it important for us to know about if we are self-employed?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Seo stands for search engine optimization. It is a series of small steps that you go through on your website to help Google better understand your content. When Google better understands your content and begins to trust you, they're more likely to show your website to people who are searching for the information that you have on it. So it's you helping Google to ultimately help you get more traffic and build trust with Google, and they show you to more people when they know you, like you and trust you.

Speaker 2:

It's one of those things that, if you have a website or blog and you're not doing SEO, I want you to promise yourself that you're going to learn how to do it, because you are missing out on traffic, leads and sales every single day because people are searching and if they're not finding you at the top of the page on Google, they're going to go to the competition who is showing up, because 99.7% of all searchers only ever look at page one. They're not going on to page two to find you. The only person going on to page two to find you, the only person going on to page two to find you is your grandma, your mom, your best friend, like I think that's you know, I'm the first person to see you and it's like please you know, yeah, nobody's gonna find you.

Speaker 2:

If you're on two, you have got to be on one, and google's not gonna put you on one at the top without doing seo. It's just not gonna happen yeah, really good point, right.

Speaker 1:

So, and we're here today talking about SEO tips for entrepreneurs, blogs, website podcasts oh my, there's a lot that we have to deal with here, but you're saying anyone can do this, right, this is not something that we need to outsource to.

Speaker 2:

Is that correct? Oh, yeah, you can. So what? I always tell my students and my clients you need to look. It's one way or the other. It's going to cost you dollars or it's going to cost you hours. So you have to decide. Where are you at in your business? Are you more comfortable spending money to have somebody do it for you, or are you in a place where you'd rather spend the time to learn how to do it and do it yourself? The other thing that I honestly recommend is that you get at least a baseline understanding of SEO, how it works. You get at least a baseline understanding of SEO, how it works. What's done so that, if you do ultimately outsource it, you protect yourself. You need to know enough to make sure that the person that you have hired is actually doing it right, because there are a lot of unscrupulous people who claim to be SEOs out there who are just looking to take advantage of small business owners who don't know the questions to ask. So you don't know any better right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and they do take advantage of you and they try to sell you on outdated tactics. So they're really pressuring and it just drives me nuts and I don't want that for anybody. So learn enough so you know if you're outsourcing it, you're getting results. You know what questions to ask.

Speaker 1:

I think it's a solid strategy and I have a parallel story. The ladies that are watching will appreciate this. I know a little bit about cars, but I don't know a lot. And I go into the automotive dealer and I get a, you know, I get an oil change done and they say, hey, you need X, y and Z and all these other things done. And then I go home and I talked to my husband and my son worked in an oil chain shop for a little while and so he knows some of the things and I said, yeah, the last time I was at a car dealer, they told me I need to get you know, I need to be thinking about tires for my car. And he went outside and he looked at my tires. He's like your tires are fine. He's like they're starting to wear down a little bit.

Speaker 1:

So I love your point of at least have a baseline set of knowledge about SEO, so that you're not being taken advantage of and that you do have some basic information about how things work. I also love your point about you know you're either going to be paying for it in time or money. So do you want to invest in the time? Like, personally, I do not want to learn about changing the oil in my car. I will pay somebody to change oil, but you know, when it comes to things like websites and SEO and things like that, you might want to be more knowledgeable until the point that you can outsource it. So you know. Related to this, google Analytics. Let me ask you a question about that Now. Whenever I've set up a website, I've always just had the Google Analytics code set up, knowing that sometime later I can come back and look at it. Is that still a good practice or any thoughts on Google Analytics as it?

Speaker 2:

relates to websites analytics the one that was UA dash to GA4 because UA is no longer tracking. So if you have not made the switch over to GA4, you need to do that Now. From my perspective, GA4 is overkill for small business owners. It's much more beneficial for large businesses because the whole point of GA4 is bringing multiple analytics streams together, so their websites, their apps, all of that into one platform. I wish they would have given us an option of keeping UA, if you were small business, versus migrating to GA four. Anyway, that's my soapbox. I think GA four is too much for a small business owner, but after using it for about a year, I'm finally feeling more comfortable. Never be as comfortable as I was in UA, because I'd use that for 15 years.

Speaker 2:

But the answers to all of your questions are in your analytics account, if you know where to look. So your Google Analytics. You want to make sure you have it on your website because it's going to tell you not only where is your traffic coming from, which is really important when you're marketing and you're using different marketing channels. You want to make sure that you're getting a return for your investment, whether it's dollars or hours. Either way. Say, you're focusing heavily on Pinterest marketing and you're putting tons of time into it and you are really trying to focus on it. And then you go to GA and you look and you realize, while you're getting views on Pinterest, they're not coming to your website. So is it really beneficial? That's what you want to be able to understand and that's what GA will help you understand, so you can look at where your traffic is coming from. You can set it up to track your conversion so you can know where your opt-ins are coming from. You can know where your sales are coming from. You also should be looking at the content that you're creating, because it's going to tell you how much time people are spending on your page, if they're engaged or not, because UA used to track different metrics than GA4 does, and with GA4, they give us this engagement like average engagement time. So we really want to look at how engaged are people when they're visiting our website, because that, my friend, is a ranking factor.

Speaker 2:

Google has all your data from Google Analytics because we all use it, because it's a fantastic program and it's free. But that also means Google has all your analytics data and understands how people respond to your website. And remember we talked about. Google isn't going to help you. You know, show you to more people without doing SEO. Well, the bottom line is I want you to change how you think about Google real quick. So if you're thinking of Google just as a search engine and I go and I search and I get information, yes, and Google is a business. Google's business model is selling ads on their search engine. So the only way that Google is going to continue to make money as a business is by continuing to have really great search results that people want to access. So the only way that Google is going to do that is to make sure that they're showing great websites.

Speaker 2:

So if you're not optimized, you have crummy content, you're breaking any of the rules. They're not going to rank you high. So if you're not optimized, you have crummy content, you're breaking any of the rules. They're not going to rank you high. And if they see your analytics that people don't engage with your content, they don't like what you're creating, they're not going to rank you as high. So you really want to focus on your ideal customer People first. Content is what Google wants. Stay focused on your customer.

Speaker 1:

So I'm kind of feeling like right now. My head is like oh my seo tips for entrepreneurs, blogs, websites, podcasts, oh my, and it can feel a bit like daunting and overwhelming. I'm sure for you it feels very natural, you're very comfortable, but where do we even start the process of seo if we've never done anything? Yeah like, do you have any advice for us on that?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. The very first piece of advice is take a deep breath, because here's the secret it's a lot easier than it seems. So there are people out there who work to make SEO seem really super complicated, and I tease that they've been locked in their mom's basements for too long, something like that, like they just can't talk to people. So in the agency, my role was to explain marketing, explain SEO, in a way that was easy to understand for smart people who maybe weren't SEOs. So what I want you to understand is there's really only a few things that you have to learn to be able to do this. The main thing is you need to learn and really truly understand keyword research, because the keywords that you choose are going to make or break your SEO efforts bottom line for a couple reasons. Number one if you choose a keyword that your website is not authoritative enough to rank for whether that be Google or Apple, podcasts, pinterest, wherever it is, whatever search engine we're talking about right now If you choose a keyword that you are not authoritative enough for, you're going to essentially become a tiny fish in a giant pond and you're not going to be visible. And you could do everything else right from an SEO standpoint and get no results and not rank because you chose the wrong keyword and get no results and not rank because you chose the wrong keyword. So that's the first thing. The second thing is we have to make sure that we're thinking about our consumer. What is their intent when they're searching with a given keyword? So we want to make sure that we are being very strategic about the keywords that we're choosing and where we're sending people, so the content that we're optimizing with that keyword, because we want to make sure that they're getting the information that they're looking for. Because if we're landing on a page that doesn't have information we're looking for, we're going to bounce, we're going to be gone, we're not going to engage. So that's the second really important thing. And the third one is make sure we're using the keyword that our ideal customer uses. So you could potentially rank in position number one for a keyword that no one is ever searching for and so you're not going to get results because no one is searching for that keyword. So we really want to be careful.

Speaker 2:

Most, first and foremost, is understand keyword research. I do have a little mini course that I just created. That's all about keyword research, because this is the number one mistake that I see people making is choosing the wrong keywords. That we naturally think I should go for the keyword that's got tons of search demand. Like for me, right? Yeah, like we think let's do this, so let's use.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to walk through a super quick example that makes it easy to understand what we're talking about the word shoes. Doesn't the word shoes seem like it would be a great keyword to rank for? I mean, there's one to three million searches a month for the word shoes. Imagine if you could rank in position number one. In the studies we see, on average, 34% of the click-throughs, so anywhere from 300 to a million searches a month. 300,000 to a million people a month would land on our website from the word shoes. Seems ideal, except it's not First off. You and me, my friend, we are never going to rank for the word shoes. Nothing personal, nothing against you, nothing against me.

Speaker 2:

We are not authoritative enough in Google's eyes to rank for something like shoes, and the secret is we don't want to because the consumer searching for the word shoes doesn't know what they're looking for. They're so far up the sales funnel they don't know who they're looking for or what type shoes. Are they looking for shoes for them and their kid, their spouse, their dog? We don't know. So what we actually want to do is target keywords that are further down the sales funnel. So, generally, what we refer to these as are long tail keywords. They're ones that can be a phrase Maybe they're anywhere from three to six words rather than shoes, which has a really high search demand.

Speaker 2:

We refer to that as a fathead term, because that's like shoes, mirrors, home decor, things like that Big, big, big keywords. My friends, those are the kind of keywords I went after when I worked at the agency with clients that were spending easily over a hundred thousand a year to have somebody do their SEO for them. You and I are not ranking for those words, we're not even going to worry about them. So now, shoe example we've gone from shoes. Then maybe we get into a category women's shoes, maybe women's running shoes. Now we're going to go even further. We're going to look at that real long tail women's A6 gel, kayano running shoe. Now, again, because it's a brand term, we're not going to rank for it.

Speaker 2:

But you're understanding, hopefully, we've gone from one word to like five words. So by moving down there, we have a lot less search demand. Our search demand is actually about 30,000 instead of one to 3 million, so significantly less search demand, but we have a higher intent to purchase, which means we have a better chance of conversion, because the person searching women's Asics gel Kayano running shoe knows exactly what she's looking for versus the person searching shoes. So do not be afraid of keywords with less search demand. If they are really relevant to your niche and their terms that your ideal customer is using, you will generally get better results. Not only will you have a better chance of ranking, you'll have a better chance of making money because you'll be ranking for terms that are relevant to your products, your services, your business, that are things that your ideal customer is looking for.

Speaker 1:

So let me ask you a question here, and I'm coming back to my corporate marketing days. I used to work as a corporate marketer and now I'm self-employed, so it's like you're kind of reminding me of some things. So where do we find I mean, where do we find these long tail keywords? Can we find them by looking at our Google analytics and looking for how are people finding our website? Or should we be thinking about the phrases that our customers are using? Or should we be doing Google searches and seeing what comes up? Is there a right way to figure out what those long tail keywords and phrases are?

Speaker 2:

There's a bunch of ways. This is a. This is a bunch of what I teach. I've got several blog posts and stuff on this um on my site as well, so we look at a couple of things. The first is use a keyword research tool. Use whatever one you're comfortable with, it really doesn't matter to me. I get people asking me all the time what's your favorite keyword research tool, whichever one you're comfortable with. There are paid ones, there are free ones you're comfortable with. There are paid ones, there are free ones.

Speaker 2:

Start there. What I usually do is start with kind of that fathead term so SEO shoe, blue shoe, whatever to kind of see where am I at? From there, your keyword research tool is going to recommend a bunch of related searches, all sorts of other keywords. There also are some plugins for Chrome that I love using when I'm doing keyword research, because then I can go over and I can kind of get a feel for how does that keyword like? What did the search results look like? As long as you're using this is a big tip incognito browser window, do not use your normal Chrome browser, because Google's results are going to be personalized to you. You're going to potentially see your website significantly higher than someone else would.

Speaker 1:

So always brilliant. So, incognito, I know, like in my uh, I think I'm in Chrome, so I click on the three dots at the top and there's like an open in a new incognito window. So if you're watching this or listening to this in the playback, I want you to go to your window right now. If you don't know how to do this, I think this is a really, really important point Go to the upper right-hand corner of your web screen in the desktop view, click on the three dots and you should see open in a new incognito window, cause you just made a really important point there. Google is factoring in you and what pages you're looking at and, of course, you're looking at your website more than the average person you should be. You should be going on the website a lot of times. I think that's a really I didn't even think about that. That's brilliant, right there.

Speaker 2:

It's really, really important because exactly I've had it happen with students. I had one who was so excited she's like I'm in position one and I said you're in position 12 for me, and then we figured out she was using her regular window, not the incognito window, so incognito window keyword research tool. The other things you can do is use some plugins for Chrome. I like the Uber Suggest plugin. I like Keywords Everywhere. I use MozBar.

Speaker 2:

They're all different kinds of plugins that you can play with SEO Quake. Most of them are free. They'll give you different SEO information. What I like is using something like the Ubersuggest plugin. I do have the paid Ubersuggest account, so the plugin then gives me all the additional search data when I'm in Chrome, so it'll show me the keyword search volume, it'll show me additional keyword options, et cetera. Keywords everywhere is the same type thing. You do have to pay for credits for keywords everywhere, but it's super cheap. I put like 20 bucks on it at a time and it seems to last forever. So make sure you just turn it off when you're done using keywords everywhere, so that you're not paying for like search volume when you're trying to figure out where to take your kid after school or where to send them to summer camp, cause I've had that happen.

Speaker 1:

Keywordseverywherecom is the name of the site.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's actually a Chrome plugin. So, yes, keywords Everywhere is an SEO tool. You can use the website. You can also use it as a Chrome plugin. They also, if you have a paid Keywords Everywhere account, they actually now have like a macro that you can put into ChatGPT. That can help you do your keyword research in ChatGPT and let's talk about that real quick, because I know ChatGPT, like everybody, wants to use it for keywords. Everybody's talking about it now, yeah, don't, okay, don't, it's not good for keyword research. Just don't do it.

Speaker 2:

Stick to your traditional SEO keyword tools. So Ubersuggest, moz, semrush. Honestly, my favorite, especially for small business owners who are trying to save money, is the Google keyword tool. It's within AdWords. The data is straight from Google. It is the best one to use. It is free and it's going to give you all sorts of ideas. What you're going to do from there is look for keywords that look like there's not a lot of competition. Now in most of the tools, especially in the AdWords one, it's going to give you the competition information. For paid ads. We're looking for organic, but I'm going to be real honest, it's going to be about the same, because if they are willing to pay for the ads. They are also doing SEO. Having come from the corporate world, from the agency world, they've got teams on both sides. So if it's highly competitive from a paid ad standpoint, don't go after it. You're not going to rank for it.

Speaker 1:

But you can go over.

Speaker 2:

Take that keyword you're thinking about, go over to your incognito browser window, put that keyword in there and see who's ranking on page one. How similar are they to you? If they're really big brands, they're like websites businesses that would be at the mall. They're websites, everybody's a website. But let's just say they're big brands. There are stores at the mall. They're national chains. You need to adjust because this is going to be one of those situations where you're not competitive enough to rank.

Speaker 1:

So what you do you want to be more specific with what you're looking for. Go back and keyword. Yeah, I am. We're talking today about SEO tips and if you're just tuning in now or maybe watching the playback or listening to the podcast later, rachel is dropping some gems on different sites and tools and freebies and resources and things like that at use. I feel like we're getting a little bit of a mini education on SEO tools right here today and we talked a little bit about the things that are related to your website, your blogs, your websites. Now, I'll say the post that you had shared on Facebook originally was hey, I'm so excited because my podcast, simple Marketing and SEO, is ranking number one for SEO keywords and you're like, you were really excited about that and we did a quick call, I think, and we try. I'm like how did you do that?

Speaker 1:

And we get into a conversation about that and, in the interest of time, any high level tips for us or insights that you learned going through the process that you'd like to share with us.

Speaker 2:

So I've tripled my downloads on my podcast in the last 90 days by learning podcast SEO and starting to implement it. And again, it all comes down to keywords. It comes down to understanding the keywords that your ideal customer is using and knowing where to use them. So, on Google, there's specific places Google's going to look for your keywords and if they want to get you'll share my guide link later but I have a guide that walks them through exactly what to do on your podcast. It's going to be your podcast name, your podcast episode titles and your podcast description. And if you understand how to do it, you choose the right keywords. And the keywords you're looking for on podcasts are going to be slightly different than you're looking for on blogs. So you're going to want to look and see what's like, what is your competition doing, and you're going to want to optimize the show name, the episode titles and your description. And then, if you're trying to build website traffic as well, you want to take your show notes, convert those into a big blog post that is relevant to that topic. Go ahead and put that on your website. Embed your video. If you do a video podcast, embed the video. Embed the audio from Buzzsprout or Libsyn or whoever you use.

Speaker 2:

I'm also testing out putting the podcast transcript at the bottom, because initially I was saying no, don't do that. But I went back to do some additional research and search engine land and some of the better SEO websites are saying, yes, go ahead and do it. We're seeing a difference in rankings because we're using the keyword more. We've got more content because Google's algorithm has changed and they want really focused experience, expertise, authority and trust from the people that they're ranking. So if they're curious how we're doing it, the last half a dozen or so podcasts or blog posts on my blog are done that way with everything. They are enormous. They're like three and 4,000 word posts. But I'm doing it as a test to see how it works.

Speaker 1:

That's good, and I love people that test things out too, because we can kind of learn from you and you, and then what you learn you can now teach to your, your, your members, your clients, your students as well. I want to shift gears a little bit here, rachel, if we could and when, I want to bring our audience into the conversation now, and, for those of you that are watching live or in the playback, you can drop a question below. I'll make sure to share the link with Rachel later if you're watching it in the playback, but I do see that we have started to get some questions in. I have a question coming from Nick. Hey, nick, thanks so much for joining us. Nick says what's the plugin you were referencing for Chrome. Do you remember?

Speaker 2:

what that was. Yeah, so there are a couple of things we were talking about with Chrome, nick, the first thing is make sure you're using the incognito browser window. So, like Brenda said, top of your Chrome tab, those three dots on the far right click there. Open a new incognito browser window, because that's going to give you the general results rather than your personalized results. Then the plugins that I use because I have the paid Ubersuggest account, I also like to use the Ubersuggest plugin for Chrome. If you don't have a paid account, it limits you to three searches per day, I believe, because sometimes they'll pop up and remind me I need to log in.

Speaker 1:

So you are going to check this out and tell me if I've spelled this correctly, is it?

Speaker 2:

Ubersuggest, it's all one word, but yeah, close enough, they'll be able to find it. So Ubersuggest, it's all one word. Yeah, close enough, they'll be able to find it. So Ubersuggest is a plugin that I use regularly. Keywords Everywhere is the other one In Keywords Everywhere you can actually find, like YouTube search volume and different things as well. Okay, and that was the one that has the macro that can work with ChatGPT. And then the other thing I wanted to make sure we talked about again is just don't use chat GPT for your keyword research. If you use it with a macro or use it with a plugin, like keywords everywhere, you're fine to start there, but don't just depend on chat GPT to do it. I see people talking about it and it's terrible.

Speaker 1:

Can I ask and I'm not sure if this is correct or not, but what I've heard is, like the chat, GP tools and all the tools that are out there, they're pulling from historical information. So is that part of the reason it's not effective? Because it's not keeping up with and you already said like Google's always moving the line on SEO and it's looking for fresh content. Is that part of the reason we shouldn't use because the content's dated inside those tools?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so let's talk about that. So there's a couple of things. First off, yes, it's dated. You can ask chat GPT, like how recent they are. I think it's 2022 is about how far it goes back.

Speaker 2:

So everything that's there has already been on the web. It's already out there. It's somebody else's content. It can't understand a lot of the rules and regulations. Like as far as keyword research, I've tested it and said give me some keyword ideas low competition, this niche, this type seed term and it's given me ones, but then when I've gone to search them, it's terrible. It's like this is not low competition, this is like a super competitive keywords. That's why I say don't waste your time. The other thing is that Google has some real strong rules and guidance around what we can and cannot do with the GPTs, because Google has historically said no AI content. Now they did change that guidance about six months ago and we actually have, as of current when we're recording this on March 12th, they actually are currently rolling out the March 2024 core algorithm update. I got emails on it this morning. It is specifically addressing what they're considering spammy or low quality GPT content or AI content.

Speaker 2:

Google is okay with you using it for ideas and brainstorming and titles, potentially even a first draft, but don't ever use it and be like cause. There are some brands that are like we're going to create 10 posts a day using chat GPT and we're going to rank for all of this, and now Google is going no, you're not, Because, again, remember, Google's a business. Nobody wants to read those posts. Do not take something that ChatGPT has written for you and copy paste it into your site, because it's going to be duplicate content. It could be incorrect. We've all read right. Every one of us has played with it at this point, right, and sometimes what it writes is really bad. Google doesn't want that in their index.

Speaker 1:

That's a really good point. All right, so we got a couple more comments, one comment coming in and then another question after this, so this is from Michelle. Hey, Michelle, thanks so much for watching. Michelle says SEO is so powerful. Anyone who owns a website and not doing it is missing a large piece of the pie. Michelle, you're my people. When you mentioned pie, my ears perk up. I get excited. I love talking about pie. And she also says testing and learning is also a very important aspect of running a website something you've already touched on today here, rachel.

Speaker 2:

Did you want to add anything to that? I think Michelle's summed it up great. I always tell people there's no point in having a website or a blog if you're not doing SEO, because you're not going to get the traffic to it that you could. So you're hurting yourself. The testing and learning that's where your analytics comes in to play. So make sure that you understand Google Analytics. Don't be afraid of it. Don't ignore it, like have somebody teach you, learn what the numbers are, because the answers to all your questions are in there what to create more of. What to create less of. I love it.

Speaker 1:

Brilliant, it's good summary there too what to create more of, what to create less of. I love it Brilliant. It's a good summary there too, what to create more of and what to do less of. I think that's great. So, nancy, thanks so much for watching Nancy. Nancy has a question for you, rachel. She says when transitioning content from podcast to blog, do you recommend keywords in the title of the blog, the blog content and or the email subject line if you're emailing it out? What are your thoughts there?

Speaker 2:

Yes, nancy, you're following along great. So what I want you to understand is your keywords may be different and your title may be different for your podcast versus your blog, versus your email. So your podcast you're gonna search for podcast keywords and you're gonna title it focusing on podcast keywords. Your blog you're gonna look for keywords that your blog can rank for based on your competitiveness, your niche, et cetera. Your email subject line doesn't necessarily have to include the keyword. There's no actual SEO done from that perspective but often it's going to help because your keyword should be kind of what your blog post, your podcast episode all of that is about anyway. So you're going to have them in there, probably naturally, but don't worry about the email as much as your podcast and your blog.

Speaker 1:

Okay, solid advice on there, and I can see that our time is kind of winding down here, rachel, so what I'd like to do now is, if people are interested in working more with you or learning more about you, can you tell us where should we go? Go?

Speaker 2:

to learn more about you Absolutely, so. My website is etchedmarketingcom. There you can find all sorts of information. I work one-on-one with some clients. I do done-for-you services. I do coaching and consulting.

Speaker 2:

If you are really struggling with figuring out what your keywords are for your business or you need help putting your content pillars together. You don't really want to take a class, but you'd like to be able to work with someone. We've got that. I've also got the freebies tab that Brenda's got up here. This has all my free resources for you.

Speaker 2:

So there's a free SEO class that is on demand. You can sign up for it and take it today. There's also the SEO content quick start guide. That is your guide to Google's rules and getting started with SEO. So any of those, take what's the most relevant to you some real estate, some course creator it's whatever is going to be the most helpful to you. They're there for you to use. If you run into any issues, you have any questions, you can email me info at etched marketingcom. I'm the one who answers, so send me a note. Let me know that you heard me here with Brenda today and I will help you with whatever you know. Whatever you need help with, I would love to either teach you SEO, help you with it, or do it for you. Whatever works for you, I'd love to help you.

Speaker 1:

Awesome and normally I will say you know if you're open to connecting on LinkedIn. But I know that you're a heavier user of Instagram, so I'm actually going to show your Instagram up on screen right now and I'm going to point people to your Instagram, which is instagramcom slash etchedmarketingacademy. So E-T-C-H-E-D Marketing Academy, all one word, and that's the platform where you're a bit more active than LinkedIn. Is that correct?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn, but it's more my corporate career. If you're curious what I've done over the last 20 years, go look at LinkedIn. But I'm not on there every day. I'm on Instagram most days just because you feel like you got to be somewhere, but I also don't put the most effort into it.

Speaker 1:

I always like to send people to the place where you are. I don't want to send people to LinkedIn if you're not as active, and Instagram I'm finding lately with a lot of these interviews is a heavier network that they're using and where most of their clients can be found. So we'll definitely encourage people to move on over to Instagram to follow more. I am definitely signing up for your SEO class here because I want to learn more of the SEO 101. I feel like I need a bit of a refresher. It's been a few years since I've been in corporate marketing and I feel like I need a bit of a refresher on that. I'm definitely going to check out your free resources as well, rachel. Any final comments for us on SEO for entrepreneurs, blogs, websites and podcasts?

Speaker 2:

Oh my, before we wrap up here, I think the main thing would be just to hopefully encourage people to learn SEO. Don't let the fact if you've tried it before and it didn't work or you didn't get results, don't beat yourself up. It's not your fault. It's that you didn't have the right teacher, you didn't have someone who understood how to explain it in an easier way, and if you haven't done it because you're scared, just take that deep breath and just go get some of the free resources. Get started. Take one of the classes when you're ready, and I'll walk you through it step-by-step, because that's my job. You need this because it is the thing standing between you and the website traffic that you need for your business to grow, and so I want to make it really easy to help you get there.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Rachel. I'm going to watch the playback again and I need to jot down all the websites and the resources that you're talking about, and I'm definitely going to jump in on this because I feel like, even for me, I've neglected my SEO a bit. I feel like I've done okay. I probably look back and I'm like there's probably some areas I've done okay on, but I definitely could polish it up. So I just want to thank you and I'm glad that I stumbled upon your post on Facebook and I'm glad that we had the conversation. So thank you so much for joining today Me too.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me. It was great.

Speaker 1:

Awesome and for our audience. Thank you for watching, whether you're watching this live or in playback. As soon as you're done watching the video, if you're here on LinkedIn, we'd love it if you could do a favor, which is as soon as the video is done, playing at the bottom, you'll see a share icon. Go ahead and click and share that with your LinkedIn network. It's a really great technique If you're struggling with what to post on LinkedIn. If you haven't yet posted in the past week, in the past month or in the past year, just click to share it along and tell people why they should watch the video.

Speaker 1:

Maybe a tip or two that you picked up to certainly tag Rachel and myself in your post. I will definitely add a comment and help to kind of jumpstart that. And I don't know about you, rachel. I don't get performance reviews anymore, so if someone's watching, if they found this conversation helpful, I'm throwing comments. If you found this helpful, we would love to hear from you and I'll be sure to share your comments and feedback with Rachel as well. With that said, everyone, stay safe and stay healthy. We will see you on LinkedIn or on Instagram and have a wonderful afternoon, thank you.

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Brenda Meller

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