[00:00:00] Zoe Ashbridge: so let's say the holidays are coming up. And you start to create your holiday content and maybe you've left it too late. So it's 11th of December.

[00:00:05] You're never gonna get a rank now before Christmas. But if you've got the time to do it, do it now. in Because you've then got the foundation set. 

[00:00:11] So you can just go through like an edit process.

[00:00:14] Which is a lot easier to do than creating the whole content from scratch. Yeah, I think that's a good point to make.

[00:00:18] So if you want to just think about your content as an investment for the years to come, get it on the website, get it done, and then you've got a much easier place to start from. For years and years ahead. 

[00:00:27] Crystal Waddell: Welcome to the third season of the Simple and Smart SEO show, the podcast dedicated to empathy driven brand building SEO. I'm your host, Crystal Waddell. I leverage my obsession with user experience to help business owners just like you optimize your website with confidence. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:00:44] Let's jump into another great episode! 

Introduction and Guest Introduction

[00:00:47] Crystal Waddell: Welcome back to the simple and smart SEO show. I am here today with Zoe Ashbridge. 

[00:00:52] You are in for a treat like usual, because we have an SEO expert who knows all about Google search console, all about content, all about 

[00:01:04] And so we're just going to pick her brain today. 

[00:01:06] So Zoe, thank you so much for being here.

[00:01:08] I appreciate you coming onto the 

[00:01:10] Zoe Ashbridge: show. 

[00:01:10] Thanks so much for having me, Crystal. I'm excited to talk all things SEO. Content. 

[00:01:15] Crystal Waddell: Yes. 

Zoe's Journey into SEO

[00:01:15] Crystal Waddell: Can you give us a little back story of who you are and like how you came into SEO. 

[00:01:19] And maybe even tell us a little bit about this bike trip? 

[00:01:22] Zoe Ashbridge: Yeah, absolutely. It's all entwined, really. I used to work in a digital marketing agency. I loved it. 

[00:01:28] To cut a long story short, that agency hired my now husband. He invited me on this big bike trip. 

[00:01:33] Which was 24, 000 mile bike ride around the world. 

[00:01:36] So to do that, I quit my job.

[00:01:38] And then while I was out, quitting my job was really nice because it gave me this opportunity to stop and think about what I actually wanted to do. 

[00:01:44] And what I actually chose I wanted to do was content. I always wanted to be a writer. 

[00:01:48] But I then realized if I want my content to be found, I need to learn this thing called SEO.

[00:01:53] And I already had the foundations of SEO. I knew what keywords were and title tags were. 

[00:01:58] So I just started like optimizing this blog where I was sharing my bike trip on there. 

[00:02:03] I got my first page one rank for a long tail keyword, which was cycling in Azerbaijan. Because not many people are doing that.

[00:02:09] And I got hooked basically. And for the last four years, I've just refined that skill. Kept up with, what's going on in the industry. 

[00:02:16] And just continue to learn. And yeah, the passion for it has never really gone away, to be honest. I just, I feel really fulfilled by SEO. 

[00:02:23] So I just keep on serving.

[00:02:25] Crystal Waddell: I love it. 

Zoe's SEO Blast on LinkedIn

[00:02:25] Crystal Waddell: And I found you on LinkedIn. 

[00:02:28] And I love the little bite size pieces that you give on LinkedIn where you give like those, SEO things you can do in 30 minutes. 

[00:02:36] What's that called again? 

[00:02:37] Zoe Ashbridge: I do like a weekly SEO blast. So like that was born because to be honest, I was finding the content production of LinkedIn quite intense.

[00:02:44] I was struggling to come up with just idea after idea. So I created this. 

[00:02:48] And what it did is it took the mental load out of deciding what to post because every week on a Wednesday, I know I'm posting a tip. 

[00:02:54] But I like that SEO Blast and it's by far my most engaged post. 

[00:02:58] If I go to my top posts, it's often SEO Blast.

[00:03:01] But it just gives people an insight into a new tactic that they might not be doing before. 

[00:03:06] And we can't really work in tactics in SEO, 100 percent. Not all of the time, but what I hope it does is all I could do that. That's really easy and then opens that window of opportunity, but then to go and research a little bit more about it.

[00:03:17] Like, why is that important? What else can I do with this? 

[00:03:21] What does this naturally lead onto? So yeah, hopefully it just provides people with a step in, like a little step up to get into more information about SEO.

[00:03:28] Crystal Waddell: And we'll definitely drop a link to your LinkedIn profile. 

[00:03:31] Because I know that people who are listening right now I know they're like, give me something I can do today.

[00:03:37] And we always talk about that. What's one thing that I can do today? 

The Importance of Content in SEO

[00:03:40] Crystal Waddell: So that's going to be my next question is if, there was one thing a small business could do today to improve their visibility online, what would that top tip be? 

[00:03:50] Zoe Ashbridge: It's almost definitely going to be write content. 

[00:03:53] The kind of longer answer is write content in a way that's strategic.

[00:03:57] But if you don't really know what strategic is or what it looks like, and you're starting with this young website with. Let's say it's got 10 pages. 

[00:04:05] Write content. I'm at a point, working with someone right now, actually is a really small business with about 10 pages. 

[00:04:10] And she's not really ready to work with me yet.

[00:04:13] So what I said was just go and write content on the website, because you know your audience. 

[00:04:16] And most people have started a business because they're trying to solve a problem that they had, they're trying to solve a problem that they're very familiar with. You already know the problems that your buyers have.

[00:04:25] So I'd say just start getting that content up onto the website. 

[00:04:27] Answer their questions, and then what you can do is. You can reverse engineer Google Search Console then. 

[00:04:33] Because you've actually got data so you know what people are searching and finding your website for. 

[00:04:37] So yeah, content. If you want visibility, write content.

Using Google Search Console for SEO

[00:04:41] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, you had a post, one of those Wednesday posts. Where you said, go do this. And so I did. I went to Google search console. 

[00:04:46] I filtered by United States and I had never done that before. I was like, Oh my gosh, like I even have clients who are probably listening right now that are thinking you've never done that before?

[00:04:56] But I'm honest. I never did that before. And so that was for First of all, that was mind blowing. 

[00:05:01] Because it's I want to know who my actual shoppers are. So for my e commerce store, it's based in the United States. 

[00:05:07] I do ship globally, but that's rare. So the core of my business is in the United States.

[00:05:12] And I could even drill down to a few different States to say, this is where most of my business comes from. 

[00:05:18] So I love that. That wasn't even the full gamut of what you were trying to help us do. 

[00:05:23] But that was like a woo, definitely opened up a window of opportunity for me.

[00:05:27] And then, the next thing I did was I searched for "buy" my product. 

[00:05:33] So buy I just searched for the word buy, because you said try to find, a keyword that had high impressions, but low clicks or whatever.

[00:05:41] Which is a lot of keywords that I rank for. And so I, but I thought, let me try to find something that's a little bit more, bottom of the funnel. Or purchase intent focus.

[00:05:51] And I think you mentioned something like that. 

Creating Content Around Keywords

[00:05:53] Crystal Waddell: And so I did, and "buy wooden letters" was one of the very first things that came up. 

[00:05:58] And I thought, now that's so concrete, what do I create content around? 

[00:06:02] Create content around those things that people are already searching for that actually have transactional intent, right? Did I get the right gist of that? 

[00:06:10] Zoe Ashbridge: That's the perfect way to do it. So what was the keyword, sorry?

[00:06:13] By wooden letters? Oh, perfect. Yeah, that's exactly what I would recommend. So going back to what I said a minute ago was to do it strategically. That is the strategic layer. 

[00:06:23] And that is to go and find a bottom funnel goal. Because we can all create content that gets clicks.

[00:06:28] That's actually quite easy when you've been doing this for a while. And if you throw some content up. You will find something will get some traction probably as long as you're using that common sense. 

[00:06:36] But what we really want is for SEO to drive a business objective, a sale really. 

[00:06:41] Or maybe a conversion in some cases. For e commerce, obviously, it's a sale. 

[00:06:44] So yeah, you start with buy wooden letters. 

[00:06:46] And you find or just you start by looking for buy actually find the keyword that you've got buy wooden letters. 

[00:06:52] If something is in google search console and you've got definitely impressions but if you've got clicks as well.

[00:06:57] That is a signal to you that google already knows your website is about that. 

[00:07:01] So it's already got you like you're a bit of an authority on that because it's giving you some kind of visibility. So that's your hint, that's where you start.

Building Topical Authority

[00:07:08] Zoe Ashbridge: And then from there, you would build content around that. That bottom funnel page. 

[00:07:13] So first of all, you want to have a page that addresses buy wooden letters. It's probably going to be like a collection page. 

[00:07:19] Product collection. 

[00:07:20] Or maybe some kind of like landing page where you're selling it.

[00:07:23] But then you want to have content around that.

[00:07:25] The types of queries people are asking related to wooden letters. Maybe you've got like examples of I'm thinking of, like designs using wooden letters. 

[00:07:33] Or you've got I don't know, whatever the types of content people are asking for in relation to that, get that on your website and then you can funnel them through to that buy page.

[00:07:42] Yeah. Yeah. And then by naturally funneling them to that page, you're linking. 

[00:07:45] So you would link from the article you've created through to the product or collection page. So you're sending them that way. 

[00:07:52] And every time you link to that bottom funnel page, you're basically saying to Google, this is really important. 

[00:07:58] Because the more you talk about it, essentially, the more you link to it, the more important Google perceives the page to be.

[00:08:02] Crystal Waddell: I've learned this whole concept through surfer. Surfer SEO. 

[00:08:06] And, when I came into SEO surfer, just came into my face, and this idea of like topic clusters and those types of things human and because I have my background in e commerce, creating content around a product made sense because I'm like, okay, I want people to buy my product.

[00:08:22] And I had pictures from Etsy where people would share like what they did with their letters or whatever. 

[00:08:28] I had event planners that I'd worked with that had sent me their photos. So that was the type of content that I created, initially for the wooden letters. 

[00:08:36] And so I'm, I know that I need to go back and up that a little bit again. 

[00:08:40] But it's fun because once you realize what people are looking for, you feel empowered because you're like, wait a second.

[00:08:48] That is my thing. That is my business. I know this. 

[00:08:51] Zoe Ashbridge: Yeah, I think that's a big part of it with SEO as well actually. Is it's really overwhelming to think because content creation is hard. 

[00:08:57] Or at least it's long. It's very time consuming. You've got to write it. You've got to edit it. You've got to find the image.

[00:09:03] Maybe you're gonna go and create a video about it So it's an awful lot of work to put into something that you're not sure is gonna work for you. 

[00:09:09] But if you found the why well, I know why I'm doing this and I know people are looking for it. 

[00:09:13] You're going to be so much more motivated to go and create the content because there's a higher chance that it's gonna actually work for you. 

The Role of Video in SEO

[00:09:19] Crystal Waddell: Okay, so I have to take a quick detour there because you mentioned video and google just announced this last week. 

[00:09:25] That's the time that we're recording this, you know in the middle of december They announced that they're no longer ranking pages that where video is not the main content.

[00:09:33] I have made it a practice to embed video into a lot of my different pages.

[00:09:38] What do you think of this change? Do you think that it's still worth embedding video like for, from a user experience perspective? 

[00:09:47] Or do you think it's going to be detrimental to our ability to show up in search if we have a video embedded and it's not like the main content of the page? 

[00:09:56] Zoe Ashbridge: Is this I haven't actually seen that update.

[00:09:58] So is this update related to when it's just a video on a page, perhaps? 

[00:10:02] Crystal Waddell: Yeah they said that they said when it's not the main content, it will no longer rank. 

[00:10:07] I don't consider this like black hat or even gray hat. 

[00:10:10] I thought it was strategic! 

[00:10:11] But one of my thoughts was, okay I'm going to embed a video and the transcript.

[00:10:16] On the page where I'm talking about the thing or whatever. And it would get picked up in search and video search. 

[00:10:23] And now it is not going to be picked up a video search anymore. 

[00:10:27] Zoe Ashbridge: Oh, okay. So I haven't read about the updates. Please be a bit careful with my advice here, but my current stance on it is, yeah, absolutely embed video.

[00:10:36] I think as long as it adds something to the page. And it's useful. So I guess what you're doing is just putting the video and the transcripts and then that's it. 

[00:10:44] Crystal Waddell: I usually write the blog first and then, the video. I was doing everything. I'm like, Hey, yeah, we're going to get picked up.

[00:10:51] I want to get picked up in all of the different places. 

[00:10:53] Like images, text, video, so I was just making a nice collage, if you would, of content on a page. 

[00:10:59] Zoe Ashbridge: Yeah, oh, I know I would normally recommend that, so I clearly need to go and read this update, to be honest, before I can properly comment on that.

[00:11:06] Crystal Waddell: Okay. I can't remember what happened. I was just reading and it popped up. And so I immediately emailed one of my clients because we do this with video on her site as well. 

[00:11:15] So I just said, Hey, just a heads up. This happened. And I'm not sure, like what this really means for us. 

[00:11:20] But I just want to let you know that, it did happen.

[00:11:22] I'm going to keep an eye on it or whatever. But okay. 

Creating Content Based on Customer Journey

[00:11:24] Crystal Waddell: We just talked about finding opportunities that people are actually searching for. Like going to Google search console and identifying, like the best keywords. 

[00:11:32] And keywords that are towards like the actual sales part of the funnel.

[00:11:36] But how do you create content that will rank for those things. 

[00:11:40] Like you said, it's easy to rank for a bunch of different things, but what about the things that are actually going to make your business money? How do you do that? 

The Importance of Keywords in SEO

[00:11:48] Zoe Ashbridge: I think the biggest thing at the moment, I suppose there's two, two things, really.

[00:11:52] The first thing definitely will become more important is this kind of notion of like topical authority. 

[00:11:56] So proving that you have a lot of knowledge on a subject. So it's not really enough to put up a product page of, let's just say, wooden letters. 

[00:12:04] And expect Google to rank that because like, why should it?

[00:12:07] And I think it's perfectly reasonable how it works as well when you think about it. Is that if you were to go and buy from someone in real life, if you like. 

[00:12:15] You would want them to show you that they are an expert on this. And I suppose in, in, in a real life transaction, that's just through talking. 

[00:12:22] You ask them questions, they answer, you feel confident in what they do, and therefore you make the sale.

[00:12:28] And that's all we're really doing with our website. And the solution to that is to create a lot of content on the subject. 

[00:12:35] And what that does is it essentially proves to Google I am an expert at this because look at what I know. 

[00:12:40] Therefore I deserve to be ranked on Google. And to the user you'll say you're giving them all of the answers to their questions and building their trust. 

[00:12:49] So cover the topic in full Is the takeaway there.

[00:12:52] And then the second thing is of course keywords. You do need keywords on the website in order to rank. 

[00:12:57] And if you're very like early in your SEO journey, you don't have access to keyword search tools like semrush, or similar. 

[00:13:05] Then you can use google search console. 

[00:13:07] Go and have a look at what you're getting found for now but the other way to do it is to go to a tool or just use common sense, to be fair. 

[00:13:14] Like you said earlier, you know what your, what people ask you, what their questions are. So create content on that.

[00:13:20] And there are some kind of let's say little rules, let's call them guides on how to use a keyword. 

[00:13:26] You would put it in the URL of the page. You would put it it within the context of the content, naturally. 

[00:13:32] In the title tag put it in the meta description and then what you can also do is Because we're talking about this idea of creating topical authority.

[00:13:40] So all these different articles around the subject. I'm just going to stick with wooden letters. You would then be able to link these pieces of content together. Where it's natural. I just used your head there. 

[00:13:50] So if you know that what a certain question that someone has they're going to probably ask this next question but link those two pieces of content together.

[00:13:58] And then you would use the keywords in the actual link itself. 

[00:14:01] So that kind of says to google if someone searches this i'm using this link. 

[00:14:06] This is what I want that page to rank for so bring it up in google. 

[00:14:10] Crystal Waddell: One thing you just said that just made so much sense to me. Or just I you know I saw this visual in my mind. 

[00:14:14] Is like this idea of a customer journey And what questions do they ask next?

[00:14:19] Because I'm like obsessed with graphs and customer journeys. And that type of thing. And like journey mapping. 

[00:14:24] And so, that's one way you could do it. You could just make a list of questions that people have. 

[00:14:29] And then once that question is answered, what's the next question that they have.

[00:14:33] And then once that's answered, what's the next question that they have? 

[00:14:37] Zoe Ashbridge: Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:14:38] And I think, if you're starting out and you don't have access to the tools that's a perfectly good way to do it. 

[00:14:42] I actually had a client not that long ago. He hired me to do a strategy, so I did that and the CMO at the time looked at it and said, this is so much better than anything I could create.

[00:14:50] He's you're gonna laugh at me. But what I did was I went into Reddit and I pulled all the FAQs. And started writing articles on it. 

[00:14:56] And I thought, actually that's great. If you don't really have anything else, that is actually a really good way to start SEO. Because people are searching for it. 

[00:15:03] That they're searching for it now because it's on, it's one of these social media platforms.

[00:15:08] You're definitely addressing their pain points, their problems. What's wrong with that? Truly nothing. It's a really it's a good tactic if that's all you've got go for it. 

[00:15:17] Crystal Waddell: And i'm interested in like any tools that you might recommend for like customer journey mapping. But I wanted to make a comment real quick because one thing that I just learned about recently You know like in terms of keyword tools. 

[00:15:29] Is that keyword tools are giving us?

[00:15:32] Information from the past. 

[00:15:34] Rather than information of right now. And as I heard you say that, if that person was going to read it and finding what people were saying right now, he was actually getting better information than some tool that is aggregating data from, months ago.

[00:15:49] And so that was an epiphany again. That, as I've maybe read your page or other people's, blogs on SEO, and I realized, oh my goodness. 

[00:15:58] Like the right now SEO is, it's not the same picture as what you get from tools.

[00:16:04] And so it's really important to be able to balance that. 

[00:16:07] And I think for those of us who know our businesses are cyclical, like for me, I do senior night. 

[00:16:11] And so every fall there's football in the United States. American football. 

[00:16:16] In the winter, there's basketball. In the spring, there's baseball and softball. 

[00:16:19] Those things are evergreen and cyclical.

[00:16:21] So the keywords that are related to that, they are standardized and they're going to remain, similar from year to year. 

[00:16:27] But that's not the case for everybody's content. And so I just wanted to make that comment right now, because that was just something I discovered. 

[00:16:34] And I thought it was worth mentioning that, Hey, we want to make sure that we stay up to date.

[00:16:38] And like you said, use common sense by searching Google for what's happening right now versus things could have been completely different six months ago. 

[00:16:46] Zoe Ashbridge: Yeah, absolutely. I think what you just said there was good to tap into as well. 

Creating Content for Future SEO Benefits

[00:16:50] Zoe Ashbridge: As this idea of things like things that kind of repeat annually. 

[00:16:54] I think sometimes you've got to look at your first year investment into content. 

[00:16:57] Because SEO does take a long time sometimes especially if you're a small business. 

[00:17:01] So let's say the holidays are coming up and you start to create your holiday content and maybe you've left it too late. So it's 11th of December.

[00:17:06] You're never gonna get a rank now before Christmas But if you've got the time to Do it now in 2023, because in 2024, you've then got the foundation set. 

[00:17:15] So you can just go through like an edit process.

[00:17:17] Which is a lot easier to do than creating the whole content from scratch. Yeah, I think that's a good point to make.

[00:17:22] So if you want to just think about your content as an investment for the years to come, get it on the website, get it done, and then you've got a much easier place to start from for years and years ahead. 

[00:17:30] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, that's fantastic because I presented to some photographers this last year. 

[00:17:36] And we were talking about that exact thing of oh no, we're too late for this year.

[00:17:40] But like you said, you're early for next year. 

[00:17:43] And you just have this like ability to ramp up and really benefit next year. 

Balancing Immediate Revenue Needs with SEO

[00:17:49] Crystal Waddell: And I think, especially for small businesses who are just trying to generate revenue. 

[00:17:53] They're new, they're starting up or whatever.

[00:17:55] SEO just seems like such a long winded, far off dream. 

[00:17:59] Because it's I need money right now! 

[00:18:01] For those businesses, do you think that SEO is even a viable option if they're looking to make money today or tomorrow or the next week? 

[00:18:09] Just to stay in business.

[00:18:11] Zoe Ashbridge: I think, how do I answer that? I almost want to say no. 

[00:18:14] But I don't want to say that. Because the way I see it is, SEO is one part of like your full marketing strategy. 

[00:18:21] So for those who need the kind of like the money now, I think like social media is a bit more reactive. It's faster, you can do pretty well on TikTok in a very short amount of time.

[00:18:29] However. 

[00:18:30] You're never going to regret starting SEO I don't think. Because the future you will thank you. If you've built your website with SEO in mind. 

[00:18:39] So. I think you can't look at it as something that's going to make you money tomorrow. Like it's not going to do that even for big brands, honestly. 

[00:18:44] It takes time in most cases to Get things over the line to structure websites. To write the content. 

[00:18:50] But yeah, at some point, if you're serious about growing your business, you are going to, in most cases, want to be found on Google.

[00:18:58] And you're never going to regret having that data in Google Search Console. 

[00:19:01] It's a bit like what I said before just get content on the website so you've got something to look at and something to make decisions from. You just need data. 

Setting Up Google Search Console and Analytics

[00:19:08] Zoe Ashbridge: Get your Google Search Console set up, get Analytics set up.

[00:19:10] Get words on the website and then use Google search console to see what you're being found for. 

[00:19:15] And you will find that even with pretty low minimal efforts, you will get some kind of traction. 

[00:19:21] To inspire you in the future and then it builds momentum. 

[00:19:23] Because then you've got the motivation to create the content Like you said earlier. So I think that's a way to look at. It's not immediate. 

[00:19:29] But you're going to be doing your future business a favor by considering it. 

The Impact of SEO on Other Marketing Channels

[00:19:33] Zoe Ashbridge: And to be fair, when you get into SEO as well. It will inspire all other marketing channels.

[00:19:37] For example, if you're using TikTok, I would be fairly, I think it's fairly safe to say that the keywords that people put into Google are often also the keywords I put into TikTok providing it's visual. So going with words and letters again, like how people use them. 

[00:19:52] Like maybe like in nurseries or as bookends or in, in events.

[00:19:56] People might be looking for that kind of inspiration. So then you've got the keyword that you'll be it's on your website. 

[00:20:00] That you can now try and tick tock try it in pinterest.

[00:20:03] So it you know, it lends a hand to all other marketing channels. 

[00:20:07] Crystal Waddell: I love that. And when we get off this call today, I'm going to make a Tik Tok for buy wooden letters.

[00:20:12] Yeah. Try it. Yeah. Let that start working today. And just list out all those things you just said. So that is so awesome. 

[00:20:19] Okay. 

Transitioning to SEO Goals and KPIs

[00:20:19] Crystal Waddell: So let's shift into something like, let's say a business has bought into SEO and they've got some data. 

[00:20:24] That they can actually reflect on in Analytics or Google Search Console.

[00:20:29] What are some clear goals that people could set? And then what are some KPIs that they could actually measure? Like key performance indicators, right? What could they actually measure from that data? 

Understanding the Flow of SEO: Impressions, Clicks, Revenue

[00:20:39] Zoe Ashbridge: So the general kind of flow of SEO is impressions first. Clicks. Revenue. 

[00:20:45] So if you're a small business, I want to look in google search console. And I would look at your impressions. And I would dig into like specific keywords.

[00:20:53] So pick one topic related to your website. 

[00:20:58] And then build it build that out. 

[00:20:59] So, yeah. 

[00:21:00] Your content gets impressions first and an impression is just someone seeing the content. 

[00:21:04] So you could write an article that actually is maybe it's just on page five to begin with because it takes time to get to page one. But it's fairly easy to get to page five. Comparatively.

[00:21:14] You want to be looking to increase impressions for that keyword first. 

[00:21:17] And then its clicks. And then the revenue will come. 

[00:21:19] It's really difficult to provide a specific KPI because that's going to look different for every business. 

[00:21:24] So I think the thing to do is to weed out Your focus. So my focus is wooden letters. 

[00:21:30] And I'm going to look at the impression of the bottom funnel page, because that's going to be the hardest to move. 

[00:21:36] So you're going to get impressions way before you get clicks. And then probably clicks to the supporting articles. 

[00:21:42] And then once you've got the clicks coming in, then you've got the data to start digging into more refined kpis like what are they clicking?

[00:21:49] Where are they clicking? 

[00:21:50] Are they funneling through to the bottom funnel page? If not, maybe I need to move the call to actions higher. 

[00:21:55] Maybe I need to change the color. And that's where that deeper analysis comes in. He's starting to move into CRO a little bit there. 

[00:22:01] But I think SEO and Crow are, they're best friends really. Have to work with them both together.

The Role of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) in SEO

[00:22:06] Crystal Waddell: Okay, and so you said Crow, that C R O, can you explain what that is? 

[00:22:10] Zoe Ashbridge: Yeah, of course. So CRO is like conversion rate optimization. And it's basically what comes once you've got clicks to the website. 

[00:22:16] So you can't really start, you can't really start conversion rate optimization until you've got the data.

[00:22:20] 'cause you need to know how people are using your site. And a good way to get a gauge of that. I use Hotjar. 

[00:22:26] I've been recommended Microsoft Clarity, which I think is free. I've still not paid that. 

Using Data to Improve Website Interactions

[00:22:30] Zoe Ashbridge: But I'd recommend getting that on your website so you can just start to analyze like scroll depth. 

[00:22:34] You can see how deep people are getting into the content.

[00:22:36] You can see where they're clicking. And sometimes I track actions through g4, which is actually quite easy to do. 

[00:22:42] You would just need to search for a youtube video like "track a button click" or something. 

[00:22:47] And then you can see, what they're clicking on the web on the website. 

[00:22:51] And then with this conversion optimization. The goal then is to increase the clicks on the website. 

[00:22:55] Increase the scroll. Increase people who funnel down to that bottom funnel page. 

[00:22:59] And then you do that by basically changing the page design.

[00:23:02] Maybe you edit the content. Change the colors around, change the order of sections. 

[00:23:08] Maybe you need to build more trust on the page. You can start running these little experiments on the page to get the most out of it. 

[00:23:14] Crystal Waddell: Oh my gosh. Okay. So you painted another beautiful picture for me. I never thought about this before, but it's okay, if the thing that you want to sell, and let's say it's a wooden letter A. That's, or maybe even like you said, the collection page.

[00:23:27] For the wooden letters, understanding the number of impressions that page has right now. And documenting that and then creating the content that points to that page. Then I have something to measure in terms of. 

[00:23:40] Okay, is the traffic and the impressions. And like you said, the clicks, all of those things.

[00:23:45] Are they going up? And now I can actually say that it's likely because of the content that I've created That this page is getting clicks. 

[00:23:52] I never fully understood the mapping of the data to that. So thank you for that. 

[00:23:59] That is so great. The other question I wanted to ask and this is More on the, I call it CRO, but the CRO side of it.

[00:24:06] How do you maintain a measurement of that? When you make changes or even, with your SEO changes, like updates. 

[00:24:13] What's the best way to do that so that you can tell, okay. If something improved or did not improve. Or declined. How can you tell what may have caused it? 

The Importance of Experimentation in SEO

[00:24:25] Zoe Ashbridge: I think the thing to do there is not to change too many things at the same time.

[00:24:28] You need to run your experiments. You can have all the ideas of what you're going to change. But you don't want to go in Change like 10 things in one go. 

[00:24:35] Otherwise, you're going to really struggle to know what moved the needle. 

[00:24:39] So I would just do like micro Experiments. 

[00:24:42] You know, for one month we're going to we're going to add more reviews to the page for example. Okay, that seemed to work.

[00:24:48] The numbers have gone up. Now, let's try another little experiment. 

[00:24:51] What if I move the reviews higher up the page? Maybe that's just one experiment. 

[00:24:56] So yeah, it needs to be small. And obviously this gets easier with more traffic. So the more traffic you've got, the more data you've got to play with. 

[00:25:03] You might need to run small experiments and run them for longer to get a decent data set.

[00:25:07] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. And it's so interesting to me. It's just from a small, like a super small business perspective when you're the one doing it. It's Oh, I don't know if I could wait that long to try out different things. 

[00:25:18] But it's also comforting because it's like, everything isn't just going to happen at once.

[00:25:23] And so to have that kind of restraint to really see and be able to evaluate, that's pretty key. Okay, here's another question. 

Qualifying Leads with SEO

[00:25:31] Crystal Waddell: How can you qualify leads with SEO? Because in something I think you wrote, you were talking about, if you do your SEO well, you can qualify leads before, they actually book a call.

[00:25:43] How do you get better leads, with SEO? Like how can you use your SEO strategy to get better fit clients for your business? 

[00:25:52] Zoe Ashbridge: Okay. So the answer there is to, it's to write more targeted content, I think. 

[00:25:57] I work with a skincare brand and we've got a, it's a top funnel blog that I never would've expected to make sales, but it does. 

[00:26:05] Not many 'cause, like I said, top funnel blog, it's not really meant to make a sale.

[00:26:08] So the fact that it makes any is, a real win for me. . But it's very targeted. 

[00:26:12] So what we do is we've got the problem the people are facing. Plus their age. 

[00:26:18] Which is good because it's, they're within an age that we know is the best converter on the website. 

[00:26:23] So it's women over 40. Obviously they've got disposable income. Starting to get a bit more conscientious about skincare. When you've like probably hit 30 and even more so into 40. 

[00:26:32] So yeah. It's about finding the audiences that you know are going to convert. And finding the problem and then addressing that very directly. 

[00:26:38] So that's going to be like a qualified audience. So yeah, if you compare that person, like I'm looking for an example then.

[00:26:45] So I'm looking for wooden letters for my wedding. That's a very qualified person. You know what they're looking for. You know what event they're holding. You can create content around that. 

[00:26:54] You're probably going to get a more qualified lead to funnel down to the bottom funnel content. That's certainly one way.

[00:27:00] Another way of qualifying the performance of content. There's a report in G4. I'm obsessed with it. I love it. 

[00:27:05] Segment analysis. Segment gap analysis. Basically, you can put your audience into segments and then see how they interact. So what I love to do, because like with what happens with SEO is.

[00:27:14] They'll come to your website, they'll learn something, they'll leave. 

[00:27:17] Maybe you're also retargeting them with ads, they come back to the website through an ad, and then they buy and add ads to get the sale. 

[00:27:24] But it was actually SEO that got the user on this one on the website. So we need to look for other ways to measure sales so that SEO can get at least a little attribution for the kind of like assist.

[00:27:34] Yes. And what that segment report allows you to do is create a segment. So a person who viewed blog. Or viewed SEO content and converted within a timeframe. 

[00:27:45] And what's good about this is you can also see the compounding results. So I like to look at this monthly. So someone viewed a blog and then at some point within that month, they also bought something.

[00:27:53] They might have bought from an email. But we know they saw SEO's content. So it brings SEO into the mix. 

[00:27:59] You can also use it to like funnel traffic as well. So viewed this article and also viewed this case study, for example. 

[00:28:06] So you can see how the funnel is working as well. 

[00:28:09] So the touch points that different users are making across the website.

[00:28:12] It's such a good report. 

[00:28:14] Crystal Waddell: Awesome. 

[00:28:14] This would be a good time to share: if you heard anything here that you're like, whoa I want to explore that further. 

[00:28:20] And I don't know exactly what Zoe said or exactly what crystal was talking about. 

[00:28:24] You can type it in and it's a custom GPT that I created for you, the listener of the show.

[00:28:30] So you can click on that, search the show and type in your question and it will pull it up in the in the result. 

[00:28:38] And you can actually listen to it again or read the transcript or whatever.

[00:28:43] So I just, I'm really excited because I'm going to go back and do that. 

[00:28:46] After the show, myself.

[00:28:48] If there's anything here that really resonated with you, just make sure that you go search the show. 

[00:28:53] Get that information so you can, create this report for yourself.

[00:28:56] Zoe Ashbridge: Segment overlap is what it's called. It's the segment overlap report.

[00:29:00] Crystal Waddell: Segment overlap. Cool. Okay. So make that note and then go back and search the show for that. 

Nurturing Brand Advocates

[00:29:04] Crystal Waddell: The other thing that I noticed through one of your posts that you talked about. 

[00:29:08] Was this idea of after people buy. Like creating brand advocates. 

[00:29:12] And so I thought, do you have any ideas on how to nurture those advocates? And, encourage them to share about your business? 

[00:29:21] Create social proof or anything along those lines?

[00:29:24] Zoe Ashbridge: Yeah, there's so many ways you can do that. I've got a client who's brilliant at this. They are really creating like a community around their products, around their brands. 

[00:29:31] And there are a few ways they're doing it. I, it's, it helps so much. Like it's been one of the easiest SEO clients i've had in terms of like revenue and Success. 

[00:29:42] Because they're doing so much outside of seo. So much branding that it's just easier to convert someone. 

[00:29:48] So I think this is really important if you can. So i'll share some of the things they're doing.

[00:29:51] First of all, they've got like a facebook group where People can go. It's a bit of a community. People are asking advice. The community are helping each other. 

[00:29:58] So it's it's fairly like a hands off in some ways. Because people within there will just interact and talk to each other, help each other.

[00:30:04] That's a great way to do it. And then of course you can join that group, share industry news. 

[00:30:08] Share the latest offers or whatever. So that feels good. Podcasts can be good. It's like what we're doing now to be fair, just like talking. 

[00:30:16] That can be a great way to engage users. Email nurturing. I think is really important. And you can incentivize actions from your audience. 

[00:30:24] So, things like, if we give you some free products, will you do a review?

[00:30:29] Will you do a video? That kind of interaction. 

[00:30:32] My skincare client, they give people products for specific problems. So like oily skin or dry skin. They give them the the routine that they need to use. 

[00:30:41] The user who's an existing customer, they then use it for four weeks and then they can show the before and after.

[00:30:49] So you've got this really good like UGC content. That's a great way to do it as well. What else is there? 

[00:30:55] Just incentivizing reviews. There are like, loads of platforms now that allow you to identify reviews with like discounts, recommend a friend discounts and reviews are amazing.

[00:31:04] Obviously, the more social proof you can get, especially for a small business. 

[00:31:07] Because the challenge for a small e commerce business is you are probably competing with a well known brand. So you need to prove that you're good. 

[00:31:15] Because we already have a certain level of trust in a brand that's already established.

[00:31:19] So like I've got to have a good reason to buy and like price isn't enough if you're just cheaper. Like I don't, I still want a good product. So you need to prove that it's good and reviews the best way to do that. So I think incentivizing reviews is a good one. 

[00:31:32] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. In my case with the wooden letters, Hobby Lobby, 24 inch letters.

[00:31:36] That's like a common search that I actually show up for. 

[00:31:39] But that's who I'm competing against in the United States. For that particular thing. 

[00:31:44] But the differentiator is that my letters are so big, like a lot of big chain brands or whatever, they don't sell giant letters. 

[00:31:51] Like four foot letters or three and a half foot letters. 

[00:31:53] So that's one of those things where it's okay. If you find yourself competing with a huge Titan in the industry. 

[00:31:59] See if there's something that you can do, that's a little bit different than what they offer. 

[00:32:03] Because they can't pivot as quickly to, to create that. Or even find a vendor. 

[00:32:08] Such great tips.

SEO Strategies for 2024: Topical Authority and Cautious Use of AI

[00:32:09] Crystal Waddell: I guess the last question that I would have for you is: what do you think small business owners developing their optimization strategies for 2024 should focus on for the first six months of 2024? 

[00:32:24] Zoe Ashbridge: I would say topical authority. I've actually got a Moz article on this, which has got a step by step guide on how to do it.

[00:32:30] So perhaps we can share that. But build out expertise in a subject.

[00:32:35] Answer all the buyer questions, create the content, get the case studies. 

[00:32:39] Like everything you can think that your user would want before they bought something from you. 

[00:32:44] Just give them that and get it on the website. That would be my first thought.

[00:32:48] And then my second kind of warning would be not to, just be cautious with AI because I know it's very tempting to... I think AI is great. Don't get me wrong. It's got its place. Use it to write your content as a tool. 

[00:33:00] But don't be tempted to throw up a lot of AI content to try and close the gap on these bigger competitors.

[00:33:06] I think what small business can do is be very detailed, be very in depth, be very soulful. 

[00:33:12] Because that's why people buy from small business as well, generally. Yeah, keep the content very above board. 

[00:33:18] Because I think the AI will see, I don't think we're not going to continue using it, I think it's great. 

[00:33:23] But I don't think it's wise to put up a thousand pages of AI content, really.,

[00:33:27] I would just be more, more focused than that. And just create high quality, good content that really resonates.

[00:33:32] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, that's so awesome. Okay. 

Connecting with Zoe Ashbridge

[00:33:34] Crystal Waddell: So if people want to connect with you. 

[00:33:37] What is the best way for them to find Zoe Ashbridge online? 

[00:33:42] Zoe Ashbridge: Probably just to head to my LinkedIn is probably the best place. I'm very active in there. 

[00:33:46] I'm active in there every day. But certainly posting five days a week. So yeah, just, you can just put Zoe Ashbridge into LinkedIn.

[00:33:53] I do have a website with like SEO power hours, if that was of interest to anyone. Just find forank.com. 

[00:33:58] But that's also linked from my LinkedIn. Yeah, I think that's probably the best place. 

Identifying the Right Fit for Zoe's Services

[00:34:02] Crystal Waddell: Okay, and then if there's a certain type of person listening right now that might be a good fit for what you offer, can you describe the type of business? 

[00:34:11] I know you mentioned earlier that maybe a certain business wasn't quite ready to work with you. 

[00:34:15] How someone could self identify that maybe they are ready to work with your company?

[00:34:20] Zoe Ashbridge: I would say it's someone who Doesn't really have the budget. 

[00:34:24] Because I think that the problem with a small very small SEO retainer. 

[00:34:27] Is it not you might not get a lot of work done in just because people need to be paid So I would say it's someone who is still at a point where they want to move with this They want to get serious.

[00:34:37] They can't quite afford to hire someone to do it. 

[00:34:39] And they just want to get some good ideas, make sure they're on the right path and go at it solo for a while. I think that's good. 

[00:34:46] I think actually you can save a lot of money with that. The SEO power hour. 

[00:34:50] Yeah, so someone who's gonna handle it in house, but just wants some strategic direction.

[00:34:54] That's the right person. 

[00:34:56] Crystal Waddell: Okay. Awesome. So yeah, let's keep this conversation going.

[00:34:59] If you have any thoughts, questions, ideas, whatever. 

Closing Remarks and Contact Information

[00:35:03] Crystal Waddell: You can find me all over the internet at knowledge vomit. 

[00:35:06] Definitely send me a message wherever you are. Send Zoe a message. 

[00:35:10] We definitely want to make sure that you're reaching your business goals for 2024. And we want to say thank you for being here.

[00:35:17] So until next time, have a great one. 

[00:35:19] Thanks, Crystal. Thanks for having 

[00:35:20] me.