Savvy Mastermind #002

Understanding Google Rank, SEO and how blogging can help your business

Angela Rodgers, copywriter and professional blogger, joins me as we discuss how to get found on Google, and cover the basics on what SEO is and how to start a blog.

Notes & resources

 

Why SEO

  • Getting to the top of Google will bring in more leads
  • Which means you can grow your business or put your prices up… or both
  • A lot of the time, search engine traffic will be more relevant and more likely to enquire or buy from you than traffic from other sources (if you target the right keywords)
  • It’s an investment that can pay off for a long time (unlike buying a one-off ad)

 

How to do SEO

Educate yourself! There’s a learning curve to SEO. If you’re going to go after it, you’ll either need to educate yourself and DIY or hire experts to do it for you (but you’ll need to know at least the basics)

1) Technically sound website

  • Has all the right back-end bits and pieces and codes
  • Making sure Google can crawl the right pages
  • No dead links or errors
  • Loads fast
  • Mobile friendly
  • Security certificate
  • Site structure makes sense to Google (internal links)

2) Content/Copy

  • Create content that’s written for humans first (aka, useful and readable), then optimised for Google second (consider the code and technical bits)
  • One primary keyword/phrase per page or blog post
  • When you choose keywords, think about what your audience are likely to search for to find you
  • Do some research to make sure it’s realistic for you to rank for them (decent number of searches per month, lowish competition)
  • Writing a blog isn’t for everyone, but it can really help with your SEO, because each blog gives you another page and another opportunity to rank in Google
  • Write original, useful, quality content (people will spend more time reading it and are more likely to link to it)
  • Try to pop your keyword (naturally) into the right parts of the page (title tag, meta description, headers, url, etc)
  • Focus on quality over quantity… I (Angela) used to advise people to aim for one blog a week, but I’m finding that these days, one quality blog that takes longer to write can get you much better results than 3 or 4 average blogs combined
  • Longer form content/copy is also good, as long as it’s useful and easy to scan (headers, lists, etc)

3) Backlinks/trust signals

  • Set up your Google Business listing
  • Get good quality backlinks (not all links are created equal)
  • Tells Google that your site has value and authority
  • For example, getting a link to your site from a news article, getting a link from a guest post, and good directory backlinks (not a dodgy one!)
  • Build these slowly and naturally over time (just keep an eye out for good opportunities and build those relationships)
  • Share your content on social media (not technically a backlink to Google but it can get more people on your site, and more people linking to it)

 

Tools/Links

There are a bunch of SEO tools (some free, some paid) that will help you assess your site and figure out keyword ideas. I (Angela) pretty much just use free ones at the moment. Here are some you can look at:

And here’s a few “savvy” tools to work out your niche and see how it all fits into the bigger picture. This is really important to do before you start spending money on blogging or SEO.

 

What to expect from SEO and Blogging

  • It’s not right for everyone
  • It’s not a quick fix
  • I (Angela) have been working on mine and blogging consistently for nearly a year now and I’m only just starting to see consistent traffic from Google (and only just recently from terms that are actually relevant)
  • You’ll need to take long-term, small, consistent actions
  • You’ll see gradual improvement
  • The results compound over time if you stick at it

 

We hope you find this info helpful! And hopefully it helps give you a good starting point for SEO so you can assess if it’s right for you. And then if it’s worth getting into, you can then start implementing it and learning more!

If you want to chat more about Google/SEO/blogging/content, please feel free to reach out to either of us with your questions.

Angela has generously offered you a free 30-min consult with her; you can also email her directly at . We’re also planning another call together soon to talk about some other ways you can generate leads for your business, so stay tuned for that!

 

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