SEO Strategies For Your Website to Attract "Golden Clients"

This transcript is machine generated and has not been fully edited for errors.

Brittany Herzberg:

0:00Okay, so today I'm going to walk you.

Brittany HerzbergYou, Crystal and you anyone listening.

Through the website rewrite that I just did.

Which I'm really excited to share about.

I wrote down all my notes. I have things I feel organized.

I actually wrote I think it was on linkedin this morning.

I wrote a post about.

How long it took two years pretty much since the time I wrote my initial website.

I was like It was always ebbing and flowing. And always evolving and.

It took so long because I was like, okay.

I need to get to a point where I know these things and these are the things I'm going to walk you through.

But these things are updated and new and like where I really want to focus all of my energy.

So.

Crystal WaddellIt's like that thing that you say. What you do, who you help, that type of thing. You,

Brittany Herzbergyeah. Bingo..

Crystal WaddellOkay.

Because I think.

Probably what you're saying is over the years, your offers have changed so much.

You found your niche.

Where you really shine helping people.

Crystal Waddell:

1:00So I'm excited to hear all about it. Yeah.

And that was my first question.

My first question was gonna be like, why did it take two years? But I get it. I totally get it.

Brittany HerzbergYeah.

And it's that's a little bit of an exaggeration because I had website copy. It was functioning. But if you've ever talked to a business owner, you know that we're always like not happy with what's out there.

Crystal WaddellAnd the other thing I know about you is that you've been so busy.

Our businesses are different. I'm always like tweaking e commerce stuff.

Adding new products.

Messing around with that type of thing.

But you're doing actual client work for other people that has deadlines.

And so it's like people who do client work understand this.

That a lot of times your own website.

And your own stuff. Gets the attention last.

So I do want to say, I understand that.

Brittany HerzbergYeah.

And you hit the nail on the head when you were saying like, the offers are evolving. The clients are evolving. So yeah.

If you're in that place and you're listening to this.

And you're like, Oh, I could totally resonate. You're not alone. And it doesn't

2:00have to take two years.

Crystal WaddellI have to ask you that very important question. How do you define SEO?

Brittany HerzbergOh, I think we all know this.

This is cute.

SEO is how you show up as the answer to a Googled question.

And I love that is my line.

And it's really funny when people listen to the show.

And then they come back in in my DMs or in emails or something.

And they're like, I say that now.

And I think it's really cool.

Crystal WaddellYeah, I know.

That's a fun little saying. It's easy to say. It's easy to understand. And it's exactly spot on.

Brittany HerzbergI tried really hard. I can't do a hair toss because my hair's in a bun.

But okay. So I was really thinking about okay,

when I started rewriting my site, where did I begin? So I gave myself this like exercise this morning.

And I really started, when I was updating my voice of customer, voice of client interviews.

So doing that market research, which I tell people all the time and especially when we're talking on the podcast.

I'm like, talk to your people. Talk to your people.

But I hadn't been talking to the right people.

And that was one of the things that

3:00was unfolding over the last nine months, I would say.

If I like am serious about the timeline there.

So over the last nine months, I Was figuring out characteristics of my ideal client.

And who that person was.

And the budget that they had.

And what their business looked like.

And what their problems were.

And then I did Celie's roadmaps program.

And we had her on the show recently.

One of the first exercises is all about voice of customer.

So I think I did 11 or 12 of those and I organized that.

And then that allowed me to update my messaging.

Crystal WaddellOkay. So I definitely don't want to interrupt your train of thought.

I do apologize. But I was just curious.

You were like, I wasn't reaching the right customer. And I was wondering if there was some sort of indicator?

How did you identify and recognize that you weren't reaching the person that you wanted to reach?

Brittany HerzbergThat's a good question.

I don't think it was necessarily that I wasn't reaching them because I was pulling in the right people.

I wanted to figure out how to pull in more of those people.

I was very aware of some of the projects that

4:00were super draining on me.

Energetically and time wise.

My pricing needed to change.

Because there were some things that were happening and I was honestly a little bit resentful.

It didn't happen often, but it was happening often enough where I was like.

This has got to be tweaked.

So it was more about like, how do I find more of you? Like you, this golden client that I want more of.

That's a good question.

Crystal WaddellYeah. I like how you called it the golden client.

I can reflect back on e commerce, in that feeling of resentfulness.

That has been my measure as well.

When I start feeling like this.

Effort isn't matching up with the amount that I'm actually getting compensated for it.

Or I'm just overwhelmed.

This is the time where I have to reevaluate my pricing.

And raise the pricing. So I definitely get that.

And I think a lot of people probably wonder, how do you quantify that something needs to change?

Brittany HerzbergOh, yeah. Yeah, I'm that is a good point.

I've had other people say this. So, it's weird for me to say and that's why I'm hesitating.

But I've had other people tell me that I'm more aware than other people are.

So I'm almost

5:00like, too aware of myself.

And what's going on.

It's a blessing and a curse.

So yeah, that's just it comes naturally to me.

But you're totally right that it doesn't come naturally to other people.

And even though I'm aware, it still takes some time.

To be like, Okay, I feel weird.

But what is it? Where is it coming from? What do I need to change?

So I like that. I like that point of clarification.

So I did the voice of customer interviews.

Got that information.

And then I use that to update my messaging.

And for me, when I think about messaging, those questions you were pointing out those three questions are what I ask everybody.

And I feel like they inform not only your messaging.

But also your SEO. So those three questions just to repeat.

It's who do you help?

So that's your ideal client, those characteristics.

How do you help them?

Those are your offers.

And then what do you want to be known for?

And I love asking those three questions.

Because it really does drill to just like the heart of the matter.

And it's okay, these are my answers.

You can use that for your messaging.

And then you can use that for step four.

Was to actually do the

6:00keyword research.

And create the new SEO strategies for the pages that I updated.

It wasn't everything it was home about in services.

So I use that to, to do the new keyword research and to create those strategy pages.

Crystal WaddellDo you remember the day when you would ask yourself like who I help?

And the answer was I'll help anyone! And I'll help everyone!

Brittany HerzbergI wasn't so much like that. I was really weird.

Like, this is one of my strange awareness things.

And I think it was I credit it to being because I came from a world where I had a I had my massage business.

I had already been in business.

So I knew the importance of having a niche.

And not just helping everyone.

And so when I became a copywriter.

You can niche in different ways.

But I knew that I wanted to help health and wellness providers.

That's one of the things that expanded.

And now I help service providers.

I knew who I wanted to help.

I didn't necessarily know how I wanted to help them though.

So I was taking on any copywriting project that came my way.

If I got excited about it.

I was like, Ooh, let's try this out.

So that's where I was a

7:00little bit more open.

Crystal WaddellYeah. I think that's a good thing though.

Saying, Hey, are you excited about it?

That's probably a good job for you if you don't understand who exactly you want to help.

My cousin is starting his own lawn service.

And that was the first question I asked him. I was like who do you want to help?

Who's your ideal client?

Everybody. I was like, okay, we got to back this up.

And I just think that's how so many business owners start out.

So I think this is such a great point of clarification.

Instead of saying, I want to help everybody.

You can pick somebody, pick a golden client. Create a golden client.

Or identify a golden client.

That makes it a lot easier to build your offers.

Brittany HerzbergI would say yes, I would say firm yes to that.

And I like to, something else I like to offer people is that you're not married to that niche or that ideal client or even that product.

So, you're just dating it.

So it's okay, I'm gonna clean this for a little while.

If you're the kind of person that needs to or likes to put a time limit on it Say.

Okay I'm gonna try this for I would say at least give it like three months to let it really pan out. And see if you Like it or not.

But yeah, you could

8:00do that.

You could just say i'm gonna try this for a while until it doesn't feel good or until it evolves or whatever.

But i'm curious like with you.

First of all, tell us like who it is that you like helping.

And how did you arrive at that?

Crystal WaddellGosh I like helping everybody. No, I'm just kidding.

I like helping Shopify store owners.

The specific niche within that is handmade shopify store owners.

Any seller that's making the transition from selling on Etsy.

To also building their own online presence.

So that's my specialty.

And the reason why I arrived there is because that's what I do.

And so what I realized through the process.

Is every question that I've had, other people also have.

I'm also one of those learners that, I want to know exactly how it works.

And why it works the way it does.

I ask a lot of questions that some people don't even know to ask.

I don't know how many times I've had somebody tell me, I didn't even know what an H1 was.

And especially in the case of Shopify.

I

9:00didn't even know where to find that meta description to change it.

Or the impact of duplicating a page.

And what impact that had.

That's who I serve, and I can serve the best.

But, I do have other people that come in.

Even though I'm talking to Shopify store owners.

Realtors have reached out to me.

Photographers, that's been another big source of clientele.

But yeah, my sweet spot is that Etsy handmade seller that's trying to build their Shopify store.

Brittany HerzbergYeah, and I have noticed that a lot of us.

Even just like working with my clients, a lot of us business owners end up helping earlier versions of us.

Because we have these answers now.

And we're like, somebody else needs this.

Just like what you said.

Yeah, I think that's pretty typical and common.

And if you're listening and you're starting out, it's a really easy place to start.

Crystal WaddellYou said voice of customer.

Can we revisit that really quick? That to me sounds internal lingo or whatever.

Brittany HerzbergCoach speak?

Crystal WaddellWhat is it?

10:00How do you do it? How do you use it? Why is it important?

Brittany HerzbergSo we could do a whole like spin off episode on that.

That's an idea.

I'll keep it a little bit higher level.

So, voice of customers you're just wanting to ask your people some questions.

And get answers from them.

You want to learn what their language is.

And with, especially with SEO.

We've talked about this before.

You and I may say something a certain way about SEO.

But the people that we want to reach and that we want to help are going to say it differently.

So how are they describing it? How are they saying it?

Even just this morning, I made a post.

One of my clients was like, with seo, we're just trying to figure out what people are looking for online, right?

I was like, bingo.

That is where we are starting, exactly.

So when you go and talk to your clients and you can do that in a variety of ways.

I have written emails to people.

I have sent out surveys.

I have texted just like one question.

Or i'll do like voxer messages.

You can also get on zoom or google meet or something like that and do a quick face to face.

Really you're trying to

11:00get at, what were you, where were you stuck?

What help did you need?

Why did you decide to work with me?

If you catch them early enough in the process, which I like to do.

I like to just weave this into natural client journey, working with them kind of thing.

I want to know what they typed in.

If they can remember it.

And so if you catch them early enough in the process, you'll actually figure out.

I typed blah, blah, blah into the Google search.

So yeah, you're trying to figure out all of that stuff.

Along with, toward the end of the process.

One of the fill in the blank questions I asked my people a lot is before working with Brittany, I didn't have, or I didn't know.

Fill in the blank.

And you get some really good answers that way.

Crystal WaddellWhat I'm thinking and how I apply it to e commerce is, especially if you are the person that interacts with customer messages.

Somebody sends a message on Etsy.

Or somebody sends a message through chat on a website.

You can start incorporating voice of customer at that point.

Because you can just say, Hey, how did you find me?

Remember I told you just last week?

There

12:00was the lady that lives in Maryland.

But was in France and she needed wooden letters and or wooden numbers.

And so I said, Oh yeah, how'd you find me?

And she said, I just Googled, wooden numbers that stand.

And I was just like, this is great. And so I can write that down.

And now that's another thing that needs to go on my website.

So that it aligns that much better with what people are searching for.

But that's just a really easy way to incorporate that process.

Especially for people who talk to their customers early on.

Brittany HerzbergYou can even build that into if you have some kind of like auto responder thing.

You can even build that into it.

And I have it actually as part of my yeah.

Just make it easy for yourself.

Two things I want to say, before I forget before they fly out of my head.

But you can add that.

I have it on my inquiry form. How did you find me? Or how did you hear about me?

But the scenario I wanted to call attention to.

I remember you had that lady in France. I also had someone, it was a hidden message on Instagram DMs.

And she asked me about

13:00Podcast show notes.

She's oh, would you write podcast show notes because i'm looking for someone to do that who has some seo skills.

I was like yeah that totally fits under my umbrella and I had just had a conversation earlier in the week with somebody else.

So I was already adding that in as a service and I was like, this is cool.

And I asked her, I was like how did you find me?

And she's oh I just typed something in instagram like search in the search bar. And you showed up.

And that was proof for her that I know what I'm doing. Because I showed up in her search.

But it was really cool.

So that's neat when you have stuff like that actually happens like you with the lady in France and me with the lady on Instagram.

Like it was really cool.

Crystal WaddellYeah. Wow. I think we know what we're talking about. That's neat.

Brittany HerzbergOkay. Voice of customer.

Updated my messaging.

I overhauled my offer suite and then I did keyword research.

Updated the SEO strategy for, like I said, those three pages: home, about, and services.

From there, my copywriter hat went on.

More so than my SEO strategy hat.

And I outlined each page.

So when I do that, I want to have some idea of what's the flow of the

14:00page going to be like?

And I noted, what big story did I want to tell?

Or did I want to weave into the page?

Because for me, it's, it comes back to, and I told you this before we started recording, it comes back to SEO, storytelling, and social proof.

And I feel like those are my three.

So I made a point to write down what big story I wanted to hint at.

Or to actually uncover on each page.

And then after I outlined, I wrote the first draft of each of these pages.

And I took it one by one.

I think I actually did home first.

And then I believe I did about.

And then I did services.

And you can -just like, side note- You can structure your services pages in a variety of ways.

.The thing that kept standing out to me was that I wanted one main services page.

And then I wanted it to pop over to each of the services.

Where I could describe in more detail what the process was like.

What the person actually gets.

The timeline, the pricing, all of that stuff.

Any thoughts?

Crystal WaddellReally neat. I like how you, created that

15:00main services page.

And then gave it, arms to reach out.

It's tough to describe multiple things on one page, without

Brittany Herzbergfeeling cluttered, right?

Crystal WaddellAnd without people getting confused.

Brittany HerzbergSo I wrote the first draft.

And then I, from there, once I had written stuff.

I sifted through my social proof.

So testimonials, and even statistics.

And I figured out where I wanted to insert those.

Because I like using statistics and social proof.

Which actually, statistics are a piece of social proof to support points in the copy.

One of the weirdest places to put social proof is when you're introducing yourself.

Because it's so weird to be like, and Brittany is amazing.

And yet I found a testimonial that said that.

And I put it there.

It helps to have your social proof and testimonials and things like that organized.

So that when you're rewriting things or when you're writing a blog or when you're coming up with a social post, it's easy to just insert that stuff.

But yeah, I inserted all of that and I'm happy with how it turned out.

Crystal WaddellI totally get what you're saying.

How it's awkward to speak in the third person of

16:00yourself.

But that's a strategy in e commerce that is very powerful.

And I learned this about a year ago.

I really feel like it's transformed our conversion rates.

Because instead of just saying, hey, this is the product.

The product name, red t shirt.

When you put somebody's quotation next to that product.

And they're talking about how soft it is.

Or, how it's their favorite shirt.

Or how they never want to take it off.

I even heard somebody on an ad today, it was a man's t shirt.

About how his girlfriend always wanted to wear it or whatever.

Those are the types of things that get people's attention.

And they insert themselves into that story, into that quotation.

And so it's really important.

So I would say, yes, absolutely.

If you have, particularly in the form of quotes from customers.

No matter what your business is.

Whether it's service or e commerce.

That's such a powerful way to invite people into the experience.

Brittany HerzbergYes, a hundred percent to what you said.

And I thought that was such a smart way to include social proof.

When you told me that, just including it in the headline.

I was like, Oh my gosh,

17:00that's brilliant.

So that was wonderful.

But the other thing I wanted to point out is that in some of the conversations that I had.

Cause I had a really slow Q2. Like really incredibly slow, painfully slow.

And that was largely why I had the time to go ahead and rewrite my website.

So I was trying to find a silver lining and a couple of the conversations people were like.

Insert those statistics.

Because people are going to pay for what they need right now in this financial climate.

More so than just like those nice to have things like case studies.

Which is why I was like, okay.

I have this massive umbrella all my offers are going to fall under that.

There were a couple of really powerful statistics that I found.

And I was like, I need to put this on here somewhere.

So there's 3. 5 billion searches happening on Google each day.

That was one thing that I was just like, whoa.

And then.

92% of consumers read reviews and testimonials before they buy.

And I even went through to find such detailed stats as like how many reviews they need to read on average before they'll buy.

So stuff

18:00like that.

If you have a service or if you have a product.

What is the need that you help people with?

Not even just like the want or the nice to have.

But what is that need that you help them with?

That was like a game changer for me.

So yeah, in short, inserted the social proof and statistics.

Had a couple of people read over it, just to proofread it.

And give me any feedback, which I took to modify the copy.

And then I uploaded and enabled the pages.

I wanted to share the timeline.

Yes, it took me. If I'm being a little bit dramatic about it. Like two years.

I've had this project on my to do list.

But it took me two months to do the voice of customer, like market research.

Where I was going around and honestly, intentionally, but casually asking people these questions.

Which is why it took about two months.

And then I wrote an outline and did all of that stuff in one weekend.

And then it took me about a week to have people proofread it.

And actually put it on my website.

If you're wondering, like, how long it might take you if you're listening.

That, that was what it took for me.

Crystal WaddellSuper helpful.

Brittany HerzbergYeah. I'm here to help.

Crystal WaddellWhat are your new offers then?

Take us through what that looks like.

Brittany HerzbergLike I said, SEO is like the big umbrella.

And all of these things fall under SEO copywriting.

SEO marketing.

That kind of thing.

So I've got the SEO packet.

Which is keyword research and SEO strategy for five website pages or five blog posts.

I have several different web copywriting situations I can write sales pages.

A one page website, an opt in page. I've got the case study copywriting.

Which, it's pretty self explanatory.

But usually my clients come to me with a video or audio interview already done.

And then I just turn that into a story that has SEO in it.

So it's findable.

It's a marketing piece that has legs.

And you can repurpose it and you can use it for launches.

Or you can use it for push periods.

Or you can just have it on your website as a door that people can come in.

It's pretty magical.

And then the last two things I've got are...

I used to have power hours and I

20:00realized that it's never just the hour that I spend with people.

It's more like a week long process.

So I've started calling them copy and content intensives.

And then the last one, like I said, was the podcast show notes, which I'm really excited.

I'm doing trial ones.

I started doing trial ones last week.

So I've got a couple of those on deck.

You had such a neat way to organize your offers that you just shared with me.

And I want to talk through that a little bit.

So you said everybody comes in through the same door.

Crystal WaddellYes. Okay.

Because I remember that one episode where you're like.

Yeah, SEO is the way that people come through the doors and windows of your house.

And I really felt like in this world, I'm like looking behind me going, dude, how'd you get here?

Yeah. So I was like, okay, I got to lock some windows.

And, funnel people through the front door.

And part of the reason behind this is because I'm still an e commerce seller.

My e commerce business ebbs and flows with the quarters.

Sometimes it's just insanely busy. So I cannot

21:00commit super long term to people at certain times of the year.

And so I thought, okay.

How can I best serve them so that they are, getting like max value in the shortest period of time.

As we started offering those technical audits, here through the podcast.

I realized, this is just such a powerful way to assess someone's business.

Not just for SEO.

But also the other elements.

Your technical SEO is the foundation of your website.

Once you get that fixed, it's not like you have to go back and rebuild the foundation over and over again.

It's solid. You just have to check on it. Make sure that you're maintaining it.

But after that.

There are things that you can do to improve your presence on the internet.

And I think it's just so important that people are aware that you're constantly brand building.

And so the ways that you can do that are through content.

Through email.

Through really understanding your keywords.

Through having a strategy.

Like

22:00understanding your strengths and your weaknesses and your opportunities and your threats.

Understanding if you're profitable.

That's something that I think most businesses who are not profitable.

They just don't even know what's wrong.

They're like, ah.

How am I struggling?

But. I know for me, I got to give a shout out to Jamie Trull.

She really helped me understand the difference between breaking even in a business.

And profiting in a business.

I can apply that to an e commerce perspective. Help people with that.

And then the whole idea of off page SEO.

Dominating search results.

To tie this all back up?

Okay, the front door is an SEO technical audit.

We can't start building on something that's not strong in its foundation.

And that gives me a chance to understand the business.

And also gives us a chance as business owners to decide.

Hey, are we a good fit to work together?

And so it's, you know what?

I think that this is probably not the best for me

23:00personally, but I know someone who's great.

Or I can say, B handles copy.

Let me send you over to B and she can take care of that or whatever.

So the SEO technical audit is really straightforward.

It's super simple. It's super cheap.

And the link is in the show notes.

So that's the way in.

If you want to talk to me about your website.

And then after that, I can make some recommendations.

My belief is that you will grow the fastest with your SEO efforts through content.

But the content is strategic and if you don't know your keywords.

You're going to have a hard time being strategic.

Offsite SEO, that's also important.

You want to dominate the search engine results pages.

But when you talk about all this stuff at one time.

It's just overwhelming.

So I'm like, let's do the technical audit first.

Let's see which of these next steps would be the most beneficial to your business.

And let's sprint that thing.

So, say Pinterest would be a good fit for your business.

Let's do a sprint

24:00with Pinterest.

And knock that out.

Brittany HerzbergWhat do you mean by sprints?

Crystal WaddellThat just means that, we're going to, set up your Pinterest account.

Optimize your Pinterest account for search.

Which just means that, you've got keywords in there for what people are searching for on Pinterest.

That you are driving traffic back to your site.

You're going to have one of two things probably happening here.

You either want to drive people to your website to sign up for your email list.

Or you want them to buy something.

So from an e commerce perspective, especially if you have a Shopify store.

Pinterest marketing is a no brainer.

And it's not something that you have to continually do. It is literally a sprint.

You just, put all your content out there and schedule it for as long as you can.

And then revisit it in six months.

So once you've got that working for you offsite.

Then you can go on to the next priority.

And that's what I call sprints.

They're essentially like priority sprints.

Like what is the next big, lever puller in your business to make it move forward?

Brittany HerzbergSo sprints are like, would it be fair to say that they're

25:00condensed work times where you're just being really strategic.

And checking some big thing off the to do list?

Crystal WaddellExactly.

Big things off the to do list that have major impact for your business.

To get more visibility online.

That's going to help your offsite SEO.

That's going to help potentially your domain authority.

That's going to drive traffic.

That should drive sales.

Brittany HerzbergI love that. I'm so excited. Yeah. So, this was really good.

And I do want to share too.

,If anybody would find it helpful.

I talk about this checklist a lot.

But I'm going to make sure that it's In the link in our show notes.

Where you can download the SEO basic checklist.

That walks you through- Crystal was mentioning like off page seo and technical seo.

This is on page seo.

So this is what I actually use to walk through and create the seo strategy for each of these pages that I rewrote on my website.

And then we'll make sure that the technical audit is linked in the show notes as well.

I also wrote a blog all about this too.

Which I'll link as well in case people want to have something to reference. Yeah.

Crystal WaddellAnd

26:00I love this too.

People are always like, how can you help me? What do you do?

For a while, people knew me for Pinterest.

For a while, people knew me for like content, or SEO led content.

But the most important thing is those windows have been closed.

We have to start from a frame of reference that we can both understand.

Getting to know somebody's website and their business and their services through a technical audience. Audit. A technical audit. Good job. There you go.

Yeah, it has been the most effective, in building the best strategy.

Brittany HerzbergYeah. If you think, first of all, thanks for joining us with this episode and if you found it helpful at all. Be sure to share it and tag us.

We have our Instagram handles linked below.

We really love hearing from you guys and knowing what resonates and knowing what questions you have that come up.

So yeah. Any final words?

Crystal WaddellI would just say, send us all your questions.

Send us how we can help.

That's what we're here for. And I love sharing.

Brittany HerzbergYeah. We'll catch you next time.